Air show’s finances sputtering

With the inaugural Hayden Air Show revealed to be deep in the red one month after the event, some three dozen creditors are wondering if they will get paid, and aerobatics fans worry the show may have crashed and burned.

The Hayden Chamber of Commerce, which backed Thunder Over the Prairie, lists $238,000 in unpaid bills with only $55,000 in the bank.

It’s hard to say what’s in store, because people with knowledge of the financial issues for the air show have been hard to reach. Messages left on office, cell phone and home answering machines for director Randy Giddings, treasurer Mike Dressen and attorney Freeman Duncan went unreturned Wednesday afternoon.

“I haven’t been able to get ahold of them today, either,” said Dutch White, a former air show pilot who volunteered to put on the flying show, on Wednesday. “I did get one of those letters from the lawyer. They owe me $1,100 for phone bills. I guess I’m going to have to wait and see what’s going on.”

People on the flying end, like White and aerobatics headliner Jacquie Warda, said the show was a good one for an inaugural event. Both hope the show can survive the financial debacle.

“I’ve flown air shows for 26 years,” said White, who thinks the creation of Thunder Over the Prairie was rushed, and that it would have gone better had it not debuted until 2005.

The air show Web site lists 37 sponsors, but White said only a handful actually wrote checks in advance. “The way I understood it, we might have had $30,000 to $35,000 in sponsorships. To me, that’s not enough to put on a $200,000 air show,” he said.

Jonathan Coe of the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce said creating an air show from scratch was an ambitious undertaking, and one that may have benefited from greater incubation time to pitch it to sponsors.

The Coeur d’Alene Chamber crafted a deal to host the Ironman Triathlon in three weeks, Coe said, noting it was a rare occasion because Ironman suddenly needed to find a new home. The triathlon had an existing fan base and had the organization in place to work out logistics in a hurry.

In more typical circumstances, such as creating an air show, “Normally having a year’s lead time is good,” Coe said. “It gives you an opportunity to conceptualize. And you have to sell the concept to potential sponsors to show how you and your business can benefit.

“What they undertook was a major event. Hopefully, it can work out,” Coe said.

Warda said most air shows identify a major corporate sponsor in advance, one that will write a check for six figures to help get a show off the ground.

There appeared to be nothing like that for Thunder Over the Prairie, with two sponsors at $10,000 or more, and a few more at $5,000.

As a long-time performer, White said, “The things you look for are the hype before the show, and are the bills paid before the gates open. You don’t count on the gate receipts.”

Warda said she was troubled during her eight days here that many people she met didn’t know there was an air show scheduled. To be fair, Warda said, she had the same experience at a show in Wisconsin two weeks ago.

White said he was disturbed that the show’s organizers have said they do not have an accurate count of admission or parking receipts a month after the event.

Boosters of the show had predicted it could draw as many as 40,000 spectators as they pitched it to Kootenai County Commissioners when seeking a permit in May. Giddings has told other media that attendance may have ranged from 12,000 to 20,000. Duncan, the Post Falls attorney hired by the Hayden chamber to structure the debt and contact creditors, has said parking receipts indicate about 3,000 cars.

Ticket prices topped out at $10 and parking was $3 a car. Adjusting for discounted tickets and freebies, if the average person paid $9, including parking, attendance would have brought in $108,000 to $180,000 based on the estimates of 12,000 to 20,000 spectators.

“Saturday, it looked like we probably had 20,000 people. Sunday was a little weaker,” White said. “Again, I don’t have an accurate count of what the crowd was. But the chamber had beer sales and I understand during Saturday’s show they ran out of beer twice — and that’s a good thing. In my own mind, the math doesn’t add up.”

“I believe in my heart they can have an air show out here. I believe with marketing, we can have a great air show,” White said. “It’s unfortunate, but a lot of people will probably end up getting hurt with this.”