A small-town airshow, online and at the gate.
For 56 years, Arlington SkyFest was a community airshow at Arlington Municipal Airport. I volunteered at the event from 1992 right up to the end, in a lot of different roles, and served on the board, including a term as board president. The part of the job I owned was the technology and volunteer data management side. Ticketing systems and gate-scan devices, the on-site Wi-Fi backbone, volunteer rostering and the public website that tied it all together. The last show was in 2025, and the organization closed in 2026 after the all-volunteer board saw it through to the end. These screenshots capture the site as it ran.
My early days
In the early years everything ran out of a rented headquarters trailer with a comm tower out back. Volunteer badges were made by hand. I started small, hauling cable and keeping the office hardware running. When headquarters was slow, Betty and me would sit under the front counter and sip wine while the radios crackled overhead.
The website through the years
Technology contributions
- WooCommerce ticketing with timed entry, vehicle passes and parking add-ons
- Gate-scan iPads with a QR code printed on the confirmation email (sample below)
- Volunteer signup and shift-management for the day-of crew, hundreds of slots across the weekend
- Temporary on-site network: Ubiquiti Wi-Fi backbone and ticket-scan tablets at every gate
- Public-facing festival site with show schedule, performer pages and FAQs
The final site
The last version, as it ran through the final seasons.
