It's no secret that 2020 was not the best year for really anyone. (That's putting it supremely mildly, but let's be optimistic shall we?) The people who lost more than most were the performers, especially those who made a living off of performing or competing, and being able to spread their love of performance, and their skills through in-person events and networking. Because with the close of the world we lost the ability to have these kinds of events, and even virtually it was a struggle due to the costs associated with streaming services, and the time commitment of organizing and executing an event. Many performers had to find other avenues of work and could not give that kind of time or funding to an event when they also needed to find ways to support themselves, which is entirely understandable. As the pandemic progressed though and more and more performance venues, competitions, and showcase events had to temporarily close, or postpone, or even disband permanently due to the loss of income throughout the pandemic the future for aerial performers was looking a little morose. From this was bred an idea to utilize the virtual avenues that had proven great for pole performances/competitions to open a new performance and competition opportunity for aerialists as well.

In March of 2021 one of the largest aerial competitions in the United States announced they would be postponing all competitions indefinitely, this was a huge blow not only to myself, but to so many others at my studio and others across the country who had been looking forward to their opportunity to perform once again this year. Especially as this was one of the only competitions in our country to allow beginner level performers, and performers of all ages to compete. When I say that announcement blew up my group chats, I mean it. I got the email notification and instantly had messages coming in from so many people, from individuals I trained with, to former competitors I'd met and become friends with, to group chats for our competition team, and onward. So many of us had just been "waiting for the next one" to see how things were going to go and this diminished that hope we had been holding on to. In light of the entire pandemic though this wasn't completely surprising to have happened, but it left a gap for so many of us and I had this idea that maybe somehow we could fill it in a big way.

So about two weeks after that announcement came down, I sat down and I had a long discussion with my partner, John Cuppi, who is a web developer and had created his own business from the ground up online when he was a teenager. He has experience with everything IT and so I sat down and asked him plain and simple. "Do you think we could do this?" I came to him with the idea of a huge virtual competition, allowing video submissions from performers of all ages, skill levels, from all over the world - and I asked him if we did this, did he think we could. He said, "Yes. It would be a lot of work, but together we could make it happen." From there I approached multiple professional level aerialists to get a feel for what they felt would be ideal in creating a large scale virtual aerial competition, and through a huge collabrative of knowledge, a lot of time coding and developing, a massive amount of time on research and collaboration to write out competitors guides, judges guides, and sponsorship materials, and a sprinkle of time utilizing some very rusty photoshop skills. The Aerial Star Organization and thus the Aerial Star Competition have been born.

At this point in time we plan for this to be a virtual competition yearly for anyone from anywhere, of any age, and any skill level to be able to compete in. Whether or not we eventually move to also hosting live competitions would depend on a lot of factors that we have discussed and run the numbers on. Right now though we will at least have a competition annually to give aerialists something to work towards and count on happening every year. We know this can never fill the void of so many of the performances, venues, competitions, and other things we lost out on in 2020, but we hope that it helps inspire and motivate aerialists of all levels to continue improving and showcasing their skills.