Riviera Airshow fit to fly

Funding gap filled

Local backers have stepped up to make sure the 2024 English Riviera Airshow gets off the ground.

Fears over the future funding of the event led Torbay Council to appeal for help from the community last year.

Now it has been confirmed that the funding appeal has hit its target, and the 2024 event on Saturday and Sunday 1 and 2 June is fit to fly.

“On the first weekend in June we are going to see probably the best airshow we have ever had,” said Carolyn Custerson, chief executive of  event partners the English Riviera BID Company. “Everybody has taken up the challenge.”

Immediately after the 2023 airshow, the then-newly-elected Conservative administration of the council raised doubts about whether the authority could go on funding the event. It costs £250,000 to run the show each year, although it’s claimed that for every pound spent on the event, £15 comes into the local economy.

The council’s cabinet committee pegged its commitment at £100,000 and threw down the gauntlet to the local community to come up with the rest.

Now, said Mrs Custerson, all targets have been met.

The new Mercure and Ibis Styles hotels in Paignton are headline sponsors for the event, and a number of other local businesses have also signed up as partners and sponsors.

The council has already announced a line-up including the RAF Red Arrows, the Typhoon jet fighter and the Battle of Britain Memorial flight. Other civilian aircraft are yet to be confirmed. Traders, businesses and other exhibitors will fill an event ‘village’ on Paignton Green.

Mrs Custerson explained: “The council set a challenge to say they couldn’t afford to keep putting a quarter of a million pounds into the airshow, and a group of us set up and worked together.

“They reduced the budget to £100,000 so the challenge was, how do we raise £150,000 to continue the airshow? As of this week it’s been confirmed that we have filled that gap.”