I would rather take my chances flying into wind at 1/2 throttle, than to fly downwind toward the crowd with no throttle, it would have been impossible to compromise and come in from the side or walk out onto runway since my partner was flying to my left at the same time. I guess I should have just skipped the hovering routine.

this is exactly what the cd was thinking, but if you have ever had a down wind dead stick landing you will understand that if a plane is flying toward the crowd with no throttle and 20mph tail wind, and engine sudenly quits - you will have no control to turn the plane - it will land very fast half way up into crowd. if this happens with the plane facing away from crowd and into the wind, it will drop straight down onto grass - scary but nobody gets hurt.