Food trucks and a fly-in

All I needed to do was find a like-minded individual to help me get this idea off the ground. Local flight instructor and recent acrobatic fanatic Dr. Joe McMurray had been itching to have an airport event, so I reached out with my idea. His response was an immediate and enthusiastic, “Yes!”

We had our first hangar meeting a few days later and made two core decisions: The date would be September 11; specifically, the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 to honor members of our military and first responders. Having food trucks would be the second-best way to attract attendees. The best way to attract attendees is, of course, airplanes.

We launched the idea with only three months until the date of our event and no advertising budget, so we settled on a grassroots marketing approach. I created an event on Facebook and shared it with local community pages and pilot groups. Then, I designed and printed posters with a QR code linking to the Facebook event and hung them over town in local businesses. These posters were printed for free, a donation from a local printer. We also reached out to the local newspaper, which did a short feature for us.

Many food trucks will offer to donate a percentage of their proceeds to the event fundraiser; however, with no idea how many people would attend, we decided to invite the food trucks with zero monetary obligation. Eight food trucks committed to attending the event, including one that reached out after seeing our poster!

We started setup bright and early on September 11. All entertainment and food trucks arrived on time, and we were ready to go. The event was scheduled to take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. By 9:30 a.m. guests began arriving, by 1 p.m. our parking lot and aircraft ramp were overflowing. At the end of the day, the event saw nearly 2,000 guests and more than 60 fly-in aircraft. The food trucks had (happily) sold out of food, and the local flight schools had dozens of new leads and booked several introductory flights. In the days that followed, guests raved about the wonderful time they had at the event on social media and were already asking if this would become an annual occurrence.

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For more tips on organizing an event at your airport, see the full story online. aopa.org/pilot/foodtruckflyin