2009 Annual Membership Meeting Wednesday, December 9

Although economic impact studies are a widely accepted tool for quantifying the financial impact that an event has on a community, the tool is seldom used to study the impact of air shows. In this session, an experienced consultant will introduce the concept of economic impact analysis, the key aspects of an economic impact study (including survey methodology and information data gathering), potential problems that you can expect to face as you conduct your economic impact study, and how to use the results when the study is finished.

There are few universal truths when it comes to concessions. Air shows have different expectations, environments, crowd sizes and traditions. Which means that developing the right plan for your event requires careful thought and considerable planning. In this session, we’ll discuss concessions options, how to strike the best deal, negotiating a win-win contract with a master concessionaire, dealing with local charity groups, and other challenges that you face as you work to get the right balance for your event.

Media rides are, perhaps, the most powerful public relations tool available to air show professionals. But, to realize their full potential, the program must be thoroughly planned and carefully executed. In this session, you’ll get specific information and step-by-step instructions on how to make most effective use of media rides to generate news coverage that increases attendance at your show.

From chalets for sponsors to seating areas for spectators to performer and volunteer parties, hospitality is a detail-oriented discipline. In this session, you’ll hear about all that needs to be done and how to do it right.

There is a significant amount of both art and science to air show logistics. Months of planning must produce near-perfect execution on a single weekend each year. In this session, we’ll talk about the challenges and solutions of site set-up, static lay-out, portable toilets, trash management, parking and traffic, communications and seating.

You can’t put on an air show without volunteers. They are the core of every event. In this session, we’ll review the basics of air show volunteer management, including recruitment, making most effective use of the talent and expertise among your volunteers, job descriptions, volunteer training and volunteer retention.

There are few universal truths when it comes to concessions. Air shows have different expectations, environments, crowd sizes and traditions. Which means that developing the right plan for your event requires careful thought and considerable planning. In this session, we’ll discuss concessions options, how to strike the best deal, negotiating a win-win contract with a master concessionaire, dealing with local charity groups, and other challenges that you face as you work to get the right balance for your event.

For any performer or support service provider working with the U.S. government, these programs to streamline the U.S. Department of Defense procurement and payment processes have become a daunting obstacle. In this session, a former U. S. Air Force attorney with specific expertise on WAWF and CCR will simplify, clarify and help you understand this new and sometimes confusing system.

Creating revenue streams for small shows can be a fundamentally different challenge for small air shows than it is for large air shows. In this session, an experienced small event entrepreneur will share his tips, techniques and lessons learned on how to use the size of your event as a tool in securing funding from many and varied sources.

From pumping smoke oil and parking statics to protecting spectators from turning props, the hot pit area is a busy place. Safety, of course, is everybody’s principal concern, but there are also many opportunities for increased efficiencies and increased showmanship. This panel of industry veterans will share with you the tricks of their trade.

Air shows are comprised of many moving parts. And hotel sleeping room arrangements are neither the largest nor the most difficult challenge that event organizers face, but they may be the easiest to solve. In this session, two meeting professionals will give you practical advice and specific direction on how to negotiate a hotel contract that minimizes your expense and exposure to potential penalties.

In this session, we will look at information from air show spectators, results of ICAS member surveys and other sources of specific, air show-related information that will cause you to reassess some of your preconceptions about the air show business. We’ll use some of that data to explain where we have been as an industry and where we might be going.

For many, it’s an unsolvable puzzle: using a shoe-string budget to effectively and cost-efficiently promote an air show act among difficult-to-reach event organizers. What tools work best? When does admirable persistence become annoying desperation? How does a newcomer get around the prejudice within the air show business against “the new guy”? In this brutally frank panel discussion, we’ll get to the bottom of these issues and send you away with a better understanding of what it takes to get noticed and hired.

With so many variables to consider and so much focus on the presumed bottom line, the process of assessing bids for air show food and novelty concessions sales has become artificially simplified. A comprehensive evaluation process should consider not just price, but a wide range of other issues related to quality, capacity, appearance, experience, reliability, and pricing, to name a few. In this session, we’ll look at a more holistic, all-encompassing bid evaluation technique that helps you consider both the short- and long-term interests of both your show and your spectators.