By Lara Fominoff @fomsy1 on Twitter

25th Anniversary Lethbridge International Airshow a success, despite fewer attendees, say organizers

Jul 18, 2017 | 4:16 PM

LETHBRIDGE COUNTY – Despite adding a third day, and securing new performers and displays, attendance at the 2017 Lethbridge International Airshow was down by about 4,000 attendees compared to 2015.
 
Mark Ouellete, Vice President of the Air Show, says it was still a respectable crowd of about 16,000 people, despite some setbacks on Saturday.
 
“We would have loved to have a much larger crowd obviously, but due to weather….and we’re not sure why. But it was a good crowd.”
 
Weather did play a part in the acts that were able to perform at Saturday’s airshow. Environment Canada initially called for winds to hover around 30 km/hr, but instead, windspeeds approached 70 km/hr, making it impossible for the Golden Knights Parachute team to perform. 
 
Then around 3:30 pm a brief, but intense thunderstorm rolled in, causing a downpour, while a lightening strike caused a fire next to one of the runways.
 
The crowd was told to go to their cars, and  a short time later, the announcement was made to cancel the rest of the performances for the day. The Airshow Association did not have clearance to be on the runway after 5 pm.
 
“The volunteers all jumped in and we got everybody out to safety,” Ouellette says. “And a good thing we did…. nobody got hurt, nobody was in danger at any time.”
 
Still, there were numerous complaints on social media about long delays out of the parking area, something Ouellette says was out of their hands.
 
“We made improvements for coming in. But going out, there’s only one lane going back to Lethbridge, and it’s always going to take time. Usually what happens on a Saturday afternoon is people will start leaving early, once the last act is coming on. But when your last act is the big act, people wanna stay for that, and then everybody jumps in their car and you’ve got seven or eight thousand people trying to get in their vehicles.”
 
He says they tried asking people to use the shuttle buses this year, but they weren’t used very much.
 
“If anybody has been stuck in their vehicle, next time just park at the Enmax. Take the bus. You would have been outta here a lot quicker.”

“There’s always room for improvement,” he goes on. “So we’re discussing some issues that did occur, to make sure our volunteers are aware. None of us have ever seen an evacuation for a storm, so it did take us a little bit by surprise of course…there’s probably a few things we’re going to review and improve on.”
 
As for whether the Airshow Association will host another 3 day event? That is up in the air at this point, he explains.
 
“We haven’t really had a chance to sit down and discuss the third day and see if that’s gonna be something that we’re gonna do again or not. At this point, there has not been any discussion over a three day show again.”
 
Next step will be to to see whether this year’s show made or lost money, and how much.
 
Despite the hiccoughs, Ouellette says they’re proud of their efforts, with 12 aerial performances, and overwhelming support from the Canadian and American Air forces, the Army, Navy and other privately owned planes that were on display.
 
For now, he says they’re going to take a few months, rest up and take a break from one another.
 
“We’ve lived together for the last 10 days!”