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In
this issue:
(To
go directly to a story, click on a blue keyword below):
George
Mason University establishes new internship program for industry;
A too-giving
Rotary Playland gets back from the Fresno community;
The Florida
Aquarium lets guests dive into SCUBA experience;
Remodeler's
TV show gives Wild Adventure a new-look exposure;
Reality TV makes
a date with Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk;
We welcome a
twirling flat ride to Legoland California, interactive
family attractions to Alton Towers, a Nick Central
and its superstar to Paramount's Great America,
a Super tower to Six Flags Over Texas, and Alaska's
first-ever waterpark with H2Oasis; and,
We tap into
the special perspective of children.
For
a printable version of this column,
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For
back issues of THE LOOP,
click here
For
more information on the facilities and organizations featured in
this newsletter, visit our Connections Page.
click here
Scholarly
pursuits
One
sign of the amusement industry’s growth in numbers and stature
is its growing presence in academia. Newly joining such parks and
recreation tourism programs as those already established at Texas
A&M and Clemson universities is a year-old curriculum at George
Mason University in Manassas, Virginia, that next year will send
its first interns out into the field.
Currently, completion of the program would earn students a Bachelor’s
of Science in Health, Fitness and Recreation Resources with a major
in Tourism and Events Management. “In one year we hope to get
our own degree, so you’d get a BS in Tourism and Events Management,”
said Laura Lawton, an assistant professor in the program. George
Mason has 20 students majoring in Tourism and Events Management
and several others taking courses as minors to their majors in business,
psychology or communications.
In a department with five faculty the degree tract has 22 classes
serving four main streams: resort management, nature-based tourism,
events management and cultural and heritage tourism. Amusement parks
fall under the last, while zoos and aquariums could fit into cultural
and heritage or nature-based tourism.
Before graduating each student majoring in Tourism and Events Management
must undertake a practicum and internship. The practicum entails
150 hours of practical, on-site work over the course of a semester,
usually amounting to 10 hours a week though the employer and student
set the hours. The professor reviews the practicum every two weeks
to ensure the students are getting hands-on, practical work experience.
The practicum is a prerequisite for the internship, which means
that employers taking on an intern will get someone with some amount
of tourism experience. The internships are 400 hours in length and
can be carried out in either the spring, fall or summer semesters.
Internships involve a special project for the student—an opportunity
for the employer to complete a special task that otherwise would
overburden existing staff—a daily activity log the student
tracks, weekly progress reports signed by the employer, and mid-semester
and end-of-semester evaluation reviews by the employer. The internship
also requires an on-site visit by Lawton, who runs the internship
program for George Mason.
Those
on-site visits are something of a perk for the professor. “I
like getting out of the office, and more importantly I like getting
out and meeting the employers.”
Because George Mason’s tourism degree program is one year old,
the first practicums will begin a year from now, and the first interns
should be placed in the summer of 2004. Lawton is looking for parks
and employers who might be interested in taking on a George Mason
intern at that time, including overseas parks. You can reach Lawton
by emailing llawton@gmu.edu.
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The
original serpent has a "new" 1955 coaster to menace at
Fresno's Rotary Playland.
Photo by Eric Minton.
Getting
back
It was a community park that gave so much to its community it almost
lost itself. Now, after a decade of seemingly terminal decay, the
Rotary Playland in Fresno, California, has gained a new lease on
life thanks to the community giving back.
Opened in 1955, the little kiddie park in the city’s Roeding
Park was built by the local Rotary Club and featured an Arrow Development
carousel and a Molina & Sons kiddie coaster among other rides.
Concrete statues of toy soldiers as trash cans and a lion as a drinking
fountain decorate the park. A giant concrete purple mushroom provides
shade to little kid-size toadstools, and wall seats with tiles of
orange, yellow, blue, purple and aqua add color. All proceeds from
the pay-as-you-go park, a total of $2.5 million through the 1980s,
went toward various Rotary charities, said Sam Shima, Playland’s
head of operations.
However, little of the proceeds went back into the park itself so
the rides fell into disrepair. In the 1990s as new ride regulations
went into effect, state officials began shutting down some of Rotary
Playland’s rides. Three years ago, only the C.P. Huntington
train was operating. A local radio talk show host, who recalled
visiting the park as a child, began publicizing the park’s
plight, and with further impetus from Fresno’s media the area’s
Rotary Clubs were able to generate a fund-raising campaign to rejuvenate
the facility.
The effort raised $250,000 to rehabilitate all the rides in the
park and another $50,000 to paint the rides and improve the park’s
aesthetics, as well as spruce up Storyland next door, a themed park
with fairy tale buildings, nursery rhyme tableaux and playground
equipment, built in 1962 and taken over by the Rotarians in 1994.
Included in Playland’s upgrade was a $40,000 refurbishing of
the Arrow carousel, and a “new” Molina & Sons kiddie
coaster for $55,000. When the original Molina coaster was deemed
unrepairable, the park contacted the company and learned the manufacturer
had kept one in storage all these years. So, the park was able to
buy the never-used 1955 kiddie coaster, the last of its kind.
Playland has often received such help from manufacturers, including
Guy Sherborne of Oregon Rides International who has secured three
Everly Aircraft rides for the park and has had a hand in every Playland
ride’s renovation. Gradually, the park's maintenance crew and
volunteers brought eight of the rides back up to standard, but two
rides, a teacup and Starfighter, had to be dismantled. Currently
the teacup shed is occupied by a handful of individual coin-op rides,
but the park is hoping to place another ride there. “We have
a gentleman who has a classic tilt-a-whirl ride, and we’re
trying to convince him to donate it to us,” said John Kavanagh,
senior ride operator at Playland. “And Guy Sherborne will lease
us one of his classic Spider rides,” which would go into the
spot left vacated by the Starfighter.
One avenue the park hopes to mine for rides is donations. “We’re
so strapped for cash right now, after we spent all that money to
fix up all the rides,” Kavanagh said, noting that the park
gets no financing at all from the city or county. “For us,
$20,000 is out of the ballpark.”
Kavanagh, aka Jeff Scott, a local radio personality, was one of
those media members who learned of the park’s plight, visited
for a first-hand experience and last year began moonlighting at
Playland —or, rather, sunlighting at the park since he has
a nighttime radio shift. “We’re hoping to get some donated
rides from manufacturers or traveling carnival companies or individuals
who may have the rides in storage, just sitting there not doing
anything,” said Kavanagh, who himself donated a sound system
for the carousel and train station. “We’d like to put
those rides to good use, and if they need to be fixed up we can
fix them up. If we could beef up our park to maybe up to 15 rides,
that would be great and we could have a full arsenal.”
Both Playland and Storyland combine to get an annual attendance
of 100,000, said Shima. That figure already is on the rise thanks
to publicity surrounding the park’s rejuvenation, and Kavanagh
said the local community is also rediscovering the park. “We
have made a great recovery,” he said. “We’re a treasure
out here.”
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Families
get a new perspective on viewing the fish at the Florida Aquarium.
Photo
courtesy of the Florida Aquarium.
Full
immersion
The
Florida Aquarium in Tampa is selling swimwear in its gift shop now.
The aquarium is taking advantage of impulse shopping.
That impulse has come from the new Swim With The Fishes program
which allows up to four people ages 6 and up to SCUBA “dive”
into the 500,000-gallon (1,893,000-liter) Coral Reef Gallery tank.
Accompanied by two certified divers, the participants wear a small
SCUBA Tank, regulator and floatation device that keeps them on the
water surface but able to breath with their face down among angel
fish, parrot fish, grouper, snapper, jacks, tarpon, blacktip shark
and moray eel. Guests need only provide a swimsuit and towel—now
available at the aquarium gift shop.
“Tourists who are coming in are watching the kids do this,
and they run out and get a bathing suit and come back to sign up
for a (later) session,” said Sue Ellen Richardson, director
of marketing and public relations for the Florida Aquarium. But
while they can now get a swimsuit at the aquarium, they can’t
always get a slot in another session. “Once we started getting
the word out our demand quickly started overriding our supply,”
Richardson said. “Our phone is going absolutely bonkers. We
are booked pretty solid for months. What a cool problem.”
Swim With The Fishes, which began March 1, grew out of another program
the aquarium launched in January, Dive with Sharks. that allows
a 30-minute dive by certified divers into the aquarium’s Shark
Bay exhibit. Run in pairs at $150 per person and accompanied by
two aquarium divers, the Dives with Sharks are scheduled three times
a day Friday through Sunday. The program has earned national media
attention. “We have people planning vacations around it,”
Richardson said. But the family program has proved the bigger catch,
selling out even though the aquarium has spent no money marketing
it.
Currently the aquarium only runs the 60-minute Swim With The Fishes
three times a day on weekends, but Richardson said the staff is
trying to work out a way to expand it. “There’s logistics
we have to answer, such as staff availability and activity in the
tank.” At $50 per person, it makes enough to cover costs “and
just a tad” profit, Richardson said.
It is, however, fulfilling the aquarium’s mission in a big
way. “If you can turn one guest on to the wonders of our environment
and they gain a healthy respect for it, you’ve done a good
job,” Richardson said. “And if you turn them on to an
incredible experience that’s a lot of fun, you’ve hit
a home run.” Often, whole families book the swim together,
and the aquarium has had grandparents don the SCUBA gear for the
experience. “You’ve got that element of the unknown with
animals, and now you’ve got another element, watching children
experience these things,” Richardson said.
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Out
and in
For
Sara Sumner, the publicity coup of her career at Wild Adventures
Theme Park in Valdosta, Georgia, came about for purely selfish reasons.
Sumner
is a fan of The Learning Channel home decor show While You Were
Out on which one half of a couple is lured out of the house
while the other half of the couple has a portion of their house
redecorated as a surprise to the absent half.
“I was thinking of redecorating my own house, wondering how
I could get my own house on the show,” Sumner said. “Then
I figured I’d have better luck getting the park on the show
as a destination.” Sumner checked the show's Web site and saw
notices seeking couples in Atlanta and Charlotte to participate
in the show. “I figured if they were working on Atlanta shows
we’d be a close-enough destination,” Sumner said of the
south Georgia park about four hours down Interstate 75 from the
Atlanta area.
Sumner made some 20 calls to the Learning Channel and the show’s
BBC producers before reaching Associate Producer Amanda Karrh. She
was working on a show featuring Eric and Leslie Simmons, and when
Sumner called her Karrh just happened to be looking for a location
to send Leslie. “She said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’”
Sumner said after describing her million-plus attended Valdosta
theme park. “She said, ‘As long as it was good with the
husband it was good with her,’ and she’d call me back
in a day or two. I stood up and did a little happy dance. Twenty
minutes later she called back and said, ‘You’re in.’
At that point it was a big happy dance.”
Sumner conspired with Leslie’s best friend, Sharella Pruitt,
sending her letters on official stationary congratulating her on
winning her trip for two to Wild Adventures, notices Pruitt shared
with Leslie to explain why they were visiting the park. The pair
spent March 24-25 in Valdosta, where Sumner explained that the camera
crew hounding the two friends were shooting a marketing video that
Pruitt had agreed to appear in.
As
part of the show, Sumner set up situations for Leslie, and Eric
had to guess her reaction. “We put her on the Skycoaster. We
put her in the front row of the snake show to see if she would hold
one of our big albino pythons. We sat her in the front row of the
Wild West Show to see if she would do the chicken dance with the
cast,” Sumner said. “And she did. She was such a good
sport she did everything, and had a good time doing it.”
After a Sunday in the park Leslie returned home to find a new room
awaiting her. “I called that evening to see if she would still
speak to me” after the ruse, Sumner said. Not only was Leslie
speaking to the park PR coordinator, she is planning to return to
the park May 17 to see a Yolanda Adams concert with Sumner.
For Sumner the whole effort won for her not only a new friend but
a golden publicity moment when Leslie turned to the cameras and,
unprompted, said: “I live in Atlanta but I would buy the season
pass and drive down here anytime.” Sumner hopes that makes
the show’s final edit. This episode of While You Were Out
is scheduled to run in May
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Romance
on the air
Clear
across the country another park also was featured on While You
Were Out. Last summer Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz,
California hosted a San Jose husband and his kids while the wife
had the backyard remodeled. This spring, however, the park gained
the spotlight on a show intended to bring a couple together for
life rather than separate them for a day.
Married by America, the reality television show on which
the TV-viewing public plays matrimonial matchmaker, sent one of
its couples on a date to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk last month.
Billy Jean and Tony, with film crew in tow, rode the Giant Dipper
woodie roller coaster, Ferris Wheel and a couple of spinning flat
rides. They also played several games in the Funland Arcade.
With the sun setting as they rode the rides, the staged romantic
moment benefited from the authentic romantic ambiance of the Boardwalk
at twilight. That prompted the park's big publicity moment when
Billy Jean told the show’s audience how perfect her date was
at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. “It was exactly what we
wanted them to say,” said Jan Bollwinkel-Smith, the park’s
communications manager. “Reality TV: We didn’t tell her
to say that.” Tony, meanwhile, compared his relationship to
Billy Jean as similar to riding the Giant Dipper—which,
considering the speed at which the venerable coaster is running
this spring and its increased air time, we’ll assume is a compliment.
The Boardwalk will get another starring role this summer when Wal-Mart
airs a national television commercial it filmed there. “We
get a lot of (producers) interested in the Boardwalk because of
its uniqueness and because of its colors,” Bollwinkel-Smith
said. The park’s colorful buildings and rides also make the
Boardwalk a favorite setting for catalog shoots. But the Boardwalk
turns many of the requests down because of time. “A lot of
them will call either in the middle of the summer when we’re
trying to operate a park and can’t stop everything to let a
TV production come in here and take over, or they’ll call in
the winter when we’re in the middle of maintenance and everybody’s
busy,” Bollwinkel-Smith said.
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Eric's
Turn
Photo
by Eric Minton.
Let
the children play
My
tour of California facilities this week seems to be harping on a
recurring theme: children, a theme reflected in this issue of THE
LOOP. Paramount’s Great America hosted a media day for its
new Nickelodeon Central kiddie area. I paid my first-ever visit
to Bonfante Gardens, built expressly for young children. I stopped
at a small community park in Fresno, Rotary Playland, built by the
local Rotary Clubs to serve the children of the community both in
operation and in the expenditure of all its proceeds. Thursday I
attended the opening of Legoland’s Bionicle Blaster.
Today, I attend the debut of Disneyland’s new Winnie the Pooh
ride.
Obviously, there’s market value in catering to kids, but that’s
not what I want to focus on here. In fact, the journey’s most
treasured moment was visiting Rotary Playland, a park which was
so good to its community it let itself fall into disrepair (see
story in this edition). “Marketing to kids”
is such an alien concept to this park dedicated to “serving
children” that it needed community aid to return from the brink
of extinction and is seeking donated rides to supplement its current
stock of eight rides in order to better carry out its mission.
Sure, the ’55 Arrow Carousel was a classic piece of machinery
to admire. The Molina coaster itself, let alone the serpent it surrounds,
was a rare gem to examine. But the element that moved me is the
one I photographed above, the toy soldiers “drumming”
on trash cans. Seeing these triggered a memory that never fully
emerged from the deepest crevices of my mind, some vague recollection
of a little amusement venue in a city park during the earliest years
of my own childhood. I felt a strange but comforting affinity for
these concrete, colorful soldiers, like I knew them well and had
held them in great fondness long, long ago.
The same day I beheld these fantastical soldiers in Fresno, Baghdad
fell to real soldiers in Iraq. One story of that day particularly
bothered me. Back in the mid 1990s I saw news footage shot in an
amusement park in Baghdad. Little boys and girls laughed or wore
the universal expression of a child’s awe as they road a little
train. This week U.S. forces discovered a cache of firearms and
grenades stored in an amusement park in the city. My stomach churned
as I wondered whether the amusement park in both accounts were one
and the same. If so, what a terrible violation of childhood.
Here in the United States, I hear concerned park operators wonder
how much the ongoing war will impact attendance. I hear marketing
personnel worry that promoting their parks and new rides this year
seems frivolous or needless when there are “so many important
things happening in the world.” As to the former concern, so
far this spring, when the weather is good the people seem to be
visiting their amusement parks. As to the latter, I’m not going
to say you should trumpet your park while war is waging; I’ll
let Rebecca Southerby do that, the 12-year-old daughter of a U.S.
Marine currently deployed to Iraq. At the Bionicle Blaster
opening, I asked her a simple question: “How did you like the
ride?”
She gave me a profound answer: “It was really fun. It’s
easy to go on and have your mind off of everything that’s happening
in the world, giving you some time to relax.”
Thank
yous
This LOOP is coming to you from the offices of the public relations
team at Legoland California. My utmost appreciation to Courtney
Simmons, Kina Paegert and Stacy Slingerland for their hospitality
and friendliness and for letting me share their space on a busy
day.
I also want to extend a special thank you to Nicole Koebrich at
Paramount’s Great America for her warm hospitality and company.
And thanks to old friends Jan Bollwinkel-Smith at Santa Cruz Beach
Boardwalk and Ken Peterson at Monterey Bay Aquarium for good times
and great food.
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THE
LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises,
LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises
services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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Volume
3, No. 7. APRIL 11, 2003
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New
Arrivals
A
BMX biker entertained the crowd as Bionicle Jamsters readied the
Mask of Light (left) under the steady gaze of a Toa, but Legoland
needed only the Southerbys (below) to put an exclamation point on
its new ride. Photos
by Eric Minton.
It’s
a flat ride!
Legoland California announces the arrival of Bionicle
Blaster, April 10, 2003. Measurements: 1-acre (1/2-hectare)
footprint, 500-foot (152-meter) turntable with four 120-foot (36-meter)
turntables, 12 cars carrying up to five passengers. Delivered by
Mack.
If Legoland is trying to balance out its market appeal to cover
the whole spectrum of its 2-to-12 demographic, the park could have
found no better spokesfamily than the Southerbys. With their husband/dad
currently serving in Iraq, the Southerbys were one of the nine families
from the U.S. Marine Corps’ nearby Camp Pendleton, along with
20 YMCA Camp Kids, invited to serve as the Bionicle Blaster’s
first official riders. Television cameras focused on this particularly
handsome family squealing, cheering and high-fiving through the
duration of the first two rides.
What did they think of the ride? “It was great,” said
Kyle, 14. “It was really fun,” said Rebecca, 12. “I
like how fast it goes,” said Wyatt, 6. “It was great,”
said their friend, Marc Purdiman, 8. Do they like Lego’s Bionicle
toy line? “Oh, yeah!” responded the complete chorus of
kids. “They’re not quite as small as Lego bricks that
you step on or vacuum up,” said Georgine, mom. Then, she sheepishly
admitted, “They’re cool to play with, too.”
Opening its fifth new attraction in its four-year history, Legoland
has fully filled out its offerings for the upper ages in its 2-to-12
market focus. As evidence: Kyle kept glancing over at the Technic
Test Track (a Mack mouse) next to the Bionicle Blaster
while Wyatt eyed the Imagination Zone with its Lego laboratories.
The Blaster itself has wide appeal among kids over 42 inches
in height, a teacup-type ride on which passengers can control the
amount of spin by manipulating the central wheel.
What
makes this ride so cool, though, is the theming. Lego’s first
line of action toys, Bionicles last year were named the “Most
Innovative Toy of the Year” and “Best Boy Toy of the Year”
by the American Toy Industry Association. The Toa statues keeping
guard around the ride received as much attention from children and
parents as did the ride itself.
“One of the important elements to any new ride at Legoland
is that it synergistically ties back to a very popular toy,”
said Courtney Simmons, manager of media relations and government
affairs at the park. “Like with any popular toy kids can’t
satisfy themselves enough. Bionicle kids will consume and want to
be exposed to anything that relates back to the story line that
they have immersed themselves in.”
So, the cheering among the children was sufficiently vocal when
the ride made its public debut Thursday morning under clear blue
skies and temperatures in the mid 70s. In the pep rally atmosphere,
two athletes from the park’s summer show “Wheels of Freestyle”
spun their BMX bikes for the crowd, and two narrators from the park’s
Bionicle Jam Show inserted the ceremonial key to the ride—a
Bionicle “Mask of Light”—that created smoky special
effects as it allegedly started the Blaster on its debut
turn.
Most of the media missed the smoky moment, instead filming families
on the ride, among them Rebecca Southerby. “It’s easy
to go on and have your mind off of everything that’s happening
in the world, giving you some time to relax,” she said.
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Ribeena
helped theme its bish where kids and fathers can bash at Alton Towers.
Photo courtesy of Alton Towers.
It’s
dueling kiddie attractions!
Alton Towers in Alton, England, announces the arrival of four family
attractions, April 5, 2003. Measurements: one interactive dark ride,
one Foam Factory structure, one 3-D theater, one stage show. Delivered
by LeMaitre, SCS Interactive, Tussaud’s Studios.
Looking to re-balance its ride mix to provide more for the preschool
set, Alton Towers opened its 2003 season with much hands-on (or
eyes-on) entertainment.
The park’s 1992 haunted house has been remodeled as the interactive
dark ride Duel—The Haunted House Strikes Back
on which guests ride church pews through a variety of scenes with
“hundreds” of laser targets. However, this interactive
dark ride, developed in-house, shoots back. “It’s a bit
more zombies rather than haunted,” said the park’s Public
Relations Manager Liz Greenwood of the new tame-enough-for-families
theme. And while some of the zombies have the ability to fire back
at the attackers, “We’re not expecting many casualties,”
Greenwood said.
An SCS Interactive Foam Factory structure is taking on the theme
of its sponsor, Ribeena, whose corporate color of purple makes a
perfect scheme for the Ribeena Berry Bish Bash. Another partnership
has given the park a new live show, the Tweenies, one of
England’s most popular pre-playschool television shows, while
the park’s domed theater installed 3-D capability in order
to air the new film Adventures in 3-D.
With a major hotel and waterpark resort expansion due to open in
early summer, the park’s marketing department kept a low profile
for the new rides as opening day approached. The increase in the
number of family attractions did draw some national newspaper coverage
and local television tie-ins, and a local radio station broadcast
live from the park Saturday morning. Despite the low-frequency buzz
of the new products, the park got a boost from the best source of
marketing in England: balmy, sunny weather, a rarity for the first
week of April. Alton Towers counted 13,000 guests through the turnstiles
on opening day, media representative Rachael Lockitt said.
The new attractions drew steady traffic throughout the day, Lockitt
said, and a pattern emerged among players at the Ribeena Berry
Bish Bash: the preschool set had nothing on the post-school
set. “Children were collecting the foam balls and taking them
to their fathers, who were the ones competing with each other,”
Lockitt said.
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SpongeBob
SquarePants gave Paramount a superstar presence at Great America's
media day. Photo
by Eric Minton.
It’s
a kiddie area!
Paramount’s Great America
in Santa Clara, California, announces the arrival Nickelodeon Central
and SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D, March 29, 2003. Measurements:
100,000 square feet (9,290 square meters), three new rides, two
remodeled attractions, two shows, one remodeled cafe and a motion
theater film. Delivered by Barbeieri, Huss and SBF.
For the uninitiated—if any exist—SpongeBob SquarePants
is today’s Elvis. Except that he has much greater demographic
appeal. Toddlers are in awe of the urbane sponge; just seeing a
model of SpongeBob atop his Boatmobiles ride was enough to
inspire whines of “Iwantaride” among little boys and girls
walking past. Adults turn childlike in SpongeBob’s presence;
at the daily Nicktoons LIVE at 5 where guests can pose with all
the most popular Nickelodeon characters, SpongeBob and his best
friend Patrick Starfish attracted the largest crowd, mostly parents
who shot an obligatory child-with-characters picture, then hopped
in for their own photograph. Then there are the too-cool-for-school
teens who “love” SpongeBob; seeing him in the Nick Central
meet-and-greet shed or being interviewed by Spanish TV crews, these
kids yelled out “We love you SpongeBob,” and they weren’t
kidding.
Obviously, anything SpongeBob would have made Paramount's Great
America the hip place to be this summer, but the park did more than
make SpongeBob the celebrity du jour of the season; it did him up
just right. The new 3-D film, already debuted at Paramount’s
Kings Dominion and Carowinds (THE
LOOP, March 28, 2003), is now the industry benchmark in motion
theater presentation, where both the seat movements and 3-D effects
subtly serve the cartoon’s established sense of humor while
adding effective gotcha’s within the film's plot and the cartoon's
traditions. Theming a Huss Breakdance ride as SpongeBob’s
Boatmobiles adds visual delight to the traditional ride, but
pouring bubbles out over the space gives both riders and pedestrians
a supplementary attraction.
Paramount Parks' Design and Entertainment team have themed each
of the attractions after specific cartoons on the kiddie network.
Dora’s Dune Buggies is a Barbeieri Eureka classic roundride
that children can raise and lower by manipulating a hydraulic pump.
The Wild Thornberry’s Treetop Lookout is an SBF Samba
Tower rising 30 feet (9 meters) above the ground, and sits beside
the former Splat City Green Slime Refinery complex which has been
totally re-themed and re-tracked as the Wild Thornberry's Rain
Maze. The former Green Slime Mine Train has been given a new
look as a Rugrats Runaway Reptar coaster (not the Vekoma
suspended junior coaster in the other Nick Centrals). And Wings
restaurant has given way to Nicktoons Cafe! with more kid-friendly
fare.
Nickelodeon Central and the new 3-D film debuted with the park’s
season opener on a balmy 80-degree Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius)
Saturday. Traffic on that day, plus the responses at private parties,
indicate Great America is achieving its primary aim for the 2003
season to tip the demographic balance decidedly toward families.
“It has been a huge, HUGE difference in families,” said
Nicole Koebrich, operations manager for public relations. Her measure:
“More strollers. We can tell that this product speaks to a
family, exactly what we were hoping it would do.” Season pass
sales are tracking high as well, she said.
Koebrich scheduled the media day and VIP party for April 5 a breezy
but sunny day as the park hosted some 2,300 media and invited guests
and their families, each receiving a coupon for a family photo with
SpongeBob and a SpongeBob backpack filled with seashore goodies.
Nick Central was open for Exclusive Ride Time, then the gathering
streamed into the County Fair Picnic Grove for a park-prepared 3-star-caliber
buffet lunch. Koebrich billed the event as the “Best Day Ever,”
a catchphrase that adorned invitations, directional signs and giveaways
and became the standard greeting among adult VIP’s: “Hey!
How are you?” “Great, this is the best day ever!”
It fit right in with the prevailing SpongeBob SquarePants attitude
of the day.
But later in the afternoon, out in the park, one preschool kid was
loudly proclaiming to his parents “This is the best day ever!”
and you you Great America did better than strike gold this year;
it struck Sponge.
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Texas'
new tower raised hero worship to new heights. Photo courtesy
of Six Flags Over Texas.
It’s
a tower ride!
Six Flags Over Texas announces the arrival of Superman
Tower of Power, March 29, 2003. Measurements: 325 feet (99 meters),
including 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) flagpole, 36 riders on three
towers. Delivered by S&S Power.
Hero worship has become the preferred theme for media events opening
any ride with a superhero nomenclature, but credit the Six Flags
Over Texas marketing team for taking the concept both to a whole
new level and to many different levels.
The whole new level is, of course, the ride itself, towering 25
feet (8 meters) over the park’s previous icon, the Oil Derrick.
Its bright white, red, yellow and blue color scheme enhanced by
colorful spotlights at night have turned Superman Tower of Power
into a lure for news helicopters shooting weather footage while
the ride itself churns the stomach of many who climb aboard. “I’ve
ridden so many of these things I’ve forgotten how scary and
intimidating they can be,” said Brian Hunt, S&S general
manager who attended the March 26 media preview. “People were
really screaming and talked about how tall it was.”
A lot of that screaming was broadcast via radio. The park offered
tickets to many of the market's radio stations, each of which in
turn could bring 36 listeners out for the preview. These souls offered
live commentary on Superman’s impact. “It was hilarious
listening to on-air people live screaming their heads off,”
said the park’s public relations manager Sandra Daniels.
The media day ceremonies, held under “perfect” weather,
took a more respectful tone when American Idol third runner-up
Nikki McKibbon sang the song “Hero” and Brian Little took
the podium. Little, a sophomore at Arlington, Texas, High School,
had saved two little twin sisters being attacked by a pit bull dog
across the street from his home, a feat Little accomplished by distracting
the dog and getting mauled himself.
“He was real shy,” Daniels said. “He told his story,
then said a few words about what it means to be a hero and that
though Superman was a super icon, there are heroes around us every
day.” Such heroes comprised the first official riders on Superman
Tower of Power: local members of the military, the Arlington
police force, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and, a truly inspired
choice, teachers. The first riders ascended—and quickly descended—to
the strains of the Lamar High School band playing the Superman theme
while dressed in Superman T-shirts and capes.
Superman can inspire awe, screams, respect and honor, but he can’t
do diddly about the weather. By the time the general public opening
arrived the following Saturday the weather had turned cold and wet.
Nevertheless, guests made a beeline for the new ride from the front
gate, Daniels said, and while the park’s general attendance
may have been weather-hindered, the ride itself drew a steady line
throughout the day.
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Alaskans
had a Blast in their first-ever waterpark. Photo by Ian Minton.
It’s
a waterpark!
The Alaska Waterpark Company, Inc. in Anchorage, Alaska,
announces the arrival of H2Oasis Indoor Waterpark, March 20, 2003.
Measurements: 40,500 square feet (3,763 square meters) with a 16,000-square-foot
(1,486-square-metes) mezzanine, 350,000 total gallons (1,325,000
total liters), 505-foott-long (154-meter-long) Master Blaster, 150-foot-long
(46-meter-long) enclosed body slide, 575-foot (175-meter) lazy river,
a wave pool, interactive play structure, kiddie pool, a “Texas-size”
hot tub and a two-times larger “Alaska-size” hot tub,
and a snack bar. Delivered by Faulkenberry and Associates, Murphys
Waves, NBGS and North Beach Engineering.
Dennis Prendeville has been actively building his 6-year-old dream
for two years now. He had hoped to open by the winter of 2002, but
various construction and permitting issues delayed him to the summer
of 2002, then the winter of 2003, and finally this spring. He lost
a year of anticipated operational revenue, but at least he opened
in time for the Anchorage schools’ spring break week. Could
anybody be more anxious than Prendeville to get Alaska’s first
waterpark open?
Apparently, yes; a lot of people. From the moment Anchorage Mayor
George Wuerch cut the ribbon during a light snowfall on that Thursday
afternoon, “It’s been hectic ever since,” Prendeville
said. “It was actually hectic before he got here that day.
We’ve got a very popular waterpark here in Anchorage.”
Despite strong media coverage throughout the construction period,
the city’s residents were apparently expecting little more
than a large pool with a slide, Prendeville said. “They come
in and they go ‘Wow!’” he said. “We ended up
building a better park than I expected. It’s busier than I
expected.”
H2Oasis’ main “Wow!” is the Master Blaster. It was
supposed to be the first indoor Blaster in America (Kalahari Resort
in Wisconsin Dells opened its Master Blaster in December, THE
LOOP, January 10, 2003), but being the first in Alaska—and
a wholly foreign concept to many in this population—prompted
all the popularity it could handle. “The Master Blaster is
right in front of them when guests enter on the mezzanine and somebody
would be squealing as they go by on the ride,” Prendeville
said. The Blaster saw consistent 90-minute queues in the first week
of operation, and even on a school day some 50 kids were waiting
to board.
Wrapped around a large portion of the park, the Master Blaster offers
a short ride—less than a minute—from launch to splash
down in the lazy river, but it delivers sufficient thrills in air
time and a tight, enclosed helix near the midpoint. The Blaster
also enhances the lazy river experience; every time someone exits
the Master Blaster it creates a surging wave through the river.
With a castle theme on the exterior and a tropical island feel on
the inside—including palm trees and a pirate statue overlooking
the entrance—H2Oasis aimed to deliver more than an oddity to
the Alaskan natives but a quality waterpark in its own right. “There’s
probably a handful of great waterparks in North America. This is
one of them,” he said, sounding more surprised than boastful.
Truly, he sounded more overwhelmed than any other emotion. “You
try to run everything right but it’s difficult to do when it’s
so busy,” he said. “We probably looked better than we
felt.” So it helped in smoothing out the operational wrinkles
that the native population was so stunned at H2Oasis’ offerings.
“The way people vote is when they buy tickets,” Prendeville
said, “and they’ve bought a lot of tickets.”
—Ian
Minton contributed to this report.
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