Festivals to combine
Published 8:38 pm Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Here’s a riddle for you: What grows in the ground, flies in the sky, tastes delicious and is a ton of fun?
The answer is the combined Peanut Festival and Festival of Flight, which will be happening this year during the normal Peanut Festival weekend in October.
“This is looking like a marriage made in heaven,” said Hesham Oubari, president of the Virginia Aviation Council, which puts on the Festival of Flight.
The idea was floated by Jody Cadwell, who is vice chairman of the Peanut Festival this year and also a student pilot. He’s visited large aviation events in other states in the past and came back with a dream to make Virginia’s even better.
“None of them have the entertainment components that the Peanut Festival offers,” Cadwell said. “I think it’s going to be really cool.”
Lisa Key, executive director of Suffolk Festivals, which puts on the Peanut Festival, said the Festival of Flight will bring another component to the Peanut Festival.
“Everybody’s been wanting something a little bit different at Peanut Fest,” Key said. “Hopefully, the people that come to Peanut Fest can learn something about aviation, and the aviators can come have some fun at Peanut Fest.”
The Peanut Festival will take place Oct. 6-9, but the Festival of Flight will be a one-day-only event, on Oct. 8.
The Festival of Flight started calling the Suffolk Executive Airport home in 2008, after about 10 years of holding the event in Dinwiddie. But the 2014 festival was the last one held. Organizers said last year they wanted to take stock of the event after several years of declining attendance, in which weather played a role.
The festival, which occurred during May or June in the past, includes everything from powered parachutes to homebuilt and factory-built personal aircraft, which are available to see up-close. It also features educational seminars and the like.
But Oubari said the focus will change this year.
“A lot of things in the past were basically geared toward old farts like me,” he joked. “We’re trying to gear them toward the younger crowd. We’re looking at introducing people to flying.”
This year, the AUVSI — Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International — will have a tent to do drone demonstrations, Oubari said.
Oubari said visitors, whether by land or by air, will pay only one fee. Those driving in will pay the Peanut Festival parking fee and get access to both events, and those flying in will pay to register their aircraft with the Festival of Flight and also be able to visit Peanut Festival.
“This is a nice break, because you get to see something different,” he said.
Key said drivers turning onto the airport’s main runway, where parking is held, will find the Peanut Festival site to the left, as usual, and the Festival of Flight site to the right, where the crosswind runway, which is not typically used for Peanut Festival parking, will accommodate flying visitors.