Hello,
I couldn’t help but add my thoughts. Not sure anyone that matters reads this but wanted to ad my observations. First let me say, this is largely run by volunteers and I am on vacation. So, we should keep that in mind. Many of those volunteers are “working” their vacation. I am grateful and can’t believe how out of nothing an aviation city pops up with grocery stores, a newspaper, a radio station, trams etc. it’s pretty amazing and I am grateful to all the volunteers. So, with that being said . . . Here are some of the things I think could use some attention.
1. Cellular bandwidth: Maybe there is an argument that I should unplug from the internet during airventure, but I don’t. Things seemed slightly better this year but the network was often overwhelmed for me. What’s the point of the airventure app if it just spins and times out? Or, they talked about stretching the show down the flight line. For me I sit at vintage but tried streaming the air show to see what goes on at show center. Often the video would just time out and buffer. WiFi bandwidth is better than it had been but it still has a way to go in my opinion. Not sure why Verizon and att can’t scale with mobile hotspots better. The more data that flows the more they make.
2. Eaa media: eaa radio and live video seemed to have a lot less content this year. Amy swoboda (sp?) wasn’t there. I wish they would ramp up these offerings. I would frankly pay for a digital airventure ticket if they offered more content and more production. For instance, my kids want to stand in line for an hour to walk through the ups plane. It would be nice if I could stream a forum or something. And if I could stream things going on elsewhere I wouldn’t have to stand around taking multiple trams to get there. Secondly it would be nice if the content could be on demand. Theater in the woods was 6-9, which is when I need to feed the kids. It would be nice if I could log in after they go to bed and see the presentation. They had a link purportedly for the “forums” but it never had content when I checked. I think there is a missed revenue opportunity here.
3. Trams. They are nice to have. I do agree the rules seemed to differ based on your driver, but it’s run by volunteeers. I just take it in stride. Two things I didn’t get was why the yellow route was like 100 yards long and had like me stop. Secondly, why did vintage lose a stop. The blue route now stops at the vendor hangers and doesn’t stop again until the machine shed. The red bar should have a stop in my opinion.
4. Comfort. I wish they had some more comfort for attendees. You can pay like 2k to be in the aviators club, which I assume is gobbled up by the vendors for corporate hospitality or there is general admission. I wish there was something in between. I don’t need to spend 2k per person to eat lobster and hang out with rob reider, but I would like some ac and a place to hide if the weather is bad.
5. Parking does seem to be getting worse. The event is gathering record crowds but the public seems to be getting pushed further away while handing out all access vip parking passes to vendors who walk out to the field at 9 stand at their booth all day and clock out at 5. Why do they need to be close? Seems backwards to me. I get the economics, but wish they wouldn’t make it so tough on families trying to move chairs, coolers, kids, etc. I have to go back and forth getting stuff all day. I don’t know the answer but think they should put some thought into some sort of transportation from the parking lots to the field.
Just my 0.02 worth.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by tnathan
