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Volume
1, No. 10. June 15, 2001
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In this issue (click on a blue link to go directly to a story, or scroll down the page):
A new chapter in the development of zoos begins as Fort Worth gets Wild!;
The whole world goes soggy while Astroworld shuts down because of flooding;
Haunters go trick-or-trading;
Things get icy when Wave Waterpark starts its season;
War comes to the peaceful environs of Idlewild;
Paramount Parks knows a thing or two about Surviving;
SeaWorld Orlando rolls out the welcome mat for teens;
Eric introduces his apprenticing offspring and tackles a conspiracy theory;
And we welcome the new arrivals of roller coasters in Six Flags America and Six Flags Marine World, a dinner theater in Ocean Park, a boat ride in Terra Mitica, and a bicycle at MOSI.
By Eric Minton
Global wetting
It's a universal bane of amusement
parks, water parks and zoos, and this past week it seemed to be everywhere.
Rain caused business havoc for parks in North America, Asia and Europe,
while the wet season settled in for South American facilities.
No park was hit harder than Six Flags Astroworld in Houston, Texas, which,
like the rest of the metropolitan area, suffered flooding from a tropical
storm that swept through town twice in one week. The theme park closed
early last Friday when the second deluge began and didn't reopen until
yesterday. Its Showcase Theatre, season pass processing center and a couple
of gift shops took water damage, and the warehouse "was hit pretty hard,"
said the park's public relations manager Darryl Freeman. Several offices
in the warehouse as well as food, merchandise and "a lot of paper goods"
were lost, though the park has not put a price tag on the damage yet,
she said.
As much as cleaning up, the park's staff has had to deal with property
losses among their fellows. "Some individuals have lost some things,"
Freeman said. "A couple of people had flooding in their homes. Many people
had damage to their vehicles." Workers were gathering donations to help
those affected by the floods.
While the park has always put up with almost daily squalls during typical
seasons, and flash flood warnings are almost nightly occurrances, this
storm overwhelmed the whole population. "None of us had any idea what
was coming," Freeman said. "We've seen bad floods in Houston, but we've
never seen them so widespread in several parts of the town." The freak
flooding came about when Tropical Storm Allison eased ashore early last
week, swept back out to the Gulf of Mexico, then returned with even more.
When the extent of the flood became obvious on Saturday—whole sections
of Interstate 10 resembled the Mississippi River—the park didn't
even attempt to open for the weekend, heeding the city's need to focus
on rescue and recovery and keeping those people who could stay home off
the roads. "We didn't want to risk people driving around Saturday and
Sunday," Freeman said. Astroworld staff realized Monday that its own cleanup
needed time, too, and decided to hold off re-opening until late in the
week.
While the park's flood waters receded Saturday, other neighborhoods remained
under water into this week, with total damage estimates reaching $1 billion
for the city. Downtown Houston, just blocks north of the park, was among
the worst hit areas. Lily Tsang lives in that area and in a phone call
described the devestation to her sister, Lisa Tsang, entertainment manager
at Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Lily's own home suffered no damage, much to
Lisa's relief.
But, then, Lisa was dealing with her own city's deluges, which caused
landslides throughout the province, including a "minor mudslide" in the
backstage area of the park. While the public area has been spared, "attendance
is bad," she said, and the rains have forced the park's new outdoor show
indoors more often than not (see New Arrival).
Her plight is one shared by parks across the United States, especially
in the Midwest and Northeast. Coming off one of the wettest, coldest summers
in memory, the parks had "nowhere but-up" hopes for 2001, and the spring
held much promise with record crowds. The three-day Memorial Day weekend,
however, saw cold, wet weather at almost every park in the country, and
the rains stuck around until the middle of this week in the Ohio Valley,
keeping temperatures and attendance down throughout the region. When that
cold front moved out it was replaced by a daily dose of violent thunderstorms.
European parks and zoos are also reporting weather-hampered attendance
this month, even though the season has been no wetter than past years.
The problem, said Jeff Bertus, secretary of Europark, is the weather forecasters.
"The last couple of weeks we saw the weather forecasting guys being too
pessimistic," he said. "They miss quite often. But if you tell people,
'This weekend the weather will be raining or too cold or whatever,' they
don't plan to go to the zoo or amusement park."
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A little
swap of horrors
Parks and zoos do it with rides
and animals; now haunted attractions are exploring a way to trade props
among themselves.
The International Association of Haunted Attractions has formed a committee
to look into setting up a prop swap program among its members. The initiative
of Ross Karpelman, president of the House of Shock in New Orleans, the
committee not only is exploring a way to set up an on-line trading post
through IAHA's web site, but also a mechanism to rope in those haunters
who do not yet have Internet access.
"I put a thing in the (IAHA) newsletter that if anyone has anything they
want to get rid of, e-mail a description and at least we'll have a database
when we get the site going," Karpelman said. He feels attractions too
often waste money and prop-building efforts because they have no way to
recycle some of their scenery and scare elements. "We have these props
we spent a lot of money on that everybody has seen here, and it would
be cool to circulate them to other sites where nobody has seen them,"
he said.
He doesn't believe such a program would undercut manufacturers, especially
as the haunt industry in general is still growing. "It's like the record
companies coming down on used CD stores; I don't see where they would
have a problem with it. They'll have their business anyway from people
who have the budget. And they are always coming up with new and different
stuff." Some attractions also would want to keep purchasing new material
to secure a warranty.
The key to such a swap program succeeding would be its nationwide reach.
Karpelman's renowned Halloween operation, with a total attendance of 30,000
guests over 15 three-hour nights, is one of several seasonal haunted attractions
in New Orleans, but with different themes and shared audiences, trading
props with the rival houses wouldn't be viable, he said. Keeping props
longer than four years would be even less viable, he said. "You want to
keep people coming back, so you want to keep refreshing your scenery.
I'd rather die than have a haunted house that's boring, that people have
seen every year."
For more information, call the IAHA toll-free hotline, 866-462-4242, or check in at the association's web site by clicking here.
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Icing
on the season
Ice hockey and swimming have
one key common factor. "They're both kind of water related," Kenny Handle
said just barely convincingly. No matter. The manager of Wave Waterpark
in Vista, California, has married the ultimate winter sport with his summer-focused
business in a now-annual promotion featuring the local minor league hockey
team, the San Diego Gulls.
On the Memorial Day holiday—the Monday of the park's season opening
weekend—members of the Gulls, their mascot, and the Gulls Girls cheerleaders
visit Wave, signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans. As part
of the promotion, the park offers half-price admission to any youths wearing
their ice or roller hockey league jerseys. In return for the Gulls' participation
in opening weekend, the waterpark sponsors a number of promotions for
the Gulls during their season, including ticket giveaways.
Handler first hooked up with the Gulls last year, and despite their respective
summer-versus-winter focus—the hockey season even ends a couple weeks
before the waterpark season begins—the two proved a perfect fit.
"The Gulls are looking to promote themselves just as much as we are,"
Handler said. "I'm trying every angle I can to get everyone here."
Last year was the first in the partnership, and, Handler said, "It went
surprisingly smooth, and we had a decent showing. It was something we
took a chance on and it worked out pretty good." With its "very, very
small marketing budget," Wave, owned and operated by the City of Vista,
can not afford billboards and other traditional media outlets, so the
mention on the electronic scoreboard during Gulls games, which average
6,000 fans, is an effective substitute. Furthermore, the West Coast Hockey
League champion Gulls come much cheaper than the area's major league sports
teams, the football Chargers and, representing that other popular summer
pasttime, the baseball Padres.
"With the Padres you have to deal with agents and fine-print contracts,"
Handler said. With the Gulls, "You ask if they can be there and throw
them some tickets for their families and they usually show. And they are
very nice. Not that the Padres aren't nice, but you have more hoops to
jump through with them."
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Call to arms
Another incongruous pairing
over the U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend mixed scenes of war with one
of the country's most tranquil amusement parks. However, at Idlewild and
Soak Zone in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, the annual tradition of honoring
the nation's servicemen and women has become a viable attendance driver,
and with Civil War re-enacters on hand, the park takes on an almost fantasyland
feel.
For the past half dozen years the Civil War Society of Western Pennsylvania
has set up an encampment at Idlewild, a small family trolley park about
50 miles east of Pittsburgh, for the three-day weekend. The 20 members
dressed in authentic period battle uniforms pitch their tents under the
trees by the park's Jumpin' Jungle section. Guests are allowed to roam
into the camp to see demonstrations and exhibits of Civil War weaponry
and supplies. The battalion also drills and, by its presence, brings a
greater sense of authenticity to the frontier town-themed Hoot and Holler.
"They look like they're part of the act," said Jerome Gibas, vice president
and general manager of the park.
The Civil War buffs' primary act, though—shooting off their cannon—is
done at a ball field in a far corner of the park. "We have to keep that
cannon away from everybody," Gibas said. "It's pretty loud."
Usually the park also has a large modern contingent of the National Guard
on hand, with local units bringing their tanks and jeeps, and any Guard
member wearing his or her uniform to the park earning admission discounts
for the whole family. This year, however, local units had been deployed
for military exercises. Idlewild recognizes yet a third army for the weekend:
anybody who brings a can of food to donate to the Salvation Army gets
discounted admission.
Despite the holiday weekend, Idlewild needs these promotions to push attendance
in what is still a pre-season for the park whose primary business is group
and family picnics, Gibas said. Opening May 12 for weekends, Idlewild
uses the May weekends to do several special events, including a YMCA 5K
race inside the park and an American Heart Association 3K walk. Both races
pull in up to 400 participants, Gibas said, and the park gets a bonus
as many attendees stay with their families for an afternoon picnic.
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Survivor III: The midway
When the folks at Paramount
Parks' Design and Entertainment Group were cooking up a traveling show
for their chain of theme parks, they picked the hottest phenomenon in
America that would require the least amount of talent to stage: Survivor
II: The Australian Outback, the hit reality TV game show by CBS, a
brother company to Paramount Parks in the Viacom family.
The stage game show, "Survivor Reward Challenge," debuted last Saturday
at Paramount's Carowinds in Charlotte, North Carolina, the park closest
to Paramount Parks' corporate headquarters and a park which had successfully
pulled off a week-long, full-fledged Survivor contest with a radio station
last year. This season's version lasts less than an hour and uses members
of the audience who volunteer to compete in one of two daily shows.
The eight contestants are divided into the two named tribes of the Outback
Survivor series, the Kucha and Ogakor. They endure a series of challenges
reminiscent of those in the show, with a few changes befitting the venue.
Instead of slingshotting stones at china plates, for instance, they shoot
rubber balls at plastic plates. Other contests include balancing an egg
or coconut on a spoon while walking a balance beam (a few inches above
the stage) and unscrambling puzzles as a team. At the end of each challenge
the winning team votes a member off each tribe, a process repeated after
the second round. After the third round, the losing pair is kicked off
the stage and the two winning teammates then face off for the final challenge.
Winners receive a Survivor bag, shirt and keychain.
And, yes, there is a food challenge. Contestants spin a wheel bearing
the choices: sardines, pig's feet, limburger cheese, onion, larvettes
and a candy bar. "It's probably everybody's favorite part," said Scott
Anderson, public relations assistant manager at the park. The food challenge
was the final competition in a show Wednesday when the big wheel seemed
fixed against one player, who started the final round by spinning for
his food: the limburger. He barely got that down. Meanwhile his rival
landed on an onion, which he gobbled up. Then the cheese eater's second
spin landed on larvette which, in the wake of the cheese still churning
in his stomach, he refused to eat. The onion eater's second spin got him
sardines, which he swallowed. Final spin landed on pigs feet, which the
cheese-belly refused. His rival ate and emerged the victor.
With two real Survivor competitors, personal trainer Alicia Calaway
and internet project manager Jeff Varner, on hand for the show's premiere,
huge crowds spilled out from the park's Marketplace theater. Even without
the stars, and on rainy days that depressed the front gate, the small
theater overflowed with about 100 spectators per show, Anderson said.
After a two-week run "Survivor Reward Challenge" will move on
to another Paramount park.
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Whaling on teens
At
a time when many parks are shifting their demographic focus away from
teen-agers, SeaWorld Adventure Park in Orlando, Florida, long known for
its family emphasis, is targeting teens who, the park points out, are
often voting members of their families.
This summer the park is supplementing its Rockin' Summer Nights program—a
series of nightly retro dances featuring 1960s and '70s music—with
Club SeaWorld, a series of Friday night concerts featuring teen-fave groups.
Teens under 16 can join Club SeaWorld for $57.95, which includes unlimited
admission to the park. That's more than $20 less than the regular season
pass. Florida and Georgia teens who bring a Pepsi 2-liter bottle label
will get a further $10 off the club membership.
"We're targeting the families through the teens," said Greg Smith, SeaWorld
publicist. "The idea behind it is you've got this area where adults want
to go for '60s and '70s music. Will teens and pre-teens want to do that?
No, so there's something for them to do as well."
Club SeaWorld continues a teen-shifting trend at the park that began with
the installation of the Journey to Atlantis water coaster in 1998
and continued with the opening of the floorless coaster Kraken
last year. Notably, the marketing campaign for Club SeaWorld has depended
heavily on radio stations around Orlando and mall promotions in South
Florida. "We're going after the local teens with this," Smith said. "There's
a good amount of teens in central Florida. For SeaWorld, it's been an
untapped demographic for us." He also said the park would like to see
parents send their teens to the park as a "safe place to hang out during
the summer."
That notion would send shivers up the spines of many park operators who
have tired of running a veritble teen daycare during the summer, with
all the security risks and depressed per caps that entails. Smith, though,
points to the park's Shamu ambiance, not to mention the heavily staffed
nature of the park, as a thwart against hooliganism. Besides, he says,
it is still families SeaWorld is going after, and the park needs to overcome
the veto power many teens wield.
"We definitely want the whole family to come out and enjoy the day," Smith
said. "We now have something to entice the teen to want to come."
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Getting the
promotion Simply put, Lynton sees THE LOOP as a good way to get connected with other players in the industry and wants to see it succeed.To that we say amen and click here for details on the FREAKSHOW promotion. Correction Thank you! To print this article, click here
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©2001, Minton Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved
Fort Worth Zoo put a twist on animal exhibiting and went Wild with theming.
Photo by Eric Minton
It's
a Texas exhibit!
Fort Worth Zoo in Texas announces the arrival
of Texas Wild!, June 14, 2001. Measurements: Eight acres, 300 animals,
two rides, two theaters, two eateries (one a food court with three outlets),
one gift shop, one retail cart, and various street entertainers. Delivered
by Komatsu/Rangel, Jack Rouse Associates, Scenery West, Fowlkes, Norman
& Associates, Technifex, CLR Design, Linbeck Construction, Bouyea & Associates
and Edwards Technology.
The logo for the Fort Worth Zoo's industry-shaking
new $40 million exhibit features an animal paw in a human hand. How apt:
in this exhibit, man is one of the featured attractions. Starting with
the entrance through a full-scale, turn-of-the century frontier town street
called Texas Town, the six exhibits illustrate man's imprint on the state.
The viewing shelter for the High Plains and Prairies is themed to resemble
a farmhouse long-ago damaged by a tornado. In the Texas Gulf Coast exhibit,
interactive displays abound in a replica bait shop, while the adjoining
aviary has roseate spoonbills perched atop a partially sunken shrimp boat.
"This is a combination of a themed attraction, animal exhibit and museum,"
said the zoo's new executive director and CEO Michael Fouraker, who had
been director of animal programs here since 1993. "I don't think you will
find that kind of combination in any zoo. We like to push the envelope."
They push many envelopes. A 4D theater show combines cartoons with animatronics
and weather effects. In the Farm Play Barn, children try out a cow-milking
simulator and shovel cow dung (actually plastic balls) into a garden bed
to make vegetables grow, which the cow eats and repeats the cycle. In
the river otter exhibit's underwater viewing area, children can climb
into a glass bubble and interact with the otters themselves, and next
door children climb into one end of a hollow log while a black bear enters
the other end with only a pair of grates separating the two beings. Revenue
producing activities include a themed carousel and train, as well as photos
in a jail cell and video arcade.
Texas Wild's grand opening in Texas Town's central plaza before the city
hall-like Hall of Wonders was typically Texas. Cowboy hats and boots abounded,
as did red, white and blue, even down to the napkins at the complimentary
breakfast buffet. The weather barely cooperated, turning blustery just
as the ceremony started and spitting rain, but benefactor Ramona Bass
hinted that this was just another special effect of the exhibit. "Rain
is good for all the wildlife and land of Texas," she told the crowd of
media members, donors and local officials. She, Fouraker and Fort Worth
Mayor Kenneth Barr cut a barbed wire to officially open the exhibit.
Barr, whom Bass named mayor of Texas Town to illustrate the public-private
partnership integral to the exhibit's creation, said Texas Wild! establishes
the zoo as a regional tourist destination. Fouraker said the expanded
and expensive theming and showmanship will take the zoo industry in a
new, more viable direction. But equally revolutionary is the exhibit's
message, one which starts with the zoo's choice of setting: around 1900
"When Texas' wildlife was in trouble," Fouraker said. Since then, the
state has reclaimed much of its natural habitats and wildlife viability,
and Texas Wild! celebrates those efforts, not only in its interpretive
displays, but in its collection which focuses on endangered species, rescued
animals and species which have successfully recovered their populations
in Texas.
"We have chosen to be optimistic and empower our visitors," Fouraker said.
"Shame doesn't get the message across anymore."
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Congratulations to the companies who brought us Texas Wild! Click on their logos to visit their web sites. More information on our Connections page
For more photos of Texas Wild!, click here
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It's
a roller coaster!
Six Flags America in Largo, Maryland, announces
the arrival of Batwing, June 12, 2001. Measurements: 115 foot lift
hill (35 meters), 3,340 feet length (1,012 meters), 50 mph (80 kph). Delivered
by Vekoma International.
The day after feting Capitol Hill's Republican
Caucus for IAAPA, Six Flags America switched gears to show off its latest
ride, a flying coaster, for the press. Further crowding the schedule was
the ride itself, stubbornly delaying its own birth because of technical
glitches. But on the announced day, the ride took flight. "The first official
ride really was the first official ride," said Debbie Evans, the park's
spokesperson who organized the event.
She got significant help in the spokesperson role from NASA astronaut
Robert Curbeam Jr., a Baltimore native who flew on the Atlantis Space
Shuttle mission earlier this year. "He was phenomenal," Evans said. "He
did seven or eight television interviews live while riding the coaster.
He was able to talk through the entire ride, during the turns, the inversions,
everything, describing the ride as he went. For him it was like a walk
down the street." He also enjoyed the ride, eagerly seeking the next interviewer
at the conclusion of each ride.
After the media event Curbeam did a presentation in the park's theater
which included his narrated-video of the Atlantis mission and a 20-minute
question-and-answer with park guests. Meanwhile, another celebrity in
the park for a public meet-and-greet, Survivor II runner-up Colby
Donaldson, made his way to Batwing for a spin. "He survived the
Australia outback, now lets see how he can survive Batwing as well,"
Evans said. The challenge won, Donaldson gave a vote of endorsement for
the ride.
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A tutu-wearing radio host was in the air at MOSI while on the air for her audience. Photo courtesy of MOSI
It's
a bicycle!
The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI)
in Tampa, Florida, announces the arrival of a high wire bicycle, June
9, 2001. Measurements: 30 feet above the ground (9 meters), 98 feet long
(30 meters), 1-inch steel cable (2.54 centimeters).
Give the media a chance to be daredevilish,
and you get publicity. MOSI invited members of the media to try out the
longest high wire bike ride in a U.S. museum, and almost all of the Tampa
Bay region's TV, radio and newspaper crews came out not just for the Friday
preview but throughout the whole weekend. "They love it," said Beverly
Littlejohn, MOSI's public relations manager. Among the more bizarre stunts
involved Peppermint Patty of Mix 100.7 radio station, who crossed the
chasm wearing a pink tutu while broadcasting a blow-by-blow description
of the ride.
The exhibit, intended to be an interactive way to explain physics, also
drew a good crowd of public participants during its opening weekend, especially
kids. "They seem to have no fear," Littlejohn said. But would they wear
a pink tutu?
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Astronaut Cagle (in blue) launched into a really fast U-turn. Photo by Scott Craig/SFMW
It's
a roller coaster!
Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California,
announces the arrival of V2: Vertical Velocity,
June 8, 2001. Measurements: 150 feet high (45 meters), 630 feet length
of track (191 meters), 70 mph (112 kph). Delivered by Intamin.
Yet another Six Flags coaster, yet another NASA
astronaut, this time focusing on the launch of the suspended linear induction
ride rather than its flight forth and back on the upright U-shaped track.
NASA Astronaut Yvonne Cagle, a flight surgeon preparing for a Space Shuttle
trip to the Space Station, did the duties on V2,
which reaches 70 mph in 3.7 seconds from launch. That is considerably
faster than the Shuttle, which takes a full five seconds to reach 55 mph,
a fact pointed out by the park's public relations manager, Jeff Jouett.
"Of course, the Shuttle is going 250 mph ten seconds later, but for the
first five seconds, it's V2
by a nose," he said.
Cagle was the guest of honor for the Friday "maiden voyage" taken by local
media members and coaster enthusiasts. Though the evening before the ride
performed flawlessly for employee previews, a software glitch shut V2
down Friday morning. Six Flags Marine World technicians worked by phone
and laptop with Intamin's engineers back in Switzerland, and at one point
the manufacturer was hooked up to V2
by modem and running its own diagnostics. As the media event began at
10:30, "There was no vertical, and no velocity," Jouett said.
The park offered ERT on the woodie Roar and served lunch while
the engineers rebuilt the computerized ride sequences on V2,
and when the first test train ran at 12:30, so did the press and enthusiasts,
abandoning their lunches for a sprint to the station. Cagle, at the other
end of the park meeting Marine World's new tiger cubs with her mother
and daughter, jogged back to the ride, taking high-fives all along the
queue line on her way to a front-seat launch. "It was breathtaking," she
said after the voyage. "Absolutely, totally awesome. The velocities and
accelerations come to what you're experiencing when the solid rocket boosters
ignite." And on the Shuttle she won't get a front-row view.
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It's
a dinner theater!
Ocean Park announces the arrival of "The
Glory of the Forbidden City," June 7, 2001. Measurements: 300 capacity,
26 cast and crew members, 55-minute show after dinner. Delivered by Hong
Kong United Arts Agency.
With the International Travel Expo in town,
Ocean Park officials took advantage of the coincidental scheduling to
invite Expo attendees from around the world to see the official premiere
of their themed acrobatic show. Guests eat dinner in a restaurant, then
walk to an outdoor theater made over to replicate the Qing Dynasty's Summer
Palace, but enhanced with an in-house-built sound and light system and
special effects.
For opening night, however, rain forced the crowd of 200 to stay in their
dining seats as the performers played in the restaurant sans technical
effects. "The essence of the show remains," the park's entertainment manager
Lisa Tsang said of the indoor setting. "The only thing we could not do
is lighting. It still managed to wow the crowd. So, we're confident if
we could have done it in the theater it would have been a double wow."
This is Ocean Park's first attempt at staging a major evening production.
The show features the Guangzhou Acrobatic Troupe performing a four-scene
descriptive rendering of the Qing Dynasty: "Battlefield," "Victory," "Imperial
Garden," and "Coronation." Ocean Park conceived the show and produced
the original music, costumes, lighting and sound. It then contracted with
the Guangzhou Troupe, a frequent visitor to the park the past eight years
and multi-gold-medal winners in international competitions. The highlight
for the first week's audience was the "face changer," an artist who switches
masks "in a matter of a mini-second," Tsang said.
That's an appropriate ingredient in a show that is helping change the
face of this zoo.
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. Modern Ulysseses got re-Hydrated on Terra Mitica's new ride. Photo courtesy of Terra Mitica
Terra
Mitica in Benidorm, Spain, announces the arrival of The Rescue of Ulysses,
June 1, 2001. Measurements: 5,000 square meters (16,500 square feet),
400 meters long (1,320 feet), nine scenes, 62 animatronics, 50,000 watts
of sound, 400,000 watts of light. Delivered by Hafema.
The ride itself reaches near mythical status as it recounts scene-by-scene
Homer's tale of Odysseus' return home from the Trojan War. Fittingly,
for the 3,200 million pesetas ($16.5 million US) ride's grand opening,
Terra Mitica brought in somebody who knows a thing or two about stringing
fantasy scenes together, popular Spanish film star and director Santiago
Segura.
Under a balmy Mediterranean sky, Segura took the first boat past animatronic
Cyclops, Hydras and Sirens, and then Rescue of Ulysses was opened
to the public, who formed a queue "very quickly," said the park's press
director Santiago Lumbreras.
