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Volume 1, No. 12. July 13, 2001
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Global
Warming
The International Association
of Amusement Parks and Attractions is taking one of its biggest steps
toward becoming truly international as it prepares to open a European
office in Brussels, Belgium, August 1. Heading up the office is Jeff Bertus,
newly appointed as IAAPA's Vice President Europe answering directly to
IAAPA's new President Bret Lovejoy and CEO John Graff.
This is more than a symbolic move. With a physical office in Europe, IAAPA
will be better able to provide administrative support to its European
members. "Our main focus will be to improve all our services to the membership
and also to attract more members to the trade shows," Bertus said. "We
can supply more tailor-made training to European members, find out what
the needs are for these members, and tailor-make all our programs on their
wishes."
Establishing the European office furthers IAAPA's overseas efforts, which
the association began in earnest with institution of the International
Representatives program in the mid-1990s, appointing ambassadors in several
European countries, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and Southeast Asia. "You can
regard this as a success of the International Rep program," said Bertus,
the IAAPA rep for Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxumbourg).
But he doesn't see his new role displacing his fellow European representatives.
"The reps in the various countries of Europe are very much needed, for
me as well. I'll need their help and assistance to find out what's going
on in their part of Europe."
The choice of Bertus for the post is also significant, and entirely fitting.
A longtime executive director of the Dutch Association of Amusement Attractions
and secretary of Europarks, the multi-lingual, globally astute Bertus
not only respects and understands the various nationalistic tendencies
of the amusement industry's players, he has the almost universal respect
of those players. Going to dinner with Bertus is, when he invites along
a few "associates and friends," like mingling at a United Nations happy
hour fete.
To take on the full-time responsibilities of an IAAPA vice president,
Bertus is giving up his duties at the Dutch association and Europarks,
though his new office will work hand-in-hand with the latter's lobbying
functions. He doesn't see his work changing all that much, however. "For
me personally, when I look at the last 20 years, it is a logical continuation
of what I've been doing." Even the move to Brussels from his Eindhoven,
Holland, home and office—which he plans to keep—is not much
of a displacement. "I have my foothold there anyway," he said referring
to his Europarks work in Brussels, "So I don't have to commute so much
anymore."
The mailing address for IAAPA Europe is Rue Wiertz 50/28, B-1050 Brussels,
Belgium, the telephone is 32-2-401 61 61, and the fax is 32-2-401 68 68.
You can email Bertus at j.bertus@wxs.nl.
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Uncovering
the future
The next-season ride announcements have started, and two 2002 attractions
could shape up to be industry-influencing developments: the Tomb Raider:
The Ride dark ride at Paramount's Kings Island near Cincinnati, Ohio,
and the Alcatraz, The Ride (Alien Invasion) simulator at Six Flags
Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey.
The former is as notable for what we don't know about it as what we do
know. It will be a dark ride with special effects by Technifex. It will
be highly themed and effects-heavy and contain animatronics. Guests will
proceed through catacombs to reach a ride that takes them up into an ice
cave and down into a lava pit. But how patrons actually ride and what
exactly they see has yet to be revealed by Paramount Parks officials.
The ride conveyance in particular is shrouded in a secrecy even the Pentagon
would be proud of.
What makes for the ride's potential impact is its location, a regional
theme park that is touting a dark ride on the caliber of Disney's Indiana
Jones Adventure, Universal Studios' Men In Black Alien Attack,
and Paramount's own Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas. It
also firmly establishes the dark ride as the attraction du jour of the
21st century's first decade and confirms the trend toward broad-based
family rides—which Paramount officials promise Tomb Raider
will be—in the industry.
Alcatraz, The Ride by i2STAR of Mahopac, New York, is a massive
simulator system using a 180-degree field-of-view digital display and
a 6-degree motion platform on which sat, in the original version, an actual
Apache helicopter cockpit. Debuting at last November's IAAPA trade show,
the simulator was remarked on as much for its low throughput
as for its large footprint, not to mention the fact that riders actually
flew a real U.S. Army helicopter to rid the San Francisco Bay island prison
of terrorists.
The Six Flags version replaces the storyline of terrorists with aliens
for which i2STAR is creating a more futuristic "helijet," a helicopter-jet
hybrid, to replace the Apache. The new configuration not only allows for
more motion, it also puts four people in its cockpit instead of two: a
pilot, copilot and two gunners (the pilots can either share piloting duties
or become a third gunner). Six Flags Great Adventure is aiming to install
the first Alcatraz for its Fright Fest Halloween promotion this
fall. Next spring the park plans to open with a total of six units, all
networked so that players can battle aliens together or battle each other.
With players going through a mission briefing, flight school and then
the ride, Alcatraz's throughput is still likely to be limited,
even with expanding rides to four players times six. However, Great Adventure
is planning to run the attraction with an up-charge, its third added pay
ride at the park, which this year installed a Zamperla Turbo Force
and a Slingshot as additional-fee attractions. While simulators
and motion theaters are nothing new to the theme park arena, the fact
that a regional park is installing such an elaborate, networked, multi-user
video game a la Disney Quest could launch yet another trend around the
industry.
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Despite unveiling the name of its 2002 ride, Kings Island kept the details shrouded in secrecy. Photo by Eric Minton
Campy
fun
Pity the public relations folks at Paramount's Kings Island. With their
July 2 announcement of Tomb Raider: The Ride approaching, David
Mandt and Jeffrey Siebert had to spend the weekend in a tent alongside
47 roller coaster fanatics for the park's first-ever Coaster Camp.
OK, so they don't need your pity, even though Siebert thought he was getting
a "three-room tent" for he and Mandt only to discover upon pitching the
tent that its box actually said "three-person tent," putting him and his
boss in cramped quarters. Not that it mattered; the most sleep they got
each night was from 2 to 5 a.m., between exclusive ride times and campfire
parties. Still a bit bleary eyed, Siebert was yet his animated self the
following Monday describing for local media members Tomb Raider's
queue through catacombs and ride through ice caves and lava pits (except
that it will be intensive in special effects from Technifex, the ride's
particulars are still hush-hushed by the Paramount crew).
Nevertheless, Siebert considered the Coaster Camp a huge hit, for both
the participants and publicists. Campers came from seven states and as
far away as Las Vegas, paying $149.99 for two nights in the Paramount's
Kings Island campground, three days at the park, two breakfasts, one banquet,
campfire snacks, a commemorative T-shirt and pin, and ERT on Son of
Beast, Face Off, Drop Zone, Vortex, Outer Limits: Flight of Fear, The
Beast, the Zephyr swings, and the 7th Portal motion
theater. The campers also took an early walk-through of the park to see
maintenance workers prepping coasters for the day.
As much as the ERT the coaster enthusiasts enjoyed the games Mandt and
Siebert staged, especially the scavenger hunt that included such finds
as counting the black checks on top of the 315-foot-high (95 meters) Drop
Zone and the black stripes on the left wall of the Outer Limits
exit. Other games included a Kings Island trivia test and a coaster building
competition using craft sticks, glue and a ball. With prizes going to
those teams who could build the tallest, longest and most unique coaster,
the winner was Son of Drop Zone, on which the ball jumped from
one track to another. It beat out such stiff competition as the Black
Hole that featured a track disappearing into a box where the builders
said it went through 29 inversions.
Prizes included season passes, bolts from Son of Beast, old billboard
park maps, and invitations to the Tomb Raider media event. While
Siebert said the exit survey indicated almost 100 percent of the campers
would attend a similar event next year, park officials are still assessing
the camp to determine whether they will repeat it, expand it in either
size or frequency, or drop the idea. Part of that assessment includes
analyzing the impact on maintenance, operations and security for the ERTs
and after- and before-hours transportation from campground to the park.
Not to mention the impact on the idea's originators, Mandt and Siebert.
As the Tomb Raider media event wound down and, Siebert was recounting
his weekend, he said he would have a better sense of the camp's future
"after I've had some sleep."
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Trashless
neighbors
While some big-money theme parks seem incapable of keeping themselves
tidy, DelGrosso's Amusement Park in Tipton, Pennsylvania, extends its
trash-collecting efforts to the surrounding neighborhood.
Because the small, family-owned amusement and waterpark has limited parking,
and it's annual Fourth of July fireworks show usually fills the park to
its 10,000-person capacity, guests end up parking on neighboring residential
streets. "At 9 they walk back to their vehicles to watch the fireworks,"
said Carl Crider president of DelGrosso's Amusement Park. "And walking
out they buy popcorn and soda and other foods. None of them have trash
cans in their cars, and to them the wind is the next best thing."
The cleanup launches at midnight when five park staff members begin picking
up trash inside the park and hosing down the pavilions and midways. By
daylight, the park itself is spic and span. Ten lifeguards from the waterpark
come in at 6 a.m., five to clean the main parking lot, and five to pick
up trash along the highway that fronts DelGrosso's. They extend their
vigilance about three-fourths of a mile beyond both ends of the 60-acre
park, Crider said. Meanwhile, four men from the maintenance crew take
a pickup truck into the neighborhoods and "gather up anything thrown on
people's lawns or in the driveways," Crider said. This crew covers a half-mile
radius around the park.
All told, the park hauls off two compactor-truckloads of trash, Crider
said, much of it not from their property. "It keeps good relations with
the neighbors close to the park," he said. This good will isn't limited
to holiday occasions, either. DelGrosso's crews regularly clean out to
a quarter mile beyond the park's perimeters two to three times a week,
Crider said. "We find more McDonalds trash than we do our own."
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Too
Wild! weather
The Fort Worth Zoo's brand new expensive toy barely escaped destruction
when a flash flood swept through the Texas zoo's just-opened, $40 million
Texas Wild! exhibit July 3. After a full day of rain saturated the ground,
a huge storm passed through the Fort Worth area that Sunday morning dumping
4 inches of rain in two hours. With no place for the new water to go,
a creek that passes through the zoo—traversing, too, the Texas Wild!
exhibit which opened June 14 (see
THE LOOP June 15)—overflowed at 7:15 a.m.
Fortunately, part of building Texas Wild! included a million dollars'
worth of improvements to the creek's irrigation flow.
That engineering spared the bulk of Texas Wild's elaborately themed sets
and enclosures as it channeled the flood waters further downstream, where
the zoo's Thundering Plains exhibit endured the most damage in debris
and downed fences, temporarily displacing the resident bison, Mexican
wolves and javelina. The worst damage to Texas Wild! was to the new Severn-Lamb
train which runs through the flood plain from the zoo's front gate to
the new exhibit's entrance. The flood washed out the track's gravel bed
and damaged some of the boards.
The flood also left the zoo's engineering building under 4 feet of water.
"A number of the tools that would have helped us get out of that situation
were either washed down the stream or damaged," said Mindia Whittier,
the zoo's communications manager. Nevertheless, the zoo staff effected
a quick recovery. Opening three hours late, by the time the zoo let in
the first of that day's 5,000 visitors the debris and damage in the public
areas had been cleaned up. "You would never have known there had been
a flood," Whittier said. Trac-Works, the company that installed the train,
repaired the tracks in two days and the train was running in time for
Fourth of July crowds. "They did a lot of work in a short amount of time,"
Whittier said. Thundering Plains re-opened by the end of the week.
The zoo estimates total damage from the flood at about $300,000, though
that figure is dubious, Whittier said. Authorities were still evaluating
whether electric golf carts and wheelchairs stored at the engineering
facility would be salvageable, and another vehicle that had been parked
there, an authentic turn-of-the-century covered wagon being restored by
zoo staff, was deposited in "a million pieces" a half-mile downstream,
Whittier said. "It's not repairable. It's hard to put an estimate on that
because you can't replace it."
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Vets got to the root of Ping Ping's pain. Photo courtesy of Sea World.
Bearable pain
People may be apprehensive about going to the dentist, but Ping Ping was
a most willing patient—even if he is a 400-kilogram (880-pound) polar
bear. One of two residents of Polar Bear Shores, which opened December
26 at Sea World in Gold Coast, Australia, Ping Ping arrived at the park
last November with a chipped canine. His keepers, though, didn't notice
the resulting infection for a couple of months. "It took a little while
to get him settled in, and in early January we finally got him trained
to open his mouth," said polar bear keeper Des Spittall. "We saw the discolored
tooth that was obviously different from the other teeth."
After a more thorough investigation on the tranquilized bear, the keepers
decided he needed a root canal and called in three specialists for the
surgical team: Gary Wilson, a Brisbane veterinary dentist; Larry Vogelnest,
the senior veterinarian at Taronga Zoo in New South Wales, and Christina
Dart, veterinary anaesthetist from Sydney University. "It was a specialized
operation, and Sea World never kept bears before and doesn't have people
on staff with expertise in animal dentistry," Spittall said of the need
to import the medical team, who worked together for the first time on
this occasion.
Though Dr. Wilson had to order special tools from the United States to
reach the entire length of the nerve, Spittall described the two-hour
operation June 19 as routine. "It's like operating on a 400-kilo dog,
if you will," he said. With 20 years' experience working in zoos and 10
years specializing in bears, Spittall has seen his share of canine extractions
among bears, but this was his first root canal.
As for the patient, a 6-year-old ham whose playful antics at the underwater
viewing window has made him an Australian hit—"He's a natural-born
showoff," Spittall said of Ping Ping—he was fully recovered a day
after the operation, eating his food and chewing his plastic toys. Today,
bear and tooth are doing fine, Spittall said. "Now, when we ask him he
comes up to the wire and opens his mouth wide open and you can have a
good look."
In
this issue
(To go directly
to a story, click on a blue keyword or phrase below):
IAAPA sprouts a branch office in Brussels;
Announced rides at Kings Island and Great Adventure portend industry trends;
Kings Island tells coaster tales around the campfire;
DelGrosso's proves that cleanliness is neighborliness;
Texas Wild! withstands flash floods at Fort Worth Zoo;
A Sea World polar bear bares his teeth for a root canal;
And we mark the debuts of a new type of ride at Prater, a new type of marine mammal show at SeaWorld San Antonio, an interactive dark ride at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and a racing waterslide at Schlitterbahn.
by Eric Minton
Discovery swung into action in Vienna. Photo courtesy of Zamperla
It's a new flat ride!
Prater in Vienna, Austria, announces the
arrival of Discovery, July 12, 2001. Measurements: 203 square meters
(670 feet), 13.3 meters high (44 feet), 24 seats on six 4-seat platforms.
Delivered by Zamperla.
It's not just coasters coming up with new ways to move people. Zamperla
debuted its fourth new flat ride in two years with Discovery, which
sends riders on suspended seats spinning around while swinging back and
forth on a central axis. It is a ride that has fueled more than a little
trepidation among patrons at storied Prater Park, said Christian Steindl,
son of the park's directing manager, Walter Steindl.
"They stay there with open mouths," Christian said of guests watching
the ride. "It goes very high and turns fast. People think they will get
sick on the ride." But Steindl has noticed a subsequent phenomenon: after
one person rides, he or she gets another person, then they get two more.
Ridership grows exponentially. "When you have a group of 10 people, one
goes to test it, then all 10 get on the next ride. It's a little bit crazy."
Christian said his father actually designed such a ride back in 1985,
and an enclosed version was the result. With Discovery, the open
seating and inversions offer riders "a freer feeling, like flying," Christian
said. He should know: he was the first one at Prater to try out test out
the ride. Public rides began yesterday, and today the park will be celebrating
Discovery's grand opening fest, what Christian called its birthday
party. "We are an old, family park," he said. "For us, a new ride is the
same as a new baby."
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A multi-species cast of athletes gave SeaWorld's marine mammal show a lift. Photo courtesy of SeaWorld San Antonio
It's a marine show!
SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas announces the arrival of "Viva!" June
23, 2001. Measurements: Cast and crew of 30 (22 human, four dolphins,
four beluga whales). Delivered by SRO Associates, World Entertainment
Services, Fisher Technical Services, Designs by Sean and several choreographers,
designers and technicians from Las Vegas and San Antonio.
The SeaWorld folks just keep getting bolder and bolder with their ideas,
and the latest is combining human athletes and marine mammals in a high-tech
production at the park's 3,000-seat White Whale and Dolphin Stadium. Synchronized
swimmers, including Kim Wurzel and Tuesday Middaugh of the 2000 U.S. Olympic
synchronized swim team, high divers, aerialists and comedians join the
traditional cast of Pacific white-sided dolphins, belugas and their trainers
in a show that displays athletic prowess in humans and in nature. "We
looked at different sports and athletic skills and the movements of the
different species and matched them as closely as possible," said Roger
Mullins, the park's vice president of entertainment.
In keeping with the park's educational and conservation message, the show
also highlights cooperation among species. "We hope we're sending a message
that this is man and animal living in harmony, living in one space: planet
Earth or a pool, whatever it may be," Mullins said. The show is heavy
in effects, from a 24-foot-high waterfall (7 meters) over the back wall
of the stadium—which has been totally made over for the show—to
surrealistic wetsuit costumes.
The show has been almost a year in the making, with various staff "blue-skying
all sorts of different options," Mullins said. "We were looking at what
opportunities we had to present our animals in a way that had never been
done before." Mullins pulled the ideas together into a cohesive concept
and presented it to the Anheuser-Busch corporate office, who jumped on
the notion. "It excited everybody because it was such a departure from
what we normally do," he said. After interviewing potential producers
from around the country, Mullins chose a San Antonio-based showman, Eddie
Snell of SRO Associates to put on the show.
First, Snell and Mullins got the SeaWorld trainers on board. "They have
been a joy to work with," Mullins said of the animals' day-to-day human
companions. "This was such a total departure, and some people don't accept
change easily, but they bought into it from the early stages."
Good thing, too, because the trainers have had their work cut out for
them since production began last November. They had to help acclimate
the dolphins and whales to their new environment, new human co-stars dressed
as clown fish, and new props, including floating devices designed to look
and behave like anemones. So well have the mammals adapted, the belugas
now play with the anemones in their free time. The trainers also had to
train the human cast. Each player started by attending the park's interaction
programs for dolphins (DIP) and belugas (BIP) which are available to the
paying public, too.
The park began presenting preview snippets of "Viva!" on May 25 "just
to kind of tease" the public, Mullins said. A VIP preview opened the new
show June 23, and the media preview came on July 3. So far, the extravaganza
seems to be a hit among audience, crew and cast, including the mammals.
"You can see the show developing; from one week to the next you see additional
animal behaviors," Mullins said. It's also a big hit for Mullins, who
has been with SeaWorld more than 24 years. "It's hard to beat Shamu from
a guest point of view," he said referring to SeaWorld's signature killer
whale show. However, "In terms of overall production, this one has been
the most challenging and fun for me during my entire career with the company.
I really enjoyed this."
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It's a dark ride!
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in California
announces the arrival of Ghost Blasters, June 23, 2001. Measurements:
4,500 square feet (1,364 square meters), eight rooms, 17 scenes, 80 targets.
Delivered by Sally Corporation.
How amazing that a ride with no advance publicity should still inspire
a couple hundred people to line up 45 minutes before it opened to the
public at 6:30 on a Saturday evening. "Really, it was just word of mouth,"
said Jan Bollwinkel-Smith, the park's communications manager. "People
saw the workers finishing up and said, 'Oh, it's going to open soon.'
They started lining up, other people saw them and they all joined in."
Of course, for a pay-as-you-go facility like Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk,
it's not the first ride that counts so much: it's the second and third
and more. And that Ghost Blasters seems to be accomplishing. Sally's
interactive dark ride takes guests through black-light cartoon settings
where they shoot phaser blasters at targets for scores registered on digital
consoles on board the ride vehicles. The ride already has generated plenty
of repeat ridership and consistently long lines, Bollwinkel-Smith said.
"(The length of wait) is right up there with the Giant Dipper,
which is always our most popular ride."
She said she didn't mount a media campaign for Ghost Blasters'
opening because the ride debuted later than planned as delays in securing
city permits pushed the opening date back to mid-season. But, then, she
didn't really need to mount a campaign as Boardwalk buzz alone maxed ride
capacity from minute one.
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It's a waterslide!
Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort
in New Braunfels, Texas, announces the arrival of Zero Gravity Racer,
June 22, 2001. Measurements: 33 feet high (10 meters), 200 feet long (61
meters), four lanes. Delivered by NBGS International.
The Schlittercoaster that turned heads at the front of the park
with its sleds racing down two steep water flumes was replaced this year
with a new crowd-gatherer, a Downhill Racer on which guests ride mats
face-first down moguled slides. Part of a general facelift next to Schlitterbahn's
entrance, the new ride opened with little fanfare on the same day the
parent company was officially opening with great fanfare its South Padre
Island waterpark. Despite losing out on media-generated hoopla, Zero
Gravity Racer drew a crowd on its own, providing the scream appeal
Schlitterbahn officials wanted at that location. Queues for both riders
and spectators have been long.
Eric’s Turn
Photo by S. Madonna Horcher
Appreciated
Apprentices
Many of you hear it, too. People think that what we in the amusement industry
do is a great way to make a living. All fun, all play, what more could
you ask of your job? True it is a great job, not just because we get to
visit parks and zoos and ride rides but because of all the great people
who make the amusement industry their vocation. This job, though, takes
a lot of hard work, as you know. For me, life is especially hectic every
other Thursday when we publish and post THE LOOP.
Those of you who have visited this space in recent issues know that for
the summer I have two apprentices working with me, sons Jon, 14 (above
with dad Eric during ACE's Coaster Con at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania)
and Ian, 12. The whole time they were traveling with me, they heard what
a great job their father has and, by extension, how lucky they were. They
agreed, though Jon, being 14, is apparently at that age where smiling
for a photograph would lose him some serious cool points.
Well, let me say this has been hard work for them, too. Even as I write
this, Ian is loading the email notifications into the computer, a tedious
chore that allows no room for error. Jon, meanwhile, is inserting edited
changes into my copy, spellchecking all the articles and verifying information
in individual stories. In a few hours, they will begin transferring this
edition of THE LOOP to the web site. On non-publication days they are
working full-time in the office, too: Jon is clearing our database of
invalid email addresses, Ian is building the links on our Connections
page and researching industry web sites, and both are helping with the
office administration, from filing to shredding.
They also have had the fun of visiting parks and zoos, riding rides, and
meeting all the wonderful people I am lucky to call colleagues and associates.
Upon publication of our next LOOP at the end of this month, Jon and Ian
will be heading back to their home in Anchorage, Alaska. I shall miss
them, both personally and professionally. And I'd like to say here, thank
you, Jon and Ian, for the all the work and the fun.
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Not-so-daffy
DAFE
In the June
29 issue of THE LOOP we reported that the Dark Ride and Funhouse Enthusiasts
(DAFE) did not even consider visiting the Noah's Ark walk-through
attraction during the club's first national meeting at Kennywood in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Club officials have since said they do classify the venerable
attraction as a bona fide funhouse but could not fit an official visit
in with their tight schedule at the park. For more information on DAFE,
visit its web site at www.dafe.org.
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Condolences
We at THE LOOP wish
to extend our sympathies and best wishes to Gary Slade, publisher and
editor of Amusement Today, whose mother, Mrs. Russell Carter, died after
a long battle with cancer on Saturday, June 30. For memoriums, the family
has requested donations to Meals on Wheels in Mrs. Carter's name.
THE
LOOP promotion
Today being Friday the 13th, it's fitting that we talk about Halloween and point you, again, to our promotion with Lynton V. Harris at the top of this newsletter. The promotion concludes at the end of this month.
Fresh off his successful staging of The Mummy —LIVE scare maze at Australia's Dreamworld Theme Park (featuring the cast above), Harris is back in the United States preparing for the coming Halloween season. Several parks already are announcing their fall plans, and if you haven't set into motion development of your own haunted attraction plans, you are falling frightfully behind the curve.
We can help. The Freakshow movie, which features Alice Cooper, can be yours free from Harris, who is waiving his license fee exclusively for THE LOOP's readers. Simply contact him by email. Hurry, because this special deal will soon end, and you wouldn't want your procrastination today to haunt you come sOctober.