Volume 1, No. 5. April 6, 2001
Volume
1, No. 5. April 6, 2001
Virus alert
If you have animals as part of your attraction, you need to stop here a moment.
You are probably aware of the foot-and-mouth virus that has shut down parks and zoos in Europe, and you have heard that this highly contagious disease has agriculture officials around the world on high alert. Even if you don’t import animals, or you think your visitors don’t come further afield than surrounding counties, you still need to understand this disease and the devastation it has already wrought. You also must be prepared to take precautions to save the stock of your own facility.
Take a moment to visit
the following web sites and bookmark them. They are the official word on the
disease with further links for your own country.
The
United Nations’ Foot and Mouth Disease Home Page
The U.S. Department of Agriculture web site
The U.K. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The ultimate takedown
Mick Foley was, frankly, getting a little fed up with his fans. The World Wrestling Federation superstar, who once wrestled under the monikers Mankind and Cactus Jack, would inevitably get in a roller coaster queue and be confronted by WWF aficionados. "These days they are everywhere," Foley said. "In a line they can be frustrating, a buzz killer. They always want to ask me about some match. I’m tired of talking about wrestling. Better to get me into a discussion about books and amusement parks."
Next Wednesday Foley will get to talk as much as he likes about his coaster "obsession" as the official celebrity guest for the opening of the Bolliger & Mabillard coaster Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey. Foley landed the gig when he called the park asking if he could ride the coasters without standing in line. "A movie star can put on a pair of sunglasses and not be recognized. I can’t do that."
Not that Foley bemoans his fame. The 35-year-old former wrestler, now serving as a WWF Commissioner, has used wrestling tours as an opportunity to visit amusement parks with fellow wrestler Al Snow. "Instead of looking at our travel schedule as being grinding we looked at it as a way to ride as many roller coasters as possible." Foley, father of two children ages 9 and 7, at first hesitated to hit the parks. "I had the feeling that going to amusement parks without my kids was kind of like cheating on my family. It wasn’t until three years ago I realized there were worse things a guy could be doing on the road." He has now visited 36 parks - 26 of those with his daughter - and ridden 60 coasters.
On May 8 his second book is due to hit bookstores (his first, Have A Nice Day, released in 1999, made the New York Times Bestseller List) and he plans to schedule a book signing tour to correspond with park visits. He also wants to get a guest refereeing job in Japan so he can ride the coasters in that country, which in the past he could only gaze longingly at through the windows of WWF touring buses.
So, is there any relation between wrestling and coastering? "In the wrestling business we like to think of a really good match as taking the fans on a roller coaster ride," Foley said. "You’re looking for little peaks and drops, and ultimately you want the big peak followed by the big drop that creates an ‘Oooh! Ahhhh!’ from the crowd. And, like any good coaster ride, no two wrestling matches are alike."
Emulating a sibling’s success
Snails on a stick are a far cry from ham and beans with cornbread. However, that’s among the menu choices this month as the most topical of theme parks, Dollywood, opens its season Saturday by staging its first-ever Festival of Nations, a monthlong schedule of international-flavored shows, crafts, and dining experiences.
Though park namesake Dolly Parton herself has global appeal, the logistics of hosting more than 400 performers from 15 countries at the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, theme park required help. "They’re here for a month, and we’re closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Easter Sunday," said Pete Owens, public relations manager for Dollywood. "We’re getting them here, giving them a place to stay, getting them back and forth to the park, feeding them - it’s a pretty huge undertaking."
Dollywood had some corporate knowledge to bank on; sister park Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, has successfully staged Worldfest for eight years. Dollywood, in fact, used Silver Dollar City’s Rex Burdette to help select and book some of the acts, including folk musical and dance groups from Ireland, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Puerto Rico, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Ecuador, and Kenya.
"We wanted to cover the whole globe, and we have a group from every continent, except Antarctica," Owens said.
But it was the acts of locals that proved more vital. "One of the things we wanted to do on the front end was get the community involved," Owens said. Parton initially announced the proposed festival to a group of invited VIPs from throughout Sevier County. The park then set up a task force that included tourism officials, restaurateurs, hoteliers, campground owners and retailers. As a result, hotels have offered reduced-rate rooms for the performers and restaurants are catering meals at group rates. Several attractions have booked the groups to perform when the park is closed, including Country Tonite Theatre, Ober Gatlinburg, Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies, and the Tennessee Smokies minor league baseball club.
As a litmus test for some of the "potential cultural gray areas" that could crop up, Owens said, Dollywood last year hired a group of Russian exchange students to work at the park. "That really offered us an opportunity to do a case study on a smaller scale so we could think of things ahead of time for the festival."
Meanwhile, Dollywood’s vaunted food staff grappled with the prospect of serving Irish chicken and dumplings, sauerfruhstuck and hachrippe, red pea soup, baklava, fried alligator, and Italian Wedding Soup alongside the park’s own down-home-cookin’ cuisine. "Our food teams had to find raw materials for all these foods," Owens said.
The staff became food testers beginning last fall. "I must have had six or seven different kinds of dirty rice and plantains," Owens recalled. "Our food guys said, ‘You guys just eat it, and we’ll tell you what it is afterwards.’ One of the best things I tasted was a skewer of snails and mushrooms. It was absolutely awesome. After we ate it they told us it was snails and mushrooms, and you heard groans. But it’s on the menu. We said, ‘if that’s snails, that’s really great, let’s do it.’"
Sinking into a new concept
I’ve not seen this thing in person, so I may not explain it adequately, which is one indicator of its potential role as an industry revolution.
It is called Oceania, an immersive attraction that combines simulators, computer graphics, virtual reality and 3-D over the course of nine different rooms in a 40-minute walk-through show. The attraction opened last month in the Metaforia Entertainment Center in downtown Montreal, Canada, and its developer, Metaforia Divertissements Inc based in Montreal, has an agreement in principle to install one in the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
"I strongly believe it’s the next generation of entertainment," said Stephane Le Bouyonnec, president and CEO of Metaforia, who describes its fit as a mix between the theme park, cinema, and video games. But, he stresses, it’s immersive, not interactive. "There’s still a lot of people who like to just sit and enjoy something."
Oceania moves groups of 40 people through every six minutes, allowing up to eight groups traversing the program at any one time. Guests wear "uniforms" comprising vests and attached headsets on which they hear the synchronized soundtrack. The latter is a key aspect of the concept because the show is broadcast over 32 different frequencies. With eight groups at any one time, the show could be broadcast in four different languages simultaneously. True to its multi-lingual home, the Montreal Metaforia plays Oceania in French and English.
The story line takes guests to a 15,000-year-old underwater city. They ride a SimEx motion platform to Oceania’s laboratories, then walk through several sets containing electronic props like revolving platforms and automatic doors, special physical effects like smoke and fire, lighting effects from 700 different lamps, and visual effects like "paper ghosts" (a la Disney’s Haunted Mansion), Le Bouyonnec said. One room puts guests into virtual subs where they watch their journey through periscopes and feel the effects in the seats. Stereoscopic screens feature a continuum of characters, including "Kami" a cute hybrid of a seal, dinosaur, otter, elephant and dolphin that has a potential merchandising aftermarket. More than 300 suppliers were involved in OceaniaÕs development, La Bouyonnec said.
Le Bouyonnec first developed the Oceania concept for Portugal Telecom’s exhibit at the Lisbon World’s Fair in 1998. The $20 million Canadian (US$13 million) attraction processed 5,000 people a day for a total of 600,000 people over four months. The Canadian version cost $36 million Canadian (US$23 million), including $9 million for refurbishing a 1920s theater and $12 million for the movie’s production costs. Metaforia also contains two bars, a restaurant, a kid’s playroom, climbing wall and an arcade containing 65 nonviolent games, including a networked Oceania submarine race.
The Montreal Oceania is charging a top price of $20 Canadian ($30 in combination with other Metaforia attractions), and Le Bouyonnec said supplementing the show with the other activities is meant to extend family stays to two hours or more. Aside from opening his first Metaforia close to company headquarters, Le Bouyonnec chose Montreal as a suitable test site due to the demographics of a 3 million metropolitan population and an average tourism market. "If I put it in Vegas, I’m not proving anything."
The primary point Metaforia
has to prove is whether Oceania will generate repeat visits. Theme parks,
movies, and arcade games do, so why wouldn’t a hybrid of all three? So
far, La Bouyonnec is seeing the immersive element draw guests back in. "It’s
amazing that people are going back a third or fourth time and seeing something
new each time because it’s more challenging than a movie. You’re involved."
To visit Oceania on line, go to www.metaforia.com.
Diva Loca
Eric Eimstad, who has served the past eight years as director of marketing at Parrot Jungle and Gardens in Miami, Florida, is returning at the end of this month to his old haunts at the Miami Seaquarium, where he will be vice president of sales and marketing. This will be Eimstad’s third stint at the Seaquarium. He worked as a dolphin and killer whale trainer from 1976 to 1982, then, after earning a master’s in business, he returned as marketing director from 1986 to 1993 before moving to Parrot Jungle.
Though he recalls a couple of bossy whales during his training days, one of his most trying relationships with an animal has been with Tina, a 58-year-old white cockatoo at Parrot Jungle. The bird has done New York (the 1964 World’s Fair) and TV talk shows and now headlines the Trained Bird Show at Parrot Jungle. The bird is a bona fide star.
Eimstad, however, has always been partial to a younger cockatoo, Pinky. "He and I are buds," Eimstad said, noting that he and Tina never got along well (though she enjoys the company of her female trainers). Whenever Eimstad guided a group through the park’s exhibits, he called on Pinky to meet the press.
On one travel writers’ fam tour, Tina had tired of the snub. As Eimstad showed off Pinky, Tina jumped 12 feet down from her perch, charged Eimstad and grabbed hold of his shoe. "She would not let go," Eimstad said.
Though surprised by the attack on his pride and footwear, Eimstad stayed calm and awaited help from a trainer. His own experience as a trainer and now 15 years doing public relations obviously helps him maintain his composure when at the receiving end of hissy fit by a diva. And you can bet Tina will be among the first to bid Eimstad adieu.
New Arrivals
It’s a junior coaster!
Paramount’s Kings Island near Cincinnati, Ohio, announces the arrival of the Rugrats Runaway Reptar, April 4, 2001 (1,129 feet long, 52 feet high, 25 mph fast). Delivered by Vekoma International.
Sure, it is a prototype: the world’s first inverted junior coaster. But the technology is so tried and true that when Reptar made its first test run, it did so during a snowfall. "And it ran without a hitch," said Kings Island General Manager Tim Fisher. "That was an omen, my friend! I felt good about that, and we have a good feeling about this year."
Especially when the media introduction to the ride Wednesday came on a splendid spring day. Nick Cannon from Nickelodeon’s SNICK House and Maralyn "Mad Dog" Hershey, an early exited contestant from Survivor II: The Australian Outback, along with more than 60 Boy and Girl Scouts helped cut the ribbon on Reptar and the park’s old flume ride, re-themed as The Wild Thornberrys River Adventure. The two rides, along with a Blue’s Clues meet-and-greet station, comprise a new Nickelodeon Central area, which replaces the Splat City attraction.
Though the park highlighted the Thornberrys River Adventure in the opening ceremony, with Hershey, Donnie Thornberry, and two scouts taking the first waterfall, it was Reptar’s first public runs which gave the day it’s distinction. Kings Island now boasts itself as the kiddie coaster capital of the world with four sub-adult tracks; notably, Reptar is the park’s first true inverted coaster on any level.
On its initial runs, in which Reptar showed unexpected giddyap winding through its multi-level helixes, the new coaster appealed to fans both junior and adult, including Cannon. The teen star has been riding coasters "since I was, like, 5," and counts visiting amusement parks as one of the highlights of his touring. Of Reptar, he said, "It was short, but definitely cool."
It’s a wetlands exhibit!
The Jacksonville Zoo in Jacksonville, Florida, announces the arrival of Wild Florida, March 30, 2001 (2.5 acres, 60 species, 140 animals, a reptile house, alligator feeding area, and entry pavilion). Delivered by Powers and Merritt.
The Jacksonville Zoo called on state pride to celebrate the opening of its latest $1.6 million refurb, which surrounds a natural wetland with such native species as black bears, otters, red wolves, bald eagles, bobcats, owl, deer, and panthers. Festivities began Friday evening with a ribbon-cutting dinner for the exhibit’s 25 donors, who did the honors with the scissors.
Over the weekend the public was treated to live bands that were themselves somehow "native" to Florida: bluegrass, steel drums, ’50s music, and "a band that played just about everything," said Angie Lindsey, the zoo’s marketing and communications manager. Sunday was mascot day featuring the University of Florida gators Albert and Alberta, the University of North Florida’s Ozzie the Osprey, the local minor league baseball team’s Southpaw, and the local WB TV affiliate’s Michigan J. Frog. And, of course, the real animals were given the spotlight in special interpretive programs for the public.
It’s a bobsled!
Parc Asterix in Plailly, France, announces the arrival of La Trace du Hourra, March 31, 2001 (850 meters long, 31 meters high, 55 kmh, six trains carrying 14 people in seven cars). Delivered by Mack.
Foul weather dampened attendance to only about 2,000 people on Opening Day, but the majority of those headed straight for the cartoon-themed park’s newest "discovery." "It was funny to see everybody running right away to La Trace," said Nathalie Amelon, assistant public relations manager. Attendance quadrupled in the more summery weather of Sunday, she said, and the new ride continued as the most popular draw.
Translated into English as "The Hourra Route," the ride is themed as a newly discovered prehistoric grotto with cave drawings showing a tribe’s initiation ritual of riding down a crazy slide while shouting "hourra." Mack’s bobsled technology provides the means for the modern rite of passage, and the shouting transcends time.
It’s a virtual line!
Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta, Georgia, announces the arrival of the Lo-Q Virtual Queuing System, March 24, 2001 (about 60 "Q-Bots" for five rides). Delivered by Lo-Q Plc.
To introduce its new virtual queuing system, which will cost $5 per person to rent once the program is fully implemented on many more rides, Six Flags Over Georgia offered vouchers in its season pass handbook on opening weekend. "We planned to give away 50, but we had a great response and ended up giving away 60," said Marci Tanner, the park’s public relations manager.
The system, which features a pager-size device that reserves the guests’ place in line and then tells the guests when their time to ride is coming up, also generated good feedback among users, Tanner said. "Some said it was the greatest technology they’d seen and it was the best thing that happened to them in a theme park." One of the unique attributes of this system was also duly noted: people could get in virtual lines more than once on a single ride.
For a full report on the Lo-Q system and the trend toward virtual queuing, see the current issue of Amusement Today.
It’s a whole nursery of rides!
Paramount’s Great America in Santa Clara, California, announces the arrivals March 23, 2001, of Psycho Mouse (a wild mouse 1,257 feet long, 50 feet high) delivered by Arrow Dynamics; Celebration Swings (a wave swinger 41 feet high, 70-foot diameter) delivered by Zierer/Offenburg; and Thunder Raceway (30 go-karts and 900 feet of track) delivered by H3 Entertainment and J&J Amusements.
Though launching the season with a slew of new family-oriented rides, the primary objet d’attention on opening weekend was undoubtedly the Psycho Mouse. The park’s VIP and media invitations included mousetraps. The 600 guests who showed up for the Friday evening special opening had to follow a maze of cheese signs to get to the stage, which contained an oversize spool of thread, pencil, and toys as they would be viewed from the perspective of a mouse. For the official ride opening, park General Manager Gayle Ando, Paramount Parks COO Al Weber, Arrow Dynamics CEO Fred Bolingbroke, and co-owner of H3 Entertainment Shane Huish set off a giant mousetrap with an oversized toothbrush. After an evening of riding, guests received a parting gift of a mousepad.
The big gift for the park itself came with the long lines that formed for Psycho Mouse during Saturday’s public opening. "We knew the ride would be popular with children and parents," said Timothy Chanaud, manager of communications, "but what we’re seeing is it is very popular with teens and the thrill seekers, including ACErs (American Coaster Enthusiasts). They were uniformly excited about the ride."
It’s twin animal interactions!
Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California, announces the arrival of Dolphin Discovery and Sunset Safari, March 17, 2001.
It’s hard to tell who gets more excited by the interaction: the public patrons who get up close and personal with the dolphins, or Merlin and Bayou who get to strut their stuff to a new group of "trainers."
Six Flags Marine World’s new dolphin interaction program opened the season with strong participation and positive feedback. Up to 20 people can reserve space for the two-hour morning programs on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and between the public announcement of the program in December and opening day more than 350 spaces had been filled, including a sold-out opening weekend. The $99.99 price tag includes an hour of classroom instruction and dressing in a wet suit for in-pool interaction with Merlin and Bayou. Admission to the park is also included.
Sunset Safari provides an exclusive animal interaction program with the park’s land animals for up to 20 guests at a cost of $9.99 each. Depending on availability, guests can pet a penguin, porcupine, elephant, and giraffe, tour the veterinary clinic, and visit with tigers. The tour attracted only two comers on opening Saturday, but every day since it has sold out, said Jeff Jouett, public relations manager.
"We’ve always had people ask us if they can have their picture taken with the penguin, or if they can be the one person chosen out of every wildlife theater show to pet the porcupine," Jouett said. "We knew if we could do this with a small group and slight up-charge, we’d have a winner on our hands."
©2001, Minton Enterprises LLC
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