AVSIM and Flight Sim Expo 2019

[Camsdad13 64]

I noticed AVSIM is not listed anywhere as an exhibitor, sponsor or media partner list for the 2019 Flight Sim Expo. How come? It looks to be a pretty big event and surprised that AVSIM is not listed.

[Jim Young 2,356]

The AVSIM Board and CEO have agreed not to be a supporter.  What is the value of being a supporter when you have to pay a large sum of money to just have your name shown?  These Expo's are definitely a benefit to developer's who create add-ons or produce a simulator like P3D and X-Plane as it allows them to show off their products.  As a payware developer, you would want to have your name in the lights as much as possible and support a gathering like the one the FXExpo 2019 is putting together.

As you know, Tom, the late owner of AVSIM, was the first to start up these conferences/FANCONS here in the USA.  I think that is where websites like AVSIM exceed as they are putting the developer's and the flight simulation community together to show off their products. That was Tom's idea and why he tried to do so much to make each conference successful.  In most cases, he paid for the conference out of his own pocket as he did not think it right to use donations from our membership. PMDG assisted AVSIM in each endeavor as putting these conferences together are not cheap.  As far as I know AVSIM never asked for sponsors or developers to help pay for the event.  AVSIM only set up the venue to get the developer's and the community together.  AVSIM did pay the $750 sponsorship fee in the event held in Connecticut in 2017 but we really did not get any benefit for being a sponsor.  We have no booth.  We have nothing to sell.  People from around the world still register and become AVSIM members.  We are a very popular website where most of the old-timers still maintain a membership but no longer contribute in our forums and a new generation of members join.  AVSIM is a very successful and large organization that continues to grow.  We get over 70,000 plus visitors a week checking out the site and one of the reasons why developer's have chosen to set up their support forums here.

In the past we have provided a free support forum and have done all we can to encourage our members to attend these annual conferences.  We post information about the conferences on our front page as we receive it.  We want nothing but total success for conferences that put our community with the developer's.

It would now be very difficult to compete with conferences like the excellent and well-organized FlightSim Expo.  There is no need for AVSIM to compete.  We like the fact there are organizations, like FlightSim Expo, that bring the flight simulation community together with the developers and we hope it continues.

 

[Camsdad13 64]

Thanks for the reply Jim. I would think that AVSIM would want to report the latest and greatest from the EXPO. There are other FS Sites attending. I can understand that the ROI isn’t there.

 

Jeff