Volume 2, No. 16. August 23, 2002
AZA Preview
For a list of exhibitors, click here
Going
Wild in Texas
The last time we were all together in one room, the World Trade Center was a
smoldering heap of debris, floodlights were trained on the Pentagon's gaping
wound and the world sat stunned still, trying to comprehend what had happened
that September 11 morning. For the people attending the American Zoo and Aquarium
Association annual conference in St. Louis, the immediate task was merely getting
home and the conference was cut short.
For this year's AZA conference hosted by the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas September
10-14 the organizers plan to conduct a memorial service and tribute as part
of the Wednesday morning Opening Session. "We are going to address the
fact that the last time we were all together as a group was September 11,"
said Marnie Ducato, conference coordinator. "But we'll try to end it on
a positive note." Or, as Lyndsay Nantz, the zoo's communications manger
put it, "we don't want to bring down the entire conference with what happened
last year. We want to move forward with a positive attitude."
So, look for a wild time in Texas: and we don't just mean the Texas Wild! exhibit
at the Fort Worth Zoo, which will be the must-see element of Friday's Zoo Day
(among the tours available to AZA members on zoo day will be a few behind-the-scenes
tour of the $40 million, immersively themed, multimedia exhibit). As of this
week more than 1,300 delegates have registered, and organizers are anticipating
up to 1,700 will attend, stellar numbers in an economy when many government
entities are restricting travel for budgetary purposes. In the exhibit hall,
135 vendors are slated to show their wares and services (for a list of those
vendors, click
here).
The annual Icebreaker on the eve of the Opening Session will be at Billy Bob's
Texas with a live band and dancing, and two nights later conference organizers
more or less formalized an AZA tradition: the Pub Crawl at Sundance Square,
with some 15 bars and nightclubs offering delegates free drinks and food. T-shirts
listing all the stops will be available for sale, with proceeds going to the
AZA Conservation Endowment Foundation. "It's an organized event, but people
can go off and do it at their own speed and go with a group of friends,"
Ducato said.
In addition to the traditional Icebreaker the Forth Worth organizers have scheduled
a Pre Icebreaker Monday night, too. "Because we have a lot of meetings
before the Opening Ceremonies we decided to do something early, for people who
come in and do the meetings and then have to leave," Ducato said. "We
thought it would be nice to do something for them." Other new developments
for this year's conference: the business meeting on Thursday morning is open
to all delegates, and as part of the Fort Worth Zoo's campaign to get local
companies to help finance the conference, sponsors will be offering roundtable
sessions and presentations at the zoo on Friday.
Conservation will be the overriding theme of this year's conference, titled
"Wild challenges, sustainable solutions." Coming into this convention
most delegates will be more concerned with the bushmeat crisis in Africa than
the specter of 9/11 hanging over the conference (see story below).
Peter Emerson of the Environmental Defense Fund will be the Opening Session's
keynote speaker, setting the tone for a series of workshop topics dealing with
conservation efforts and zoos partnering with various organizations and campaigns.
Speaking of campaigns, another key effort at this year's conference will be
the full fusing of Aza, the conservation-conscience mascot (THE
LOOP, March 8, 2002), with all of AZA's programs.
As usual the conference will have a full slate of professional development workshops
and roundtables hitting on all aspects of zoo operations. Then there are the
off-the-wall topics, like Thursday afternoon's "Mystery, Sex, Teddy Bears,
You Better Run—How a variety of events support our mission."
"I wanted to put together a session on unusual special events that don't
fit the norm or the usual holidays, those things that allow us to partner with
organizations we don't normally partner with, those things that attract a new
audience who doesn't normally come to the zoo," said moderator Patty Peters,
associate zoo director/marketing at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio. She has tied animal
mating behavior in with a Valentine promotion at her zoo; that would be the
"Sex" part of her workshop. The session will highlight mystery dinner
theaters, races for runners and medical clinics for teddy bears. The last was
an event at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado, featured
in THE LOOP (August 10,
2001).
Being the marketing expert she is, Peters knows that content alone won't draw
an audience. "The only way to put people in your sessions is to put some
odd title on it," she said. "That one came to me in a dream."
These will be wild times indeed.
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