Volume 3, No. 3. February 14, 2003
Big
fish story
Pardon the pun,
but a sea change is at hand.
Ripley Entertainment is setting off on an adventure with its proposed takeover
of the bankrupt Ocean Journey Aquarium in Denver, Colorado (for details, see
Extra! Extra!).
However, if the company succeeds in turning the institution into a profitable
venture, look for more such transfers in the future.
“If we can make this work we’ll be out there looking at other aquariums,”
Ripley Entertainment President Bob Masterson said. “A lot of people would
like to find a private sector solution to a public sector problem. If we can
provide that, that’s great.”
Ripley’s has a good track record with aquariums, earning both aesthetic
and commercial kudos for the facilities the company built in Myrtle Beach, South
Carolina, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The Myrtle Beach aquarium became a benchmark
design for aquarium operators and builders, while Gatlinburg’s facility
was, at almost 2 million, the top drawing aquarium in North America last year.
Ocean Journey, the first existing aquarium the company has attempted to purchase,
represents a new set of challenges for the Ripley team. If the bid goes through
(it still must gain bankruptcy court approval), Ripley’s financial stake
would not be too burdensome: $4.5 million to purchase the assets and another
$8 million to $10 million in near-future capital improvements, Masterson said.
But Ripley would be under no obligation for Ocean Journey’s outstanding
$63 million debt, of which $57 million is owed to bondholders, $5.7 million
is owed the city and county and $335,000 owed to unsecured creditors.
“It’s going to be hard to overcome hard feelings from people who lost
money when Ocean Journey ran the business,” Masterson said. “That
has nothing to do with us. We’re just the people coming in salvaging the
business that’s in trouble.” The company has been warmly welcomed
by local government officials and endorsed by the bondholders.
However, Ripley definitely is taking over a fixer-upper. “I think the exhibtry
and theming are excellent, but they are not entertaining,” Masterson said.
“It’s lacking in entertainment value to keep people coming back. We
have to make some changes to do that.” He feels the aquarium needs a big
“wow!” when guests enter and an even bigger “wow!” when
they leave, both of which are currently lacking. At some point the company may
close the aquarium temporarily to make major enhancements, but for now he wants
to maintain operations.
Ripley’s other two aquariums has relied heavily on changeable exhibits,
spending $500,000 per exhibit “not counting market costs,” Masterson
said, “and then we market the dickens out of it.” The used exhibits
are sitting in a warehouse and available immediately for insertion at Ocean
Journey.
Masterson does not foresee large scale changes in personnel—“Part
of the assets you get are the skills of the people there,” he said—but
Ripley cannot us the 500 volunteers working there because, unlike Ocean Journey,
it is a for-profit venture.
Though not as dynamic as its other two markets, Denver does give the aquarium
a strong enough customer base, Masterson said. “There’s a lot of tourists
in Denver, but they’re not as concentrated in one area as they are in Myrtle
Beach and Gatlinburg.” His business plan looks to stabilize attendance
at 800,000 annually. “If you look at their numbers the first two years,
they did a million people in the first six months, and in 12 months they did
1.2 million. The people are there, they didn’t come back. They did not
perceive it as something they needed to come back to every year.”
If Ripley Entertainment can get people to come back to Ocean Journey and turn
the aquarium industry’s flagship financial failure into a profitable venture,
look to Ripley’s having a ready-made chain of government-funded aquariums
lining up across the land.
Garden harvest
The
same day Ocean Journey announced Ripley Entertainment’s bid for the Denver
aquarium, Paramount Parks and Bonfante Gardens announced the amusement park
chain had been contracted to manage the Gilroy, California, theme park (see
Extra! Extra!).
Combined, both stories suggest the consolidation trend is continuing in the
amusement industry.
Bonfante Gardens, being the unique type of theme park that it is—one based
on horticulture and skewed decisively to families with young children and to
senior citizens—is a unique situation, however. Over-invested and yet undercapitalized,
the park began looking for a management arrangement toward the end of last season.
Bonfante officials approached Paramount Parks.
The terms of the agreement were not released, but Paramount officials stressed
that the contract is strictly a management one. The chain therefore is taking
little, if any, risk in operating the park. It will be managed by the Paramount’s
Great America management and marketing team, which also has the company’s
Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas under its umbrella. As for future investment
in the park, Paramount Parks will recommend capital improvements and other development
options to Bonfante’s board of directors, but any decision on such recommendations
will be strictly in the hands of the board.
Meanwhile, Paramount Parks can use Bonfante Gardens to add value to the one
property in its chain that continues to slump, Great America in nearby Santa
Clara. The company is touting the arrangement as providing “excellent cross-marketing”
opportunities. Read into that combo passes and second-day rates along with shared
advertising. Even if that doesn’t surge attendance at Great America, it
will likely drive more traffic to Bonfante.
One of the reasons both parks have suffered in attendance is the economic conditions
of the San Francisco Bay Area, which has borne the greatest brunt of the current
nationwide recession. No one questions the value of both properties, especially
Bonfante Gardens, universally regarded as perhaps the most beautiful theme park
in the world; but the economic environment of the region has not changed. Paramount
Parks is just now putting together its business plan for Bonfante’s operations,
so exactly how the company plans to attract enough attendance to justify the
park’s investment value, and whether the new managers can even do that,
remains to be seen.
What is certain is that it won't hurt Paramount Parks to try.
Shop
therapy
Genuine black leather
suede. Quilted lining. Perfect fit. A great price for a Harrison & Tailor
jacket, regularly $99.99 on sale for $59.99. And no Shamu.
Not that I have anything against Shamu, but on a cold day at SeaWorld in Orlando,
Florida, I just needed something to keep me warm. In the park’s souvenir
shops I found this jacket which has become my wear of choice for social events
back home. Shamu is getting just as much mileage from it even without his portrait
embroidered on the chest, sleeve or back because everybody wants to know where
I got such a fine jacket. And what a price!
“It’s the unexpected, and then it’s the price,” said Bob
Podrasky, vice president of merchandise for SeaWorld Orlando. “From my
perspective it’s part of the entertainment experience people have when
they’re in the park, it’s part of that unexpected entertainment. And
it drives impulse sales in the park.”
My new jacket is an example of a new strategy Podrasky brought to SeaWorld when
he moved to the park a year ago after 25 years at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg,
Virginia. “The market used to thrive on tourists. You took your name and
you put it on everything to satisfy the tourist market,” he said. “The
market has shifted, and none of us in Orlando is getting a lot of the foreign
international market we’d like to get; we’re all getting more and
more of the local and nearby market. We’re getting a lot of repeat visits,
we’re selling a lot of season passes.”
Those customers are not shopping for Shamu gear. But they are shopping. So Podrasky
has his buying teams focusing on developing products exclusive to SeaWorld but
not necessarily bearing the park logo. Podrasky himself just returned from Ireland
which resulted in contracts that “are really stepping out of the box for
a theme park,” he said. Fine china manufacturer Royal Tara is making a
table top collection for SeaWorld, with place setting, condiment dishes and
giftware. “It will not carry our name, but the design brings a SeaWorld
theme into the product.”
SeaWorld and Discovery Cove shops will be selling two Waterford Crystal items—a
pineapple vase and an apprentice’s bowl—unavailable anywhere else
in the United States. Podrasky has commissioned artists to develop marine life
paintings for the parks to sell. His buyers are searching for top-line giftware
and apparel to offer in its boutiques where he will “drive the price down
to a point that’s a value for our guest.”
“We haven’t eliminated the Shamu and the dolphin; that’s an important
thing we do,” he said, but “we’ve scaled down the number of shops
that have that product.”
Such a strategy worked for Podrasky at Busch, he said. “I wouldn’t
be here if it didn’t work.” It also better positions SeaWorld to prosper
in the new world that is the Orlando market by putting the park’s stores
on the shopping conscience of the local population. “It brings people back
again and again,” Podrasky said.
Accelerated
learning
Using
an amusement park as a classroom or science laboratory is standard practice.
Using an amusement park as something similar to an extension course; well, that
is what sets Knoebels Groves Amusement Resort’s new partnership with Bloomsburg
University apart.
“We’ve
always wanted to have a science and physics program, as a lot of parks have,”
said Joe Muscato, marketing director at the Elysburg, Pennsylvania, park. “We
wanted to do a couple of things differently.” Muscato went so far as to
track down any science class that visited the park and solicit the teachers
for advice. “We were always looking for someone to partner up with us,
a group of teachers or a college.”
The partner called Muscato “clear out of the blue,” he said: Emeric
Schultz, a professor at Bloomsburg University in nearby Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania,
and director of the university’s Mathematics and Science Learning Center.
The center runs a two-week summer camp for kids and last summer Schultz asked
Knoebels to host an outing.
The lesson plan had the campers build models of a swing ride, boom ride and
roller coaster with K’NEX construction toys, then they put motion detectors
and small accelerometers on the models to measure distance velocity and acceleration.
After studying the physical forces on the toys, the campers did the same on
the real rides at Knoebels, the kids wearing accelerometers duct taped to their
shoulders and wired to belly packs. Coming off the ride, the students downloaded
the information into Texas Instruments Computer-Based Learning units which they
then took back to the camp for further study.
“There’s great physics happening in amusement parks,” Schultz
said. “It’s interesting, it’s fun. I think they really make the
connection between the model they’re building and actually experiencing
the ride.”
The success of that outing led Schultz and his colleagues, with Knoebels' support,
to develop a similar program that middle and high school teachers could incorporate
into their own classes. The Learning Center has purchased more Computer-Based
Learning units that teachers at local schools can sign out. Knoebels is marketing
the program as a turnkey unit schools can incorporate into their school picnics.
“This is the kind of thing Bloomsburg and Knoebels can offer support for,
but teachers can develop it for their particular classes individually,”
Muscato said. “And we can offer it over more dates.” Knoebels’
support includes, at least, priority queuing at the rides and, on request, instruction
from staff engineers. Schultz considers Knoebels the perfect laboratory beyond
having the rides that parallel the models the students build. “It’s
a nice setting. You can get off a ride and set up shop on a bench to download
information.”
The program allows Knoebels to offer more incentive for schools to schedule
their picnics at the park. “We’ve always had eight tours (of the park’s
Mine Museum, the waterpark and other topical tours),” Muscato said. “This
has more substance. There’s more science going on here. Somewhere along
the way, some of these kids are going to get hooked on the science of amusement
parks, and that could be valuable later. At minimal expense, you’re able
to give something back, and that’s always a good thing, too.”
Sliding into
prosperity
The two pieces of
news came three weeks apart but, taken together, they summarize a five-year
transition.
On Wednesday, Camelbeach Waterpark on Camelback Ski Resort in Tannersville,
Pennsylvania, announced installation of a three-slide complex for the 2003 season
(see Extra!
Extra!). On January 22, the resort had announced it was dismantling its
Alpine Slide. Opened in 1977, the 3,200-foot-long slide descending from near
the top of Camelback was one of the first such attractions to open in North
America.
When it opened, it represented the major reason to visit the resort in the summer.
But in 1998, Camelback Ski Corporation opened a small waterpark. That waterpark
has consistently grown in attendance and expanded in size. By removing the Alpine
Slide—indeed, in placing the new speed slide complex on land occupied by
the Alpine Slide—Camelback is acknowledging that it no longer should be
considered a ski resort with a waterpark.
The opposite may soon be true. Now drawing about 300,000 guests per summer,
and with an annual growth rate consistently hovering around 30 percent, the
waterpark will soon outdraw the winter business, said Dave Johnson, assistant
director of sales and marketing. In fact, buried low in this week’s press
release announcing the water slide complex was more relevant news pertaining
to the state of Camelbeach: in addition to the slides the waterpark this year
is adding lounge areas, widening walkways, making food stand improvements and
expanding rest rooms.
“We’re facing growing pains now and trying to keep ahead of the crowds,”
Johnson said. “The crowds haven’t overwhelmed us, yet. But we can
think a little more long-term now that we know we can stick around.”
Announcement of the Alpine Slide’s demise drew some complaints on the resort’s
Internet message board, but no substantial outcry, Johnson said. Besides, the
park knew the slide’s popularity was slipping because it had been closely
tracking usage, starting with bar-coded wristbands in 2000. The wristband, part
of admission to the waterpark, allowed up to five free rides on the Alpine Slide.
“Less than half of the people even rode it one time,” Johnson said.
“So that pointed out that this is no longer the reason people are coming
here.” And that was a season before Camelbeach even had its wave pool.
The past two years the park has been charging extra for riding the Alpine Slide,
and guests had to go through the waterpark gate (and pay at least the $10.95
spectator ticket) to get to the slide. Though the park stopped actively marketing
the slide, some guests paid the price to ride it. But not enough to get in the
way of the waterpark’s expansion.
“We probably could have found other places to put something, but the Alpine
Slide had just completed its 26th year, so it was nearing the end of its life
span,” Johnson said. “Was it worth it to maintain this ride that’s
losing popularity year after year, or better to put that land to use in something
that’s seeing 30 percent growth?”
Valentines for zoos
Breeding
a social class
Marine animals use a number of different strategies to find the right mate:
different colors, different sounds, different swimming patterns, and, for horseshoe
crabs, different mates. If a grouper can’t find the right mate of the opposite
sex, it can simply change its own sex.
Humans? Well, one mating strategy is to attend singles-only social mixers, like
the one the New York Aquarium in New York City is hosting Saturday night in
honor of Valentine’s Day. Called “Sex in the Sea: A Single’s
Mixer,” the evening includes an ice breaker, a tour of the aquarium focusing
on the mating rituals of various sea animals, and a nightcap of wine, cheese
and, that essential nectar of love (for a certain group of people), beer.
“We do programs day and night for all segments of our community, for families
and school teachers and school groups,” said Merryl Kafka, the aquarium’s
curator of education. “I thought, ‘You know, what we are really missing
is the singles scene.’” Pegged to the aquarium’s educational
mission—this being a lesson in the reproductive methods of marine life
and the challenges they face in the overexploited seas—Kafka settled on
providing singles “a meeting opportunity, not a breeding opportunity. Cultural
institutions are where social engagements ought to occur. It’s an informal,
relaxed social setting.”
She will make sure the people who attend do at least meet each other. Upon arriving
each participant will receive a small canister containing a scent, and they
will have to mingle to pair up with another person holding that scent.
This being the first attempt at such a program for the aquarium, “Sex In
The Sea” had 22 registrants at the start of the week, though Kafka said
registration was growing. The problem is that the majority of registrants were
women. “Whenever there are singles functions they are usually dominated
by women,” Kafka said. “Yet, men are supposed to be the cruisers.”
So, Kafka went cruising for “a few good men” at New York’s precinct
stations and firehouses, offering 20 percent discounts to firefighters and police
officers. This strategy forced her to alter the evening’s wine and cheese
menu, however. “Having been to three firehouses they told me they like
beer,” Kafka said. “They said they wouldn’t come if there wasn’t
any beer.”
A
memorable date
Today is Valentine's Day. Over the course of a year, amusement and attractions
venues will seize on suitable holidays for marketing opportunities and special
promotions. In North America, today belongs to the zoos, not just because zoos,
unlike most amusement parks and waterparks, are open today, but because the
theme of this holiday dovetails nicely with a key purpose of zoos. Valentine’s
Day is all about romancing your mate, zoos are all about replenishing species.
Same thing.
The one element that makes the day’s theme and the zoos’ purpose the
“same thing” is—let’s speak frankly here—procreation.
So, many zoos, those paragons of childhood experiences, those most family-oriented
of any community’s cultural institution, use Valentine’s Day as a
chance to get a little randy, to earn R ratings rather than G or even PG.
On this day, zoos are blessed with a convergence of situations they don’t
get with other holidays. One, mating season for many species is just getting
under way, so the holiday’s timing and subject matter are in sync. Two,
zoos deal with breeding programs daily, and with Valentine’s Day they can
highlight that mission and its accompanying educational mission for the public.
Three, by couching the topic in a bit of lasciviousness and adding some libations,
zoos can use the holiday as a promotional outreach to a demographic segment
seldom included in zoo’s standard market base, namely adults without children.
Here follows a few Valentine’s Day programs propagated by zoos around the
country.
Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, Cincinnati, Ohio—What started
five years ago as primarily a scientific video presentation—sort of the
animal equivalent of pornographic films—has evolved into a pun-filled evening
class on mating rituals. Rather than using graphic images, “Experience
the Wild Side of Love” uses audience participation exercises to compare
animal mating rituals to the kinds of behaviors humans engage in (gifts, dancing,
subtle flirting, blatant flirting, building the perfect seduction scene). “We
heavily anthropomorphize in this program,” said Dan Marsh, the zoo’s
assistant director of education. “In this setting we have a little license
to do that.”
One of Marsh’s exercises asks the men and women to create offerings for
their loved ones using such ingredients as ice cream, bananas, nuts, whipped
cream and maraschino cherries. Sounds like a banana split, but, said Marsh,
“You would not believe what they come up with. Interestingly, the male
offerings are often phallic, and the female offerings are usually mammaric in
nature. While I think the women get it, I don’t think the guys get it.”
The class, which usually draws about 60 people, is open to couples age 16 and
over; but champagne is available only for those 21 and older. Often, one mate
will use the class as a surprise Valentine’s Day gift. “We see a lot
of bewildered looking men and women being driven into the zoo,” Marsh said.
“You have to be careful when you call people back and leave a message on
the phone because you could spoil the surprise.”
($18 per couple members, $22 per couple nonmembers.)
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Columbus, Ohio—Though the zoo calls its
annual program “The Mating Game,” “You’re not actually going
to see mating,” said Lisa Beebe, special events coordinator. “It has
happened in the past that things have occurred, but that’s not our goal.”
The seven-year program usually sells out the 80 spaces available in each of
two sessions. Limited to adults 21 and older, the group starts with a champagne
brunch and then takes behind the-scenes tours meeting keepers. This year the
program is adding a scavenger hunt with all questions related to mating.
The program attracts a large number of veterinary students from Ohio State University,
but it also has served the purpose of building a market among “a group
of people who don’t normally come here,” Beebe said. “They’re
leaving here excited about the zoo. They think it’s a fun place and they’re
telling their friends and family about it.” But not necessarily their kids.
($40 members,$45 nonmembers.)
Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—Now in its third year,
“Romancing the Zoo” is “picking up steam as we go each year,”
said Public Relations Manager Tara Henson. The heart of the event is a candlelight,
table-clothed catered dinner and dance in the zoo’s new food court. Before
the guests get there, they have a couple of icebreaker games to play.
First up is the Courtship Charades where, by luck of the draw, contestants must
emulate mating rituals of certain species, like a whale’s song or a prairie
chicken’s dance. Then comes the Zoolywed Game in which four couples are
queried about their knowledge of each other, but the questions are all related
to animals’ mating behaviors. Sample question: “Which display of affection
would your partner find most attractive?” Sample answer: “biting the
neck like a leopard.” Sample contestant: do we really want to know?
Henson said the event draws 60 to 70 people. “It’s still growing,
but we don’t want it to get too big. We want to keep it intimate.”
She also noticed that people usually book late. “It seems like Valentine’s
Day is a last-minute holiday when people decide what to do,” she said.
The event is also a favorite for the media, and not just to cover. This year
one of the CBS affiliate reporters purchased a ticket.
($90 per couple members, $100 per couple nonmembers.)
San Francisco Zoo, San Francisco, California—The progenitor of all
sex tours is “The Sex Tour,” now in its 15th year. Penguin keeper
Jane Tollini launched the tradition when she put construction paper hearts in
the penguin exhibit for the birds to use as nesting material, placed a boom
box blaring Johnny Mathis next to the exhibit and invited the media out for
a narration of “As The Penguin Turns,” a soap opera depiction of her
charges. The next year she was leading zebra train tours throughout the whole
zoo talking about the mating habits of all animals.
“It’s very tongue-in-cheek, very anthropomorphic, but you come away
with a lesson in how animals do it,” said Nancy Chan, the zoo’s public
relations director. The tours, usually expanded out to two weekends to meet
demand, can handle 70 people each twice a day. The tour ends in the South America
Tropical Forest facility for a lecture, champagne and truffles. The tours’
popularity annually attracts national and international media interest; Chan
starts getting calls as early as October from journalists wanting to book a
place on the media tour. Aside from the publicity, The Sex Tours, with its 18-and-above
age restriction, “brings in audiences who never would have come to the
zoo before, the 20-somethings and a lot of seniors," Chan said. "We
fill up the morning tour with so many seniors.”
It’s fair to say, though, that sex isn’t this tour’s main draw.
“People want to pay to see Jane,” Chan said. “Every tour Jane
has to preface it by saying, ‘If you think you’re going to see animals
mate on this tour, go home and do it yourself.’” Nevertheless, some
serendipitous moments occur. At one point the tour stops at the children’s
petting zoo for a meet and greet with the goats. On one day the tour stopped
just after two baby goats had been born.
And that’s what it—THE “it”—is all about.
($55 per person.)
South Carolina Aquarium, Charleston, South Carolina—The aquarium
decided this year to forego a mating-focused Valentine’s Day promotion,
but it is not letting the day slip by unnoticed. The aquarium’s volunteer
department put together a list of the 20-some couples among its volunteer corps
and turned the tally over to Public Relations Manager Angel Passailaigue, who
pedaled the news to the local media. The media, in turn, planned to send crews
to the aquarium today to feature some of these couples.
“This is a very close group,” Passailaigue said. “We have several
staff members who are couples, too.” That would include herself and Arnold
Postell, the aquarium’s head diver and dive safety officer, who met through
their work. Their wedding date is set in July.
Success
breeds success
Romance is nice,
but in zoo-think the end results of romance are what count most. And so, elephant
keepers at Toledo Zoo in Ohio and Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California,
try to put the tragedies of last year behind them as they prepare for new, historic
maternities this spring.
Both zoos are participating in artificial insemination programs. Last summer,
Toledo’s experiment with a first-ever surgically implanted semen ended
in a stillbirth. In October, Marine World’s artificially inseminated calf
died in the birth canal and the mother, Tika, after carrying the dead fetus
for six more weeks, succumbed to internal infections (the occurrence is not
rare in elephants, which have been known to carry a dead fetus without complications
up to a year after the labor's termination and expel it naturally; surgically
removing the fetus is not a viable option).
Despite these failures, the elephant breeding community still has high hopes
that artificial insemination will help maintain the zoo population of these
animals. First-time mothers, as both Tika and Toledo’s Rafiki were, have
low success rates, a truism for most species. “I would not have expected
us to continue and not have lost a calf from AI,” said Dennis Schmitt,
professor of animal science at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield
and America’s leading researcher and practitioner of elephant AI. “We’ve
lost calves in natural breeding, why would AI be any different? Animals don’t
read the book, and everything never goes as planned.”
What is encouraging over the past year is that AI in and of itself continues
to be successful, as it has been for five elephants (two Asians and three Africans).
Since the first AI pregnancy at Springfield, Missouri, in November 1998, one
more Asian and three African AI babies have been born. One Asian died last year
of a herpes virus, but the other four are healthy little elephants.
In fact, the program’s success continues at both Toledo and Marine World.
Misha, impregnated by surgical means at Marine World, is due next month, and
Renee at Toledo inseminated by non-surgical means is due in early May. Other
AI pregnancies are proceeding at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida,
while Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas, awaits the results of an AI procedure
from a month ago.
Furthering the optimism is the perfection of surgical insemination. Previously,
AI could only be accomplished using a three-meter (10-foot) flexible endoscope,
a procedure currently only Schmitt’s team and a veterinary group in Berlin,
Germany, can do. Through surgery, Schmitt can deposit semen directly to the
speculum via a 1 1/2-inch (four-centimeter) incision. The procedure can be accomplished
by trained veterinary staffs anywhere, Schmitt said. The elephant’s temperament
and training determine which procedure is most appropriate.
In development is a third procedure which, if successful, will be a huge breakthrough:
using frozen semen. Currently, AI uses semen collected from one of three on-call
bulls: Dale at Kansas City Zoo in Missouri, MacLean at Disney’s Animal
Kingdom and Bwagi at Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, Florida. Windows of
opportunity are short; the female cycle for elephants is three days. While the
three bulls generally are willing to make a donation at any time, sometimes
the specimens are not worth sending. Those that are must be transported to the
receiving zoo the same day, a costly effort fraught with pitfalls.
“Frozen semen allows institutions to do it at their convenience; they can
store it and it’s available at the time they need it,” Schmitt said.
The first AI using frozen specimens has been conducted at the Indianapolis Zoo
in Indiana (where the two first AI African elephants turn 3 years old in March
and August this year) and zoo officials are awaiting the results. So far, the
process can only be used with Africans, whose sperm cells have more stable membranes
than those of Asian elephants.
While AI procedures prove increasingly successful, the end result is still in
doubt and remains so until more research can be done about elephants in childbirth.
Few births in the wild have been documented, and whereas every birth in captivity
is documented, the research is still scant by nature of the beast. “With
a lot of other species, we’ve seen a lot of births, often once a year,”
said Terry Wolf, wildlife director at Lion Country Safari who works with Bwagi.
“With elephants you’re waiting two to three to five years to see a
calf. You’re working with a very small population base. You’re working
with some animals that are pregnant for the first time.”
The best store of knowledge in elephant breeding, in fact, comes from the Ringling
Brothers circus, Schmitt said. “The reason is that many of those cows are
having third, fourth and fifth calves. As we go through more pregnancies, we
will be more successful. If (the elephant) hasn’t had her first, she can’t
have her second or third.”
New Arrivals
It’s
interactive play!
Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, announces the arrival of Wiley’s
Woods, February 7, 2003. Measurements: 20,000 square feet (1,858 square
meters), four stories high, 65 interactive electronic game stations, four slides,
six air guns, 25,000 foam “berries,” birthday party room, food stand
with Pizza Hut franchise, and a 20-unit arcade area. Delivered by Creative Kingdoms
and SCS Interactive.
When it comes to competition among the resort lodges in the Wisconsin Dells,
operators use two strategies: outdistance your rivals or create a whole new
race. Great Wolf did a bit of both with Wiley’s Woods, the second
resort in the area to install a foam ball play center in the past year, but
the first to give foam ball play an interactive game format. Lodge General Manager
Curtis Brown describes it as “a 20,000-square-foot live video game, and
you’re the Mario inside the video game.”
This is the second installation of such an interactive game concept created
by Creative Kingdoms and SCS after Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta, Georgia,
debuted the concept with The Barn (THE
LOOP, November 30, 2001). This version has more interactivity in its game
stations, uses a tree as its centerpiece and, rather than varieties of fruit,
depicts the foam balls as berries (red, purple, blue, green, orange and yellow).
Players with electronic score-keeping wrist bands move from station to station
accomplishing tasks to earn points. The higher the players go—physically,
in this case—the greater the value of the play stations. Along the way
they must withstand the distractions of balls dumping every 15 minutes from
a basket hanging in the tree above the central play area, and other players
firing balls from air guns. “(Players) get hit and that diverts them from
the game because they have to retaliate,” Brown said.
Scores are posted on a scoreboard placed on the wall of the tree house and also
are broadcast on the resort’s in-room televisions. “You can imagine
little Michael getting in at night, seeing the scores and saying, ‘Who’s
this Kevin that beat my score?’ and going back the next day to play again,”
Brown said. For lodge guests, who can play in Wiley’s Woods at no additional
charge, the new play area has served as a happy supplement to Great Wolf’s
indoor waterpark. “Certain times of the day you don’t want to go into
the waterpark, like the two hours before dinner,” Brown said, relating
guest comments he’s received since the Woods’ opening. “This
is a great alternative.”
The new center also represents an alternative revenue source—and marketing
mechanism—for the lodge itself. Great Wolf, departing from its traditional
posture, is opening Wiley’s Woods to the general public, charging
from $5.95 to $8.95 per person for admission. “We saw the opportunity for
exposure,” Brown said. “Guests (at other resorts) come over to see
it and will say, ‘Next time we need to stay here.’”
Great Wolf prompted plenty of exposure with the grand opening of Wiley’s
Woods. For the Friday ribbon cutting, the state’s secretary of tourism
was on hand along with about 150 invited VIPs and about 200 children from local
schools, who served as the inaugural players. Press coverage is ongoing: several
local network affiliates are scheduling live broadcasts from Wiley’s
Woods for their morning shows, and a couple of radio stations already have
broadcast from the play center.
“The uniqueness of it,” Brown said as explanation of the media’s
interests. “And, as it was told to me by a guest, we truly found the meaning
of family fun.”
It’s
a family coaster!
Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta, Georgia, announces the arrival of
Fiesta Express, January 1, 2003. Measurements: eight feet high (2.5 meters),
262-foot long track (80 meters), 2,653-square-foot footprint (246 square meters),
16 passengers. Delivered by Zamperla.
The opening of Zamperla’s first Mini Mouse—indeed, this was the floor
model at the IAAPA Trade Show in November—got a little lost in the snow.
Wild Adventures did not provide a gala event for the new family coaster. “We
just opened it up and let the kids ride,” said Sara Sumner, public relations
coordinator.
The new ride immediately drew attention, to be sure, including from Sumner who
brought her own 4-year-old son back the next weekend to ride Fiesta Express.
However, the park in Georgia’s southernmost city was just beginning an
event called Snow Days. Lasting throughout the month of January, the park opened
up an ice rink and trucked in enough ice to build a tobogganing hill and a snowy
playground. “Kids who had never seen snow before could have some real Northern-like
fun,” Sumner said. “The little roller coaster was lost in the shuffle.”
Mother Nature even lent a hand. New Year’s Day temperatures when the coaster
first went into operation were cold, Sumner said, and on January 18 Valdosta
set 10-year lows as the thermometer dipped to 12 Degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11
Celsius). So, while the park used 60,000 pounds (27,215.5 kilograms) of ice
to build the toboggan hill and 15,000 pounds (6,803 kilograms) a day to create
snow for the festival, “we didn’t go through half as much ice as we
thought we were going to go through,” Sumner said.
Through it all, the cold and snow, Fiesta Express was drawing consistent
traffic, she said. “It’s an excellent opportunity to introduce kids
to the fine art of coaster riding,” the Ohio native said.
Eric's Turn
Keep
it in Contexts
Maya Angelou. Dave Barry. Eric Minton.
That’s good company I’m keeping. The people I just listed are three
of the writers included in a college textbook published in December, Rhetorical
Contexts: Readings for Writers by Suzanne Strobeck Webb and Lou Ann Thompson
(Longman Publishers, New York). The editors, both of Texas Woman’s University,
start the book with five chapters about the writing process, then use a series
of published articles and essays for discussion on writing techniques and effectiveness.
Their very first example is “Thrills and Chills,” an article on the
designers of roller coasters and haunted houses I wrote on assignment for Psychology
Today in 1999. The article leads off Webb’s and Thompson’s chapter
on “Reporting and Recording,” and they particularly point to my use
of quotations from different individuals and my using “elements of humor.”
The book includes a wide range of essayists, from Ronald Reagan to Hillary Clinton,
from Malcolm X to Mike Royko. One of my own journalism heroes is included, John
Hockenberry. His article “An American in Albania” comes right after
mine. In total, the book features 54 examples from 53 writers. The one author
who is exemplified twice in the book is, um, me.
Actually, the article “Scaring Up Business” was a companion piece
to my “Thrills and Chills” article in that Psychology Today
issue, but Webb and Thompson place it in a separate chapter, “Explaining
and Interpreting.” In introducing the second article they acknowledge its
singular status as the book’s only double entry from a single writer. “How
can one author write two such different essays on the same topic?” they
ask the student reader in their introduction.
In addition to grouping the articles in contextual chapter headings, the editors
index all the examples by “thematic contents.” My two articles, individually
or together, show up as examples of “Arts and Entertainment,” “Business,”
“Humor,” “Science and Technology” and “Society and
Culture.” One mark of my career as a freelance writer always has been the
diversity of my work.
I don’t mention all this merely to toot my own horn. I mention this to
link you to a new web site that toots my own horn, www.ericminton.com.
Now that we have THE LOOP on a successful trajectory and the Amusement Today
alliance is firm, Minton Enterprises is dusting off its original core business,
freelance writing and editing. We are, in fact, expanding that business to include
public relations writing, from press releases and brochure copy to books, scripts
and guides. You can find descriptions of all we have to offer plus published
examples of many of my articles, including the two used in Rhetorical Contexts,
at www.ericminton.com.
Now that I’m featured in a writing textbook, perhaps I should consider
teaching writing, too. Hmmmm. . .
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
All rights reserved