By the late 1950s, the convention had outgrown Milwaukee and moved to Rockford, Illinois, where it remained for eleven formative years. In 1970, aviation legend Steve Wittman suggested Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, and the event found its permanent home. Attendance climbed into six figures through the 1970s and 1980s, and by 2024, the event drew approximately 686,000 visitors with more than 10,000 aircraft arriving on the field. The special flight procedures NOTAM runs to dozens of pages; the control tower becomes the busiest in the world for one week each year. Oshkosh is not merely an airshow. It is a pilgrimage, a reunion, and a living testament to the idea that ordinary people can build wings in their garages and fly them to the greatest aviation gathering on the planet.