DANCING ON AIR: TUBEWORKS' CUTTING-EDGE INFLATABLES HAVE `DECORTAINMENT' BUSINESS POPPING.

Byline: Jeremy Bagott Staff Writer

Drake Diamond has been living la vida loca since his company's creation - a giant, dancing, air-filled humanoid - went on the Grammys with Latin singing sensation Ricky Martin.

``I was in Frankfurt, Germany, moving from hotel to hotel,'' said Diamond. ``I was in the Metropolitan Hotel in downtown Frankfurt and realized the hotel's television didn't get the Grammys. So I moved to the Hilton, but by that time it was too late - the show had aired.''

Luckily, his staff taped the awards ceremony, and he was able to watch it on his return.

As chief executive officer and founder of Calabasas-based TubeWorks Inc. and father of the inflatable SkyDancer, Diamond is on the cutting edge of what he believes will be known to posterity as the ``decortainment'' revolution.

Previously, there existed only static, cold-air inflatables: huge, air-filled cans of Budweiser and giant King Kongs atop car dealerships. Since Diamond came on the scene, advertisers and event organizers have been sitting up and taking notice.

``TubeWorks has really forged a new part of the industry over the last couple of years,'' said Bill Welden, president of the Dayton, Ohio-based Inflatable Advertising Dealers Association.

``Cold-air inflatables just sit there. (The active-motion) inflatables are much more attention-getting and exciting,'' said Welden, who saw his first active-motion unit during the closing ceremonies of the '96 Olympics in Atlanta.

``Drake has added a dimension and scale to our productions that was not available to us before,'' said Los Angeles-based choreographer Doug Jack.

Jack has staged the opening and closing ceremonies for the Atlanta and Barcelona Olympics and the halftime shows for the past five Super Bowls. He first used Diamond's SkyDancer in Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego two years ago.

``The scale, the color, the way it choreographs itself is a director's dream,'' said Jack last week while on location in Australia, working on an event for Fox.

Diamond is a former aerospace contract negotiator, who worked for companies like Pratt & Whitney and Litton, and was always fascinated with flight surfaces.

``I wanted to know exactly how air goes over airfoils, what makes things fly. Coming into this business is a reverse of that. It's building an airplane, but inside-out.''

As much as the SkyDancer is a labor of love, it was also developed as a result of market demand.

``My wife started a flower shop that also sold balloon arrangements. One day I saw a magazine about balloon art, which got me started making balloon sculptures for corporate clients.''

But Diamond quickly discovered a major flaw with balloon sculpture: Latex balloons deteriorate.

``Customers asked, Can you make a better balloon? I contacted balloon manufacturers, and they told me they liked the balloons the way they were, so I started playing with plastics myself. I made a plastic balloon that would last for years. Using giant tubes, I did a landscape at Pepperdine, like (something in the style of artist) Christo. I was using giant tubes.

``Then one of my customers asked if I could make the tube fly,'' Diamond said.

So in 1994, he took a 100-foot-long balloon and an aircraft engine, which took three people to lift, and blew life into a crude version of the company's SkyDancer inflatable.

But the work wasn't done.

`` `If you can build it smaller, so it's light enough for a woman to set up, and simple enough to put in the back of a car and take it to a party, you will be a millionaire,' my wife told me, since a lot of women are in the decorating business.''

The prophecy, said Diamond, was right on the mark.

The company's most grandiose - and expensive - creation to date has been a giant Bengal tiger for Idaho State University. With a price tag of $21,000, it took 12 weeks to build - eight weeks longer than current lead time.

``I called Idaho State and said, give me another two weeks, and I'll make his tail dance, so the people sitting behind the tiger will be as entertained as the people in front of it,'' Diamond said.

``We designed him so he can hug a cheerleader, throw a temper tantrum over a call, second-guess the referee and dance to the rhythm of the school song.

``At that level of complexity, it's more about being a puppet master than anything else,'' said Diamond, who flew out to Pocatello, Idaho, to hand-deliver his creation.

Sometimes strange coincidences happen when you make giant, surging monsters.

TubeWorks designed a six-headed adapter to fit atop the SkyDancer system for The Walt Disney Co. about 1-1/2 years ago. The Burbank-based entertainment giant was putting on a ``20,000 Leagues Under the Sea''-themed celebration and needed a giant octopus.

``We ended up having to design one for them,'' Diamond said. ``The day after the event, we had a giant octopus on our hands and no real use for it.

``Then the phone rings, someone from Dubai. `This is going to sound like a silly question,' the caller says. `But I'm opening a theme park here in Dubai. I need an octopus.' ''

``I think we can help you out,'' Diamond told him.

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4 photos

PHOTO (1 -- 2 -- color) Drake Diamond, CEO of TubeWorks Inc. and father of the inflatable SkyDancer, shows off some of the creations made by his Calabasas-based company.

(3) At the TubeWorks plant in Calabasas, technician David Sotomayor assembles one of the fans that blow air into tube sculptures.

(4) Yoko Takimoto sews a fabric tube for a custom-ordered creation being made at the TubeWorks plant in Calabasas.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer