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Bournemouth Air Festival likely to be permanently grounded
A new report recommends BCP Council stops working to bring back the popular air show in 2026 and beyond.

Since 2008, the Bournemouth Air Festival has delighted crowds with aerial stunts and antics and attracted millions of visitors to the town.
Due to rising costs of putting on the event, last year’s air festival was announced to be the last one to be organised by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council, and the council would look for a new operator to take over running the event from 2026 onwards.
But a new report by council staff shows that efforts to find a new operator have failed to take off. Instead, the report’s authors recommend to BCP Council’s Cabinet that work stops on bringing back the air show and the council should instead focus on other events.
According to the report, the council has been in negotiations with one potential operator, but these talks have hit turbulence over issues such as the financial implications for the council and a requirement to close the public space between Bournemouth and Boscombe piers, including the foreshore and promenade, in order to commercialise the air show.
Other proposed solutions include going out to the market again to find another operator or looking for a sponsor to pay for a Council-organised event. But the report finds issues with these solutions as well, especially over the cost of running the air show: the 2024 Air Festival cost £264,000 to put on, and this is likely to get more expensive in future due to new anti-terrorism legislation.
Instead, the report recommends stopping any further work on an Air Festival for 2026 to focus on other events, while leaving the door open for new proposals to come forward from prospective operators.
It seems from the report that unless an operator steps forward who is willing to fund the air show entirely themselves, and without restricting public access to Bournemouth’s coastline, then the Bournemouth Air Festival is unlikely to return to the skies anytime soon.
BCP Council’s Cabinet will make a final decision at a meeting on 18 June.
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