Empty seats as Air Force limits AFA attendance, in line with ‘spirit’ of DOGE orders

Sparse attendance at AFA’s Warfare Symposium following a Trump executive order. (Michael Marrow / Breaking Defense)

AFA WARFARE 2025 — The Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) Warfare Symposium held each spring is typically a packed affair, as thousands of airmen and Guardians crowd the halls of the three-day event standing shoulder-to-shoulder with industry and other attendees.

But this year’s conference, held on the outskirts of Denver, Colo., at the Gaylord Hotel in Aurora, is a stark departure from past iterations. The halls are largely empty compared to years’ past, as orders from above have barred many members of the Department of the Air Force (DAF), which includes the Air Force and Space Force, from showing up.

Perhaps the clearest example of a drop in attendance came during keynote addresses from Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, where a number of audience members gathered near the stage but dozens of other chairs were noticeably empty. Most years when either top officer speak at this conference, it’s a standing-room-only event.

A full house for a panel at AFA’s 2024 Warfare Symposium. (AFA Flickr)

While a representative for AFA did not respond to Breaking Defense’s request for attendance figures, the relatively empty conference rooms and hallways were accompanied by other, smaller indications of a drop in visitors. For example, it’s often hard to establish cell signal due to the sheer number of other phones in the vicinity. This year, that’s not a problem.

The DAF recently made the decision to limit attendance “to comply with the spirit of” President Donald Trump’s Feb. 26 executive order that implements the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative spearheaded by Elon Musk, according to a DAF spokesperson. 

“Attendance has been limited to individuals with a direct role in the conference such as speakers, moderators, panel members, award winners and their supervisors, senior leaders with previously scheduled industry engagements, and local participants that attend at no cost,” the spokesperson said, adding that a virtual option is available for other registrees. 

AFA is the first large trade show held since the Feb. 26 order, and could raise questions about how future industry events may go. Vendors pay a hefty price to host booths in an exhibition hall that can serve as a meeting place for government customers and other officials — a primary driver of corporate attendance. If the severe drop in foot traffic here is a window into the future, it’s not clear how industry may be prompted to change its approach, particularly if fellow military services make similar moves to scale back their presence at major conferences.

One industry source told Breaking Defense that they had seen roughly a 10 percent drop in meetings with senior service leadership following the Feb. 26 order. However, they said other senior leader engagements are largely continuing as planned, meaning there’s still value for companies in showing up.

“We don’t have this kind of interaction” except at shows like AFA, “so it’s very good from a company to really feel the pulse where the whole Air Force organization is headed and how we can support them,” the official said, who was granted anonymity to share internal planning details. “So if that went away, yeah, that would be bad.”

Another consideration, the source said, is that young airmen and Guardians who operate industry equipment may not have as many opportunities to interact and share feedback with suppliers.

Whether the Pentagon’s pullback from the AFA show should be taken as an omen may be too soon to tell, some industry sources said, particularly as Trump administration initiatives change by the day.

“I think the question is whether this is a temporary thing, or whether it becomes permanent,” a second industry official told Breaking Defense from the show floor.