| Earlier this year, I got a call from a pilot who was thinking about selling his airplane and getting out of the air show business.
I was shocked because I had been talking with this particular performer off and on for several months. Although he was struggling to establish himself in the business, he had been very optimistic about his ability to turn things around.
So, I asked, "What's changed?"
His answer shocked me even more than his earlier announcement that he was thinking about selling his plane. It seems he had been reading several different articles in an air show magazine that included urgent, dire warnings about the end of the air show business as we know it. The articles were so scary that this air show newcomer was ready to get out of the business and cut his losses.
Ultimately, he decided to hang in there a little longer to see if predictions of an air industry apocalypse actually came true.
Of course, by now you know the punchline. Despite high fuel prices and a faltering economy, the air show business had a pretty good year in 2008. Sponsorship was down and fuel prices hurt, but families stayed closer to home this summer and many of them bought air show tickets. People who know what they're talking about and have access to reams of data from all over North America have told us that attendance and concession sales were up by 12-15 percent. Far from being a bad year, it was one of our best in recent memory.
But the naysayers haven't learned. Despite our industry's experience during the 2008 air show season, they're already forecasting gloom and doom for 2009.
I think this kind of purposeless hand wringing and fear mongering is worse than simply being inaccurate. I think it is grossly irresponsible and has the potential to do unnecessary damage to the air show industry.
We can't all be cheerleaders for the business, but nor should we be unnecessarily scaring industry professionals with unwarranted, unsubstantiated predictions of imminent economic catastrophe.
Like every industry, ours will face historic challenges in 2009. None of us have faced an economy like the one that we'll be operating in for at least the next couple of years.
But there is a self-fulfilling-prophecy nature to the kind of uninformed, negative speculation that has suddenly become so fashionable among those who see themselves as air show industry pundits. If we spend enough time and energy telling people how bad things are going to be, they'll eventually start making decisions based on all of the baseless pessimism they keep hearing.
Instead, I'd like to suggest that air show professionals ignore the naysayers and take proactive steps to address the new environment in which they will be doing business in the new year.
If an objective assessment suggests that revenue will be down, then air show professionals should make budgetary adjustments to ensure that expenses are reduced, as well.
Our experience in 2008 and during previous economic downturns suggest that the public looks to air shows as a cost-effective entertainment option during difficult financial times. Every air show event organizer should be thinking now about how they might integrate that idea into their marketing campaigns for the coming air show season.
A small admission ticket price increase may be in order, too. Most air shows are under-priced and could both sustain and benefit from a $1 or $2 increase in their ticket prices.
And, if current trends continue, there will be at least one bright spot during the coming year: fuel prices look like they will be almost half what they were during most of the 2008 season.
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