Convention Tear-Down

We've read for years about volunteers showing up and camping months ahead of Convention in order to help everything get ready.

I got to thinking: What about AFTER the event? Do the same large number of volunteers hang around to dismantle their areas? How about scrounging up all of the AV equipment from the forums? All of the supplies, etc., from the workshop areas? I know a lot of the buildings remain in place over the winter, but as an example, do they park all the VW bugs and do nothing until the next spring?

I know the exhibitors are responsible for tear down of their outdoors locations, whether by themselves or via convention contractors. We put so much prep into PRE-convention activities like mowing, the kitchens, etc., I can only imagine how much POST activity there is and for how long....

Just curious....

Hi Carl,

I can't speak for everyone, but most of the volunteers shut down their buildings or areas before departing for home. There are some long term volunteers who stick around to help close things up. The pace of clean up is not as hectic as set up, so it takes a while to get everything put away. It i a more relaxed atmosphere. The VWs are serviced and stored for the year. The tent company is busy taking down all the tents they put up and the EAA aircraft on outside display are returned to storage or the Museum. And mowing will continue for several months!

I have always found it simply fascinating watching what amounts to an entire functioning town, with a population larger than the community in which it is built, being assembled in a matter of mere days along a small town airport runway.. The logistics are a wonder to behold and enjoy.

On Sunday we start packing up Vintage. Our grounds guys pick up the row number cones. We take all the rental scooters and golf carts back to the cart pit. We put all the ones we own inside our operations building. I pack up the computers, etc... Many of the temporary buildings are parked short term in the vintage hangar or theater in the woods. A crew of dedicated people (mostly locals) come back and put things up properly a month or so later.

Was just wondering with some friends this year as we were heading back to Scholler one evening where everything went. The thing that tipped that conversation off?

Traffic cones.

There were literally thousands of them all over the grounds. On the roads through Scholler. Vintage. Warbirds. Homebuilt. Where in the world do all of these things live 50 weeks out of the year.

Even bigger though: some of the larger temporary buildings on the show grounds. Some of the are rather impressive structures, though temporary. Where in the world are all of these things stored, especially the non-EAA structures? I'm thinking of things like the Boeing building, the four EAA buildings, the Ford building, HondaJet, etc. A lot of them are obviously truck/trailers (GoPro, etc.). What about the others?

For the most part the traffic cones hibernate in buildings near their working location. For example, the auto parking cones are stored in the parking HQ. The big "buildings" are actually clear span tents with custom graphics. The tent company takes the structure to the next event and swap out the graphics for the next user. Tent technology has come a long way in recent years!