It won’t be just the Snowbirds and old war planes taking to the skies over Kempenfelt Bay this weekend for the Barrie Airshow.
According to Barrie Tourism executive director Kathleen Trainor, there will also be heat-seeking drones in the sky to help the city get a better idea of how many people attend the popular weekend-long event.
“It’s a huge economic driver for tourism to come into the city for the day to see the air show," she said. "We are one of the first events right out of the gate … and it’s Father’s Day weekend, so we expect, with three days packed with entertainment.
"We expect several million dollars, but I don’t know," Trainor added.
The amount of spectators, and the economic spin-off the event has on the city, has not been tracked in the past, she acknowledged, but they’re hoping to change that this year with use of the drones.
“They’re going to take heat-seeking drones and we are going to be using MobileScapes Data," Trainor said. "There are several ways (to track attendance).
"The (drones) count them (using heat signatures) and … and we track everybody’s cellphones. If you have your cellphone on and you’re binging off the tower, the MobileScape technology will count everybody’s cellphone as a unique (identifier)," she added. "It’s actually really interesting because it can tell you if they’re from Barrie, outside Barrie … so we will know in about four weeks after the event.”
Scheduled to get started at 8 p.m. tonight (June 14) with a free concert at Meridian Place, the three-day event is hosted in partnership with the City of Barrie, the Canadian Forces Base Borden, the County of Simcoe, Lake Simcoe Regional Airport and the Downtown Barrie BIA, and will help mark the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).
Trainor told BarrieToday she intends to attend this weekend’s event.
“It’s a great family event,” she said, adding it could also serve as a positive way to promote the Canadian military. “There’s a huge shortage of Canadian pilots joining the Air Force for Canada, so you’re hoping this also inspires young people to either want to be a pilot or find that experience really moving and either want to be part of the Canadian military or to be a pilot.”
Tonight’s concert will be followed by a drone show presented by Pratt Homes and Barn Burner Hockey, which will include 200 drones over Kempenfelt Bay coming together to create colourful imagery in the night sky. The drone show was specifically created for the Barrie Airshow with the theme being RCAF100.
Planes for the air show are set to take to the skies over Kempenfelt Bay at 1 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.
In addition to the world-famous Canadian Snowbirds, the air show will include an air demonstration by the Canadian Armed Forces SkyHawks Parachute Team, the CF-18 Demonstration Team, the Northern Stars Aeroteam, solo aerobatic pilot Mike Tryggvason, Timmermans Legends of Flight P-51 and Sea Fury, the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association, the Edenvale Classic Aircraft Foundation and more.
For more information and a schedule of events related to the air show, click here.
