Quesnel’s SkyFest team has just confirmed the Snowbirds, Canada’s military aerobatics team, as well as the Canadian Forces CF-18 Demo Team, will perform at the August 2019 show.
The biennial event was cancelled in 2017 due to the wildfires and the Quesnel Airport’s designation as a fire support base that year. As a result, the 2019 event will be the first since 2015, and organizer Barb van Halderen is excited to have booked these iconic performers.
Van Halderen is attending the International Council of Air Shows (ICAS) convention in Las Vegas this week, where many performers’ schedules are announced. She says they had to apply for these teams well in advance, and got the notice they would be coming to Quesnel while at the convention.
“They were applied for a year ago, and they do up their schedule and they announce here,” she explains.
Quesnel’s airshow performers were supposed to have been locked in already, however, after the performers from the cancelled 2017 airshow promised to honour their contracts, but circumstances forced some to break their committment.
“We had our list of performers ready to go, but all of those perfomers attend ICAC and once we got here and started talking to them, some of them had to back out due to other commmitments or whatever. So [being here is] allowing us an opportunity to book other performers,” she says.
Van Halderen says they do have more performers confirmed, but they’ll be slowly announcing the line up to generate excitement as the event draws near.
“We always try to do something different. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Van Haderen will be in Las Vegas until the weekend, finishing up at the convention.
SkyFest: Quesnel’s International Airshow is scheduled for Aug. 2-4, 2019.
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