Tram Change At Airventure

[Airmutt]

Tempting but probably a bad idea.
Got to face reality that there is no perfect plan. You’re never gonna satisfy everyone with 500K+ attendees. You’re bound to get gripes about:
Admission cost
Parking
Shuttle services
Traffic
Food quality and cost
Camping facilities
Amenities
and whatever makes someone unhappy. You just won’t have enough cards
I don’t like or agree with everything EAA does but still plan on attending.

[CHICAGORANDY]

LOL

In truth I feel NO discontent. I just show up and follow whatever rules are in place each year. But as one of the poor schlubbs who WILL get stuck filling out the forms if/when tram passengers injure themselves jumping on and off the rigs at the Vern corner, and who will be among those face-to-face with the 'happy campers' as they are told they have to hike it to the Bus Park, I have some skin in the game and enough experience at this to see the likely pitfalls.

As always, however, I serve at the pleasure of the EAA powers that be. I am content to yap away for 9 straight days and watch the planes and meet the people.

[skyfixer8]

I e mailed EAA about my concerns. Waiting for an answer.

[FlyingRon]

I have to admit, that I've not paid an admission or camping fee in over a decade at OSH and many of my covolunteers chip in on dinners and hence we eat cheap. Of course, I put in over a hundred hours every year on the show (which is way more than what the thresholds for getting comped is). The one thing I've learned is that with occasional exception, the groups that run the show DO listen to complaints. Maybe not in time to get things changed for this year, but a major number of my gripes have been resolved. Everything from vehicles to parking/camping policies.

[Airmutt]

I did a lot of volunteering in the 80s and early 90s and there were no such perks. Paid to park or camp and for admission. Plus there there were some rather unsavory things going on with personnel. Honestly, got kind of jaded or burned out on the whole concept. Glad to know that things changed for the better.

I think that the Warbirds and Vintage folks having their own division is a big plus. It allows y’all to essentially self govern your areas and creates a cohesive and friendly environment. Several years ago I went to a venue and asked if I could help and kinda got a “Who are you?” response. Oh well, at least I gave it another shot.

[Auburntsts]

FWIW, for those who don't follow Facebook, the "survey" and resulting changes have gotten pretty well skewered on EAA's FB page so I'm guessing that the EAA leadership is well aware of the discontent these changes have caused. Whether that leads to anything remains to be seen.

[FlyingRon]

I did a lot of volunteering in the 80s and early 90s and there were no such perks. Paid to park or camp and for admission.

I paid during those years as well. It used to be that each volunteer group was apportioned some number of free credentials and it was up to your individual chairmen to figure out how to dole them out. They normalized that a few years back. Note that (at least in our area), your credentials for volunteering this year are based on how much you worked the previous years.

Community cooking is independent of any of that. Sally's Oaken Alley in vintage ran for years and was based on Sally and her covolunteers and people kicking in money to pay for food. That shutdown for lack of volunteers a few years back (I have some of the equipment donated to me). Our group is somewhat limited to those camping with us but there's usually extra food if someone stops by.

[L16 Pilot]

Don't know exactly where this fits but I do get tired of dodging the golf carts. On the other hand a friend of mine bought a couple of cases of oil last year and the vendor hauled them to his car so that makes sense as you can hardly carry two cases probably half a mile on a hot day.

[Bill Greenwood]

There aren't anywhere near 500K visitors there Per Day. The attendance for the whole week,total is announced at 642,000 still a lot of people, maybe 90,000 on a peak day. I have been to the football game with 102,000 capacity and don't think Osh has that many.

[Airmutt]

Bill your numbers are probably pretty close. From what I understand, if you attend for n number of days then you are counted as n number of attendees. The local paper estimates actual attendance more like 200-300k. I’m thinking daily attendance is probably 125k give or take.