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Volume 1, No. 9. June 1, 2001

Het Land van Sesame
On a scale of media mergers, this one won't rattle headlines like so many before, but that doesn't make the news that Het Land van Ooit in The Netherlands landed the first European rights to Sesame Street's characters no less significant.

Het Land van Ooit, which literally translates in English as "The Land of Whenever," is a 10-year-old family theme park in Drunen featuring live actors playing the medievalish residents of a fictitious land. Winning industry awards for its shows and the performances of its strolling actors, Het Land van Ooit became so popular in its homeland that its characters have spawned their own shows on Dutch television.

Also popular on Dutch television, and a staple for more than 25 years, is Sesamstraat. ITEC Entertainment Corporation in Orlando, Florida, holds the European licensing rights for the Sesame Workshop characters and promoted this fact at the Europarks Dinner, which ITEC sponsored, during last November's IAAPA trade show in Atlanta. Het Land van Ooit's management team, attending that dinner, jumped at the opportunity to pursue the license.

Though several larger parks were in the running, van Ooit won out, in large part because of the compatibility of the two entities' existing product, said Joanne Taminiau-Cook, the head of marketing and public relations at Het Land van Ooit, where her official title is minister of foreign affairs. Both organizations are geared to children (Het Land van Ooit's demographics are 0 to 12 years old), and both focus on education. For the van Ooit's part, Sesamstraat is a strong brand that could only boost the park's stature without intruding on the Ooit's near-mystical ambiance. "We see it as an additional offering to our product, and not in competition with it," Taminiau-Cook said. The park signed a 10-year contract with an option for an additional 10 years.

The park began a meet-and-greet program with the Muppet characters last week, and in 2004 will build a Sesame Street within Het Land van Ooit that will include a stage show. At the start, at least, the Ooit and Sesame productions will maintain their own identities, Taminiau-Cook said. "You'd only confuse people if you started mixing Sesame Street characters with Ooit characters." Ooit's residents even stay clear of the Sesamstraat costumed characters' three-a-day meet-and-greet sessions.

That Het Land van Ooit landed a gold mine with the license is evident in those meet-and greet sessions, Taminiau-Cook said. The Muppet players have existed in Europe only on screen and in merchandise; "This is their first physical outing on a large scale," she said. Audiences "are just sitting around waiting for them when they come out. There are beautiful reactions to them. They don't talk, but they are just so friendly, and there's a lot of interaction going on."

Ironically, in a park where children are literally given license to rule their parents, the Sesame Street gang could widen the demographics, not only to pre-school age children, but to parents, too. "The parents of the children who come here have seen (Sesamstraat) when they were children, and they want to meet Bert and Ernie and the rest," Taminiau-Cook said.

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