Sky High expo launches with big crowd

LAURINBURG — Thousands of people flocked to the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport over the weekend for the first Sky High Aerospace Expo, the culmination of two years of planning. Organizers estimate that roughly 3,000 attendees experienced the event.

Visitors were treated to a variety of aerial performances, including demonstrations by the U.S. Army Golden Knights and a U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper demo team. The expo also featured live history demonstrations, luxury cars, fireworks, and a range of static aircraft displays.

“The crowd we had blew my expectations out of the water,” said Seth Hatchell, executive director of the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport. “I was hoping to get 1,500 people between the two days, maybe 2,000, so it blew my expectations … the turnout was great, and it blew the local staff’s expectations out of the water.”

Trey Brown, founder and president of the Sky High Aerospace Expo, said the event had been a vision in the works for years.

“This has been two years in the making,” Brown said. “I’m nervous about how everyone is going to receive it, and I just want everyone to have a good time. The overwhelming support is almost tear-jerking. The local community has received this better than I could have ever imagined. I thought they might be scared of it and push it away, but instead they embraced it and helped me do this.”

Hatchell added that while there were some first-year kinks to work out, the event exceeded expectations on every level.

“I think this weekend went amazingly,” he said. “The static displays were awesome, the sports cars were great, the airshow was phenomenal, and the fireworks were awesome. I am running out of words to describe it; it went really, really well. You could tell that this was something we’ve been putting together for two years.”

Both Hatchell and Brown expressed gratitude to the partners and community members who helped make the event possible.

“Thank you to everyone who came out,” Hatchell said. “This wasn’t an overnight thing; we’ve been planning it for two years, and we could not have done this without Trey Brown and the Sky High Aerospace Expo, the City of Laurinburg, Scotland County, and the Town of Maxton. All these partners came together to put on an awesome event for our community.”

Organizers said they intend to bring the Sky High Aerospace Expo back in the future.

“We have every intent to do this again, maybe not next year, but we want to do this regularly,” Hatchell said.