| It's early Sunday morning in Las Vegas. After months of preparation, we're about to launch this year's convention. The hotel bars and restaurants are starting to fill up with familiar faces. And, even though the Convention doesn't officially start until Tuesday morning, by later today, the ICAS Convention will have UNofficially started.
A few pre-Convention observations...
The buzz about next year seems to be mostly positive. The people I talk with almost all express pessimism about the state of the air show industry to begin with.
But when you press them, they say things like, "Oh, we actually had a very good year in 2008, but I'm assuming that the overall business is suffering."
Or "We're planning for a rough year, but so far, knock on wood, we're still doing pretty well."
One event organizer actually called last week to tell us that, much to his surprise, sponsorship is up for his mid-spring show.
Now, not everybody is going to have those kinds of uplifting, counter-intuitive stories. There's no denying that the economy is in the crapper.
But before we start writing the death notice for the 2009 air show season, let's wait and see if the patient is still showing signs of life. The ICAS Convention is the first opportunity to do that and initial signs are that things might not be as glum as everybody assumes they will be.
Second observation: it looks like the jet team schedules will all be ready for the opening general session on Tuesday morning. Anything can change between now and then, but with one or two small exceptions, the 2009 schedules for the Snowbirds, Blue Angels, Thunderbirds and Golden Knights have been blessed up and down the chain of command. We should be able to announce details on the 2009 schedules for all of them at around 9:30 PST on Tuesday morning.
|
