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Chilliwack Flight Fest grounded

Low numbers at AGM forces one-year hiatus of free show
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Bud and Ross Granley take to the skies at the 2008 Flight Fest. (Jenna Hauck/ Progress File)

Flight Fest has been grounded.

The popular Chilliwack airshow is taking a year off, due to lack of interest at the organizational level. The announcement was made on Wednesday, July 19 through the Flight Fest Facebook page.

“We’ve had many phone calls and emails about the Chilliwack Flight Fest this year,” the society said. “Unfortunately, at this point in time we regret to inform you that the Chilliwack Airshow will not be taking place in 2017.”

The reason? A lack of people power.

“We had underwhelming number of people attend the AGM,” the post continues. “This forced us to be delayed in planning as we were focused on finding the number of people required to put the show together.”

Last August, the show celebrated its 25th anniversary. The website has not been updated since that time. The show featured Bud Granley, flying pyrotechniques, historic aircraft, and more.

Flight Fest is one of Canada’s last few remaining free airshows, and requires a certain level of funding and volunteers, “both of which we do not have enough of to move forward with this year’s show.”

The next Flight Fest annual general meeting will be in the fall, and they encourage people who value the event to come to that meeting to get involved.

“It will not move forward without the hard working volunteers it needs,” they said. “We hope to see you in 2018!”

The society put out a call for more volunteers back in 2015, urging more people to come forward to keep the airshow alive.

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Jessica Peters

About the Author: Jessica Peters

I began my career in 1999, covering communities across the Fraser Valley ever since.
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