The
LOOP
Volume
1, No. 3. March 9, 2001
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In this issue:
Haunters go trick and treating while Schlitterbahn makes a spring break.
England’s parks suffer a disease’s side effects while Het Land van Ooit takes a monumental stand
Del Grosso’s tries to make a new name for itself, Adventure City bewails an old name, and Universal Studios rolls out a new Rock.
(scroll down or click on one of the key words to go directly to the story)
Europe's hopes for a stellar season have been undermined by the unlikeliest of sources: the foot and mouth disease that has attained epidemic proportions in Great Britain and threatens to ravage livestock throughout the continent.
The wind- and people-borne virus that affects only cloven-footed animals, albeit fatally, has resulted in the closing of animal exhibits, such as zoos and farm parks, in Britain and government-mandated restrictions on travel. Other European countries have begun destroying infected herds, too, in an effort to contain the disease.
The extent and suddenness of the disease's impact on the amusement industry is best illustrated by the events at Crealy Adventure Park in Exeter, Devon, which THE LOOP featured just two weeks ago (THE LOOP, February 23, 2001) as it celebrated Valentine's Day with a promotion focused on the romantic pairing of its animals.
Those animals - ponies, sheep, pigs, bunnies, and other petable creatures - were initially quarantined indoors and closed off to the public while the park’s rides and services remained open. Disinfectant was sprayed four times a day on large foam mats placed on the drive to the parking lot for vehicles to traverse and at the admission gates and office doors for pedestrians.
When Crealy learned at the start of this month that a neighboring farm had been linked directly to an infected farm and was being tested by the Ministry of Agriculture, the park opted to close totally to the public and even restricted staff access. "There's a bit of doubt literally just a couple of hills away," said a shaken Angela K. Wright, general manager and partner. "I never thought that we would see foot-and-mouth in this country. It was something that was around when I was a baby (in 1967). It's been a shock for the whole country."
Aside from the uncertainty of Crealy Adventure Park's immediate future, she is concerned for the Devonshire farmers who can ill-afford another livestock disaster, not to mention the family partnership which owns Crealy as well as three local hog farms with a total of 20,000 head.
Easter is the traditional kick-off of the tourist season in Britain, and if the disease doesn't abate by then travel restrictions won't likely be lifted. Furthermore, the disease is difficult to contain. "You cannot test animals for this virus until they develop symptoms, and it takes seven to 14 days to show symptoms," Wright said. Though she publicly announced that Crealy would re-open this weekend, her statement suggested that patrons call the park beforehand. She also reiterated the government's request that people living in affected areas or adjacent livestock farms and deer parks stay home.
Meanwhile, she plans for the future. "I've just started to put together a crisis team so that as soon as the country is clear we have a (marketing) campaign that's up and running." She also wants to hold a celebratory event at the park, something that could raise money for the Agricultural Benevolent Fund and mark the end of the devastation to her county, an end-of-the-war party if you will. "That's the way I'm looking at it," she said.
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The park's new name won't be so Bland.
What is in a name
When it opens for the 2001 season on May 6, the venerable amusement park in Tipton, Pennsylvania, just north of Altoona, will boast two new rides, a Chance Pirate Ship and a Zamperla Balloon Race it bought from Great Escape in New York. The pay-as-you-go park will also trumpet two hours and one minute's worth of free ride time.
What the park won't make a fuss over is it's new name: Bland's Amusement Park, founded in 1947, henceforth will be called Del Grosso's Amusement Park, the name of the family owners, who also make a line of spaghetti and sloppy joe sauces. The park is quietly making the transition on its in-park signage, stationary, and highway directional signs, the last alone resulting in a $10,000 invoice from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
"It has not been an inexpensive thing," the park's vice president and general manager Peter Gardella said of the name change. "It's costing more than I want to know."
The new nomenclature has cost
little in the way of name equity, however. Some patrons are unhappy. "They
say it will always be Bland's Park," Gardella said, and the Del Grossos are
planning to erect a memorial on the property recognizing the park's origin
on the Bland family farm. Many more patrons, on the other hand, wondered why
the Del Grossos didn't make the change sooner. "The family has been associated
with the park for a long time, and we've been proactive locally with community
involvement," Gardella said. James and Joseph Del Grosso, president and vice
president of Del Grosso Foods, Inc., even won third place in the National
Small Business Persons of the Year honors last year because of the company's
charitable contributions.
(see http://www.sba.gov/sbaweek/3rdwinner.html)
Whatever the local impact, it is the ability to reach a much wider market that makes the name change a sound investment. Del Grosso is well known in supermarkets throughout the mid Atlantic region, and starting this week its jars of sauces will bear coupons for the park.
"People along the New York/Pennsylvania border will learn about our park," Gardella said. "We wouldn't be able to get into their homes otherwise, and this is a really cost-effective way of doing that."
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When called, these firefighters couldn't cope. Photo by Adventure City.
Right number; wrong call
Adventure City Theme Park, a family park in Stanton, California, learned that what's in a name can sometimes have contrary consequences.
The park owns Rescue 911, a Zamperla kiddie car track featuring various fire engines, police cars, and ambulances. Adventure City turned the ride into a thematic educational experience by winding the queue through a stationhouse where guests could watch fire safety videos and try on retired firefighting equipment donated by local fire departments.
In addition to rides, the park stages live shows for children, and during one show a prop caught on fire. Recalled Allan Ansdell Jr., the park's president: "We called up to our front office and said, 'Call 911.' They called back and said, 'We called the 911 ride and they said there's no problem there.'"
The real 911 was called in time, and the fire department arrived to douse the blaze before an appreciative audience who apparently thought this was yet another educational demonstration, despite staff trying to usher them out of the area, Ansdell said.
Meanwhile, the Zamperla attraction got a new name: The Rescue Ride.
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A construction break
For Schlitterbahn Beach Waterpark, the revolutionary facility opening this summer on South Padre Island, Texas, the future will have to wait. For now, the park is bowing to the demands of local tradition: Spring Break!
While construction continues on the 15-acre waterpark proper, themed after a Brazilian beach and featuring a new "transportainment" system on which guests will be able to innertube from slide to slide, the 7-acre parking lot and main entrance building will become party central for the 186,000 college and high school students who descend on the island every March.
"The site we are building on was the site of one of the most popular spring break hangouts on the island, called Charlie's," said Sherrie Brammall, Schlitterbahn's communications director. "People told us we needed to do some kind of night-time event to fill that void."
Schlitterbahn responded by turning its parking lot into "The Club at Rio Beach," featuring Skyscraper and Slingshot thrill rides, Monster Truck Rides, the largest dance club on the island, a sports lounge, free shuttles, and a concert series playing in a 100-yard-long inflatable translucent dome capable of holding up to 8,000 people. The musical lineup, which begins tonight and runs through March 18, includes Run DMC, Cowboy Mouth, Robert Earl Keen and Trish Murphy, Nine Days, Orgy, The Toadies, and Vanilla Ice.
For the company which owns Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort in New Braunfels, Texas, this is a first experience with Spring Break. But it seemed the neighborly thing to do. "We really feel like it's a partnership with other island businesses," Brammall said, adding that Spring Break accounts for more than $130 million in direct expenditures on South Padre Island in one month. "We are all sharing the common goal to make Spring Break a good event for the economy and a safe event for the visitors."
Though an annual gig, don't look for "Rio Beach" to continue its guise as a party hangout year round. "As soon as March is over we're going to get back to the business we really know, which is waterparks," Brammall said.
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Ooigt stacked up junk in a stand against hate. Photo by Het Land van Ooit
Iron or art?
In a land of make-believe, this was a recognition of real-world problems. Het Land van Ooit, a family theme park in Drunen, Netherlands, that pretends to be a bona fide country in itself — complete with staff members carrying official government titles — began building a Monument Against Racism in 1995, completing the work last year.
The monument started with 23 smokestacks from ships in the Rotterdam port, on which were hung pieces of iron, as in "Iron strong against racism." Many subsequent pieces were donated by visitors, and the monument became a classroom project for area schools.
The result is a huge mobile of rusty cans, bicycles and their parts, grids, clothesline frames, typewriters, fans, and, yes, a kitchen sink. "We were going to take it down, but we didn’t know it would be such a success," said Joanne Taminiau-Cook, Het Land van Ooit’s minister of foreign affairs (marketing and public relations director). "It’s a piece of art, though some people call it a mess." Junk heap though it may appear at first glance, its message has come through clearly for a generation of Dutch children, and its popularity guaranteed the sculpture will remain standing this season, "If not longer," Taminiau-Cook said. In fact, the park has embarked on a new project, the "Geluks Tempeltje" ("Temple of Luck/Happiness"), where children will be able to "deposit their wishes and messages for the future." School groups will again donate the building supplies: broken crockery.
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©2001, Minton Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved
These hallowed halls
Robert "Crazy Bob" Turner’s talk-back sessions on the eve of the TransWorld Haunted Attractions Owner Operator Seminar and Halloween Costume & Party Show are a swirling cauldron of operator experiences and creativity. Ideas that work and those that have not are freely discussed among these hauntrepreneurs, some of whom literally compete across the highway from each other.
When he started doing these sessions four years ago, Turner spent $2,000 of his own money to rent a room and stage the meeting. Now the program has grown so popular - from about 20 attendees at the first session to more than 300 Wednesday night - that TransWorld foots the bill. Turner, however, never felt the expense was a burden. "This is self-serving to me," he freely admitted after the five-hour program finally concluded about midnight Wednesday. "The ideas I get here I take back with me. I always saw this as a business investment. You are only as good as what you learn."
It is in that spirit we produce THE LOOP. Our own ongoing "talk-back" session is The Bulletin Board, where you can start topics of discussion or respond to dialogue already started by your colleagues. It’s easy to use. When you reach the Bulletin Board page, click on "Welcome to the Bulletin Board" and you will see a list of discussions already started. The instructions for adding your own input are right there on the page. You need no special password or membership to join, and you can even remain anonymous. Plus, there is no fee.
We may not be able to serve cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while you’re mingling in our forum, but the company you keep there is good people.
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Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz drum up enthusiasm for the new hotel. Photo by Universal Studios
It's a themed hotel!
Universal Orlando announces the arrival of the Hard Rock Hotel, February 27, 2001: 14 acres, 650 rooms, three lounges, two restaurants, two pools (one with a 12-speaker underwater sound system), a fitness center, a business center and 6,000 square feet of meeting space. Delivered by Loews Hotels.
Universal didn't want just a drum roll. It wanted a world record to mark the opening of this record-themed hotel: 2001 drummers pounding out a 3:45-minute riff. "It set the Guinness world record for the longest, the loudest, and the largest drum roll in history," said Linda Buckley, Universal Orlando's director of publicity.
Led by Monkees Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork, the lawn-filling drum corps featured 1,921 snare drums, 50 bass drums, seven toms, seven tenors, six bongos, five quads, four African hand drums and one Conga drum. The percussionists came from around the world and ranged in age from 8 to 81-year-old "Fast Eddie" Soistman. After that sustained bang came a typical Universal display of fireworks exploding into the summery morning sky.
The official opening came the morning after a star-studded pool-side party at the hotel, with musicians ranging from Kid Rock to 'N Sync and Run DMC to Tito Puente Jr., and sports stars ranging from Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza (neither knew the other was in attendance) to Hulk Hogan. The Wallflowers performed a private concert at the Hard Rock Live venue across the City Walk from the new hotel, the second Loews property on the resort.
Though last week's was a loud and crescendoed opening, the hotel has been open to guests since January 19, running at an 86 percent occupancy and earning in its first month an AAA four diamond rating, Buckley said. Looks like the Hard Rock Hotel is on a roll.
The Ides of March are upon us, spring is in the air, and green is the holiday color of the moment. It is time to think Halloween.
Haunted attractions operators and suppliers descended upon Chicago this week to attend the TransWorld Haunted Attractions Owner Operator Seminar and 16th National Halloween Costume and Party Show at the Donald B. Stevens Convention Center in suburban Rosemont. Nowhere is the growth of the haunts industry more apparent than here where a show that once was only a trade exhibit for retailers looking for Halloween supplies has become, in alliance with the International Association of Haunted Attractions (IAHA), the must-do meeting for operators.
Kicking off the seven-day seminar and show calendar was Crazy Bob’s Session and Cocktail Party Wednesday evening, hosted by Robert Turner, who runs Haunted Hydro, an October-only amusement park in Fremont, Ohio. Dining on stir-fry pasta, operators of haunted houses, trails, hay rides, tours, parades, inflatable tents, waterparks, prisons and professional baseball stadiums engaged in a free-flow exchange of experiences from their 2000 Halloween seasons and ideas for ’01. Turner led discussions on price points, advertising options, the merits of celebrity appearances, make-up versus masks (the trend is toward make-up), staffing issues, actors versus animatronics, and security. Thursday these topics were the core of a daylong calendar of seminars run by operators, suppliers, and Hollywood make-up and stunt artists.
To gauge the growing popularity of this sector was to hear attendees cite their total gates of last season. An operator in Calgary, Canada, pulled in 29,000 in his first year. A haunted house that raises money for the Charleston, South Carolina, Symphony Orchestra went from 300 visitors six years ago to 12,000 last year, outgrowing the house. Turner’s own operation saw a decrease, but he attributed that to a proliferation of competition, which jumped from a half-dozen attractions within a 30-minute drive to 17 in 2000. Seven of those new attractions went bust, he said, evidence of either over-saturation or poor business operations.
However, infusing his competitors with solid business experience is what these sessions are all about. Several operators attributed their increased attendance directly to the lessons they learned attending last year’s TransWorld sessions. During the attendee introductions, those identifying themselves as a "virgin"(a first-timer at the show) received a round of applause. "I don’t have secrets," Turner told the crowd. "I have friendships, a network of opportunity. The more first-year people and second-year people and third-year people understand what it takes to run a successful haunt, the less problems we have in this industry."
For further coverage on the TransWorld show and IAHA activities, read the April issue of Amusement Today.
