The UK’s largest airshow by attendence, the Bournemouth Air Festival, will not return in 2025 – but a 2026 return is possible.
The free seafront airshow is the UK’s largest by attendence, debuting in 2008 and attracting crowds of around one million people in its opening editions. In 2010, it became one of the first UK airshows to host a dedicated twilight show, known as “Night Air”. It is also believed to make the largest economic impact of any British airshow, generating around £50 million annually for the local economy.
More recently, attendence has fallen to around 600,000 – still comfortably the highest figure of any European airshow – but the event has dropped several of its core features, such as its Royal Marines beach assault demonstration and the participation of Royal Navy warships. It has also struggled to secure RAF assets in the same volume as before, with the Red Arrows and Typhoon both missing editions in recent seasons. In 2024, the show’s organiser and financial backer, BCP Council, cut the event down from four days to three to reduce costs. It also announced that the council will not continue to financially support the event, and any future editions must be cost-neutral to the council. At one point, a proposal was submitted for a council-run cost-neutral event, which would feature kites and drones, with a “possible” flying display.
However, the BBC reported on the 27th September that the council was considering bids from other airshow operators to take over the running of the air festival with a more ambitious format. Five potential operators came forward, and this was quickly whittled down to two. Of the two finalists, one was removed from the bidding process because their vision required council funding.
It was later revealed in the Bournemouth Echo that the remaining bidder was Pacific Airshow from the USA. Pacific Airshow – a part of event and marketing company Code Four – purchased the already-successful Huntington Beach Airshow in California in 2018, strengthened its ties with military performers, bolstered the show’s public appeal and added a plethora of paid hospitality options and private zones on the beach. Since being taken over by Pacific Airshow, the event reliably attracts one of the most extensive and impressive airshow line ups in the United States. Organisers claim that it is the most-attended airshow in the country, although spectator numbers estimated by the local government are sometimes considerably lower than the show’s own estimates. The show claims the show was watched by three million people “on the ground” in 2019, although an impact assessment of the very same event noted “an event attendance estimate provided by the event organizer of 230,769.” In more recent years, organisers and officials have quoted attendence of roughly 700,000.
In 2023, Pacific Airshow began operating a second event in Gold Coast, Australia. They purchased several aircraft – a CT-133 Silver Star and Yak-110 – and shipped them to Australia to perform at their new event. At the time, the company repeatedly but inaccurately claimed that Pacific Airshow was “the only Airshow in the world with two editions.”
Speaking to This is Flight in 2022, Pacific Airshow’s Kevin Elliott promised “Australia’s biggest ever airshow,” name-checking the Red Arrows, Frecce Tricolori, Black Eagles, Blue Impulse, Patrouille de France and Al Fursan as potential participants and claiming to already be in discussions with several Asian and European air forces. This, predictably, proved to be fanciful at best, with US military providing the only foreign military aircraft to participate thus far – although the show undoubtably succeeded in attracting a bigger line up of military equipment than almost any other regional event. Predictions of hosting the country’s biggest airshow appear to have come true, with a 400,000-strong crowd in 2024 – probably the biggest crowd of any Australian airshow in history.
Recently, however, Pacific Airshow has become embroiled in legal and political disputes following an oil spill just offshore in 2021, which caused the cancellation of the final day of the event. Like the Bournemouth Air Festival, the Huntington Beach show was also facing the possible withdrawal of local government funding at the time. After the oil spill-induced cancellation, the airshow sued the city for damages. They eventually settled out of court, with the city agreeing to pay Pacific Airshow $5 million over six years, waive almost $500,000 in fees, and give Pacific Airshow long-term exclusive rights to hold an airshow in the city. This controversial settlement – which the city attempted to keep secret – may be investigated by state auditors. Seperately, state officials found that the show was “illegitimately” blocking public access to parts of the beach, in what the Coastal Comission described as “unpermitted privatization of public land.” They blamed the city of Huntington Beach for authorising the airshow to take control of more land than they rightfully should have done, causing the airshow operator to add additional free-to-access viewing spaces at short notice before the 2024 edition.
The Pacific Airshow has been bullish in continuing its expansion plans throughout these controversies, and announced plans to expand their Huntington Beach show to a five day event featuring air racing, concerts, a BMX competition, wave pool surfing, firework displays and a temporary heliport.
Should Pacific Airshow take over the Bournemouth Air Festival, they would do so by commercialising the beachfront between Bournemouth and Roker piers, which will be reserved for paying ticket holders. Some free-to-access viewing spots would still be provided. Pacific Airshow is proposing to host a three-day event, and have requested a ten year exclusive deal.
Unlike in the United States, where paid-access seafront shows are relatively commonplace, there are very few examples of this format working successfully in Europe, with the Southport Airshow being the sole outlier. Southport’s tickets cost £12 – around half the price of the cheapest tier of ticketing for Pacific Airshow’s Huntington Beach and Gold Coast events, and considerably cheaper than any other ticketed airshow in the UK.
Negotiations between Pacific Airshow and BCP Council are ongoing, and staff from Pacific Airshow attended the 2024 Bournemouth Air Festival in person to scope out the event. However, a deal will not be finalised in time for the airshow to run in 2025. The council said: “Some of this work will require more detailed discussions before a full appraisal can be undertaken and any future operator agreement can be entered into to ensure all risks are fully explored.”