Volume 2, No. 13. July 12, 2002
Return
of a champion
Clark Robinson does
have regrets. “I had retired and was loving life,” he said. “Retirement
is a great thing.”
But the industry
he has devoted a lifetime to is a greater thing, and so Robinson, three years
into his retirement, accepted the call to serve as interim president of the
International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, taking on the
leadership mantle at a time when the industry is buffeted from without and within
on many fronts. He fills the slot vacated by the sudden resignation of Bret
Lovejoy, who joined IAAPA in March 2001 as John Graff’s heir-in waiting
and took over fully in November.
Robinson,
who spent 27 years on the IAAPA Board of Directors, serving a term as president
and two terms as treasurer, took the new job June 27. He reenters the association
amid rancorous dissension among the IAAPA membership on many levels, including
a contentious executive board, a condition which some insiders say hastened
Lovejoy’s departure (according to an IAAPA press statement, Lovejoy intends
to be available until the end of the year to help with the transition). Part
of the dissension inside IAAPA is driven by outside pressures on the industry,
most notably efforts among government officials to regulate and restrict ride
performances.
The
reason for those government efforts are largely baseless, but their instigators,
especially U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, have managed to tap into a hyper-venting media
fixated on doomsday journalism. IAAPA has taken the first key steps in combating
those assertions and impressions by collecting data from parks on the number
of ride incidents in 2001. How to publicize that data while protecting parks’
from liability claims and public backlash is at the heart of discussions among
IAAPA board members. Meanwhile, small independent parks are feeling increasingly
ostracized by an association dominated in the higher ranks by large chains.
“From
my perspective, one of the things I could do best is bring the family of parks
together to work as a consolidated group of individual enterprises with common
interests,” Robinson said. “We need to make that happen, make sure
all the institutions are involved and are acknowledged and on the same team.”
Already
the board is taking the extraordinary step of calling a midsummer board meeting
July 23. “These guys are busy right now," Robinson said. "But
it’s critical to jump on this early and work on the education process.”
He means education for both the members and the public. Robinson is hoping that
RSM McGladrey, Inc. will have completed gathering the data from the parks on
incident reports, information which will be presented only in bulk form to maintain
the confidentiality of individual parks. “It’s important for the viability
of the data to have a significant number of returns,” Robinson said, aiming
for 80 percent. “We’re close to that.”
Robinson
has not had a chance to formulate an agenda to address any other issues, including
the economic struggles of many manufacturers, but he does intend to have IAAPA
put on a strong trade show in November. The number of registered exhibitors
is down “slightly” compared to this time a year ago, he said, but
“We anticipate that will correct itself as we go down the road. The convention
and trade show is the staple of the industry, that’s what we’re about.
I don’t think there are any issues there, fortunately.”
Robinson entered the industry when he was only 8 years old, moving up through
the ranks at Lagoon amusement park in Farmington, Utah, until he became general
manager in 1974, a position he held until his retirement in 1998. His industry
experience and connections allows him to hit the ground running while a search
committee finds a longer term successor. “It’s a coming home for me,”
he said. “I have a passion about the industry.”
That, right now, is what IAAPA needs most. “I hope members of the association and the board members take a look at all this and say, ‘I’m not here to represent just me and my group of parks, I’m here to represent the whole industry and to create an environment that not only will be beneficial to the industry but beneficial to my individual park and operation,’” he said. “I wish there were more of that kind of thought and feeling, because I think each of us has a responsibility to any park, regardless of their size, to help them in anyway we can. Sometimes we get too caught up in our own individual situation, and that’s understandable, but it’s more of an attitude than anything else.”
Kelp calm
Enduring an MRI—magnetic resonance imaging—can be a claustrophobic
experience for patients. From 30 to 60 minutes those requiring a head, neck
or shoulder scan are stuck inside a bore with only a few inches of room around
the head and a giant magnet hovering close to the face. This is precisely the
moment when patients visiting the two Comprehensive Imaging centers in Santa
Cruz, California, are also visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California,
thanks to the aquarium’s web cams and a high-tech linkup with the MRI centers.
Before entering
the MRI chamber, patients are fitted with padded virtual reality goggles hooked
to a computer which downloads the five streaming web cams from the aquarium.
Patients can choose to watch the otter or penguins exhibits, the tuna and sharks
gliding through a million-gallon tank, the aquarium’s famous kelp forest
or Monterey Bay itself. The purpose is to relax patients during a stressful
procedure, a need MRI technicians have long looked for.
“It was one
of those synchronistic moments,” Jeffrey Hammett, marketing representative
for Los Gatos Comprehensive Imaging, said of the company choosing Monterey Bay
Aquarium’s web cams as the medium for alleviating stress. “Our manager
and a technologist were talking about how stressed out they were at a particular
moment, and the manager went onto (the aquarium’s) web site and was relaxed
watching the web cams. She shared that experience with the technologist, and
they said, ‘Would that be relaxing for our patients who are anxious or
claustrophobic?’”
The center tested
the idea for two months, offering it to about 60 patients. In the test phase,
the patients did not get a choice of cams. “We had an overwhelming positive
response,” Hammett said: in fact, 100 percent of the patients said in surveys
the web casts helped alleviate stress. In rolling out the program this month
at the Los Gatos center and as part of the grand opening of the company’s
new Santa Cruz center, Comprehensive Imaging is allowing patients a choice of
streaming cams and also providing music through earphones (the music is independent
of the aquarium’s web cams). If the program continues successfully for
a trial period, Comprehensive Imaging will offer it at its San Francisco, Fremont,
Vallejo and three Sacramento centers, Hammett said.
“There are
no real capacity issues with our streaming cams,” said Ken Peterson, the
aquarium’s public relations manager. “We have unlimited capacity for
simultaneous viewing, so we could put this in other MRI centers.” However,
it was an application the aquarium’s marketing department never considered
when it began offering the five live scenes through its web site. “We didn’t
seek it out,” Peterson said. “I was surprised it was possible, but
our web team embraced it right away.”
So, it seems, have people enduring one of medical science’s most psychologically stressful procedures. “Just laying there and watching beds of kelp slowly swaying back and forth and fish slowly swimming in and out of view,” Hammett said, “helped calm them down."
Flood of information
One of the best ways a waterpark can battle the real and perceived effects of
widespread regional flooding is to maintain a constant flow of updated information.
Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort in New Braunfels, Texas, found its own Web site
to be the most effective way to get news out to guests, staff and the media
after the park closed over the Fourth of July weekend due to central Texas’
devastating floods.
“The thing
that hadn’t hit me before this was the ability of the Web to put instantaneous
news in front of all the people who want to know about Schlitterbahn,”
said Sherrie Brammall, the park’s public relations director. “We hadn’t
used it that way before. We will from now on.”
Schlitterbahn remained
open through the first onslaught of rains early last week, which caused flooding
throughout San Antonio and closed both SeaWorld and Six Flags Fiesta Texas for
two days. On July 3 Brammall and her team sent out faxes and e-mails assuring
the media and hospitality industry that despite the prevalent television reports
of what was happening to the south in San Antonio, their park had remained open
and would be operating as normal over the holiday.
The morning of
the Fourth, however, came word that Canyon Lake would rise over its banks and
surely flood the Guadeloupe—and, subsequently, back up the Comal River
which flows past Schlitterbahn. That night, park staff moved anything movable
to high ground and evacuated the resort rooms. The delayed opening the next
day evolved into a shut-down that lasted through the rest of the weekend, a
first for the waterpark.
On Monday, Schlitterbahn,
which is laid out in three distinct sections, only opened the Blastenhoff area
and charged a reduced admission rate. The place, Brammall said, was “packed.”
“We spent
time walking around the park on Monday trying to find out where the guests were
from and how they knew we were open that day,” she said. “The overwhelming
response was our Web site. People had been watching the Web site, keeping an
eye on it to see how we were doing. People appreciated the fact we were putting
out updates, and most of the people were from out of town.”
Brammall did have
other means at her disposal of disseminating the message: those e-mails and
faxes, plus TV news helicopters flying over the park Sunday evening with live
shots while Brammall was being interviewed. “They said then Schlitterbahn
would be opened.” Still, it was the web site that people used most. “It
was a time when our phone lines were clogged with people calling in. To have
the message board on our Web site was invaluable.” Key to that success
was Webmistress Pat Quiroz. “She stayed near her computer the entire weekend
to make sure any updates were posted immediately.”
Schlitterbahn opened its Surfenburg area on Wednesday, and the entire park resumed normal operations yesterday. That highlighted another usefulness of the Web’s power to disseminate news. “The other group we had to communicate with through all this was our staff members,” Brammall said. “We told everyone to keep logging on to the Web site. There’s no way we could make personal phone calls to everybody.”
A web of profits
Here’s a web story of a different sort.
Much
of North America has been caught up in the spinning yarn of a certain movie
superhero since May, coughing up more than $400 million at the box office as
of this writing. Amusement park aficionados know that before there was a record-setting
Spider-Man movie, there was a groundbreaking Spider-Man ride at Universal Studios’
Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.
While
The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man has always been among the 3-year-old
park’s most popular attractions, this year that popularity has spiked,
said Susan Lomax, Universal Studios Florida’s senior director of public
relations and publicity. She cites several indicators. “Universal Express
tickets are snatched up faster (for Spider-Man) than any attraction in
both Universal parks, and you can now witness a large and distinct flow of guests
en masse from the park entrance to the ride entrance each morning,” she
said.
Other
measures: Spider-Man merchandise has become the park’s top selling character
item, with Spider-Man bobbleheads, Spider-Man tie-dye T-shirts and Spider-Man
toys the most popular. Sales in Spider-Man suits have “dramatically increased”
in both adult and child sizes, Lomax said. The park also has seen more guests
requesting Spider-Man face painting.
Speaking
of suits, Spider-Man is one of the costumed characters strolling the park’s
Marvel Super Hero Island themed area, and because of the demand for Spider-Man,
Islands of Adventure has scheduled meet-and-greet photo ops for the character
at the store adjoining the ride. Universal Studios also took advantage of the
web crawler’s cinematic popularity by referencing him in a television commercial
aimed at Florida residents, featuring a family suffering the indignities of
Dad crawling across the ceiling with suction cups on his hands and feet. “The
point, of course, is why have the pretend experience at home when you can have
the real experience at Islands of Adventure,” Lomax said.
Those of you who have seen the movie know that merely meeting Spider-Man is not sufficient for smitten young ladies. “The week following the movie’s opening, Spider-Man was literally bombarded with requests from female guests for a kiss,” Lomax said, referring to the rain drenched, upside-down, sensuous lip-lock of the movie. To answer that demand—and wrest a media stunt out of it—the park set aside May 16 to honor one lucky female’s request. As several hundred women of all ages gathered outside the ride, Spider-Man swooped in, crawled down the wall and picked one woman out of the crowd to kiss while he hung upside down. This being a family theme park, the kiss was nothing more than a peck on the cheek, and the park would just as soon not have the rain, thank you very much.
Terry Weerts, 1953-2002
Ben Jones was serving as chairman of the FEC committee with the International
Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions when Terry Weerts came on board.
The man who had guided the growth of the Celebration Station chain of family
entertainment centers offered Jones, president of Recreation Group in Rochester
Hills, Michigan, some hints to help him better fulfill his role as chairman
of the committee.
“Terry helped
me take six or seven points we were trying to accomplish and boil it down to
four points that truly encompassed everything,” Jones said. “That
was one of his strong suits. He was huge on setting goals and objectives, and
he had the ability to clearly outline objectives for his team and set goals
for the group and for himself.”
A man of balance
and quick accomplishment who readily shared his experience with colleagues and
competitors described Weerts, who died June 22 after a heart attack at his home
in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was 49.
Weerts started
fast in his career, opening a Noble Roman's pizza parlor as partner-owner shortly
after graduating from Purdue University. Before long he had opened 13 Noble
Romans. Merrillville, Indiana, based Whiteco took notice and tapped Weerts to
serve as operations manager for the company’s first FEC, a Celebration
Station in Merrillville Weerts eventually built a 15-store chain, and in January
2000 was promoted to Director of Development for Whiteco Industries to develop
hotels.
During his 11-year
tenure heading up the Celebration Station operations, Weerts established a lasting
legacy for the FEC industry. “Terry ran what was arguably one of the best
multi-chain FECs in the country and helped the industry refine operating goals
and objectives: what was a good mix, how much square footage was best, how many
holes of miniature golf to put in,” Jones said. “Without someone out
there building a dozen in a few years, we would have learned, but the learning
curve would have been much steeper for all of us.”
The learning curve
was not so steep only because of Weerts’ willingness to share. “He
met tons of people throughout the industry, and he wasn’t afraid to share
information with you or tell you his feelings to help grow this industry,”
said Dusty Day, director of operations for Celebration Station who considered
Weerts his mentor. “He promoted the idea that families who play together
stay together, and he believed that wholeheartedly”
The philosophies
Weerts expressed in his professional life he practiced in his family life with
wife Mary, and their two children, ages 14 and 12. He often took his children
along on business trips, and he used them as testers in his Celebration Stations.
“He gave all of himself to work when he was working, but when work was
over he gave all of himself to family and friends,” Jones said.
“I remember when I was a young general manager she said, ‘Use your brain and do what’s right,’” Day said. “That was his big thing: ‘Do what’s right.’”
A real soul train
When the Tweetsie Railroad blows its whistle, what once could only be
heard echoing down the mountain passes around Blowing Rock, North Carolina,
will now play forth from boomboxes and stereo systems around the world.
The antique train
and the theme park named for it could be heading for the Billboard charts thanks
to a decision the park's executive vice president and general manager, Chris
Robbins, made when he planned out a visiting concert series at the park. He
knew one of the musical acts had to be Riders In The Sky . The western swing
and country folk band’s demographics—let alone its name—were
a natural fit for the mountainside family theme park centered on a Wild West
train ride. Robbins secured the band for his first concert series in 1997, and
the Riders have returned every year since.
“Typically,
one of our biggest weekends is when Riders In The Sky are here,” Robbins
said. “They have a devoted following: not quite as much as the Grateful
Dead, but close to that. I know people in Pennsylvania who plan their summer
vacations around seeing the Riders here.”
Robbins didn’t
know just how much the band reciprocated those feelings for the theme park until
last year when he was driving them to the park’s concert venue. “They
asked me, ‘would Tweetsie be interested in having a Tweetsie Rider In The
Sky album,’” Robbins said. “I didn’t think twice. I said,
‘Absolutely.’ I was flattered.”
“This is an
idea that the guys and I have been kicking around for years,” said bass
player Too Slim. On the subsequent album’s cover art, shot at Tweetsie,
the band members touts their affection for the park, saying it is one of the
few gigs for which they bring along their children and significant others.
Released this week
and for sale on the band’s Web site and at their concerts, as well as on
Tweetsie’s Web site and in the park’s souvenir stores, Ridin’
the Tweetsie Railroad features three new compositions about the park: “Tweetsie
Railroad Line,” “Ghost Train” and “Tweetsie Junction.”
With its focus on railroad songs, both legendary and new, the album also has
“Wabash Cannonball,” “Orange Blossom Special” and “Casey
Jones,” songs that, though popular staples of Riders concerts, the band
had never before recorded.
This is Riders’ second collaboration with a theme park. The band won a Grammy Award last year for Woody’s Roundup Featuring Riders In The Sky, the soundtrack of a live Disneyland show (THE LOOP, February 23, 2001). Will the popular band bring similar fame to Tweetsie? Robbins—who, for the record, loves the album: “My favorite is ‘Tweetsie Railroad Line’ for obvious reasons, but also its a catchy song that you can’t get out of your head”—dens’t aim for such grandeur. “I told the members of the band, ‘Nobody outside the Southeast is going to know what Tweetsie Railroad is.’ They said, ‘That may or may not be true, but it doesn't’ matter to our fan base; they get the latest album no matter what it’s called.’"
Rebirths
It’s
a tunnel of love!
Playland in Rye, New York, announces the rebirth of the Old Mill, June
28, 2002. Measurements: 1,200-foot-long trough (364 meters), 12 scenes. Delivered
by Sally Corporation and R&R Creative Amusement Design.
Mum
for more than a year, a gnome has been sitting outside Playland’s Old
Mill, the 1929-built tunnel of love, quietly biding his time. “He’s
the ambassador to the ride, inviting people on,” said Peter Tartaglia,
the park’s director of marketing. “He’s been waiting to speak.
Last week he just started speaking,” Tartaglia said on the eve of the long
Fourth of July weekend.
The
gnome could speak because, at last, his ride had reopened after a complete overhaul
of its infrastructure and scenes. One of the park’s seven original rides,
the Old Mill is a designated National Historic Landmark, and the makeover
had to tiptoe around the building’s integrity. Nevertheless, new boats
traverse a totally renovated trough through a revamped storyline featuring animatronic
gnomes operating the “Playland Waterworks,” trolls and a dragon, a
natural resident for the dark ride which runs underneath the park’s Dragon
Coaster.
Playland
originally had planned the renovation to be completed in two phases, with part
of it ready for the 2001 season, and the remainder concluded in the off-season.
However, when phase one was not completed until August, management opted to
hold off a reopening until the whole project could be completed. Even so, the
work continued deep into this season. “There’s delicate stuff with
all the animatronics,” Tartaglia said. "We were creating a brand new
ride in a 74-year-old building. Sally was aware of that and Sally took very
good care of the building.”
At
least the Old Mill opened in time for the July 4th weekend, and to ensure
it did Tartaglia decided to forego a formal re-dedication ceremony. With good
crowds for the last weekend in June and the first week of July, and a gnome
serving as spokesman, the ride saw plenty of traffic and spawned positive reactions,
Tartaglia said.
The
Old Mill’s reopening was just the latest chapter in what’s
proving to be a season-long roll-out of new and renewed attractions. Season
Opening crowds May 11 were treated to the refurbished Zombie Castle dark
ride. Owned and operated by the Trahanas Family since the early 1960s, Zombie
Castle now features Max Rotten, an animatronic zombie out front hawking
people to the ride. That and new cars are the only exterior signs that the old
Laff in the Dark type ride has been updated, but inside has seen a complete
overhaul courtesy of Distortions Unlimited Corporation with a graveyard that
comes to life, zombies moving about the castle and a smoke-filled torture chamber.
Just ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, Playland opened a Sky Skater by Interactive Rides and a Kite Flyer by Zamperla. Later this month the park hopes to open a Crazy Mouse Spinning Coaster by Reverchon.
It’s
a roller coaster!
Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California, announces the rebirth of V2:
Vertical Velocity June 22, 2002. Measurements: 594 feet (180 meters)
total length of track, 150 feet high (45 meters), 28-seat train. Redelivered
by Intamin.
His
colleagues will forgive Jeff Jouett for expressing a little pique at coaster
enthusiasts.
The public relations manager for Six Flags Marine World suffered an off-season
of Web site barbs as the 1-year-old Intamin LIM launch coaster was reconfigured,
its twin towers cut from 186 feet (56 meters) high to 150, and the front upright
angled out 45 degrees with a corkscrew en route.
The
city’s environmental impact regulations limit construction heights to 150
feet, but because Intamin’s original design for the ride was 186 feet,
the park received a one-year variance to get V2
up and open. “We agreed at that time to make the change in the off-season,”
Jouett said. Coaster enthusiasts bombarded Web message boards with ridicule
for the alteration. “I read all that stuff and said, ‘Geeze, give
it a chance.’” Jouett said.
V2
is now a new ride experience, thanks to the front end extending out at a rising
45-degree angle over the ground—in fact, over the park’s entry plaza
and ticket booths: “It gets all the guests waiting to come into the park
revved up,” Jouett said. The first pass stops mid-way through the corkscrew,
so that riders pause at different angles depending on where they are sitting
in the train. On subsequent passages, the train's closing proximity to the end
of the track seems much more pronounced on a nearly horizontal track than it
does on a totally vertical track, Jouett said. “It ends, right there. That’s
the thing, visually: it’s not a looping coaster. The track ends.”
The ride opened with no staged fanfare. “We just wanted to get it open and get people riding. We may yet do some event,” Jouett said. That is not to say the V2 didn’t open with excitement, even from the off-season naysayers. “The most gratifying thing is that the coaster enthusiasts who were whining on line are now singing its praises,” Jouett said, then continued in joking repartee: “And I’ve kept all their on-line signatures. If I have a coaster event they will have to sign in with their message board names and I’ll decide whether they’re going to have lunch or not.
New Arrivals
It’s
a water theme park!
Pearl River Resort in Choctaw, Mississippi, announces the arrival of Geyser
Falls Water Theme Park, July 9, 2002. Measurements: 15 acres (six hectares),
13 slides, one wavepool, one 1,200-foot-long (364-meter) continuous river, two
interactive play areas, one arcade, two restaurants, two stores, 300 in-season
employees. Delivered by Cross Country Parks, EDSA Cloward, Herb Ramsaier Planning
and Design, Michael Lee Design, Pat Scanlon and Associates and Whitewater West.
The
waterpark built by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians on their reservation’s
casino resort came to roaring life Tuesday. Literally. The noontime ceremony
concluded with Chief Philip Martin encouraging everybody in the audience to
roar. The goal was to wake up a grizzly bear standing at the back of the park’s
wavepool, which itself roars—accompanied by 50 foot-high (15-meter) geysers—whenever
the wavepool starts up.
The
park, not yet completed, then officially opened to some 1,500 guests who came
out on a steaming hot day for central Mississippi’s—and, arguably,
the Southeast’s—most extensively themed waterpark. “A lot of
people were saying they’d never seen anything like this, especially in
this neck of the woods,” said Steve Mayer, a general management consultant
at the park working for Cross Country Parks.
Highlights
include the Western Hemisphere’s first Boomerango slide by Whitewater West
and Creaky Leaky Water Factory, an interactive play structure with 100
different water features. The wave pool opened the next day as did the Lil’
Squirts Hollow, a customized 18-foot-tall (five-meter) tall tree featuring
water-spraying branches and surrounded by carved rocks that also shoot water.
This weekend the park will reach full operation when its two big slide structures
open.
\“We knew we would be opening sometime between July 4 and July 10, which is the beginning of the Choctaw Indian Fair (a four-day music, sports and cultural festival)," Mayer said. "That is why we wanted to get the park open at least partially.”
The
waterpark is just the first phase in a major expansion of the Pearl River Resort's
offerings, which are to include an adjacent white sand lagoon with snorkeling
trails, paddle boats and beach club, a 280-acre (113-hectare) lake stocked with
fish and a 250-room hotel. The resort is also getting a $117 million, 571-room
Golden Moon Hotel and Casino. In addition to Geyser Falls’ opening, the
tribe dedicated on Tuesday evening the opening of Hollywood Star Cars, an exhibit
of vehicles from motion pictures, and Startacular light and water show.
With the slate of opening day activities, a couple dozen journalists descended on the resort from around the state. Geyser Falls is aiming at first for a 75-mile-radius market, but with the theming and in conjunction with the other resort offerings, Pearl River Resort is positioning its new waterpark as destination tourism draw.
It’s
a Matterhorn!
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz announces the arrival of Rock &
Roll, July 2, 2002. Measurements: 3,420 square feet (320 square meters),
23 feet high (seven meters), 20 cars. Delivered by Bertazzon.
It
may not be a mega-ride, but the colorful new flat ride at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
drew eager riders hours before it opened. A few people lined up in the morning
as Boardwalk workers were putting the Rock & Roll through its final
paces, but even when informed the ride would not open until later in the day,
the people remained, intent on being the first to ride. Boardwalk employees
actually got that chance for two hours, then the ride opened to the public at
2 p.m. (14,00).
The
line hardly abated throughout a surprisingly strong Fourth of July weekend,
the boardwalk’s Publicity Director Jan Bollwinkel-Smith said. She’s
crediting unusually hot weather more than the ride for drawing crowds to the
seaside park, but the Rock & Roll did remain a popular attraction.
“We didn’t make a huge deal about it,” she said of the publicity
campaign. Press releases and advertising announced its opening, touting it as
something new to do at the boardwalk for the Fourth of July weekend.
The
Rock & Roll is the last of the Boardwalk’s new arrivals for
the year. On May 22 the park opened two kiddie rides, a Zamperla Speedway, a
flat ride of eight cars on a 960-square-foot (89-square-meter) footprint, and
a Moser Freefall, taking riders up a 29-foot (9-meter) tall tower.
It’s
an ice skating show!
Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, announces the arrival of “Snoopy Rocks!
On Ice,” June 22, 2002. Measurements: 15 skaters, five costumed characters,
850 seats, 30-minute show. Delivered by Knott’s Berry Farm and Woodstock
Ice Productions.
In
the weeks after Cedar Point’s new 30-minute ice skating show opened without
fanfare, the park’s public relations representative, Bryan Edwards, has
walked by the former IMAX theater-cum Good Time Theatre and seen what he calls
a parking lot of strollers. “There must have been 30-plus strollers out
there,” he said one day. “It’s a definite hit with families judging
by the number of strollers out there.”
Cedar
Point management decided to replace its IMAX cinema with a more singular experience,
Edwards said. “You can go to a major city and see an IMAX movie,”
he said. “You really can’t go anywhere to see a great family ice skating
show.” The IMAX screen was removed and the first couple rows of seating
taken out to allow installation of the ice rink in a half-oval. The show features
costumed characters Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Sally and Snoopy acting out
famous Peanuts scenes, like Snoopy and the Red Baron, Charlie Brown’s kite-eating
tree and Lucy’s psychiatric advice stand. The athletic skaters perform
Olympic-style routines between the Peanuts scenes.
Mounting the production allowed Cedar Point the chance to promote a family attraction to balance the opening of its Wicked Twister Impulse coaster in May. The strategy appears to be paying off. “Seeing all those strollers out there, it seems to be popular among families with children,” Bryant said.
It’s
a theme park resort!
Universal Studios Orlando announces the arrival of the Royal Pacific Resort,
June 18, 2002. Measurements: 53 acres (21.5 hectares), 1,000 rooms, 80,000 square
feet (7,432 square maters) of meeting room space, 25,000 square feet (2,323
square meters) of outdoor function space, one 12,000-square-foot (1,115-square-meter)
swimming pool, six restaurants, four shops, 1,552 customized hand-carved wood
panels, 58,0000 plants, 2,500 palm trees including one 10-trunk palm tree, one
orchid court with more than 400 varieties of orchids and eight stone statures,
one 1940s seaplane.
“Sumptuous”
is too banal a descriptor. “Exotic?” Considering its locale, the third
hotel on the Universal Studios Orlando property vis-à-vis what it contains—like
the city’s largest swimming pool and the wood murals hand-carved especially
for the hotel by Polynesian artists in Bali and —that word certainly seemed
apt. “It really is the most exotic hotel on the mainland of the United
States,” said Susan Lomax, Universal Studios Florida's senior director
of public relations and publicity. “We tried to figure out how to position
this hotel, and we came up with that line and it’s actually true.”
This
being Universal, however, the marketing thrust needed to be edgy. So, “hot”
was the word of the day that the first guests were officially welcomed. “To
open the hottest new resort we brought in a fire breather to attempt to break
the world record for the longest fire throw,” Lomax said. Ted Shred, a
Los Angeles stuntman who showed the world his dragon-like abilities in the movie
Charlie’s Angels, was aiming to surpass the record breathed-flame
distance of 30 feet. However, a succession of thunderstorms, humid air and breezes
conspired against Shred’s efforts. “We knew going into the morning
the weather conditions were all wrong,” Lomax said. Still, Shred reached
20 feet.
The
rainstorms chased the opening ceremonies under the cover of the hotel’s
porticashare, where Royal Pacific’s General Manager Dale McDaniel preceded
over a ceremony featuring Universal Studios officials and about 150 guests waiting
to check in. The first of those guests to do so was upgraded to the presidential
suite and received a week’s vacation within a year. A week later, all 1,000
rooms were booked, setting an Orlando record for fastest sellout.
Maybe
“successful” is the most apt descriptor.
It’s
quadruple simulations!
Museu de les Ciences Principe Felipe, in Valencia, Spain, announces the arrival
of Space Academy/Academia del Espacio, June 5, 2002. Measurements: 650
square meters (6,997 square feet) four simulated experiences in a 22 minute
show. Delivered by Farmer Studios, Helifilms, European Space Agency and NASA.
When
it came to presenting a simulated experience on space travel, the Museu de les
Ciences Principe Felipe went to the highest authority on the subject: Spain’s
first astronaut, Pedro Duque, who, as a mission specialist, flew with John Glenn
on the Discovery in 1998.
Duque
acts as guide throughout the experience, first describing his 1998 mission with
Glenn and introducing the International Space Station. Guests don replicas of
European astronauts’ trademark blue spacesuits before entering the simulations,
including a full size rotating mockup of the Space Station laboratory. After
boarding the simulation of the Kennedy Space Center Launch Lift to the Skybridge,
guests move into The White Room to prepare for their mission. The Crew Return
Vehicle then launches them into space, producing the same g-forces the astronauts
feel when lifting off, and landing safely back on Earth.
Helifilms
was granted access to the Kennedy Space Center shuttle launch pad and NASA’s
Roger Crouch, Senior Scientist for the International Space Station also contributed
to the script’s development.
Duque touched down at the Museum for the dedication of the new academy along with Valeriano Claros, Director of the Spanish Office of the European Space Agency, and Valencian First Vice-president Jose Luis Olivas. After the space experts laid their blessings on the project, the public endorsed the efforts as Space Academy has since operated at 100 percent capacity, prompting Domingo Escutia, the museum’s director of exhibitions to say, appropriately, “We have a success!”
Eric's Turn
What’s
in a domain
In the Asterix comic books—which I have been a fan of since my college
days—the chief of the tribe stands on a shield borne by two men, who transport
the chief around the village and to summit meetings with other tribes’
leaders. So when I visited Parc Asterix near Paris earlier this year and spied
the photo-op above, I didn’t even think of resisting the offer to have
my picture taken on the shield. I don’t look very chief like, I grant,
but it’s the feeling inside that is all.
I’m
prompted to share this experience and photo because several developments this
week have given me pause to survey my domain. Pun intended: that's "my
domain" as in my web site.
This
issue of THE LOOP contains several stories that prompted this pause. Unintentionally,
this particular issue seems to have a theme of how prevalent the World Wide
Web has become in our business.
Schlitterbahn
Waterpark Resort in New Braunfels, Texas, discovered that their Web site, with
frequent updates, was the best counter to misperceptions about the park’s
status during the recent central Texas floods. The ability to get word out immediately
proved vitally important to the park’s return to normalcy.
Monterey
Bay Aquarium has teamed up with nearby MRI centers to provide its live streaming
web cams for patients undergoing the discomforting magnetic resonance imaging
procedure. Watching the aquarium's otters, penguins, tuna or kelp forest via
an Internet hookup helped reduce stress among patients as they were enduring
the claustrophobic conditions of MRIs. That’s just one new benefit their
web site has brought the aquarium. Public Relations Manager Ken Peterson told
me the web site this year may get more visitors than the aquarium itself, a
triumph for the institution’s education mission.
The
Internet is taking hold as the preferred place for people to get information
and to share information quickly with their colleagues (another theme which
seems to be running through the stories in this issue of THE LOOP). We’re
proud to be a part of that trend. And this week we can boast that our own makeover
of www.gettheloop.com is now complete. Every element of our site has been given
a new look with easier navigation, and we continue to refine our services to
the amusement and attractions industry.
Our
alliance with Amusement Today, and the resulting Extra! Extra! page on www.amusementtoday.com—which
we hotlink at the top of every LOOP via an ever-updating compilation of headlines—is
exactly the kind of service the web can give you that is not available in any
other medium. There you will find up-to-date accounts of developing stories
within our industry. Amusement Today may be a monthly, and THE LOOP may be a
semi-monthly. But our Extra! Extra! is a daily. Actually, it’s a minutely.
We have been the first to post many stories, but while we aim to be the first
getting the news to you, we place more importance on being your most trusted
source of information and only post what we can ensure are accurate, verifiable
stories.
We
invite you to browse about both our site and www.amusementtoday.com,
look at archived issues of THE LOOP, check into the Reading Room for some helpful
service articles, visit our cyber animal art gallery, and, yes, take a look
at our advertising opportunities. Remember as you plot your futures, on the
Internet, the future has already arrived.
Correction
In the June
28, 2002 issue of THE LOOP, we gave the wrong numerical designation for
the annual American Coaster Enthusiasts' Coaster Convention. Kicking off the
organization's 25th anniversary was the 25th annual ACE Coaster Con at Magic
Mountain, Adventure City, Knott's Berry Farm and LEGOLAND in California.
We also gave an incorrect measurement for the length of track on Xcelerator at Knott's Berry Farm. The track is 2,202 feet (667 meters) long.
Both articles were corrected after THE LOOP was initially posted, but we wanted to alert you to the changes.
©2002, Minton Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved