About 6,500 attended air show; planning starts for next year

MOSES LAKE — Organizers of this year’s Moses Lake Airshow said the event managed to make a little money and planning for next year’s air show has begun.

“We scraped by. There’s enough left to cover expenses until the end of the year,” said Terry Quick, the lead organizer for the show, during a regular meeting of the Port of Moses Lake Commission on Monday.

Despite several inquiries, Quick did not say how much revenue the air show earned this year and how much remained, though he told commissioners a detailed financial report would be available soon.

Quick said the two-day air show, which was first organized in 2019, but was canceled last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, had a total attendance of around 6,500 and spent around $61,000 — $18,000 of that on hotel rooms for performers and their crews and $8,500 on airplane fuel.

“Several hotels told us they were sold out for that weekend,” Quick said. “There were no other major events in Grant County that weekend, so that’s all to the air show.”

Quick said, however, the current air show schedule — the Friday and Saturday before Father’s Day — means the event is likely “leaving a lot of money on the table” and may shift next year to a Saturday and Sunday event, with a practice day on Friday.

Roughly half of the show’s attendees this year came on Saturday, Quick said.

Shifting to a weekend show would also allow some port tenants, such as Stoke Space Technologies, which is building a facility to test rocket engines at the port, to continue operating without having to adjust schedules for the show, Quick explained.

“Stoke will be running by then and they cannot shut down,” said Port of Moses Lake Executive Director Don Kersey. “You will need to work those details out.”

In addition, Quick said organizers are also planning on adding remote-controlled aircraft as part of the air show’s regular performance next year, expanding the show’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) offerings for students, and live-streaming some performances as a way of expanding the show’s reach.