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©2002, Minton
Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved
Volume 2, No. 2. January 25, 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):
Cedar
Point grapples with the mysterious collapse
of its VertiGo tower;
Silver
Dollar City's Peter Herschend carries a flame and meets
the president;
Europa-Park enjoys the rewards of its ecological labors;
Philadelphia Zoo takes curious public back stage to boost
January traffic, and SeaWorld Orlando expands its own
behind-the-scenes programs;
The PR staff at Six Flags Magic Mountain get a meteoroligical
scare;
We welcome Toledo Zoo's new wolf exhibit and welcome
back Santa Cruz's Boardwalk Bowl;
And we run the numbers for THE LOOP.
Towering
questions
Cedar Point maintenance staff
were leaving work around 3:30 p.m. (15,30) on January 14 when they noticed
something missing: one of the three 265-foot towers (80 meters) that comprise
the VertiGo thrill ride. The discovery of the collapsed tower,
which had broken off 65 feet up (20 meters), sent a disbelieving shudder
through the industry.
The Sandusky, Ohio, amusement park has an impeccable safety record and
has never had a structure failure of this magnitude in memory. "Employees
who have been here 30-plus years are saying there's never been anything
of this nature," said Cedar Point Public Relations Manager Janice Witherow.
Furthermore, the ride's manufacturer, S&S Power, has a stellar safety
and operational record for its products.
As of this posting the cause of the collapse has not been determined.
Two S&S engineers arrived the day after the incident to assist with the
initial evaluation. Cedar Point also notified the Amusement Ride Safety
Division of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, which serves as the regulatory
agency for amusement rides in the state and specializes in ride inspections.
Additionally, the park
has hired an outside firm to conduct non-destructive testing on the other
two towers. "That's something we do at Cedar Point anyway in the spring
as part of our preventative maintenance program," Witherow said.
While Witherow professes a feeling of good fortune that the accident occurred
in the off season—"We're incredibly thankful that we are closed and
there were no injuries," she said—and described the mood around the
park as "unsettled but determined to come up with a conclusion," she also
believes such an accident could only have happened in the off-season.
"We're confident that had the park been open, because of our intensive
daily inspection program with internal experts climbing the tower looking
for things like this, it would have been discovered ahead of time. We're
also confident that during the springtime, when we're doing ultrasound
and X-rays on steel structures to test the integrity of the steel, this
is something that would have been caught."
As such, she said, the park is planning no changes to its maintenance
and safety programs, at least until the collapse's cause is determined.
Nevertheless, the incident reiterated the need for such thorough measures
as both Cedar Point and S&S themselves implement. It also drove home the
need for a crisis response, even in the off-season. Cedar Point immediately
notified its sister park, Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California,
as well as Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California—both
of which are year-round operations—who shut their versions of the
ride until their towers could be inspected.
Herschend was fired up for his short torch run. Photo courtesy of Silver Dollar City
Flame out
Peter Herschend had quite a
week this month. In a seven-day span the vice chairman and co-owner of
Silver Dollar City, Inc., in Branson, Missouri, watched a friend carry
the Olympic torch, carried the torch himself and met the president of
the United States.
With only 11,000 people chosen out of more than 100,000 nominated to help
relay the Olympic flame from Atlanta to Salt Lake City, Herschend was
doubly honored as nominator and nominated. A long-time fund-raiser for
the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Herschend had nominated Robin
Creemer to carry the flame. Herschend and his wife, JoDee, were on hand
on Tuesday, January 8, in St. Louis, Missouri, when Creemer, who has MS,
carried the torch two tenths of a mile (320 meters). "MS is such that
you don't run," Herschend said. "She was having a good enough MS day she
was able to walk reasonably well. I don't think I have ever seen anybody
so excited."
It helped build his own level of excitement for the next day across the
state in Kansas City where Herschend himself would run the flame .2 miles
down Main Street. The "crowning moment" came when, standing at the corner
of 30th Street with torch in hand and both JoDee and Creemer in attendance,
Herschend saw Kansas City torchbearer number 106 approaching up Main Street.
An Olympic flame attendant turned on the butane gas in Herschend's torch,
the two torchbearers touched torches, and "my torch fired off," Herschend
said. "I started walking and they said, 'would you like to jog?' They
were running behind." He jogged, flame held high, to 32nd Street where
he lit bearer number 108's torch.
"The excitement of that lasted a long, long time. I was pumped," said
the 67-year-old Herschend, who keeps his torch in his office. "I don't
categorize events in my life, saying this is better than that. If you
made up a list and named some memorable times in my life, personal and
professional, this would be in the top 10."
For the popular head of the Silver Dollar City chain of amusement venues,
the torch relay was very much a professional achievement. "I didn't feel
that kind of excitement where your heart is pounding out of control. (Instead)
I felt a sense of tremendous pride, pride for the men and women of our
company at Silver Dollar City. At the end of the day they were the ones
responsible for my being there. On the bottom of the torch, is inscribed
the words 'Light the fire within.' I thought to myself, 'That's really
what our people do, whether they are in Missouri, Tennessee or Georgia,
they are in fact lighting a fire of memories in their relationships with
other men and women they work with and with our guests."
It was also the successful businessman who got the call just two days
after his torch run to be one of the official southwest Missouri greeters
of George W. Bush when the president visited Aurora the following Monday.
"We're shaking hands, and he's a very, very warm guy, a look-you-in-the-eye-and-firm-handshake
sort of fella," said Herschend, who also hosted the first President Bush
at Silver Dollar City in 1992. Herschend, however, has no delusions about
his relationship with the current and former first family. "I promise
you (George W.) doesn't remember me," after their brief meeting, he said.
So how does someone finish out a week of such momentous life events? "After
meeting the president I went over to my daughter's house to fix her garbage
disposal," he said. "That is what dads do. They're fixers of things."
Friendly
environment
While most theme parks focus
on creating a certain environment for guests within the park, Europa-Park
has concentrated on maintaining the environment outside its gates, as
well. For its ecological efforts, the Rust, Germany, theme park has received
an annual award from the state of Baden-Württemberg recognizing firms
that practice environmentally friendly operations.
"It's quite outstanding that a big leisure park gets this kind of prize,"
said Europa-Park Public Relations Associate Martina Evers. "Other companies
are more likely to get these kinds of prizes, but we have tried for several
years to achieve certain standards in environmental protection."
That effort has included hiring a technician, since 1995, devoted full-time
to environmental issues within the park. "He checks every process to see
if there is a more ecological way to do it," Evers said. Europa-Park has
its own water and power plants, including the largest solar energy plant
of any leisure facility in Europe, Evers said, delivering 250,000 KW annually.
Ten percent of all the park's power is also regenerated from original
usage. For example, cooling systems require large amounts of energy to
operate, energy which produces excess heat outside the cooling unit. Europa-Park
is capturing that excess heat and using it to power other operations.
"The full-time job was created because, since the early '90s, we put in
some new technologies, and this helped to reduce costs," Evers said. "So,
management was interested to find even more effective ways to reduce costs
using modern technologies and saving energy. In every process there's
one way or another to save energy."
Europa-Park also has instituted several management initiatives. Suppliers,
especially in the food-service department, are instructed to reduce their
packaging or retrieve the packaging after deliveries. The park's technicians
building rides and craftsmen building facades must calculate their material
needs beforehand to limit waste and, where possible, use any material
left over in other applications. Employees currently engage in a recycling
program, dividing their waste by paper, plastic and glass, a program which
may expand to patrons in the future, Evers said. Environmental issues,
like safety and customer service, are integrated in employee training
programs, and employees can also make suggestions to reduce waste or improve
the park's environmental performance and receive monetary rewards for
implemented ideas.
For the park, earning the Baden-Württemberg Minister of Environment
and Transport prize, which will be bestowed in a July 4 ceremony, is more
than a long-sought honor; it is a major marketing coup. "In Europe, it
is getting more and more important for your image to be environmentally
friendly, especially in Germany," Evers said. Putting in so much effort
into environmental issues, she said, "can only be an advantage."
Mystery
tours
Some of their animals may hibernate,
but the zoos themselves don't. Still, U.S. zoos north of the Mason-Dixon
Line have a hard time convincing the public they remain open during the
winter months. Holiday lights and Valentines Day promotions can generate
public awareness for December and February, respectively, but January
is a bear of a month to push.
For that reason, the Philadelphia Zoo in Pennsylvania decided to test
a behind-the-scenes tour program this month as part of a marketing campaign
to stir off-season interest in the zoo. The initial success of these "Back
Stage" tours also reflects a trend for animal-oriented attractions around
the country: a move toward giving customers an insider's view of operations.
"It's a way to let people know what we do back stage here," said Leigh
Rendé, public relations associate for the Philadelphia Zoo. "You
truly get behind-the-scenes exposure because you're talking to staff without
the hubbub of the crowds." The tours were scheduled for 9-11 a.m. (09,00
to 11,00) on Saturdays and Sundays before the zoo opened to the general
public. "It's almost like being in a private zoo," Rendé said.
Seven two-hour tours ran simultaneously. "Is the Doctor In?" took guests
to the Zoo's Animal Health Center. "Mealtime at the Zoo" offered a lesson
in animal diets by the nutrition staff followed by a visit to the commissary.
"Eat or Be Eaten" took patrons behind the scenes in the Carnivora House
and the Amphibian and Reptile House, while "Gentle Giants" went back stage
with elephants and gorillas. "Animal Survivors" highlighted zoo conservation
projects, "Home Sweet Habitat" offered insights into the habitat landscaping
at the zoo, and "History Buffs" focused on the historical structures of
this, America's first zoo. Tour tickets cost $15 for zoo members and $20
for non-members, compared to $5.95 winter admission to the zoo.
Though the zoo has long offered interaction talks with keepers in the
course of the day, the behind-the-scenes tours offered more involving
interaction, like seeing the tools keepers use to groom the elephants.
Meanwhile, tours to the Health Center and commissary were the first time
anybody other than staff and high-level donors were able to see such facilities.
Through last weekend the tours attracted 1,067 people and, according to
surveys, were a hit. "Mealtime" proved the most popular, averaging more
than 50 takers per tour. "Working at the zoo we take a lot of what we
do for granted. Looking at the public's reaction, going back to the commissary,
they're so thrilled," Rendé said. They weren't the only ones thrilled
with the tours. "The enthusiasm of the people working at the commissary
was great. It was nice to see them have that chance to let people know
what they do. They're such hams, too. I'm going to have to use them for
interviews, they're so good."
SeaWorld opens its back-stage area—and mouths—to the public. Photo courtesy of SeaWorld Orlando
See World
One measure of a trend is the
ongoing participation level of the original trendsetter. If Philadelphia
Zoo's Back Stage tours are indicative of a growing trend toward letting
the public peer behind an operation's facade, SeaWorld's expansion of
its interactive programs lends further validity to the trend.
SeaWorld San Diego introduced the Dolphin Interaction Program in 1996,
and its sister parks soon followed with "DIPs" of their own, plus similar
programs focused on sea lions, belugas and sharks. SeaWorld Orlando took
the hands-on opportunity a step further in 1999 with its Trainer for a
Day program, allowing customers, for a $389 fee, to walk in the wet suit
shoes of SeaWorld trainers, participating in everything from working with
dolphins and whales to preparing fish to feed the mammals and scrubbing
buckets. The public response to these programs led in large part to establishment
of a whole new theme park in Orlando, Discovery Cove, centered on interactive
sessions with dolphins.
This month, SeaWorld Orlando added a False Killer Whale Interaction Program
and Animal Care Experience. The latter is another all-day program for
up to four guests, who work alongside animal care staff working with animals
in exhibits. Along the way, the guests may meet a walrus or bottle-feed
an orphaned manatee. Starting at 6:30 a.m. (06,30) and also costing $389
per person, Animal Care Experience will undoubtedly, like Trainer for
a Day, be a hit.
"Not only do people like it, but the animals thoroughly enjoy it, working
with different people," said Chuck Tompkins, vice president of animal
training at SeaWorld Orlando. "Put those two factors together and obviously
we've come up with a home run."
SeaWorld's programs strike two nerves in the public: a chance to have
hands-on experience with the animals and a chance to go behind the scenes.
"I get so many comments on the surveys where people are so thrilled to
learn the ins and outs of what we do here," Tompkins said. "People want
to know the trainers, their personalities, how they take care of the animals,
and the animals' personalities. When you do these interactive programs,
they get all that insider information."
Information SeaWorld is more than willing to share. One of the things
that differentiates SeaWorld from its Orlando competition is that the
animals here are not animatronic or illusions; they are real, and one
of the park's strengths is how well it takes care of these animals. Furthermore,
guests get first-hand exposure to the trainers' and keepers' commitment;
public relations at its most sincere. "We know our people love talking
about what they do," Tompkins said, "and we're giving them an opportunity
to talk about what they do."
All the while, guests get a sense of privilege. "The public is absolutely
telling us, 'we've watched you have fun all these years, now it's great
that we're getting in the water and having fun with you,'" Tompkins said.
And not just the splashing about with dolphins kind of fun but also the
scrubbing floors, cleaning buckets and sticking vitamin pills in the gills
of dead fish kind of fun, and paying almost $400 to do so.
"It's absolutely amazing to me what we ask these people to do (in Trainer
for a Day)," Tompkins said "But when we get surveys back, people say 'Thank
you so much, I now know what it's like to be a trainer.' I've not gotten
one survey back that said, 'I didn't like cleaning buckets.'"
Weathering
a non-storm
As his big week began, Andy Gallardo, manager of public relations for
Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, perused Yahoo's weather
site on the Internet. The park's new, history-making roller coaster X
was to make its media debut that Thursday (THE
LOOP, January 11, 2002) and Gallardo was, naturally, hoping for
good weather.
"We looked at the five-day forecast, and it said, 'Sunny; Sunny; Sunny;
Snow; Sunny,'" Gallardo said. "There was a bright sun on every other day,
and clouds with snow on Thursday. We thought someone was playing a really
cruel joke on us." Not accepting Yahoo's forecast, Gallardo surfed over
to the Weather Channel's web site and saw the same forecast. "We checked
some other sites, and all said the same thing. My feeling was that there
was no way it was going to snow."
But, he admitted, that was more wishful thinking than intuition. "We have
a history of having beautiful weather up to a media day, and then lousy
weather the day of the event." Rain dampened the openings of Batman
The Ride and The Riddler's Revenge, and a daylong downpour
marked the Goliath media event. But snow? "It's been about two
or three years since we've seen any on the ground here," Gallardo said.
Sure enough, that Wednesday the temperature started dropping, and by nightfall
clouds had rolled in and the wind had picked up. However, Thursday morning
dawned clear and warm, and when Gallardo checked the Internet weather
sites, the icon for the day was a bright sun. That proved the accurate
forecast as the temperature reached the mid 70s, not a single cloud crossed
the sky, and nary a snowflake appeared.
New Arrivals
Patrons packed into the log cabin to view the wolfpack cavorting in their new Toledo habitat. Top photo by R.Andrew Odum, Toledo Zoo; bottom photo by Lynne Mosman
It's a wolf
exhibit!
The Toledo Zoo in Ohio announces the arrival of the Arctic Encounter
Wolf Exhibit, January 11, 2002. Measurements: 35,000 square feet (10,600
square meters), four wolves, one log cabin. Delivered by West Carroll
Bergmann Associates.
Closing out an important chapter in its evolution, the Toledo Zoo introduced
a sisterhood of gray wolves to its Arctic Encounter area, which debuted
with polar bears and seals two years ago. True to the exhibit's theme,
the wolf exhibit gives zoo patrons a chance to make close observations
of these mysterious animals, thanks to a log cabin themed as a northern
hunting lodge filled with interpretive displays and featuring large windows
in the back cabin wall looking out on the wolves' habitat.
The wolves—sisters Dakota, Crow, Cheyenne and Pawnee—arrived
at the zoo in September but remained behind black tarp awaiting their
$900,000 exhibit's opening the second week in January, a tradition for
the zoo's arctic displays. For the occasion under dreary but dry skies,
Bill Dennler, the zoo's executive director, introduced Lucas County Commission
President Sandy Isenburg as the "alpha commissioner" to cut the red ribbon.
First to experience the exhibit were school children from Birmingham Elementary,
who were as interested in the log cabin's appointments, such as the raging
fireplace and mounted elk head, as they were the wolf pack on the other
side of the glass. For their part, the wolves had settled in nicely to
their new domain, choosing to dig holes for their beds rather than nesting
in a cozy straw-filled den made available to them off-view.
"I think it's great because the wolves are close to people but in a naturalistic
enough setting to meet their needs," said Randi Meyerson, who has been
the zoo's mammal curator for one year but has studied wolves since 1984.
Although these wolves were hand-reared, the new exhibit allows Meyerson
and her colleagues to observe the wolves' behavior in their natural habitat.
With the opening of the Wolf Exhibit the Toledo Zoo finished its Arctic
Encounter area, culminating a $12.5 million capital improvement project.
Now the zoo turns its focus on sunnier climes and the largest capital
improvement project in its history, a $20-plus million African exhibit
scheduled to break ground this spring.
Lynne Mosman contributed to this report
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk struck it big with its remodled bowling center. Photo courtesy of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
It's
a bowling center!
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk announces the rebirth of the Boardwalk Bowl,
January 15, 2002. Measurements: 25,200 square feet (7,600 square meters),
26 lanes with 34-inch scoring monitors (86.5-cm monitors), 442-square-foot
pro shop (134 square meters), 500-square-foot party room (152 square meters),
bar and restaurant. Delivered by the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Tech Services.
Even before the 50-year-old Boardwalk Bowl officially re-opened with a
VIP-only party last week, the $3.5 million remodeling project had yielded
results. Since quietly opening to the public back in October, the center
has hosted 230 birthday parties, said Boardwalk Bowl Director Willie King,
and another hundred are on the books.
"A lot of the elements we put into the new building are targeted specifically
at parties, like the birthday party room," he said. In fact, the grand
opening gala for some 150 local dignitaries and Beach Boardwalk friends
was intended "to highlight what we do here," King said. "We throw a lot
of parties, and this was our party. I think we knocked their socks off."
Especially those who had seen the Bowl before the makeover. "The facility
we had before was pretty tired," King said of the bowling center which
the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk purchased in 1994. "Though people said
we had a nice center, it still needed significant upgrades. We gutted
the entire building. Everything is new. A nacho chip warmer is all that's
left from before."
Using its own technicians, the Beach Boardwalk installed new dance club-style
lighting, a new sound system, a new bar with karaoke equipment and a computerized
keg system. The lanes have new pinsetters, new ball returns and new scoring
monitors. The entire building was refurnished, and a patio overlooking
the Pacific Ocean should be completed in the spring, King said. The new
decor alone made an instant impact on the local market. Despite the restaurant
and bar not opening until last week, the Boardwalk Bowl saw higher receipts
in both November and December than it did in those months a year earlier.
"We were making more money with only one-third of the operation going,"
King said.
King expects the center's popularity to continue rising, too. Less than
20 percent of Boardwalk Bowl's business is league play. "That is unheard
of anywhere in this country," King said of the 80 percent open play the
center did before remodeling. The Boardwalk's strategy in growing the
business was to build the open bowling market. Now, with the new restaurant
and bar, the Boardwalk Bowl has positioned itself as an ongoing party
hang-out for the community. "Most people don't care what their average
is, they just want to come and have fun. That's what we give them," King
said.
Ah, but bowling is still a sport, and some people take it seriously. At
last week's big gala, Santa Cruz's mayor, vice mayor and supervisor were
invited to roll the official first balls. In a simultaneous roll, the
vice mayor, Emily Reilly, threw a strike. "She was looking forward to
the opportunity," King said, noting that while the other two officials
seemed to approach the moment with official decorum, Reilly was eager
to score big. "She was going through mental rehearsals beforehand."
Eric’s Turn
Numbers crunched
In the tradition of magazines who publish their circulation figures, we
want to use this opportunity to make an equivalent "circulation report"
for THE LOOP.
THE LOOP is a biweekly newsletter posted on the Internet at www.gettheloop.com.
It is a free site and available to anyone with access to the World Wide
Web. Additionally, we e-mail notifications of a newsletter's posting,
complete with a direct link from the e-mail message to that issue of the
newsletter. Consequently, we have two distinct forms of circulation: the
number of visits to our site, as reported by our domain host, LexiConn
(www.lexiconn.com),
and our e-mail notification database.
For 2001, our first year of operation, www.gettheloop.com had a total
of 58,409 visits. We broke these down according to visits-per-LOOP issue,
calculating the total number of visits from the day a newsletter was posted
and the notifications e-mailed to the day before the posting of the following
issue. Our average visitation for the year was 2,434 per issue of THE
LOOP, an average which rose to 3,327 visits during the last quarter. Our
first issue garnered 1,611 visits, and we reached a low of 1,436 with
the April 6 issue. We reached a high of 6,818 visits with our post-IAAPA
Show issue of November 30. The last issue of 2001, December 14, generated
6,207 visits. These statistics include our own visits to the site to build,
post and maintain THE LOOP and its ancillary features; though the number
varies with each issue, we account for between 50 and 100 visits per issue.
Our database currently contains 7,840 e-mail addresses to which we send
linked notifications. We built this database from industry association
directories, Minton Enterprises' sources and new subscriptions. About
800 e-mail notifications "bounce back" undelivered for a variety of reasons,
ranging from incorrect entries to full mailboxes and discarded addresses.
We are working to decrease the number of bouncebacks by culling and, in
some cases correcting, the invalid addresses. Currently, up to 7,000 notifications
are reaching their targeted recipients, though we suspect a percentage
of these are not getting through for various technical reasons. We also
know from anecdotal reports that many readers who are not in our database
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If you currently are not receiving THE LOOP notifications directly, if
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THE LOOP's mission statement: To keep the amusement and attractions business
connected by presenting information and personalities that encourage and
enable the industry's growth and influence.
To share your news, e-mail Eric Minton (eric@gettheloop.com) or call, toll-free, 888-902-LOOP (outside North America call 937-296-9796). To advertise in THE LOOP, e-mail Lynne Mosman (lynne@gettheloop.com), or call her toll-free at 866-902-LOOP (outside North America dial 1-937-296-9796).
Correction
In our New Arrival report on
Dodonpas at Fujikyu Highlands (THE
LOOP, January 11, 2002) we misidentified Intermountain Lift, Inc.,
of Springville, Utah, in our list of manufacturers who delivered the ride.
We have corrected the story.