Volume 3, No. 8. April 25, 2003
Health
wish
After a lifetime
in the amusement and tourism industry, Darrell Metzger, the CEO of Singapore’s
Sentosa Development Corporation, has learned to ride out the bumps in the road,
no matter how big or bewildering they may be.
“I wouldn’t have thought a few months ago that terrorism and war would
take the back seat to something else,” Metzger said. “I was surprised
by that one.”
That “one” is SARS, the mysterious Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
illness that has crippled China, Toronto and Singapore and continues to haunt
the global tourism industry. The situation in the Pacific Rim is such that the
International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions canceled its Asian
Amusement Expo scheduled for July 16-18 at the Singapore International Convention
and Exhibition Center (See story in Extra!
Extra!).
Metzger understands IAAPA’s decision and supports it, though he’s
certain that by July the SARS epidemic will be an afterthought in Singapore,
where the government’s response to the initial outbreak was more thorough
and up front than that of China. “I’m in the middle of it, and it’s
in the press every day here, but life goes on,” he said. “You can
walk around here and in a whole day not see people in a mask. But that’s
all you see in the press. Where are the photographers finding all these people
wearing masks?”
Life goes on, perhaps, but all is not normal. His resort island’s attendance
dipped 40 percent last month; “now it’s up to 25 percent down,”
he said. “That’s the good news. Isn’t that sick that that’s
good news?” The corporation has had to lay off almost all of its part-time
employees, which makes up 30 percent of the work force, instituted pay cuts
for all employees, and deferred all nonessential expenses.
And Sentosa is one of the lucky ones. The Singapore Tourism Bureau said that
tourism was down 68 percent the first two weeks of April. “That is a huge
number,” Metzger said, and it jibes with the 70 percent drop at Sentosa’s
Underwater World Aquarium, the one attraction on the resort relying almost entirely
on tourism.
Yet, there was Sentosa Development Corporation last week announcing a $20 million
(US$11.2 million) redevelopment plan for its Siloso Beach district to be completed
by May 2004 (see story in Extra!
Extra!). There was Sentosa this week announcing a partnership with MediaCorp
TV, one of Singapore’s leading media firms, to co-produce three events
on the island in each of the next three years, a $12 million (US$6.7 million)
deal. Both of these are part of the resort’s $3 billion (US$1.7 billion),
10-year strategic plan to revitalize the island. Despite war and disease, Sentosa
Development Corporation is bullish on its future.
“For us it’s the right time to invest, because when these products
start coming on line there will be pent-up demand,” Metzger said. He is
counting on the local market rebounding in two months, and the regional market
returning shortly after. “The Asian market reacts and responds very quickly,”
he said. “They’re resilient. As soon as they hear it’s OK, they’re
gone. My experience is that when we have these kinds of problems, it always
hits us harder than we thought it would initially, but it comes back a lot faster
than we thought it would.”
As for AAE’s cancellation, Metzger opines that in IAAPA’s first year
of owning the show outright, the association would have cheated itself if it
had only been able to put on an average show. Now it has a year to gear up for
a bigger and better show, and Sentosa will, by then, be bigger and better, too.
South of
Eden
Banana George Blair,
the popular octogenarian barefoot skier at Cypress Gardens, broke down in tears
during an interview on National Public Radio the day after the Winter Haven
park closed its gates for good. The newscaster, though, turned Blair’s
tears to anger when she asked how the park struggled after it was eclipsed by
the trio of theme parks in Orlando. “Cypress Gardens was never eclipsed,”
he said.
He was right, in one sense. Cypress Gardens was a singularly stunning collection
of gardens and gracious Southern living, and the water ski show remained the
Broadway of the genre. However, whether the park liked it or not, it was in
the heavyweight division of Florida’s attractions, and rather than entering
the ring the park knocked itself out standing on the apron.
When a venerable, prestigious, widely well-known business falters, it usually
sends shudders through its industry. The closing of 67-year-old Cypress Gardens
sent a collective “Huh?” through the amusement industry and through
Florida. Among Floridians the closing created a public outcry reaching up to
the statehouse and Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Georgia (see story below). Florida
Governor Jeb Bush, in directing state officials to study a state purchase of
the property, (see story in Extra!
Extra!), provided the most telling quote of the whole affair: “If people
aren’t coming, perhaps they’re not coming for a reason.” That
comment touches many depths of truth.
The reason cited by owner Bill Reynolds was the post-9/11 tourism slump in Florida,
the threat of terrorism and the war in Iraq. If those reasons ring true, Cypress
Gardens is a foreboding bellwether for other Florida attractions. That doesn’t
seem to be the case, however.
“We look at trends every month from 48 attractions around the state,”
said Donna H. Ross, president and CEO of the Florida Attractions Association,
which has 85 member attractions. “Certainly, business is down. Some have
decreased hours of operations, some have laid off workers, some haven’t
staffed up fully. February was pretty dismal, but most were able to hold on
and capitalize on a good spring break.” In fact, last weekend she said
many attractions reported “gangbuster days,” which she attributes
to Floridians breaking free of cabin fever brought on by addictive war watching.
One phenomenon of this year was the late arrival of the Snowbirds, the migrant
retirees who annually descend on Florida from points north, usually making their
Winnebago pilgrimages after the New Year. “When the country went to orange
alert (for perceived terrorism threat), nobody moved,” Ross said. “People
just sat tight. Then we sat tight waiting to see if there was going to be a
war, then we sat tight watching the war.” The decrease in Snowbird visitation
would especially impact Cypress Gardens, a favorite destination for the seniors
market.
Ross also cites the rising cost of doing business as a factor in attractions’
struggles, something that possibly played a key role in Cypress Garden’s
demise. “We have had a huge spike in the cost of worker’s compensation
in this state,” she said. “Everybody’s worker’s comp has
gone up 15 percent, and parks with animals are having trouble finding companies
that will underwrite them.” The association has a bill working through
the state legislature addressing the rising insurance costs “that we hope
will bring sanity back to the attractions in Florida.”
Still, to counter these costs and the downturn in out-of-state visitation, many
parks have embarked on new programs, like summer camps, to entice new business,
and the residential market is still formidable. “We’re blessed in
a way that other states aren’t in that we have a population of 15 million
people,” Ross said. Many parks adjusted their marketing thrusts toward
that demographic, including the Orlando and Tampa heavyweights, as well as Silver
Springs in Ocala, the closest rival of substance to Cypress Gardens.
Clearly, in concept, Cypress Gardens as a theme park could succeed even in today’s
Florida. It could not earn as much money as Cypress Gardens land development
could, but while that’s a wildly speculated motive for the park’s
closing, Reynolds has not shown any signs of playing that hand, yet. Rather,
he has promised the state’s Department of Environmental Protection that
he wouldn’t do anything about the park for three weeks to allow state officials
the opportunity to nominate Cypress Gardens for the department’s Forever
Florida Program designed to purchase endangered wildlands and historical entities
and keep it in perpetuity.
Meantime, the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce has formed a task force charged
with formulating a plan to save the park. Chaired by former State Senator Rick
Dantzler, husband of Cypress Gardens founder Dick Pope’s granddaughter,
the task force toured the park Thursday and hosted a public hearing there. The
most obvious option in the early stages is for the state or local government
to purchase the original 37-acre gardens that Pope created and let the current
owners do what they will with the remaining 160 acres added in 1974. Much of
that acreage lies unused.
Another option would be to find another operator, like the one north of the
border anxiously seeking an audience.
Cypress Adventures
Annual passholders
at his park suggested to Kent Buescher that he look into purchasing just-closed
Cypress Gardens. The president of Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta, Georgia,
was a bidder last year for the bankrupt Visionland Theme Park in Birmingham,
Alabama, and he’s always on the lookout for growth opportunities. “I’m
interested in growing our business, both here in Valdosta and growing at other
locales,” he said. “We’ve explored a number of alternatives,
and continue to do so.”
However, he couldn’t explore Cypress Gardens because his calls to the park’s
owners went unreturned, he said. When he told Amusement Today of his
frustration, a reporter for the paper mentioned Buescher’s desire to the
Orlando Sentinel newspaper, and overnight the man who built a tiny south
Georgia amusement park into a 1.2 million-drawing theme park in a half dozen
years was seen as the potential Cypress savior.
“I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of calls from people who want to save
that thing and asking me, ‘What can we do to help you?’ I’ve
had good conversations with state officials. I’ve gotten preliminary commitment
from lenders to pursue a purchase. We have spoken with a lot of folks, but not
with anybody who has a stake of ownership in the park. I’m interested,
but I can’t buy it unless you’ve got a willing seller, and right now
it doesn’t appear there’s a willing seller.”
While noting he cannot adequately evaluate whether such a purchase would be
viable without more research, he believes Cypress Garden has potential. “You
can’t take Cypress Gardens and turn it into Wild Adventures and get it
to fly. Obviously it would have to build upon the heritage of the park that’s
there. One, you have to preserve the water ski show. Two, you’d have to
preserve the gardens. Three, the project has to have broad appeal that would
include the seniors that make up its historical attendance and bring families
back into the mix in a strong way. Rides would be a part of it, but it wouldn’t
be a hard ride park.”
He cites Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, as a perfect model of blending
a theme park with heritage and nature “in a way that’s seamless.”
“If I can help preserve that park and keep operating it as a park, I’d
be interested in that,” Buescher said of Cypress Gardens. “I don’t
know if I’ll have the opportunity.”
Even if he doesn’t get the opportunity, he’s accomplished a marketing
coup for his Valdosta park. Buescher has conducted several news interviews,
and Wild Adventures’ Public Relations Coordinator Sara Sumner spent most
of her days this week on the phone telling the park’s story to dozens of
Florida media outlets. “He’s certainly made my job easier,” she
said.
Airing out
Sara Sumner’s
job as public relations coordinator is getting easier in many different directions
at Wild Adventures Theme Park. Last month the Valdosta, Georgia, park went on
the air with its own radio station.
Located at 92.1 on the FM dial, WDDQ offers residents and any travelers driving
down the Interstate 75 corridor in South Georgia a continuous stream of park
information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Utilizing the voices of Sumner,
the park’s Vice President of Marketing and Entertainment Jimmy Holmes,
and the park’s Senior Vice President and General Manager Michael Jetter,
the radio provides news and features on the park’s shows, animals, rides
and upcoming concerts. “We do some educational facts about animals, do
stuff that interests the kids,” Sumner said, a ploy to placate travel-weary
children in the back seats of touring cars and vans.
Able to instantly update the broadcasts or go on the air live, the park also
announces weather conditions and traffic reports. “If traffic is backed
up we can give alternate routes,” Sumner said. Eventually she would like
to broadcast skits from the park’s shows.
The station first debuted as an AM broadcast in the mid-1950s. In the late ’60s
the station added a 3,000-watt sister station on the FM dial, and when the latter
changed hands again in the late 1980s, the signal was boosted to 6000 watts.
Adventure Radio Group purchased the station in February. “We became aware
that it was for sale, and it looked like a perfect fit for Wild Adventures to
inform travelers along I-75 about the park,” Sumner said.
WDDQ reaches as far north as Tifton, Georgia, and west to Albany, Georgia, but
south only a few miles to the Georgia-Florida border. Billboards along the interstate
give travelers the dial location for Wild Adventures Radio, but south of Tifton
the station has something of a monopoly. “I found out from my aunt who
was driving from Michigan to Florida that when she hit the scan button on her
radio (Wild Adventures) was the only thing that locked in,” Sumner said.
Empty space
All Florida attractions
have suffered the near disappearance of international tourism, the downturn
in national tourism and the delay in Snowbird visits. All Florida attractions
are struggling with rising insurance and worker’s comp costs, plus other
operational costs. Many Florida attractions endured unusually cold winter weather
early this year.
But only one Florida attraction felt the impact of a disaster occurring February
1 above the Southwest desert skies and played out over national television.
On the morning of the Space Shuttle Columbia’s breakup during its descent
back to earth, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex had to switch from welcoming
celebration site to a bereavement center, even as it dealt with its own sense
of shock and loss.
The disaster itself did not impact the Visitor Center’s numbers, though
some people may have thought the complex was closed in the days following the
incident, said Susan Burrell, public relations manager for the Kennedy Space
Center Visitor Complex. “If there’s a silver lining in the clouds
of Columbia, it’s the increased awareness of the space program and the
importance of the space program and the bravery of the astronauts,” she
said.
However, the longer term impact of the disaster has hurt. “The interruption
of the Shuttle program has had a pretty significant effect on us,” Burrell
said. “We do have a lot of visitation around launches. That definitely
hurts us not having those.”
She said the Center’s numbers this year are “running flat to slightly
down” compared to last year, and last year the complex saw a 15 percent
drop from 2001. Running flat is good news when considering all that the Center
has endured this year, but it is still running behind projections.
The Visitor Complex is hoping for a boost in June when the Mars exploration
rovers launch from Kennedy Space Center for an early 2004 rendezvous with the
planet, and the Astronaut Hall of Fame inducts several new members, among them
Sally Ride.
On the water
front
The trend in commercial
entities taking over not-for-profit, government-subsidized aquariums continued
with last week’s announcement that Steiner + Associates would acquire the
New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden (see story in Extra!
Extra!).
The deal, 3 1/2 years in the making, is not finalized; all the parties involved
still must sign off on all the documents, which David Wechsler, vice president
of Steiner + Associates, expects to happen by the end of June. Last week the
plans won the approval of the Delaware River Port Authority, the proposal’s
largest hurdle.
Steiner + Associates is the managing partner of the Newport Aquarium in Newport,
Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The company also owns and manages
Newport on the Levee, a retail/restaurant/entertainment complex adjoining the
aquarium. While Steiner plans to pump a total of $135 million into Camden’s
waterfront development—focusing more on entertainment and dining venues
than retail— the primary piece of the puzzle is the state’s relinquishing
its aquarium to this for-profit group, which will spend $35 million on an expansion
and renovation.
“We’re taking it private, and we will integrate a lot of things they
do into our model that we use at Newport,” said Wechsler, who also is the
executive vice president of Newport Aquarium. “We will attempt to bring
things inherently done in nonprofits that lose a lot of money and eliminate
those programs.” He’s referring to public programming which has to
be subsidized. “Any programming we do for the public we charge enough to
cover costs.”
Newport Aquarium addressed the issue of providing public programming without
eating into the business profits by forming the Wave Foundation, a non-profit
arm of the aquarium’s operation that raises funds for educational and public
service programs. Camden’s aquarium had been managed by the Academy of
Aquatic Science, which Steiner will retain in the same capacity as the Wave
Foundation, Wechsler said.
The $35 million expansion, which will increase the aquarium size by 50 percent,
and a facelift of existing exhibits are intended to give the aquarium and its
exposition more vibrancy. “Aquariums have to create a dynamic environment,
which is harder for aquariums than zoos,” Wechsler said. “Animals
engage people better than fish do. Aquariums have to do a number of different
things other than throw a fish in a tank; you have to connect people to the
fish.”
Creating such a
dynamic environment inside the aquarium coupled with the development of neighboring
entertainment venues and restaurants should spur repeat visits among locals
and pick up more tourism business out of Philadelphia across the river from
Camden, Wechsler said. “The aquarium does about 560,000 in attendance,
which is relatively low given the market size,” he said.
The expansion should be completed by the summer of 2005, whereupon Steiner will
take over full management of the facility. As with Colorado’s Ocean Journey
in Denver (THE LOOP March
14, 2003), the private firm acquiring the aquarium does so without assuming
any of the existing debt; and once Steiner takes over the operation, the state
will no longer subsidize the aquarium. That gets the state off the hook without
losing its gem. “Cities and states don’t want to lose these things;
they are precious,” Wechsler said.
But cities and states have difficulty finding the resources to keep their aquariums.
With Ripley Entertainment successfully operating profitable aquariums, Landry’s
Restaurant opening its own aquarium in Houston and buying the Denver facility
out of bankruptcy, and Steiner + Associates going on four years at Newport and
taking on Camden, public entities and nonprofit operations have a choice of
commercial saviors. “We’ve talked to a bunch of people, we’ve
been contacted by other folks,” Wechsler said. “But we’re taking
things slowly. We want to make a success story out of Camden.”
Making Saturday
night alright
Of all the parks
in North America, one of the least likely you would expect to see a riot is
Lake Winnepesaukah in Rossville, Georgia, just over the state border from Chattanooga,
Tennessee. The park exudes wholesome family fun, and its operations are as genteel
as you please; that made the “Riot at Lake Winnepesaukah” headlines
all the more jarring,
“A bit of a ruckus is a more accurate way to put it,” Talley Rhodes,
Lake Winnie’s public relations director, said of the altercation last Saturday
that ended with officers from nine different Georgia and Tennessee law enforcement
agencies responding. Press reports about the incident ranged from a rumor of
a stabbing that prompted the park to close early to a fight involving 50 to
100 youths causing a rush of patrons for the exit to a gathering of up to 700
youths who battled each other and police in the parking lot after the park closed
90 minutes early.
“We had some unsupervised youngsters acting as unsupervised youngsters
have a tendency to do,” was the only explanation Rhodes would give. “We
decided to close the park early for the benefit of the families that were in
the park, because these unsupervised youngsters were interrupting their fun.”
None of these youths were threatening the families, she said, but they were
engaging in ruckus-like behavior, i.e. fighting. “There were no serious
injuries,” she said.
Rhodes is doing more than choosing her words carefully for public relations
purposes. She is pinpointing a trend that was beginning to seriously alter the
atmosphere at this 78-year-old family amusement park. With a $3 admission fee
to the pay-as-you-go park, many parents were dropping their teen-age children
off and letting them spend the day and evening unsupervised. With no money to
buy ride tickets, the kids milled about aimlessly, trouble looking for itself
to happen. The altercation with police in the parking lot after the park’s
early closing generally involved teens with no immediate transportation home,
according to news reports.
Within three days Lake Winnie had instituted new policies aimed at removing
the “unsupervised activity,” Rhodes said.
— All guests under age 21 must be accompanied by a parent or adult chaperon
age 21 years or older, or they must be a member of a chaperoned group pre-registered
with the park and sponsored by a church, school, camp, club or business;
— All guests under age 21 will be required to purchase either a combination
$3 gate admission and value strip of 14 ride tickets for $9.50, or a combination
$3 gate admission and unlimited-ride arm band for $18;
— The $3 gate admission by itself will be available only to persons over
age 21.
Lake Winnie has begun a public education campaign to head off any further ruckus
that might arise this weekend over the new policies. They will be announced
in the park’s weekly Chattanooga Free Press advertisement today,
they will be posted prominently at entry gates and the parking lot, and flyers
will be distributed to all patrons entering the park, Rhodes said.
It’s a bold move done on the sudden, but park management is not concerned
with consequences, only the end result. “Lake Winnepesaukah has enjoyed
a reputation as a place for family fun for 78 years,” Rhodes said. “We’re
not a teen park and we’re not a theme park and we’re not a rock ‘n’
roll park. We’re a family amusement park, and maintaining that tradition
is at the forefront of what we do. As the public becomes educated on our new
policy, the policy reinforces our objectives of family fun. That’s what
it’s designed for and that’s what Lake Winnepesaukah is all about.”
Poll vaunting
To gauge children’s
feelings toward the environment, Proprietary Media, the firm promoting the American
Zoo and Aquarium Association’s image campaign with the Aza mascot (THE
LOOP, March 8, 2002), had hoped one million children would log onto Aza’s
web site and take the “Poll for the Planet” posted there. Two years
on, only 60,000 have taken the poll, but that’s a significant jump from
the 10,000 who had responded by this time last year.
It also was enough to discern some important trends in the responses: namely,
that children care deeply about the environment, that children want to help
save the environment, and that children feel most adults care little about the
environment and are doing too little to save it. With enough responses now to
provide statistical merit, the data was compiled into the AZA White Paper which
former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley will present to political, business and foundation
leaders.
“This is not a scientific poll, and we never claimed it was,” said
Janet Weiss, senior vice president and managing director for Proprietary Media,
Inc. “It’s just a great way to gauge what young people are thinking.”
Sixty percent of young people are thinking that not enough was being done to
prevent pollution, and 49 percent felt that not enough was being done to clean
up the environment, according to the poll. More importantly, children are ready
to jump in to the cleanup campaign themselves. “The biggest surprise, and
the greatest news, is that not only do kids think there is a problem and they
want to help, but they believe that they can help, which is wonderful,”
Weiss said. “That is something we absolutely now have to tap into.”
Publication of the 31-page white paper, released Tuesday to coincide with Earth
Day, brings to fruition the centerpiece of the Aza campaign, which also includes
the digital mascot appearing in comic strips and making personal appearances.
While promoting the existence and mission of the AZA, Aza was supposed to entice
children to take action, first by visiting its web site and then by voicing
their opinions or becoming involved. When Aza didn’t seem to be generating
much traffic to the web site, Proprietary Media turned to AZA member institutions
for help in promoting the campaign. The institutions obviously stepped up. Of
the 60,000 respondents to the poll, more than 45,000 completed the survey at
83 zoos and aquariums across North America, while just 12,374 completed the
on-line form.
The mere fact that the children took the survey at zoos or by voluntarily going
to the Aza web site skewed participation toward kids who are environmentally
minded in the first place. Nevertheless, Weiss said, the survey results show
“a message of hope, that these kids feel that they can make a difference.”
Now it is up to Bradley to take this message and use his eloquence to convince
government officials, corporate CEOs and foundation leaders to partner with
AZA in providing children a means to engage in conservation activities.
Bradley also has the comfort of knowing his own eloquence can be bolstered by
some equally poignant commentary from the children themselves. One girl commented
on the poll that her house lies near a “bad river” that “smells
like poop, and living a road away from it can’t be as bad as living in
it.”
To download the white paper, visit www.azasweb.com.
Poster people
As part of this
year’s 25th celebration of the American Coaster Enthusiasts’ founding,
the organization will be producing a commemorative poster containing 300 to
400 individual photographs highlighting events, members and rides of the past
25 years.
Founding member Richard Munch, a New York City architect and roller coaster
historian, is spearheading the effort with graphic designer Terry Lind and ACE’s
Publication Director Tim Baldwin. Munch is now soliciting prints, slides, digital
images in color or black and white that offer “exciting and colorful views
that will represent the full history of the club between 1977 and 2003,”
he said in a memo to members.
Specifically he is looking for photographs of significant people “who have
been instrumental in the foundation and operation of ACE” including “unique
characters;” events such as ride openings, marathons, publicity stunts
and ACE conventions and meetings; and coasters, new, classic, closed and demolished.
Munch wants at least one representative photo from each event and says the collection
is currently weak in the years between 1983 and 1993. As for rides, “at
a minimum we want to represent preservation efforts, as well as significant
rides.”
Each image, which will be no smaller than 1 inch wide by 1 1/2 inches tall,
will be identified by place and date and be fully credited. The deadline for
submissions is May 2.
For more information or a checklist of needs, contact Tim Baldwin, tbaldwin@amusementtoday.com.
Voice over
If you call Jeffrey
Siebert, marketing communications manager for Paramount’s Kings Island,
and get his voice mail, you will hear Shaggy of Scooby-Doo fame, tell you that
Jeffrey is away from his desk and can’t answer the phone. Shaggy also informs
callers to Karen Mickelson, the park’s marketing manager, that she is not
available because she is getting a pizza.
That voice of Shaggy—and Scooby, too—belongs to Scott Innes, who was
the featured celebrity at the media day for Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle
at the Kings Island, Ohio, theme park (see New Arrival). “He was a great
pleasure to have,” Siebert said. “The guests loved him and we thoroughly
enjoyed having him.”
It was Innes who offered his Shaggy voice for voice mail use, and Siebert and
Mickelson took him up on it. Siebert has found that having a celebrated voice
mail does have have its hang ups. “People are calling just to hear the
voice message,” he said. “I dial in the message center and it says,
‘You’ve got 17 new messages,’ and I’m going, ‘Whoa.’
But they’re all click, click, click, and occasionally I’ll hear, ‘Oh,
that was great!’ click.”
New Arrivals
It’s
a spinning coaster!
Lagoon in Farmington, Utah, announces the arrival of The Spider, April
19, 2003. Measurements: 53 feet high (16 meters), 1,414 feet (431 meters) of
track, 11,388-square foot (1,058-square-meter) footprint not including queue
and exit areas, eight four passenger cars. Delivered by Maurer Soehne.
This was a troubled birth. Maurer Soehne’s first spinning coaster in North
America opened on its due date, April 12, but it was late that Saturday afternoon
and ran only 15 minutes before being shut down. The next day, it ran for three
hours and shut down again when problems developed with some of the wheels on
the cars. Maurer Soehne overnighted new sets of wheels, and after nearly 72
hours of almost continuous work the coaster was ready for its second opening
day last Saturday. At 2 p.m. on a clear, sunny day (much better weather than
the windy cold of the previous weekend) when The Spider was deemed ready,
a queue numbering in the hundreds cheered and ran to the ride’s entrance.
They came off the ride nattering amid giggles and laughter. It’s that kind
of ride, like hanging onto a pinball in action or, more to the theming, riding
a foraging housefly on caffeine. It’s fun enough just watching the wide-eyed
passengers on the ride. Even if he hadn’t seen this reaction, André
Meacham, Lagoon’s ride division operations manager, knew he could count
on The Spider’s success. On a day when about 3,000 people passed
through Lagoon’s front gates, about 3,000 people passed through The
Spider’s turnstile, and the queue was still about an hour long as closing
time approached. However, many of those 3,000 riding The Spider were
obviously repeats as several people ran from the exit back to the queue. Not
that they would repeat the experience; because the seating platform free-spins
from the second drop to the final brake block, The Spider gives a different
ride every time.
Repeat visits is why Lagoon engages in an annual capital improvement and is
especially aggressive in getting “state of the art rides,” Meacham
said. “Most of our guests are the same guests year after year, so we really
want to be doing something nice and something new.” One such new ride was
the Maurer Soehne Wild Mouse seven years ago, and the ongoing success
of that coaster prompted Lagoon to return to the manufacturer for this year’s
addition. “We really like working with Maurer Soehne,” Meacham said.
“They build a really good product and more than anything else stand behind
it,” as evidenced last week when the company sent the replacement wheels
in time for the park’s second weekend of operation.
Newfangled rides mesh with clever decor at Lagoon. Of The Spider’s
$4 million price tag, about $1 million went into theming and landscaping. “We’re
to the point where we realize you can’t just buy a ride and put it in,
it needs to be themed,” Meacham said. “We could have poured cement
and put a ride in the middle of it, but all this stuff adds to it.”
“This stuff” includes a 16-foot-tall (5 meters) wrought iron spider
under which guests pass entering the ride’s plaza, a castle-themed station
house with metal spiderwebbed windows and baby spiders hanging on walls and
fences. “I found some metal balls and gave them to our welder to turn into
spiders,” said Lori Capener, director of Lagoon’s art and sign shop.
The spider at the entrance was accomplished by a local fabricator and will eventually
hiss blasts of air through its mouth while the red hourglass on its belly lights
up. Park officials were so pleased with the $50,000 sculpture, they ordered
another to be placed inside the coaster itself reaching out as if snatching
at a passing car.
Which is what the ride psychologically does to spectators; with all the squeals
and peals of laughter going on in there, its hard to resist entering The
Spider’s web.
It’s
a flat ride!
Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka, Missouri, announces the arrival of Xcalibur,
April 18, 2003. Measurements: 113 feet high (34.5 meters), 46-foot (14-meter)
diameter of wheel, 96-foot (29-meter) radius of the wheel, 6,400-square-foot
(594.5-square-meter) footprint, 16 gondolas carrying four passengers each. Delivered
by Nauta Bussink Baily.
Something about bagpipes.
Because Six Flags St. Louis’ new Britannia section ride is themed as a
battering ram inside a medieval wood fort, and because it’s named for King
Arthur’s famous sword, the park adopted a decidedly Olde English flavor
in the opening ceremony for Xcalibur. A knight in shining armor sliced
through the ribbon with his sword, and bagpipers provided the fanfares and soundtrack.
True, bagpipes are Olde Scottish rather than English, but they struck the right
tune with the crowd. “When the ride was opening, there was quite a line,”
said Carrie Wenos, the park’s public relations coordinator. “Every
time the bagpipers finished playing, everybody would cheer. It was a very pumped-up
crowd.”
Along with the public crowd were local professional journalists and 38 student
journalists from high school and college papers. “They’re very professional
when they come out,” Wenos said. “They take it very seriously.”
Radio station contest winners from as far away as Springfield, Illinois, made
up the official first riders, after which the pumped-up crowd started boarding
the pumped-up ride. “The people I’ve spoken to said they didn’t
know what kind of ride experience to expect,” Wenos said. “Some people
rode several times in a row, which for a spinning ride was quite a task.”
It’s
a flat ride!
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, California, announces the arrival
of Fireball, April 14, 2003. Measurements: 24-seat gondola rotating at
15 RPM, 60-foot-high (18-meter) swing. Delivered by Chance Rides.
The goal was to get the second of its two new rides opened by spring break,
and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk barely did so, opening Fireball on the
first Monday of local schools' recess. With cool temperatures following a rainy
weekend, a line formed at the ride even as the maintenance crews accomplished
their final checks. “That always happens,” said Jan Bollwinkel-Smith,
the Boardwalk’s communications manager. “People will stand there saying,
‘When is it going to open? When is it going to open?’ and if they
think it will be soon they stay in line to be among the first on.”
Fireball is the Boardwalk’s second installation of the year. On
February 16 Cliff Hanger opened, a Dartro Industries product on which
riders circle in hang glider-themed conveyances. Positioned on the beach side
of the Boardwalk, the ride gives guests the impression they are taking off over
the Pacific.
It’s
a roller coaster!
Liseberg in Göthenburg, Sweden, announces the arrival of Balder,
April 12, 2003. Measurements: 36 meters high (118 feet), 1,080 meters long (3,543
feet) , 90 km/h (56 mph), two 30-passenger trains, 2:08-minute ride. Delivered
by Intamin.
Fifteen years is a lifetime for many amusement park patrons, and that is how
long Liseberg had been without a wood coaster. The park opened in 1923 with
Berganan, but the ride was demolished in 1987. “Ever since then
we have been longing and planning for a new one,” said Pelle Johannisson,
Liseberg’s marketing director. “We feel, and everybody in the business
feels, that a wooden coaster is a crucial thing to have in the park. We had
to wait about 15 years to get a new one.”
The desire for a wood coaster was so strong that for the official opening ceremony
instead of cutting a ribbon the park had Ulrika Messing, the Swedish Minister
of Communications and Regional Policy, saw through a piece of wood to open the
gates.
Liseberg picked its 80th anniversary as the appropriate moment to return a woodie
to its ranks, and the park cleared out work buildings in a backstage area to
make room for the wooden structure named for the Norse god of light. After two
years of construction the ride opened to a patronage both nostalgic and new.
“Young kids had never gone on a wooden coaster,” Johannisson said.
“Old people remember the old coaster, and this is a completely new experience
for them.”
Many of the journalists attracted from all over Scandinavia to a March 19 media
event likewise had never ridden a woodie, but members of the European Coaster
Club in attendance had, and they could tell the press Liseberg had a winner.
“They classified it as one of the top five in the world,” Johannisson
said of the ECC feedback. “I don’t know if they always say that, though.”
A couple weeks later the park invited delegates from a tourist trade show in
Göthenburg for a private preview of Balder, spreading the ride’s
name through the travel industry.
Finally, the ride’s public opening arrived on an “awful” day,
Johannisson said. “In this period of the year in Sweden, it can be really
awful, and it was on opening day.” Nevertheless, more than 15,000 people
visited the park that day, and eight out of 10 rode Balder, Johannisson said.
“The other attractions had quite a slow weekend.”
Balder heralded several other changes in the park. Gone is a the Vekoma
boomerang HangOver, removed from the middle of the park to allow for
more amenities like cafes and shops. “We wanted to smooth out the area
in the center of the park to make it more for families,” Johannisson said.
With a steel Schwarzkopf Lisebergbanan from 1987 and the Zierer family
coaster Cirkusexpressen, Liseberg officials now feel they have a suitable
offering of coasters among their 35 rides.
Despite its speed, a 70-degree first drop and enough camel humps to cause 10
moments of negative G’s, Balder is positioned by Liseberg as a family
coaster. “It’s much more a family attraction than a teen-age coaster,”
Johannisson said. “The feeling you get afterwards is not something scary
but something fun. You’re laughing all the time.”
It’s
a roller coaster!
Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, announces the arrival of Scream!,
April 12, 2003. Measurements: 150 feet tall (46 meters), 3,985 feet long (1,214.5
meters), seven inversions, 65 mph (104.5 km/h), three 32-passenger trains. Delivered
by Bolliger & Mabillard.
The media day for this park’s 16th coaster—and first floorless—was
pretty typical. At least the first one was.
On a Thursday two days before the public opening, members of the local media,
coaster enthusiasts and 50 children from the Santa Clarita Valley Boys and Girls
Club serving as the official first riders, descended on the park for a 10 a.m.
(10,00) press conference, a skit featuring a Dr. Scream, fireworks and VIP rides
until 1 p.m. (13,00).
The next day, Six Flags Magic Mountain hosted college and high school media.
More than 300 student reporters and photographers showed up for their own press
event, giving the park a tremendous publicity outlet directly into its primary
market. “This is something we’ve always wanted to do, and this was
the first opportunity we had to do it,” said Sue Carpenter, Magic Mountain’s
public relations manager. “And I can tell you we’ll definitely do
it again.”
The day the public finally got to ride dawned partly cloudy and California spring
warm. With the gate’s opening, the bulk of the crowd sprinted to the far
end of the park, where Scream! was placed on what had been an employee
parking lot. Breaking from a tradition of putting its coasters up among hills
or behind themed facades, almost the full run of Scream! lies beyond
a plaza that could serve as an amphitheater for people watching the coaster.
Within an hour of opening, the ride’s queue stretched out into the plaza
and beyond, even with an efficient three train operation.
It’s
fraternal twin rides!
Paramount’s Kings Island in Kings Island, Ohio, announces the arrivals
of Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle and Delirium, April 12, 2003.
Measurements: Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle, 568 feet (173 meters)
of track, 18 scenes, 103 targets, 104 animated props, 27 three-passenger vehicles,
five-minute ride; Delirium, 85-foot-high (26-meters) tower, 137-foot-high
(42 meters) swing of gondola, 50 seats, eight revolutions per minute, 1:40-minute
ride. Delirium delivered by Huss. Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle
delivered by D.H. Morgan Manufacturing, Paramount Parks Design & Entertainment
and Sally Corp.
Usually on opening day at Paramount’s Kings Island, the crowds waiting
in the entry plaza when the ropes lower run en masse to that year’s new
attraction. This year, the crowd divided to conquer: “It was a mad rush
of strollers and wagons and moms and dads running to Scooby, and every
teen on the planet running to Delirium,” said Jeffrey Siebert, Kings
Island’s marketing communications manager.
The pair of new rides, aimed at two different audiences, shared a media day
the previous Thursday, but with two separate events. The morning was devoted
to Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle, placed in a fully remodeled Phantom
Theater ride, including new construction of a 60-foot (18-meter) castle.
Two members of the park’s entertainment staff played Shaggy and Velma looking
for Scooby, who ran out of the mansion to invite the media members and VIP guests
in for the ride. Scott Innes, the voice of Scooby and Shaggy on the cartoon
series, was the event's featured celebrity and proved a favorite for both journalists
and park staff, Siebert said. “He was fun to work with and gives great
interviews.” (See Voice Over in this issue.)
Delirium got the attention in the afternoon, featuring 50 coaster enthusiasts
wearing underpants outside their clothes that read “Don’t be scared,
come prepared (Delirium logo) a full load of thrills.” Siebert admitted
it was one of the park’s more bizarre stunts, but the ride, Huss’
first Giant Frisbee, proved to be full of surprises, too. After installing the
ride Huss clocked it at 76 mph (122 km/h), making it the second fastest ride
in the park behind the Son of Beast roller coaster which surpasses 80
mph (129 km/h). Delirium also gives its passengers an unusual perspective
of the park. “It’s bizarre because while you’re riding it, the
rest of the world is pointing at strange angles,” Siebert said: “The
Eiffel Tower is at 70 degrees, Son of Beast is at 3 o’clock.”
It’s
a turtle exhibit!
Newport Aquarium in Newport, Kentucky, announces the arrival of Turtles:
Journey of Survival, April 12, 2003. Measurements: 23 species of turtles,
17 exhibits, one new gallery with nine tanks and nine plasma screens, 11 audio
crystal turtles. Delivered by COSI Studios.
Turtles can be shy creatures. “We didn’t want people to just walk
by and say, ‘There’s a turtle in his shell, what does he do?’”
said Tim Mullican, executive director of the Newport Aquarium. For its new Turtles:
Journey of Survival exhibit threading throughout the aquarium’s footprint,
the Newport staff placed videos and audio cues to show guests how turtles behave
in the wild. Some of the videos staff shot in the aquarium's quarantine center,
some videos shot in the wild the aquarium purchased, but all relate to a particular
species residing in a nearby tank. That way, guests can look for the Mata Mata
turtle imitating a leaf at the bottom of a stream, or watch the snakeneck turtle
use its long neck for effective foraging in rocks.
Using turtles borrowed from other institutions, turtles rehabilitating for reintroduction
to the wild and some of its own turtles, the Newport Aquarium plans to keep
the temporary exhibit open until Thanksgiving. One section of the exhibit featuring
nine tanks and accompanying plasma video screens will remain as a permanent
fixture in the River Bank gallery.
Newport Aquarium is limited in its ability to stage temporary exhibits because
the building is laid out as a directed tour through themed galleries. However,
the Turtle exhibit utilizes not only gaps in the permanent displays but ceiling
space as well, most effectively in a replica of an archelon, the largest turtle
known to have lived, and a thousand Lucite turtles glowing in black light leading
guests to a hatchling tank with a single loggerhead. “Only one in a thousand
loggerheads will survive,” Mullican said. “You get this idea walking
under the thousands, and then coming to the one hatchling that’s alive.
That’s how many turtles die for the one to survive.” Two grown loggerheads
swim the waters of the aquarium’s signature Surrounded by Sharks exhibit,
adding even more awe to that gallery.
Two days before the Saturday public opening the aquarium hosted some 500 teachers
and members of the media for a preview. The next night donors and VIP’s
received a sneak peek at the exhibit, and on Saturday enough of the public showed
up to keep a steady line at the aquarium’s ticket window, Mullican said.
One measure of the new exhibit’s drawing power came from the collection
boxes where guests could make donations to turtle conservation programs. The
first week the boxes at the coat check collected $700, Mullican said.
It’s
a puppet show!
Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim, California, announces the arrival
of “Playhouse Disney—Live On Stage!” April 11, 2003. Measurements:
four casts of one live actor or actress, one bear and five puppeteers manipulating
15 characters, four technicians, 21-minute shows presented six times a day,
and room for an audience of 550 sitting on the floor.
He had seen the show at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, and John Addis knew it
would fit Disneyland Resort’s plans to offer more kid-friendly fare at
its California Adventure park. Then Addis, an entertainment and show director
for Disneyland Resort, was tapped to direct the California edition. The 18-year
Disney veteran had four months to put the show together, including training
raw puppeteers to play some involving characters with television progenitors.
For that, he got valuable help from master puppeteer Jeff Conover who worked
the original show. “Jeff had to take character performers, green unknowns
who had no idea what puppetry was, and transform them into these wonderful puppeteers,”
said Addis, who himself worked for Sesame Street Live with the Henson Corporation
before joining Disney.
Once “Playhouse” was ready, the show ran for a week and a half of
previews, mainly to Disney cast members, a few of whom brought their children.
“The response was great,” Addis said, “But I’ve been waiting
for children.” This, after all, is a show aimed squarely at the preschool
set. Finally, on the eve of the official opening, he got a true test audience,
about two-thirds of which were children. “And the room rocked,” Addis
said. “It’s like a Beatles concert.”
That’s exaggerating only a little, judging from the opening day shows where
impatient children and their barely patient adults formed long lines most of
the day waiting to get in the theater that originated as the ABC Soap Opera
Bistro. Inside, children sat or kneeled on the carpeted floor, but most were
on their feet the moment Bear from the Big Blue House made his entrance. Every
new character who appeared on the stage—from Rolie Polie Olie to Stanley—elicited
pointing fingers, cheers or gasps of wonder that their TV favorites were REALLY
THERE! The children danced all the dances, screamed at the light show, pogo-bounced
when the moon began singing and bounded up to catch bubbles floating down from
the ceiling.
The children get so into the production that the show’s tech crews have
a hard time concentrating, Addis said. “It’s so funny seeing adults
loving a children’s show. Usually the tech crews are the most jaded. However,
with this show, they sit up there and watch these kids and I’m like, ‘Hey,
keep your eye on the stage, stop watching the kids.’”
It’s
a dark ride!
Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, announces the arrival of The Many
Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, April 10, 2003. Measurements: 836 feet (255
meters) of track, 11 scenes, 25 animatronic figures, 22 vehicles carrying 6
to 10 passengers on a 3 1/2-minute ride.
The critics were not kind. Disneyland’s newest dark ride elicited little
more than yawns from press pundits and yaps from Disney-baters who complained
that the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was a step backward from
the park’s rollicking, technology-rich, thrill-giving Indiana Jones
Adventure.
Pooh IS a step back, which is precisely why it should earn the park kudos,
and in fact does earn smiles and wide-eyed wonder among the younger set. This
ride is in a class of the dark ride genre that Disney pretty much has to itself.
“It’s a classic Disney dark ride long overdue for Disneyland,”
said John Stone, senior show designer for Walt Disney Imagineering who was art
director for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
The ride in fact has been 12 years in the sketch books, but only when the Country
Bear Theater was removed did the park make space for a new version of Pooh
which already was operating in Tokyo and Orlando. The Disney World Pooh
served as the Disneyland version’s genesis, altered significantly to fit
in an existing building. Disneyland’s Pooh uses the original building’s
three big rooms for its various scenes; guests move from scene to scene with
only acoustic walls providing the transition. Guests ride “hunny beehives”
through Hundred-Acre Wood, Floody Place, Pooh’s cottage and the psychedelic
Heffalumps and Woozles dream sequence.
Disneyland Resort officials had long planned a media event for the opening of
Pooh and "Playhouse Disney—Live on Stage!," but in the
wake of the war in Iraq they decided to cancel the ceremonies. Media that had
already made plans could still come for the official openings, and it turned
into a typical Disney-catered day for dozens of reporters and broadcasters.
Part of the press privilege was use of the Fast Pass line at Pooh. Good
thing; on this overcast, chilly Friday, the park was packed, and Pooh
was popular. The critics that count most seemed pleased.
It’s
a nocturnal exhibit!
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, announces the arrival of Kingdoms
of the Night, April 2, 2003. Measurements: 42,000 square feet (3,902 square
meters) including exhibits and back-of-house support, five themed exhibit halls,
75 animal species, a 160,000-gallon (605,666-liter) swamp and 2,400 stalactites
in one of two caves.
Henry Doorly Zoo knew it couldn’t top its own geodesic dome housing the
world’s largest indoor desert (THE
LOOP, April 12, 2002). But it could add some significant depth. The Kingdoms
of the Night, which the zoo is billing as the world’s largest nocturnal
exhibit, lies in the dome’s basement beneath the trio of deserts.
The zoo was so intent on making the experience fully immersive for its guests
that it actually puts patrons in the dark. “It takes people awhile to get
their eyes adjusted and get used to looking for things in the dark because it’s
truly dark,” said Sean Putney, assistant curator. “Some places are
really dark, you have to slow the pace down.”
Once their eyes adjust, visitors experience a wet cave with about 1,000 short-tail
bats, a 70-foot-tall (21-meter) shaft that houses “most of our bats,”
Putney said, a Eucalyptus forest, a Baobab tree and a Louisiana swamp. “The
swamp area is one of those awe-inspiring centerpieces,” Putney said, referring
to the trapper’s cabin, old cypress trees and old oaks “that make
you feel you’re really there.” The alligators are really there, just
a few feet below a floating boardwalk, and because it’s night they are
more active than the still-as-logs gators the public usually sees sunning in
most zoos.
The most frightening element of the exhibit, though, is a “bottomless pool”
in the wet cave, which contains a real stream. The pool has an acrylic sheet
five inches below the surface, but in the dark “Some concerned mothers
think their kids could fall in,” Putney said.
An opening day crowd of 4,500 people visited the new exhibit. The night before
the zoo unveiled the exhibit in a ribbon-cutting event for donors and government
officials, where it was officially dedicated as the Eugene T. Mahoney Kingdoms
of the Night. The naming surprised Mahoney, a member of the board and one of
the zoo’s most avid fund raisers. Recalled Putney, “He said he would
have gone after somebody else to raise more money to name it.”
It’s
an arcade game!
Full
Blast Family Entertainment Center in Battle Creek, Michigan, announces the arrival
of Makoto, April 1, 2003. Measurements: 32-square-foot (3-square meters)
footprint, three 6-foot-tall (2-meters-tall) towers with 10 targets each. Delivered
by Makoto USA.
Thomas Frame, general manager of Full Blast, is a prudent man. He saw Makoto
at a trade show and was enamored of the game based on martial arts stick-fighting
in which contestants stab at intermittently lighted targets on three towers
placed in a triangle. However, he didn’t want to commit to an untested
product, so he set up a 30-day trial with the suppliers.
Those 30 days look like they will extend to quite a long lifetime. “From
my office I can hear the unit running in the building right now,” he said.
“I’ve heard it being played since we turned it on.” The first
days he played the game for six hours himself. “I was training the staff,”
he explained. He also said, “I was puffing,” thanks to the workout.
“You get this thing jacked up to (skill) level five or six and you’ll
challenge anybody who walks through the door. This is a random unit, the lights
never follow the same pattern. It’s spooky how you think the lights are
going to come on, and you’re never right.”
The difficulty hasn’t limited the game’s popularity. He has seen three
toddlers in the arena, each responsible for one tower. He has seen youngsters,
tweeners, teens and adults take a stab at the game. “Usually, parents have
a tendency to sit in the chair and let the kids have fun,” Frame said.
“With this one I’ve got the parents up playing it. It’s interesting
how it locks in folks.”
Rebirths
It’s
a theme park!
Six Flags announces the rebirth of Six Flags New Orleans, nee Jazzland, April
12, 2003. Measurements: 2 new coasters—100-foot-high (30.5-meter), 2,700-foot-long
(823-meter) Batman: The Ride inverted coaster and 79-foot-high (24-meter),
1,936-foot-long (590-meter) The Jester steel coaster; three new flat
rides—44-foot high (13.5-meter), 30-passenger Lex Luthor's Invertatron,
40-passenger Catwoman’s Whip, and the 30-car Joker’s Jukebox;
one new kiddie ride—the Technocolor Tweety Balloons; a kiddie area
re-themed as Looney Tunes Adventures, 10 new shows, 50 newly planted mature
oaks and southern magnolia trees, shade structures and a Pop Jet water fountain.
Delivered by Amusement Rides & Parts Service/Wieland Schwarzkoph, Bolliger
& Mabillard, Soriani & Moser,Vekoma and Zamperla.
New Orleans had to wait a week longer than they anticipated to finally see the
much ballyhooed changes Six Flags was intending to bring to their 3-year-old
Jazzland theme park. The park experienced construction delays, and some overseas
shipments were held up, said Ann Wills, public relations manager for the now-named
Six Flags New Orleans, and as the scheduled opening day of April 5 approached
Six Flags president and COO Gary Story decided to delay a week rather than open
unfinished.
“A transformation of this magnitude takes time, and we wanted to get it
right,” Wills said.
For
a city growing accustomed to broken promises at the theme park, the decision
carried some risk. In the end it was proved wiser than even Story could have
imagined. Rain poured on April 5, while the following Saturday saw “gorgeous,
beautiful, blue skies and mild-for-New Orleans temperatures,” Wills said.
Even before the park opened newscasters were hailing Six Flags’ wisdom,
and once the press and public saw the park, they were hailing the company’s
takeover of the park’s management.
After an opening ceremony that featured the titular star of the park’s
new "Batman Thrill Spectacular" stunt show riding a motorcycle through
pyrotechnics, the gates swung open to allow guests the chance to witness what’s
new. “You always have a group of people who run to the new rides immediately,”
Wills said, referring to the sprinters heading for the B&M inverted Batman
and The Jester. “Other people just wanted to see the park and how
the park is transformed.” Most impressive of the transformation is mature
oaks and magnolias offering more shade in the park, and additional shade structures
along the midways. Six Flags spent more than $1 million on landscaping alone.
Of course, at the end of the day, a favorite had emerged among the new attractions.
“Batman: The Ride,” Wills said. “It was a huge hit. It
still is.”
The crowds that arrived for the opening day, Wills said, “were beyond what
we hoped, exceeded our expectations. We were thrilled.” So, too, it seems,
were the people of New Orleans.
Eric's Turn
ACE
of diamonds
They are revered.
They are reviled. Often by the same people.
They are coaster enthusiasts.
Our industry has a love-hate relationship with enthusiasts. Enthusiasts are
perfect PR fodder for media days, make great models for video shoots of new
rides and are the primary perpetrators of good buzz for a ride or a park. All
you’ve got to do is feed ’em and give them some ERT. Many enthusiasts
also behave like over-demanding, spoiled brats, grow oversized chips on their
shoulders and tend to regard the “GP” (general public) as flotsam
to be skimmed out of their way, ignoring the fact that buzz is nice, but GP’s
pay the parks’ bills.
Say what you will about individual enthusiasts, but you cannot deny the huge
impact the American Coaster Enthusiasts, ACE, has had on our industry in the
club’s 25-year history. Is it coincidence or correlation that the industry’s
post-Roaring 20’s heyday, spurred by the steel “coaster wars”
and the resurgence of classic woodies, came about during ACE’s lifetime?
I think it’s correlation, though determining which spawned which is a chicken-and-the-egg
argument.
True to its name, though, ACE bred enthusiasm for coasters among the paying
public during the coaster war years. At the same time, the organization held
dear one of the primary tenets of its charter: to preserve classic coasters
and celebrate the amusement industry’s history. Even as its members were
looking for the latest, greatest thrill, they were campaigning to keep many
of the traditions of amusement parks intact and, in some cases, campaigning
to keep traditional amusement parks alive. Not only did they generate some business
for these parks, but their ideals were eventually embraced by the cyclic nature
of consumers who now desire traditionally Americana experiences.
ACE is in the middle of celebrating the 25th anniversary of its founding after
a coaster riding marathon at Paramount’s Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia,
to promote the just released Hollywood thriller Rollercoaster. The celebration
began at last year’s annual Coaster Convention at Six Flags Magic Mountain
(THE LOOP, June 28, 2002),
where one of the club’s founders, Richard Munch, rode the Revolution
coaster with Rollercoaster star Timothy Bottoms (photo above). The yearlong
celebration concludes this June when the annual Coaster Convention returns to
Kings Dominion as well as Busch Gardens Williamsburg June 15-21.
Meanwhile, the organization is moving forward on establishing the National Roller
Coaster Museum and Archive. It already has a large collection of coaster cars
and amusement park memorabilia and is raising money to find a permanent home
to exhibit these items for the public (THE
LOOP, November 26, 2002). The fund-raising campaign, run by a separate not-for-profit
entity but launched with a $250,000 contribution from ACE itself, aims to raise
$500,000 over the next three years.
THE LOOP is joining in both of these endeavors, and invites you, both industry
supplier and operator, to participate. We will be publishing our pre-Coaster
Con issue May 23 containing features, tips and schedules to assist not only
Coaster Con participants but anybody who may someday descend on the Virginia
parks. We will publish our post-Coaster Con issue June 27 containing a report
on the convention’s news and events plus a first-for-the-industry survey
on rider and patron preferences. We are offering special advertisements for
these issues—hot-linked to web sites, of course—and for every ad we
sell, 20 percent will be donated to the National Roller Coaster Museum and Archive
Fund.
This is an opportunity for you to congratulate ACE and support their worthy
efforts, a chance for you to build your future and your past. For more information
on the advertising special, click
here.
Clarification
In
the April 11, 2003, edition
of THE LOOP, a story about George Mason University’s new tourism degree
program and internship opportunities prompted a letter from George Mason alumnus
Mark Riddell, the public relations manager at Paramount’s Kings Dominion.
He recalled his alma mater being located in Fairfax, Virginia, not Manassas,
Virginia, as reported in our story. He’s right, the main campus is in Fairfax.
The university also has a campus in Arlington, Virginia, and in Manassas. The
Department of Health, Fitness and Recreation Resources' Tourism and Events Management
Program offers their major and minor degree on both the Fairfax and Manassas
campuses. The HFRR's main office and all five tourism faculty are located on
the Manassas campus.
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
All rights reserved
