Volume 3, No. 7. April 11, 2003
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.
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.”
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.
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
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.
New Arrivals
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Eric's Turn
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.
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.
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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