Volume 3, No. 12. June 27, 2003
Financial
bath
Of the first 16
operating weekends this season, Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia saw rain
on 15 of them. And that park was lucky.
Many amusement venues east of the Mississippi River have had rain on every weekend
this season. Many parks didn’t see two straight non-rain days in a row
until this week. After taking a financial beating for the first two months of
the 2003 season, some parks held on to one bit of obvious optimism: communities
suffering cabin fever would come out in huge numbers when the weather broke.
That
did happen this week at several parks. Nevertheless, the weather may have broken
too late for some venues. Anthony Catanoso, owner of the Steel Pier in Atlantic
City, is considering the season a loss; he doesn’t feel he can recoup the
missing revenues of May and June.
Zoos faced even more weather-related worries than amusement parks. For many
locations in the northeast and middle Atlantic states, 2003’s was the worst
winter in 20 years, followed by the wettest and coldest spring in 20 years.
Attendance is off 50 percent this year at the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown,
Pennsylvania, said Operations Director Rafael Suarez. The zoo lost two of its
traditionally strongest months, with May seeing 23 rain days. The weather was
so wet and cold, even school groups canceled their visits, Suarez said. Furthermore,
when the long-looked-for break in the cold, wet weather finally did come, it
just exacerbated the zoo's plight because the temperatures jumped straight to
near 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) with high humidity; still not good
zoo-visiting conditions.
Despite the bleak weather conditions, many parks determined to go with the flow,
as it were. Hersheypark in Hershey, Pennsylvania, released a Top Ten list of
things visitors could still do in Hershey Resort even with all that continuous
rain. The bulk of the list comprised indoor activities at the resort or Chocolate
World, but Number 1 was “LET THE FUN CONTINUE! Go ahead, make the six drenching
water rides at Hersheypark an even wetter experience, or make every ride a water
ride. Hersheypark rides continue to operate in most weather conditions, and
wait times are reduced when raindrops are falling.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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