Take a trip back to 2013 with the Ann Arbor Aviary!
The Aviary Teaches Students to Take Flight
April 3, 2013
How We Got From There to Here
The Aviary began as a daydream while I was driving back and forth to Detroit for training in 2009, signed its first lease in November of 2012, and opened in April of 2013.
Our first location was farther down State St., past Ellsworth Rd., near the Ann Arbor Airport. We spent far too long getting it ready for classes, but we wanted to get it just right before opening the doors to the public. We started with three owners, five instructors, a sprung floor made out of tires, second hand equipment, and four rig points that required apparatus changes by ladder between every class.
To say it was a learning experience is a deep understatement. Within the first six months, two of the owners moved on, leaving me to run the studio alone. I often paid instructors out of my own paycheck from my day job, while our student showcase, LIFTOFF, kept the lights on.
After almost three years of steady growth, I was finally starting to see us find our stride. The initial loans were paid off, we had a dedicated crew of talented instructors, and a growing community of weird and wonderful students. Then, the building was purchased by another company that wanted to expand its business into our space. We were given less than a month’s notice to vacate. We staged one final Halloween showcase, packed everything up, and I was left facing a big decision: walk away and break even, or start the search for a new home from scratch.
As you might imagine, finding the right building for an aerial training studio is not easy. It took over a year of relentless phone calls before I connected with a property developer renovating an entire building who was willing to build to suit. But that also meant taking on the largest loan of my life to engineer and install the structural I-beams and rigging systems required for safe flight. But we did it!
We opened the doors in January 2018 to a gorgeous new space with higher ceilings and so much more room for classes. Rent was a whole lot higher, too, but our community showed up from day one and just kept growing. We brought in guest instructors and special workshops, added more classes, and welcomed new faces to the Flight Crew. Things were going great! And then the pandemic hit.
The state shut down gyms from March 16 to September 9 of 2020. While I fully supported the necessary closure to prevent the spread of a virus we still didn’t fully understand, nearly six months of zero revenue and an unsympathetic landlord brought us to the brink of closure for the second time. Even when we were finally allowed to hold classes again, safety rules cut our schedule by more than half. Masks were required, no one could share equipment, apparatuses had to rest for 48 hours between uses, and everyone had to stay six feet apart. Friends, it almost took us out. Again.
And yet, here we are, on the verge of beginning our 15th year. Through every move and shutdown,, this studio has grown beyond that daydream into a living, breathing, self-sustaining community of kind, talented, and endlessly supportive creatives. It was a hard road to get here, but you make every step of it worth the journey.
Thank you for flying with us.