Snowbirds Taking Part in Quesnel Airshow
Monday, March 11, 2013 @ 9:12 AM
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The Snowbirds in a formation, photo courtesy Canadian Forces 431 Squadron.
Quesnel, B.C. – The Snowbirds are coming to Quesnel!
The Canadian Forces Air Demonstration Team will be taking part in Quesnel’s International Airshow set for August 3rd and 4th.
The team will actually arrive in Quesnel on August 1sr and will perform a half hour show on the 3rd and 4th of August.
The shows will include music, and the nine planes will perform more than 50 different formations and manoeuvres including solo passes, rolls and loops in their Tutor CT-114 jets.
Prior to taking part in the Quesnel show, the Snowbirds will also be in Ft. St. Jon on the 27th and 28th of July. After the Quesnel show, they will appear on Prince Rupert on the 14th of August.
Comments
Amazing Vanderhoof used to have a realy good air show every year untill Prince George decided to run competition to them & run them out of business. Screwed that up big time now Quesnel is giving a go, good for them. Good luck. PG stay the hell away from them.
Exactly – Prince George run the Vanderhoof show away and then decided it wasnt worth it.
Vanderhoof had a great little show last year and are planning a larger one for this summer as well.
Prince George cannot put on an airshow – it would get in the way of all the jumbo jets landing, refueling, and taking off.
You folks should not make comment about something you know nothing about. The Vanderhoof airshow was not getting local support and did not have the facilities to bring in the equipment that PG could. A lot of the people from the Vanderhoof airshow came over to the PG airshow.
PG started out to big and never really recovered and went under financially.
“PG stay the hell away from them ” Who or what are you talking about?
seamutt … you raise a valid objection to the way the comments were laid out regarding the PG show and the demise of the Vanderhoof show … however, the perception has always existed the PG bulldozed the Vanderhoof show regardless of any behind the scenes realities ….
a more positive forward way of playing this would be “Lets get behind the Quesnel show and provide regional support.” Economically it makes no never mind if Quesnel runs a good event or PG does … in reality, the moneys and benefits are going into the “local” pot.
agreed anotherside. I only stated that based on what i have heard from friends in Vanderhoof. Seamutt may be completely right but some of the locals definitely have the perception that PG nosed thier way in.
You are bang on Seamutt. I get tired of the old nugget how PG stole the airshow from the Hoof and then ran it into the ground. The folks that organized and spearheaded it in Vanderhoof are the ones that brought it to PG. No one ‘stole’ anything.
Yes, anotherside, let’s head on down to Quesnel and support the show; Billy Barker Days is great, too.
We once had a chance of having the
Snowbirds here a couple of years a go.
For a solo show.
But someone in the airport management blinked.
“someone in the airport management blinked”
Must have been during road dust time and got some in his/her eyes.
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So maybe the reason why Vanderhoof failed due to lack of support, they did not have Area F behind them …. ;-)
past Mayor of Vanderhoof is reported in an old article on this site to have said that the community has no immediate plans to resurrect the Vanderhoof Air show that was popular for many years.
Fox says âWe had gone broke with the show two years before Prince George tried their hand at it with about the same success.
It was costing us $150,000 dollars a year to put on the show, it simply out grew us.â
Fox says “had we stayed with our original show of just showing war planes and maybe the odd show with a guy like Bud Grandly, we might still be operating”
If you consider that there are over 350,000 people in the north, the Mayor said âYou would think that we could draw more than 5% of the population but we couldnât and thatâs what killed us.â
Gus, over 350,000 people in the North……Huh? Try more like 200,000. Unless you’re counting people from Kamloops and Kelowna as being “the north”…….
If you think about it,
Quesnel 10,000
Williams Lake 12,000
PG 80,000
Vanderhoof 5,000
McBride 2,500
Mackenzie 5,000
Fort St John 10,000
Dawson Creek 10,000
Smithers/Burns Lake/Hazeltons 10,000
Terrace 10,000
Kitimat 5,000
Prince Rupert 10,000
Fort Nelson 5,000
Chetwynd/Tumbler Ridge/Hudson’s Hope 5,000
For a rough total of 180,000 maybe throw in another 20,000 for all the places that are too small to mention and you might get to 200,000. Maybe……..even that’s a bit of a stretch!! 350,000 no way!!
The problem with airshows is it’s another thing that people will go only if they really want to go. If you just do some minor advertising and don’t offer something special, people get distracted by other things. Airshows have to compete with Hockey/Restaurants/Movies/Travel etc. tuff to do after the novelty has worn off after the first 2-3 years.
Skip Stewart’s returning this year, too. He’s one of the top aerobatic pilots in North America (at least) and the show he puts on is incredible. Here’s a youtube clip but it doesn’t do it justice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xrtHUUjQDo
Should be a great show this year. I hope they get enough support to carry on.
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