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T
he Carolina Panthers and New
England Patriots had an entire
season to prepare for Super Bowl
XXXVIII. Not so the folks at SkyDancers
International. The Brothers Austin got the
call a mere three weeks prior to kickoff.
Could they provide dancing inflatables for
the field? Chris and Joe Austin of
SkyDancers International not only could,
but would!
Joe Zenas, show director for Bob Best
Productions, contracted SkyDancers to provide five custom red, silver and blue
metallic dancing tubes. The tubes were
designed with small wings on the tube edge.
The short notice brought with it some
challenges. Said Vice President of
Marketing Joe Austin, "To locate the
custom material for the dancing tubes, we
searched more than 20 fabric suppliers
all over California before selecting the
final design."
The time constraints also required that
the final design tubes be hand carried
on the airplane. "We brought three
employees from the L.A. area, one of our
dealers from Mexico, one dealer from
Louisiana and four assistants from the
Houston area."
Just a handful of companies likely
would have been up to the Super Bowl
challenge, but Chris Austin is a veteran of
the inflatable industry. Chris's father,
Drake Diamond, owned Tubeworks,
which is where Chris learned the inflatable
business and rose to the position of president. When Drake retired and closed
Tubeworks, Chris and brother, Joe, opened
SkyDancers International.
Chris also serves as the president of
SkyDancers. He oversees operations and
design, works with key clients and defines
the overall direction of the company.
Director of Sales Larry Reeves and
Operations Manager Dave Bellows join
Chris and Joe.
Like Tubeworks, SkyDancers' core
business is the creation and development
of dancing inflatables. All of the promotional or decorative inflatables manufactured by SkyDancers have an element of
motion included. The company builds no
static vinyl inflatables, but rather focuses
on large-scale animated inflatable displays.
SkyDancers' target market is businesses looking to increase sales and attract
attention with SkyDancers inflatable tubes
or event producers looking to add a unique
design element to their production.
Perhaps the most startling news from
that fateful Sunday was that the
Patriots/Panthers matchup actually was
the second bowl game of the day for which
SkyDancers supplied dancing inflatables.
That's right. The Austins provided their
new Reality SkyDancers for the first ever
Lingerie Bowl.
The Lingerie Bowl billed itself as an
alternative to the Super Bowl's traditional
halftime extravaganza. The pay-per-view
Lingerie Bowl featured 26 of the most
beautiful, athletic and fiercely competitive
models in a seven-on-seven, full-contact
"tackle" football game, played entirely in
lingerie. The two teams, Team Dream and
Team Euphoria, were quarterbacked by
models/actresses Angie Everhart and
Nikki Ziering, who also lent their famous
faces to the custom cheerleader inflatables
provided by SkyDancers. Quarterback
Nikki Ziering's face was placed onto her
"Team Dream" inflatable and Quarterback
Angie Everhart's face was placed onto the
"Team Euphoria" inflatable. Both
inflatables danced throughout the event.
While the Patriots beat the Panthers in
February at Houston, the SkyDancers
team scored a goal of its own with its
signature dancing inflatables at two big
bowl games!
iN
What are Reality SkyDancers?
Reality SkyDancers are dancing inflatables with realistic faces built directly onto the character. To have any face imprinted onto a
SkyDancer, the customer simply provides a color photograph of the face to be scanned. SkyDancer artists then create a mirror image
imprint for placement onto the selected SkyDancer model.
For a quote based on the size of the requested inflatable and the model (two-legged, single-legged, etc.), contact SkyDancers
International at (818) 701-5259.
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www. INFLATABLE NEWS .com June/July 2004