CLEARFIELD – David Schultz Airshows LLC of Clearfield has announced that the Air and Car Show planned for Saturday, July 23 at the Clearfield County Airport in Clearfield has been indefinitely postponed until a future date.
“Unfortunately corporate, business and community sponsorships were not to the level where this event could be held this summer while keeping the admission fees for the general public at a reasonable level,” stated David Schultz, event producer.
“While we deeply appreciate the support from the numerous sponsors that gave money and in-kind product/service offerings for this 2016 event, the level of sponsorship dollars received does not allow us to move forward with this endeavor.
“We are extremely disappointed that this event will not take place this summer, as we believe that this would have been an extremely safe, entertaining, and great new outdoor event for Clearfield County.”
“The current regional economic conditions were an extreme hindrance in gaining the level of monetary support to make this an affordable event to the general public,” explained Schultz.
“We had a goal of making the general admission gate less than $10 per person, and even with a revised lower budget, this was not going to be attainable.
For the past 22 years, our company has an excellent reputation for world-class aviation events. I was not going to have an event in my own backyard that was not up to those standards.”
It was noted that the overall production budget for the airshow was estimated at around $50,000 and included for performer contract fees, hotel rooms, rental cars, insurance, fuel and other logistics, hospitality, advertising, and infrastructure rentals.
It was also noted that all sponsorship monies received thus far will be fully reimbursed to the businesses that signed on as monetary sponsors.
“All monies received to date have been protected in a bank account and will be reimbursed over the next few weeks. All monies spent to this stage have been self-funded out of our own company’s accounts,” stated Schultz.
“It should also be pointed out that at no time were Clearfield Borough, Lawrence Township, Clearfield Airport or Clearfield County funds utilized for this event, and no taxpayer money was used for the event planning or execution.”
“We will evaluate possible new dates within the next few years and see if we can bring an Airshow to Clearfield County in the future. Since this is our hometown, we’d really like to do this. We had a tremendous amount of excitement over the event from local residents on our Facebook and Twitter accounts and from local and regional vendors that were really looking forward to the event.” stated Schultz.
As a Clearfield resident, Schultz encourages airshow fans to come to other airshows in the region, where David Schultz Airshows LLC will be providing their company’s services.
The company will be at more than 30 venues all around North America and the Caribbean in 2016 with local area airshows.
These will include the Westmoreland County International Airshow in Latrobe on May 21-22, featuring the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, U.S. Army Golden Knights, U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and USAF F-22 Raptor and the 2016 Clarion County Airshow in Clarion on Aug. 12-13, which will feature a Saturday daytime and Friday twilight airshow that weekend with numerous civilian performers.
