Orleans Hotel, Las Vegas
Fan Day 2000

-- Orleans Hotel, Las Vegas --
To celebrate Air Supply's 25th Anniversary, over 100 fans gathered at the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for the Memorial Day weekend concert series and Fan Day. This year's Fan Day, again put together by Karen Foster and Debbi Halverson proved to be an even bigger success than last year, exceeding the number of fans in attendence and raising more money to be donated to the Children's Miracle Network. A round of applause to Karen and everyone that worked on making this event a fun time for the fans as well as the band and their families. THANK YOU!!

Fan Day began around 11:00am as fans gathered in the halls outside of the convention room. Walking through the crowd, taking pictures, I got the chance to stop and chat with quite a few familiar faces and a lot of new ones too. Air Supply fans came from all over the world to help the band celebrate it's 25 years in music. It was unbelieveable to see the number of fans from places like Germany(Andera & Josef), Japan, Argentina and Canada. It just goes to show how dedicated Air Supply fans can be.

Once everyone was settled with t-shirts and photographs in hand, Fan Day began. Up first, a drawing for door prizes. Many items were donated by fans as well as Barry Siegel and personal items from each member of the band. Among the items given away were:

Air Supply promo CD singles of "Without You" and "Someone", Ultimate Collection CDs, promo posters, professional photos of the band, Christmas and Greatest Hits CDs, an Air Supply baseball cap, picture sleeves from old 45's, and Fan Day keychains Items donated by the band include a package from Mark Williams that included a drum head, drum sticks, and one of his CD's, tour shirts from both Jed and Cliff, an Indian style leather jacket from Russell and several shirts from Graham.

After the prizes were all handed out, Karen began by telling us a story of a young man in Georgia that had been beaten outside of a rollerskating rink. He had been kicked in the head numerous times and was left for dead. Thanks to the Childrens Miracle Network and their assistance given to the family, this young man got the help and therapy he needed to survive. As of this writing, the total raised at this years Fan Day is near $3000.00. Our goal was to reach over $2500 in honor of Air Supply's 25th Anniversary. Because of the fans and their generous donations you can see not only was that goal met but greatly exceeded.

Karen thanked all who helped her in putting this years Fan Day together and then introduced the band. Once the band was seated, awards were presented to both Graham and Russell for their devotion to producing the beautiful words and music we all love to hear. The awards as you can see from the picture were glass etchings held in a marble base. These beautiful awards were donated by a couple who wish to remain anonymous. Star awards were also presented to Cliff, Mark and Jed for their hard work and many creative contributions made to Air Supply and their music over the last several years. Graham and Russell also received memory albums that contained Anniversary wishes made by fans from all over the world as well as cross stitched pictures of themselves. And in conclusion, Graham received his quilt that was put together out of squares donated by fans. After all of the awards and gifts were handed out the Question and answer period began.

A lot of questions were asked this year and there are too many to remember them all. One fan asked if they would play "Sunset" in the show that night, and they said they would consider it. They actually did end up playing it at the end of Sunday nights show. One fan asked if it would be possible for them to release a video collection or box set of all of their music and videos and in reply Barry Siegel said, it probably would not happen due to there being more than one record company involved. Another fan asked about their new CD, and although the release date was vague, they did mention another project, a double CD of "The Heart Of The Rose" which they are working on. Mark said that they had about 34 tracks already for that.

In addition to these questions, someone asked if they would consider a private concert for fans at a future fan day and according to Barry, it could possibly be arranged. We'll see!!!!

After the question and answer session, the band stayed to sign autographs and pose for pictures. Then it was off to sound check!! I look forward to next year!

---- Laurie Frank ----