Organizers of the Brazilian helicopter show Heli XP, which they normally hold in May in São Paulo, have moved the event to October 21 and 22, public health permitting. The fair was 90 percent sold out in January and expects 88 brands and 22 static-display aircraft, with all of last year’s exhibitors returning and a 75 percent increase in event space.
Heli XP—which serves the Brazilian helicopter market, the world’s second-largest in fleet size and the busiest in operations—will use an entire hangar at Helipark for stands. “The idea is the exhibitor just arrives with his material and everything’s ready,” Gledson Castro of organizer G2C told AIN.
Officials will reserve part of the Helipark ramp for test flights, one of the features that contributed to the success of the first Heli XP, which last year attracted 4,000 invitation-only visitors—90 percent from Brazil—over its two days.
The Helipark venue allows Heli XP to offer lower costs and has permitted rescheduling without scrambling for convention center space. The first edition mostly sold out even before the watershed 2018 Brazilian election, Castro noted. “Even with the pandemic, the sector strongly believes in the [economic] recovery and that’s what gave us the certainty needed to move ahead with the event,” he said.