'High-caliber weekend' on tap as Blue Angels, Navy Week and Banana Ball converge

In 2023, the Yellowstone International Air Show featuring the Blue Angels brought in an estimated $5 to 6 million boon to Billings, as some 12,000 to 15,000 people attended each day of the two-day event and filled nearly 5,000 hotel rooms, Eggart said. 

But Eggart expects the weekend’s economic value to the city to almost double this year. 

“We're going into a big event weekend,” she said.

In tandem with the Yellowstone International Air Show, Aug. 22 – 23, the city is hosting Navy Week with events taking place throughout the city through Aug. 23 and a stop on the Banana Ball World Tour featuring a three-game series at Dehler Park. Navy Week and Banana Ball, both big firsts for Billings.

While Eggart said the air show alone is a big draw regionally and nationally, “we'll definitely feel probably a $10 million economic impact weekend throughout the community, between all the events.”  

Blue Angels

This is the second visit to Billings in three years for the Blue Angels, who are the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron. Before that 2023 show, the Blue Angels had last performed in Billings in 2001.

Matt McDonnell and Jake Penwell are the two Billings men responsible for taking on the endeavor to bring them back. And they did it again, three years later.

McDonnell was a tween for that 2001 performance. He and Penwell, who saw the Blue Angels in 1988 as a child — a factor that helped convince him to follow his father and join the Navy — were having breakfast together in 2020 when both started to reminisce about airshows and childhood.

Both wanted that experience again and they wanted other kids to have the experience. And then they realized they could be the ones to organize it. 

Luckily, McDonnell had an in with a former naval aviator who was a member of the Blue Angels squadron in the 1990s. McDonnell reached out to his then business associate, the former Blue Angel Ken Switzer, in Bozeman, and asked what they needed to do to put together a competitive application. 

"The selection is pretty steep," he said in a 2021 Gazette interview. 

Switzer said that the Blue Angels perform between 30 and 32 air shows a year but receive between 400 and 500 applications. Their host cities need to demonstrate three main elements: safety, capability and timing.

As to the first requirement of safety, Penwell told the Gazette Wednesday they will need to provide a police escort for the Blue Angels, before and after the event.

It's not a guarantee the Blue Angels will return, either. Applications are required each time they vie for the Blue Angels’ performance, and they have to be submitted two years in advance.

Penwell expects the 2026 show to provide a $10 to $20 million economic impact to Billings. But he’s waiting to make sure they break even this year, before he and McDonnell set out to host one in the future.

Organizing the show has been a team effort that has involved 400 volunteers as well as 45 board members, including many city and county officials, Penwell said. The event has also taken a whole lot of financial investment, coordination and anxiety over a two-year period.

“We don't do it for the money. We're doing it to show off this incredible city that we're a part of. We're showing off the incredible city that raised Matthew and I, and I'm really incredibly proud to do that,” Penwell said. “We're also showing off Montana, and there's no better time to do it than to celebrate America's 250th. This is going to be the largest celebration of America's 250th in the state of Montana, and we're incredibly proud to have brought that here.”

Navy Week

This is only the second time Navy Week will be hosted in Montana since the Navy Office of Community Outreach was established in 2005, according to Lt. Winslow Blow.

The first time was August 2017, when the Navy hosted events across multiple Montana communities, including Billings, Bozeman and Helena, for Montana Navy Week. 

This August is the first Navy Week hosted exclusively by the city of Billings. As the Navy’s major outreach event to communities throughout the country, sailors have been hosting various educational events and musical performances around town. Three sailors from Billings are here this week, plus three others from around the state. 

The Gazette caught up with a few sailors after their ceremonial guard performance in front of the Western Heritage Center on Tuesday.

Navy Drill Team member Airman Momodou Ndong’s favorite part of these outreach events are “all the connections you make with people," he said.

“We did a performance for the YMCA kids, and it was awesome. They were so intrigued by everything that we were doing," Ndong said. “I feel like I'm doing my part because it's just a great feeling all around.”

His Navy Drill Team member Fireman Yadrian Quinones also sees the value in these outreach events.

“I think it’s important because … I think people get to see what we actually do, get to ask us about everything that goes on and I just think it's a good community experience," Quinones said.

Banana Ball

The effort to bring the Banana Ball world tour through Billings started “at least two years ago,” Eggart said, as part of Visit Billings’ long-game recruitment strategy.

Banana Ball, started by the Savannah Bananas team, is a new high-entertainment version of classic baseball, where twerking is accepted and choreographed dancing is a norm.   

But when Savannah Banana games started selling out major MLB stadiums, leadership at Visit Billings knew it would be a hard event to catch.

“We just kind of kept pinging them” and staying in contact, so Billings would remain on their radar, Eggart said.

It was a fateful follow-up email in January 2025 that turned wishful thinking into an actual chance. The Banana Ball team recognized their persistence, Eggart said. In May of last year, they found out Billings was being seriously considered. And once Dehler Park and the Mustangs leadership were on board, the dates were set.

There were real financial and logistical risks, Eggart said, but Dehler Park “was incredibly receptive” and agreed to partner up for the event. Visit Billings’ board agreed to share in the costs. Booking Banana Ball in Billings wasn’t a one-off lucky reservation. It was the result of two-plus years of relationship-building.

Dehler Park in Billings will be the smallest stadium to host a Banana Ball league game.

The timing of the event — landing on the very same weekend as the Yellowstone International Air Show — did not happen by choice, Eggart said, but it will make for an eventful and impactful weekend.  

“It makes for an incredibly energetic weekend. It’s incredibly exciting,” Eggart said. “This is a high-caliber weekend for Billings. And it also puts us on the map as a community that does punch above our weight class. We are a small city that can execute big city events, and that's pretty exciting too.”