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Volume 2, No. 3. February 8, 2002
By Eric Minton
For
a printer-friendly version of THE LOOP
CLICK
HERE
In
this issue
(To
go directly to a story, click on a blue keyword below):
Jazzland
fetes celebrities in a pre-Super Bowl bash;
Italy's
Gardaland turns its attractions into history classrooms;
Children give adults
a free ride every Monday at Callaway Gardens;
The Oklahoma City Zoo counts the days with help from
amateur photographers;
Rowlett's Wet Zone muses over names for its mascot;
We revisit a popular show at Silver Dollar City, mourn
the loss of Kabul's Marjan, and close the book on foot
and mouth disease;
We welcome Newport Aquarium's new warehouse, Futuroscope
Park's new multimedia show and Denver Zoo's new
garage;
And we offer the gift of help for THE LOOP's one-year
birthday.
Super-land
That annual American sportsfest, last Sunday's Super Bowl football championship
game, is always preceded by a week-long slate of celebrity-packed parties,
and this year's host city, New Orleans, was bound to inspire more big-name
good timing than usual. However, one of the highest profile parties on
Super Bowl eve landed not on Bourbon Street but in the faux French Quarter
of Jazzland Theme Park.
Hailed by Sports Illustrated magazine as the "power party of Super
Bowl Weekend," the 16th annual shindig thrown by agents Leigh Steinberg
and Jeff Moorad attracted about 3,000 guests to Jazzland, including sports
and entertainment stars Deion Sanders, Warren Moon and Warrick Dunn. U.S.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle also attended, five-time Grammy nominee
and hip hop fave Outkast provided the music, and the pop troupe N'Sync
was on the guest list and reportedly in attendance.
The party started at 2 p.m. (14,00) and was only supposed to run for three
hours, but guests, lingered until 6 p.m. (18,00). "What we hear from Steinberg's
people and the guests is that it came off flawlessly," said David Wright,
Jazzland's marketing director. In addition to festive decorations and
food, Jazzland was able to offer the replica French Quarter street and
a spacious plaza overlooking the rest of the theme park surrounding its
centerpiece lagoons.
"This definitely shows the variety that our park can offer," Wright said
of the party. "We're not just a theme park experience; we can deliver
on the upscale magnitude of this event, or even bigger."
Jazzland has aggressively pursued the group events market for its off-season
months. This past winter the park has hosted fund-raisers for local charities,
corporate and association banquets, community festivals and Christmas
parties, ranging from a few hundred people to 20,000-plus. "We're like
the Sanger Theater or House of Blues: we try to market the fact that we
are an additional venue to have events," said Patrick Evans, the park's
public relations manager. Hosting community festivals and charity events
also serve as good community outreach.
Though Jazzland's rides do not run during these events, the park can offer
its themed environs plus ample parking and security. Wright also pointed
to the park's proximity to downtown, just eight miles from the Superdome
where the Super Bowl was played. "The French Quarter is right off Interstate
10, and we're off Interstate 10," Wright said. "Sometimes its quicker
to get here than navigate a couple miles in the Quarter." Especially for
last Saturday's super party guests. "They came in limos, taxis and shuttle
buses."
Students can barely sit still for Gardaland's history lessons at the Valley of the Kings. Photo courtesy of Gardaland
A park with class
Teachers have a number of interactive tools at hand when imparting history
curriculums to their students. They have text books, audio-visual aides
and, for many classrooms, the internet. Ideal would be taking the whole
classroom to the land of the lesson; to study ancient Egypt, take them
to Egypt. To study dinosaurs, take them to a Triassic-era island.
Barring that, take them to the nearest theme park.
That presumption has generated significant mid-week shoulder season traffic
for Gardaland in Castelnuovo del Garda, Italy. The theme park, which prides
itself on accurately themed environments, rides and shows, has set up
a series of classroom programs using its attractions to illustrate lessons
in history and biology for schools in northern Italy. The initiative,
in turn, has led to new meeting facilities that have helped build corporate
group sales for the park.
Because of a 1991 national law restricting out-of-school trips for classrooms,
"Teachers had to justify excursions," said Roberta Brentarolli, sales
manager at Gardaland. "It's difficult justifying a trip to an amusement
park. Since we had the possibility to give them something more, a biology
lesson or history lesson, why not offer that in combination with a day
in the amusement park? It was a good solution." One of Gardaland's attractions,
the Dolphinarium, provided a natural fit. School groups could attend lectures
by biologists in a 100-seat classroom then attend one of the daily Dolphinarium
shows. With a half-dozen lessons a day, the program has generated about
12,000 visits a year.
A more creative program arose from one of the park's popular dark rides,
the Valley of the Kings housed in a thematic 1:2-scale replica
of the temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt. With input from an archaeology society
in Milan and a local history museum, Gardaland put together sample curricula,
complete with accompanying workbooks and in-house lecturers. "Each year
we concentrate on a separate subject," Brentarolli said. "One year it
was on Tutankhamen and the discovery of his tomb, another year on pharaohs,
another on interpreting hieroglyphics," of which the Valley of the
Kings offers plenty of hands-on samples. As for the notion of using
a theme ride in place of the real thing, Brentarolli said, "That's the
role of the teacher, to explain the difference between fake and real."
Offered the past five years, the Egyptian program has brought some 20,000
students to the park each year, proving so popular that Gardaland has
built a 600-seat meeting room for the program. With that room, the park
in 1999 began offering meeting space to local companies who rent the park
for product launches and anniversaries, Brentarolli said. "Software companies
want to be as strange as possible," she said, and Revlon Cosmetics likes
using Gardaland for special events. "An amusement park is normally cheaper
than any big restaurant, and you engage people all day."
Gardaland also tried to build a history lesson about knights based on
its medieval tournament show. "That was nice, but it didn't have the same
impact; Egyptians are much more fashionable," Brentarolli said. But this
year, the ancients have been supplanted by an even earlier but more fashionable
population: dinosaurs, a lesson triggered by the park's booking the Iwerks
3D film Dino Island at its motion theater. "We'll have a paleontologist
lecture on dinosaurs and make reference to the film, which has many dinosaurs
from different periods acting at the same time: the paleontologist will
point that out," Brentarolli said. Based on a test run of the program
in September for 900 teachers, the park knows it has another winner. "Teachers
are extremely skeptical," Brentarolli said. "You have to be so careful
not to disappoint them. We had many, many teachers write us to say it
was 'Great,' 'Fantastic,' 'Well done.'"
The children shall
set us free
In settling on an appropriate
celebration for its 50th anniversary, Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain,
Georgia, decided to let children lead the way. Every Monday this year
through November 18, any child 5-years-old and under may bring up to five
guests into the Gardens for free. Because children 5 and under get in
free anyway, whole carloads of guests can now experience the Gardens at
no charge.
Chairman of the Board Bo Callaway and his brother, Cason Callaway Jr.,
came up with the idea as a way to honor their father, the Gardens' founder
Cason Callaway. The elder Callaway said he built the Gardens "so that
more children will have a chance to see something beautiful by the time
they are 6 years old." Though children could get in free anyway, the Callaway
brothers decided that making children the key for adults to get in free
would be even more enticing.
"Our hope is that people will spend quality time with children, bring
children to see something beautiful and meaningful that they will remember,
and introduce more people to Callaway Gardens," said Rachel Crumbley,
corporate relations manager. The park chose Mondays not only because it
typically is the slowest day of the week, but also is a more likely day
for parents to get off work. It also entails the federal holidays, and
the program will be in force for President's Day, Memorial Day, Labor
Day, Columbus Day and Veterans Day.
Crumbley said the park is not expecting to make up the loss of admission
receipts (up to $12 per adult) with per caps at the park's restaurants
and shops, but the "Marvelous Mondays" program could drive purchases
of annual memberships. Primarily, though, the promotion is intended to
carry out the founder's mission and instill good will. "The benefits for
us are a big 'thank you' for our loyal guests over the many years," Crumbley
said. "And we hope to increase exposure to people who have never been
here before."
Show me plumes, luv!
The picture is something you
might see on the cover of National Geographic Magazine: a tight
shot of an American flamingo digging its beak into bright orange plumage.
The photo adorns the cover of the Oklahoma Zoological Society's 2002 calendar
and was shot by David Sims for the price of a free zoo membership. All
of the 39 photos used in the calendar, shot by 22 different amateur sphotographers,
came at the same low cost to the zoo.
The calendar
is a product of the Oklahoma City Zoo's annual "Capture the Wild" photography
program. It starts with a two-day seminar in June when a couple of local
professional photographers take up to 30 guests, who must reserve a spot
in the program, around the zoo, offering tips on shooting wildlife.
The program's centerpiece is the annual photo contest. In conjunction
with the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, a neighbor
to the Oklahoma City Zoo, the Society accepts entries from mid-July to
mid-August. Photographers can enter as often as they want at no charge.
The only restrictions are that the photos must be 8-inch by 10-inch or
12-inch mounted prints, and they must be shot at the zoo. "Preference
in judging will be given to animals currently in the collection," said
Betsy Allie, associate director of the Oklahoma Zoological Society, also
known as Zoo Friends.
While some of the photos clearly show the Oklahoma City Zoo landscape,
others, like Sims' cover photo, could be taken anywhere. But, said Allie,
they wouldn't past muster in the competition. "The keepers look at all
the photos, and they know their animals," she said. "We're also assuming
these folks are sincere zoo friends." Besides, photographers have little
reason to cheat; even at the deadline of the entries, the Zoo Friends
don't know what the prizes will be, except memberships in the Society
and the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. By the time
of the judging in September, local sponsors have donated awards, ranging
from restaurant gift certificates to airline tickets.
Last year the Society received more than 400 entries by 200 photographers
from 23 communities around the state, Texas and Indiana. The entries were
divided into seven categories: mammals, birds, landscape, aquatic-reptiles-amphibians,
youth through age 8, youth 9-12 and youth 13-18. Sims won Best of Show.
Meanwhile, 10-year-old Kyle Abbot's work was entered in the adult division
and his puffer fish won first place in the aquatic, reptiles and amphibians
category. The youngest entrant was a 3-year-old. "The camera was too heavy
for him to hold up, and he took a picture that was mostly ground," Allie
said. "I give his mother a lot of credit; he wanted to be in the competition,
so she blew it up and entered it."
Aas with every other entry, that photo hung in a month-long exhibit at
the Photography Hall of Fame. "That's been one of the nicest things that
comes out of this collaboration," Allie said. "Kids get a huge charge
out of seeing their things displayed in an adult setting." The Society
then culls through the pictures to use in its annual calendar.
The Society views the whole program—from the photography seminars
through the competition to the calendar—as an educational tool, Allie
said, exposing participants to different animals and their habits. The
calendar also serves as a Zoo Friends membership benefit and a marketing
tool for any of the members' friends who see the calendar or attend the
photo exhibit.
The Society gets a bonus benefit from the program, too. All the photographs
in the competition become the property of the Oklahoma Zoological Society
to use in publications and promotions. "We have a wonderful library of
photos to use in our publicity material," Allie said. Professional quality
at amateur prices.
Wet Zone's new mascot found a name that fit. Drawing courtesy of Wet Zone
Naming rights
Among the capital improvements
the Rowlett, Texas, City Council approved for the second season of its
Wet Zone Waterpark, which will give the park North Texas' first bowl slide,
was funds for a mascot. Waterpark Manager Heath Olinger had already chosen
a hippopotamus for the character—Wet Zone's kiddie pool has a Superior
Foam floatable hippo, and the animal adorned one of the park's signs,
"So we just ran with it," Olinger said—and with the money budgeted
he immediately ordered a custom costume from International Mascot.
Though he had a design for his character, he didn't have a name. "How
do you come up with a good name for a mascot?" he asked. He found answers
in a number of places. He surfed the Internet, finding the site www.babynames.com
helpful. He also consulted on-line translator programs. "You can type
in a name and it will translate into African or Hawaiian or whatever,"
he said. These methods helped him build a list that included Haru and
Heaka. He also came up with Happy the Hippo, but crossed it off because
the name was already used for a Beanie Baby.
Obviously, alliteration was a key factor in his choices: the name needed
to start with an H. "It just sounded better, and would be easier for the
kids to say," Olinger said. "I was going to go with Heath, but I didn't
think they would like that." The "they" in question were other Rowlett
City staff who voted on Heath the Manager's list of names. The final choice:
Haley the Hippo. How did Olinger come up with Haley? "I was sitting at
home one day and Haley popped into my mind," he said. Nothing against
the Internet, of course, but Haley was obviously a natural choice.
Return visits
His attempts to stage a
Broadway-spectacle musical
for Silver Dollar City paid big dividends for Brad Schroeder, the Branson,
Missouri, park's director of entertainment and events. For the Glory,
a U.S. Civil War-era production Schroeder wrote and staged in the tradition
of Les Miserables (THE
LOOP, September 7, 2001) proved so popular during its eight-week
run last autumn that the show is being revived for this year. Opening
April 12 For the Glory will occupy the park's Opera House Theater
through October 26, when it will give way to Christmas in the Ozarks
during the Silver Dollar City's Christmas festival. Many of Glory's
cast members are returning, too.
Marjan, the lion whose maimed face moved a world to assist the rebuilding of the Kabul Zoo in Afghanistan (THE LOOP, December 14, 2002) died January 26 of kidney and liver failure connected with old age. Photos of Marjan, wounded in a grenade attack, touched a nerve among animal lovers everywhere and helped drive a fund-raising effort to assist the Kabul Zoo, spearheaded by zoo associations in Europe and North America. Kabul Zoo Director Sheraga Omar, who himself has endured years of strife to keep the zoo and its residents alive, reiterated his own dedication to the cause when in mourning the loss of Marjan he commented that he hopes the celebrity lion can be replaced, preferably by a breeding pair.
Almost a year after the first case was detected leading to the destruction of six million animals and causing a dire impact on tourism (THE LOOP, March 9, 2001 and April 9, 2001), foot and mouth disease has been officially declared eradicated in Great Britain. No cases have been detected since September, and on January 15 Northumberland became the last county in the country declared free of any sign of the virus. The disease forced the closing of several zoos and animal parks throughout the nation and depressed visitation to all amusement parks last spring. Many facilities rebounded with good gates through the summer, and this year the industry expects potentially record numbers as British residents elect to spend their holidays closer to home.
New Arrivals
A sterile-looking warehouse makes a suitable quarantine for the Newport Aquarium. Photos by Eric Minton
It's a warehouse!
The Newport Aquarium in Newport, Kentucky, announces
the arrival of its new warehouse, February 6, 2002. Measurements: 13,200
square feet (4,000 square meters), five saltwater tanks, two freshwater
tanks, three turtle tanks, one live rock tank, three snake cages, 30 10-gallon
frog aquarium tanks, three tadpole trays, 50,000 total gallons of water
(190,000 liters), one mile of pipes (1.6 kilometers).
Alicia Pradas-Monne, an aquatic biologist and veterinary assistant with
the Newport Aquarium, shuddered as she recalled the 2 a.m. phone call
on October 2, 1999, informing her that the aquarium's warehouse, where
200 animals were living out their quarantines, was on fire. The second
aquarium staff member on the scene as the blaze still raged, Pradas-Monne
was also the first one to enter the building, wearing full firefighting
gear, to assess the damage to livestock and tanks and determine how to
evacuate the animals, which firefighters had saved by covering their tanks
with tarp (only three fish and a moray eel died in the disaster). A caravan
of aquarium staff and vans got the surviving animals to holding tanks
at the aquarium itself, and less than a week later staff began searching
for another warehouse.
Wednesday, Pradas-Monne was giving tours of that new warehouse, which,
like its predecessor, is in a leased space. The Newport Aquarium spent
almost $1 million outfitting the warehouse for use as a quarantine center.
"This place is just phenomenal," Pradas-Monne said. "This place is gorgeous
compared to the other one." That is something only an aquatic biologist
would say of a room as utilitarian and expansive as an old aircraft hanger
with walls lined by pipes, valves and tanks of gunky-looking water.
Those pipes, valves and tanks are part of what makes this new warehouse
so special. The water, flowing through mechanical and natural filtration,
is constantly aerated as it circulates through the whole building, a circulation
system the staff calls "the Loop." Pradas-Monne and Erika Schissler, the
aquarium's Aquatic Programs Manager, helped design the facility to make
it as user-friendly as possible. "I was able to voice certain problems
I had with the old facility," Pradas-Monne said: "valves that were in
the wrong place, things that were difficult to do. And the guys who designed
this place took every little problem and made this place unreal. It's
very easy to work. It's very easy to explain to someone else how to take
care of this building."
Each of the tanks has hookups for saltwater, freshwater, air and a vacuum
line. Water and electrical outlets are placed to minimize hoses and extension
cords snaking over the floor. All valves and gauges are located within
reach of the 5-foot, 11-inch Pradas-Monne and the 5-foot, 2-inch Schissler.
"I had to test every valve to make sure I can reach it," Schissler said.
"If I can reach it, anybody can reach it."
Newport Aquarium first began using the warehouse for quarantine last spring,
starting with the turtle tanks. "We've been slowly adding animals as each
system came on line," said Schissler. "It's taken us about 10 months to
get this thing fully up and running." Added Pradas Monne: "We wanted to
make sure everything was absolutely perfect, so there was no rushing to
get everything running the way it should."
Though now decreed fully operational, the warehouse has plenty of space
for more tanks and an electrical and water circulation system that can
handle that growth with hassle-free hookups. "As the aquarium grows, this
place will grow as well," said Pradas-Monne. It's part of what makes her
workspace so gorgeous.
It's
a special effects show!
Futuroscope Park in Poitiers, France, announces the arrival of Miroir
d'Uranie February 2, 2002. Measurements: 7,000-square-meter lake for
a stage (23,000-square feet), three water screens, 60 cannons jetting
water 20 meters high (66 feet) and one cannon shooting water 40 meters
high (132 feet), nine exploding geysers, nine arches of water, 16 fire
valves shooting flames 8 meters high (27 feet) and two shooting flames
20 meters high (66 feet), five balloons, seven 3D CGI characters and one
human cast member. Delivered by ECA2.
As the future-minded theme park geared up for a season focusing on the
universe and space travel, it asked the producer of its multimedia show
on its Lake Theatre to come up with a new show fitting this year's focus.
ECA2 spent a year developing and engineering the story of a fisherman
who travels with a flying fish through the universe to meet and name a
young star.
Whereas ECA2's first show on Lake Theatre, The Lake of Images,
was primarily intended to show off dazzling multimedia effects, Miroir
d'Uranie (which translates as "Uranie's Mirror") has a storyline.
"There are a lot of strong effects, and at the same time there are very
poetic moments," said Yves Pépin, ECA2's president and artistic
director.
The only human in the show is an elderly country fisherman, arriving at
the fishless lake to cast his line during the preshow. The show seems
to begin with a dance of colorful fountains, but the fisherman's shouting
stops the show. Claiming to have caught something, he points to a face
that magically appears in the mist over the lake. Mesmerized, he pines
to find a way to meet the being, and suddenly Billy la Bulle (Billy the
Bubble) a cartoon flying fish appears on a water screen and invites the
fisherman to join him as they travel through space in search of the mystery
face. Transforming the fisherman into a cartoon fish himself, they visit
several ancient mythological societies from around the world until discovering
the young star, who must be named in order to turn into a real star. The
fisherman names the star Uranie, and in a flash of light, the real fisherman
appears walking across the lake toward the audience.
Miroir d'Uranie made its debut last Saturday for a select audience
of community friends and family members of park staff. Though Pépin
hesitated to claim the show a universal hit, he was pleased with the feedback
he heard. "I must confess, it was really, really a very big success,"
he said. "Sincerely, I think everybody was very, very happy." The show
will get an official opening night gala for the national press in April.
The Denver Zoo ramped up a new guest experience with a theme-heavy parking garage. Photos courtesy of the Denver Zoo
It's
a parking garage!
The Denver Zoo announces the arrival of a parking garage, January 31,
2002. Measurements: One acre, four floors, 764 car spaces. Delivered by
Haselden Construction, RNL Design, Jirsa Hedrick and Associates (structural
engineering), Carl Walker (parking design), Concrete Frame Associates,
ECOS Communications (graphics and signage), S.A. Miro (civil engineering),
and Shalkey and Team (urban design).
Primate Panorama in 1996 and Dragons of Komodo in 1999 gave the Denver
Zoo two first-class exhibits that drew great numbers. However, for the
staff and many of the public patrons, the zoo's latest capital improvement
project was greater cause for excitement. "This is probably closer to
the hearts of the public," said Suzanne Balog, the zoo's public relations
manager, about the new car park. "We're thrilled. Parking has been our
number one complaint for a long time. Now everybody's first impression
of the Denver Zoo will be a really good one."
The $17.5 million complex, which doubles the zoo's parking capacity, has
been more than 10 years in the making, Balog said, having to get past
a number of city permit and neighbor acceptance hurdles during its planning.
When it was finally erected and ready for use, the zoo staged a first-class
grand opening. In addition to Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, local dignitaries,
zoo officials and many residents of the community came out for the official
ribbon cutting, as did the staff and even construction workers. Balog
estimated the crowd at "several hundred people."
This is no ordinary parking garage, either. With three of the stories
underground, the building is unobtrusive, preserving the green space of
the Denver City Park where the zoo is located. Despite being subterranean,
however, two sides—facing south and west—are open to sunlight.
The structure also contains a number of safety elements: closed-circuit
security cameras, emergency call stations on all levels, in-house security
office with regular patrols, and plenty of artificial lighting in the
areas that natural lighting doesn't reach.
The zoo also themed its new garage with animal icons to help guests remember
where they parked. The featured animals are a boa for the first floor,
macaw for the second, tiger for the third and zebra for the fourth.
The garage is the first half step in a $125 million master plan aimed
at providing more room for the animals at the zoo. Next to break ground
will be a new main entrance to compliment the new garage.
Eric’s Turn
Birthday wishes
One year ago yesterday I was sitting in the media center of Disney's California
Adventure. The theme park had officially opened to the public that morning,
and after I had covered the ceremony and interviewed various guests and
dignitaries, including Art Linkletter above, I was writing the story as
the final flourish of our first edition of THE LOOP. We posted Vol. 1,
No. 1 (web site page "loop001.html")
that afternoon and sent our first e-mail notification that evening to,
well, some of you. A technical glitch foiled our first notification efforts,
and the bulk of e-mails didn't get out for a few more days. But we at
least accomplished our first goal: we were officially on-line and publishing
a bi-weekly newsletter, and we did our first on the road in the wake of
a major grand opening.
We've come a long way in our first year, in both style (compare that first
issue with this one) and technical expertise. We also know we still have
some improving to do. This is a work in-progress. However, many things
about THE LOOP have not changed, such as our mission to provide connection,
good ideas and relevant but fun reading to the amusement industry and
our dedication to accuracy and timeliness. Furthermore, many of the web
site features we had at the beginning are still available to you.
You can access these features by clicking on one of the gray buttons at
the top-left of this newsletter. All of the LOOP newsletters we have published
are archived and listed in chronological order, complete with a list of
each publication's content, at THE
LOOP index. The Reading
Room index lists all of the longer feature and service stories
we have published to help you run your business. Connections
is our links page, an ever-growing list of industry operators, associations
and suppliers with direct access to their own web sites (if you want to
get listed, e-mail me by clicking here).
The Staff page, formerly
called the Masthead, describes who we are and how to reach us. Advertising
takes you to a page that describes how you can place value-rich ads in
THE LOOP newsletter, take advantage of some of our special programs, like
the Enhanced New Arrivals, or become a long-term sponsor. Our ever-changing
Home page highlights
the latest issue of THE LOOP (which happens to be this one you are reading)
and other special features on our web site.
This week we have added another feature page to our web site, called Help.
This is a tutorial with tips on how to navigate our web site and get the
most out of every issue of THE LOOP: past, current, and future.