New flight of stares
Planes sure to lure eyes of visitors to garden and home show
The first thing that attendees of the 2013Colorado Garden and Home Show will notice might not be the 2,500 flowers blooming in the entry — but the airplanes suspended above it all.
Planes — mostly antiques and borrowed fromTheWings Over theRockies Air& Space Museum — will soar over the massive show, which opens Saturday.
“We’ve had underwater sea creatures. We’ve had dinosaurs. We’ve had balloons. It’s just something that’s out of the ordinary,” said Jim Fricke, director of Colorado Garden Show Inc., the nonprofit group that puts on the event. “When people come in, we don’t think they’ll expect to see planes hanging from the ceiling of the Colorado Convention Center.”
Fricke said the show is expected to draw 60,000 to 70,000 people during its nine-day run. It’s the largest event held at the convention center.
Wings Over the Rockies curator Matthew Burchette said the museum seldom moves its aircraft off-site, but this particular partnership offers exposure that was too good to pass up.
“The show brings in over 60,000 people,” Burchette said. “To have our name associated with that is amazing for us. Plus, it’s a lot of fun, and here we have a chance to show off some of our great planes.”
The show, which runs through Feb. 17, has booked more than 600 commercial exhibits from companies from 25 states and Canada. Fricke estimates the show has an overall economic impact of about $40 million.
The showwill contribute nearly $550,000 to Colorado Garden Show. About $130,000 goes toward academic scholarships. The rest is used to fund grants to horticulture projects.