AirVenture 2022 - The Good, Bad, and Ugly

[Jeremy S]

This is from my personal experience and does not reflect the opinions or experiences of others. This year most of my group stayed in Scholler. We arrived mid-day on Saturday. Overall we had a great time as usual despite a few setbacks.

The Good:

1. Registration at Scholler was fast and smooth. The volunteers did an excellent job at keeping traffic moving.
2. Shuttles were running frequently and despite often being full, we never had to wait long.
3. Every volunteer that I encountered was helpful and friendly. The army of volunteers definitely deserve kudos for a job well done.
4. The grounds always appeared to be very clean and well maintained. The staff and volunteers play a major part in this, but it also shows a great deal of respect from the attendees.
5. Port-a-Johns are often atrocious. The ones in the campground were frequently cleaned and did not smell too bad.
6. The camp store was well stocked and had decent prices.
7. The selection of Warbirds to see this year was great.
8. I usually don't take trams, but this year we took advantage of the yellow and red to get across the grounds to warbirds. Trams were running frequently and we were always able to get a ride.
9. The Ham radio station was back at Pioneer airport.
10. I had my doubts about the wrist bands this year but mine lasted the entire week. Definitely a improvement over last year.

The Bad:

1. Wait times at the shower houses could be bad if you go at peak hours during the morning and afternoon. With Scholler being so full this year, I think they needed at least some more portable shower houses trailers.
2. The shower houses tend to get stuffy and smelly during the day. I still don't understand why they don't mount a few large exhaust fans to keep air circulating through them.
3. Those low flow toilets stop up easily and often multiple stalls were out of commission. Remember folk, always courtesy flush and use multiple flushes to get rid of any paper in smaller amounts! I also came aross several stalls that were out of TP, might be beneficial to mount a larger or second dispenser. I always bring my own to be safe.
4. We arrived Saturday and made the bad decision of setting up camp before the storm... my tent and many around me were destroyed by the heavy wind. In hindsight, we should have roped off our site and waited until after the storm to set up camp like some of our neighbors. Our thinking was setting up camp in pouring rain sucks, so we rushed to get the tents up before the storm. A late night trip to Walmart yielded a replacement trip, so minor setback. Pro tip: The WalMart near the airport got cleaned out fast of any tents on Saturday. I instead drove 20 minute north to a different WalMart which was well stocked.
5. My brand new Canon 90D DSLR literally died on Tuesday morning. I had received this a week before the show due to being backordered so didn't have much time to field test it. Luckily the camera shop where I purchased it back at home exchanged it with me new camera yesterday. So I missed out on getting good pics for most of the week.
6. Saturday evening when I was trying to dry out my bedding at the Scholler laundromat, at least a 3rd of the dryers were either not working well or broken. The change machine was also out. Luckily I had enough quarters for myself and a handful of extra to hand out to others. Does the campground have a maintenance crew on call who can jump on these issues as they come up?
7. While the food available on site was decent and at the expected event prices, I wish there was a more diverse selection available. I understand due to real estate and logistics they probably have to stick to only a few of the larger commercial vendors like Subway and A&W, instead of allowing more of the smaller mom and pop type food trucks that you often see at other events and fairs. Would be nice to have some good taco trucks and better quality options to choose from.
8. Since Canon pulled out, there didn't appear to be any camera vendors on site (unless I missed them?).

The Ugly:

1. Some guy was racing his loud (no exhaust) dirt bike back and forth by our sites (non-generator area) well past 10PM several nights that we were there. He appeared to be joy riding. I wear ear plugs at night but this was still loud enough to wake me.
2. Scholler really filled up by Monday and people were getting desperate and often pushy to get a spot that wasn't all the way in the back section.

-We had 8 people and 3 vehicles, so we paid for 3 sites. I arrived two days before the others on Saturday so I displayed the proper credentials and roped off sites just big enough for our tents and vehicles. The fist of us to arrive spread out our tents and screened tent across all 3 sites to help stake out our claim. We had several people completely disregard this and drive across our orange marking tape to setup their camp before we chased them out. On Monday, before our last two tent campers with their vehicle had arrived, some guy felt the need to yell at my friend and make threats because we were "hogging the campground" and demanded that we forfeit part of our site to him. They told him to pound sand. When our entire group had arrived we utilized 100% of the space that we had paid for with no extra room.
-The family next to us had a site just big enough for their tent and car. They also roped off a small area for their mini-van parking. While they were gone one evening a guy in a camper took their parking spot despite being clearly marked off.