Action Sports Show

First Annual Extreme Action Sports Consumer Show sponsored by AT&T Wireles in Long Beach June 21-23.

50,000 consumers expected to attend. Lots of press and promotion. Good demographics.

I mentioned it back in March.

SSA Marketing picked it up and is putting an ASW-27B and a Nimbus 4 there with a couple of National Champions to answer questions. Big backdrop with lots of exciting photos. A video running in a loop showing aerobatics and high speed finishes as well as some terrifically graceful shots of the Sierras, the Alps, and New Zealand.

There will also be a flyover of a squadron of pigs later in the day.

The pigs sound 'extreme', maybe gliders aren't.

These things are made to happen on a local level, from the bottom up. What's needed is a local glider pilot (perhaps an operator) to volunteer an exhibit glider. The SSA Office will supply all the magazines, brochures, etc. anyone wants on request.

Hei!

John Shelton's article sounded too good to be true, and what he wrote about a squadron of flying pigs makes me wonder... I have a sneaking, encroaching suspicion it was all meant to be rather ironical, unless 'The Flying Pigs' is a well known American aerobatic team or something.

So John, could you please explain in simple words and short straighforward sentences without subtle hints, what you really meant for the benefit of those of us who are linguistically challenged whith only imperfect command of the English language and inadequate knowledge of American idioms?

Regards,

Christian 8-)

This is a great intro.... The Tidewater Soaring Society has been asked to participate in Aviation World's Fair representing the soaring community and to coordinate soaring activities. The event will be held at Patrick Henry Field in Newport News, Virginia, April 7-27, 2003. If 50,000 people isn't enough, these guys are looking at that number of people per day for a 20 day period of time. TSS is currently looking at supporting only the last week of the event. We didn't think we would be able to pull off more extensive coverage. In the volunteer spirit shown by the gent below, if other groups, businesses, etc are interested in helping to support this EXTREMELY high visibility event, please let us know. Our club president has contacted the SSA about the event but as yet, has not heard anything in response. Thus the timing of this thread was a wonderful intro to try to foster interest. You can find out more about the event at: http://www.aviation-worlds-fair.com/ If the organizer's have their way, this will be an event on the scale of the Paris Airshow. Even if they don't reach that lofty goal, it will be something well worth supporting in an attempt to enhance the visibility of our sport.

If you are interested in helping to support the event

or to the actual event organizers found on the webpage above.

Later!

-Mark At 13:36 14 June 2002, Vorsanger1 wrote:

The show is real. The SSA participation is not...nor are the flying pigs.

AT&T Wireless will promote hell out of it locally and in the press.....guess why....right...to promote their products and services. Everyone has seen skateboards and snowboards and waterskis and the other things that will be there. Boring sitting still. But not a sailplane. Too sleek to ignore. A sailplane would knock their eyes out. A couple of people that know how to work a trade show would be nice.

Sorry to have confused you. I speak only poor American English and poor Mexican Spanish myself...usually mixed in together.

Yikes, am I the gullible one! No wonder I didn't hear about the SSA participation at the LB exhibit....there ain't any. For you outlanders out there, this is deliberately incorrect and poor English, do not copy it.

Cheers, anyhow, Charles

I don't understand why we keep hearing 'These things... happen on a local level, from the bottom up'.

SSA's membership rose from 1957 to 1966 at about 12% per year, but at progressively slowing rates. In 1967 there were three very prominent NON-LOCAL events: two articles on soaring (National Geographic and Reader's Digest) and a Walt Disney TV film 'The Boy who Flew with the Condors'. Membership the following year jumped by 38%!. Membership continued to rise for the following 15 years, again at progressively slowing rates, peaking at about 16000. It's been downhill ever since, leveling off the last several years at about 12,500.

Seems to me the track record of one or two national events far exceeds all those 2-33's on display in shopping malls. Am I missing something?

Jack Wyman

P.S. Wow! A squadron of pigs!

Absolutely, we need natonal, wide-spread PR, the bigger the audience the better, and FWIW I was talking about ASW-24s at national aerospace teacher congresses, not 2-33s at local malls.

By 'bottom up', I didn't mean local vs. national, I meant 'in the field' vs. by the elected or hired leadership.

What you are missing is the source of the initiative. Who wrote the National Geographic article? Who filmed the Disney movie? Did the SSA command these events? Probably not. Should the SSA engineer such things? Probably should. But in the long run, who cares so long as it happens? Not even SSA. Not even me. The only reason I like the idea of a permanent SSA staff-member assigned to PR is I worry no one from the 'outside' would ever find us fashionable or interesting again as a coincidence. So imagine my surprise when PR started appearing left and right recently in FLYING and AOPA PILOT, on NOVA and the History Channel... Wow, better than in a long time. Why should they care a wit about soaring, especially in this day and age? Is this luck? If it is, I doubt we can count on it continuously.

My point to Shelton was why waste time and emotion petitioning SSA to do this or that? When anyone has the passion to organize a Hitachi Masters' race or a Thomas Crown movie sequence, the established pattern is they do it themselves immediately and accept a 'well done' from SSA later.

This could apply to chartering a Soaring Information Services LLC, hiring a full-time staffer, placing soaring 'talking heads' on cable channels, whatever. Sounds like Shelton is doing some of these things and, if so,

To Jack Wyman: this is what I meant by 'from the bottom up' or better 'in the field'....