By ANN Correspondent Rob Milford
John Cudahy, President
of the International Council of Air Shows, is relaxed, smiling, and
for the first time in a week, NOT running to another meeting while
talking on a cell phone.
It is the end of the ICAS convention in Dallas. All around him,
the staff is packing up, getting things shipped back to
headquarters in Virginia. He’s in jeans and a non-airshow
t-shirt. (That’s a surprise), bears a strong resemblance to
an actor on “ER” (NOT George Clooney) and he takes 15
minutes to sit down with ANN and recap the show.
Aero-News: Best part of the convention?
John Cudahy-ICAS: I would say there was a
definite increase in the business orientation…with both
performers and organizers treating this as a business, rather than
a hobby masquerading as a business. That’s encouraging for
the future of the business.
Aero-News: It was a pretty busy
week…
John
Cudahy-ICAS: It was…1532 people here, the third
biggest ICAS convention ever. A lot of meetings, a lot of
activities, a lot of learning, and a lot of business being
conducted. The show floor was as busy as I’ve ever seen
it. Clear indications from almost all the exhibitors that there
were fewer tire kickers, more buyers, and that, of course, is good
for business.
Aero-News: Rate the quality of the show:
John Cudahy-ICAS: On a scale of 1 to 10, in the
exhibit hall, a good strong 8.5. In the seminars, about the same,
and overall, a 7.5 or 8. Room for improvement, but very good.
Aero-News: The National Sponsorship. There was
the buzz, but you really couldn’t put a name or names on
it:
John Cudahy-ICAS: The legal department is still
going over the contracts, and we were hoping to be able to present
the sponsors and have a major impact at the show. As it is, we will
have an announcement by the end of the year and it will
fundamentally change the business, and launch the national
sponsorship program we have talked about all this week.
Aero-News: It’s said this will be
beneficial to the entire industry, performers and show organizers.
Does this mean we’ve been underpaid all these years?
John Cudahy-ICAS: If you run your air
show as a business, you would like to be paid more. That’s
fundamental. We think airshows can deliver value to corporate
sponsors. We’re going to take the lead and hook the right
sponsors to the right events. We’re going to try to raise the
bar a bit on visibility and stature of airshows to corporate
America.
Aero-News: So, airshows have been an
underutilized or untapped resources when it comes to moving a
product?
John Cudahy-ICAS: It’s been a fairly
decentralized business. For example, the people who run the airshow
in Oklahoma City have no business dealings with shows in Cleveland,
Salinas and Fort Lauderdale. So it’s been difficult for them
to approach national sponsors as a group. That’s where ICAS
comes in. We’re gonna form consortiums and attract the
national sponsors, that will bring more money to the event.
Aero-News: And we will see the impact in
2004, right?
John Cudahy-ICAS: You bet. We’ll have at
least one program to start the season, and more added as spring
comes on.
Aero-News: With what you know of the
project, and the sponsorship, how will the airfield look
differently on Saturday morning?
John
Cudahy-ICAS: You will see a more corporate sponsorship
look. The same presence and message at 10 or 20 airshows across the
country. Take Budweiser and their NASCAR sponsorship. It’s
consistent from one race to the next, and that consistency delivers
a product that is larger than the sum of it’s individual
parts. These are not individual deals, this is a relationship in a
more organized and integrated program.
Aero-News: Any acts on the floor that
just jumped out at you this year?
John Cudahy-ICAS: All our members do a
wonderful job… they have worked up to this level, and they
are the best of the best. The flying they do identifies them among
the elite in aviation. Sean Tucker, Patty Wagstaff, Jim LeRoy, Jim
Franklin, Mike Goulian, Matt Chapman, Greg Poe and a number of
others who perform well one year to the next, dependable,
professional, safe and very good at what they do.
This year, we saw a couple of interesting developments, Les
Shockley will be with us, not just in a jet powered truck, but in a
jet powered Long-EZ*. Roger Bias and John Moore are coming back
with a helicopter to plane transfer act… that hasn’t
been around in a while. The X-team is a very exciting, high
intensity, old fashioned barnstorming act, lots smoke and noise.
It’s the hottest thing in the airshow business right now.
- *ANN checked with Les Shockley, who says he started with a
Long-EZ airfoil, highly modified, stressed for 32G’s (or
more), The capsule is a custom design, and powered by two
T-58’s with afterburners. The aircraft weighs 1,200 pounds,
with 3,000 pounds of thrust. First flight set for March.
Aero-News: There was a closed door
“Industry Leaders Meeting”...what got discussed?
John Cudahy-ICAS: There are a number of issues
that face the industry every year, but this year, we had a
potentially tragic Pyro event. It did work out, but it was a
wake-up call to make sure that everyone knows what’s going
on, where it’s going on, and that everyone’s properly
briefed.
From the ICAS perspective, a big problem is attendance figures,
we can’t get our arms around the problem…which hits
basic credibility, especially with the new sponsorship program. So
when it comes to numbers, no more wink and nod about exaggerated
attendance figures…we hope to fundamentally change that. We
want to create a paradigm shift, basic honesty, and the business of
taking an estimate and then doubling it won’t work anymore.
With the national sponsorship, we need to have accurate numbers,
and ICAS is in the process to quantify, verify and then publicize
the numbers that the Airshows can use to promote to the public, and
to help their sales.
Aero-News: How did we do on safety this
year?
John
Cudahy-ICAS: Pretty well. One fatality, a couple of
non-fatal accidents, and in the challenging world of airshow
flying, that constitutes a good year. We want a good year to
constitute no fatal accidents…no accidents at all.
The Aerobatic Competency Evaluation program that we’ve
been running for the last 13 years has been a marvelous thing. The
pilots work with each other, the self-evaluation program.
It’s self -regulation, and it’s reduced accidents on
the order of 70 percent from one year to the next. People not in
the business would see that as fewer CNN stories on an airshow
crash.
Aero-News: Some attendees not real happy with
the hotel here… prices and what they called “not user
friendly”.
John Cudahy-ICAS: It’s a fundamental
function of the convention industry. This one certainly measures
up. You can’t always get it right, but you get input from the
members, and try to make it better every year. We had more social
activities, a daily newsletter, and we’ve never had that
before. We wanted to make it more useful and effective. And the
real bottom line…did this convention help our members
conduct business, and the answer to that is, absolutely yes.
We’re back in ‘Vegas next year, and 2006, 2008 and
Orlando in 2005 and 2007.
Aero-News: Some other things our ANN Readers
should know?
John Cudahy-ICAS: All 3 jet demonstration teams
announced their schedules on Monday morning…for the 5th year
in a row. This is significant, and changes the nature of the
convention, and is a very big deal. It allows airshows make
decisions to hire acts, and the military is recognizing how
important this is for their efforts, and they see how ICAS allows
them to get their message right to the promoters. We had both US
Military jet teams, Five military parachute teams, east and west
coast demo teams for the fighters, plus the T-6 demo, the Army, the
Air Force Reserve both had big displays.
Aero-News: And the headline we take from this
show?
John Cudahy-ICAS: The ICAS efforts when it
comes to the sponsorship developments out of meeting will mean a
long lasting, fundamental change in our industry. The announcement
is coming soon.