Rain on planes fails to dampen airshow success

Andrew Mathieson
AVALON airshow officials have lauded crowd figures for this year’s event as “an outstanding result” despite a nine per cent downturn on 2007.
About 165,000 attended over the six days of the Australian International Airshow, down almost 15,000 on the previous biennial event despite a “significant” rise in advance ticket sales.
Airshow chief executive Ian Honnery was “absolutely delighted” with the outcome.
The airshow had sold a record number of family passes, he said.
“Although there was a slight downturn in attendance, neither wild weather nor a global financial storm and competition from other events such as the bushfire Sound Relief concert could stop Avalon 2009 from blasting off to resounding success.”
Mr Honnery said some patrons left early on Saturday after cloud and wind delayed some flying displays. Some small aircraft were unable to fly.
Mr Honnery said the show still gave “value for money” because the Avalon flying display lasted up to six hours compared to just two hours at other international airshows.
“There will be some people who would have got up in the morning and decided not to go out in the weather conditions and I can understand that,” he said.
“There were others who got there, were drenched and decided to go home but by far the overwhelming bulk of people stayed on, braved the elements and appreciated the fact we continued to put on the show.”
Mr Honnery said the not-for-profit show sold $8.5 million worth of tickets.