Surely the only reason for doing a display is to attract the public visitor, which is precisely what the organisers are aiming to avoid. Yes, sure, I don't *need* to watch it, but if they intentionally put on a flying display, the anoraks would crawl out of the woodwork and they don't bring business to anyone! Then again, the visitors they are aiming at ("the trade") see helicopters every day in the course of their jobs and it could be argued they don't *need* displays either. (OK, I'm being a bit provocative there!). This is of course all supposition - we haven't got an answer from the organisers and it could have been the CAA who said "no". Surely not!
Demo flights - maybe I self-tripped there. Yes, they can be useful, and I agree with Heliport that the two companies who did a lot of flying are the ones also doing lots of selling. But did the sales come first to fund the flying?
And how many of the pax were just there for the ride and not genuine "potential customers"?