Volume 3, No. 6. March 28, 2003
War
footing
Mark Riddell had
big plans. Opening the 2003 season with the new Drop Zone Stunt Tower
and SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D movie, the public relations manager for
Paramount’s Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia, planned a media day featuring
a Hollywood-style red carpet opening for the film, complete with paparazzi and
Nickelodeon characters. Then the journalists and VIP guests would move over
to the Drop Zone where skydivers trailing orange and yellow smoke would drop
in to cut the ribbon. “I was getting carried away with it,” he admitted.
“It was going to be very exciting.”
But it didn’t happen. Scheduled for March 20, the park decided to cancel
the media day in light of the war in Iraq starting. Paramount’s Carowinds
in Charlotte, North Carolina, also canceled its media event scheduled the same
day, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg dropped the media portion of its Friday
preview of the R.L. Stine’s Haunted Lighthouse 4-D attraction. “Media
day was toned down, and we canceled some events,” said Diane Centeno, public
relations manager for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. One of the events canceled
was a broadcast satellite tour. “We had a couple of media come out, local
newspapers,” she said. “Broadcast media were interested in R.L. Stine,
but they were just too busy.”
That fact, alone, prompted the cancellations. Local journalists were swamped
working local angles to the war coverage, and even if they had been able to
attend the parks’ press previews, outlets had little room on their pages
or in their broadcasts for local puff pieces. “They didn’t need to
be hearing from us when they’ve got so much else in the world going on,”
said Scott Anderson, public relations assistant manager at Paramount’s
Carowinds. Even an enticing visual and bona fide news story like the popular
Goosebumps author interacting with 550 school kids at Busch Gardens couldn’t
crack through the day’s main story.
Carowinds officials were also thinking of the needs of the invited VIP, figuring
that most people preferred to stay home with families watching events unfold
in Iraq. “I know I was extremely interested when things started,”
Anderson said. “I wanted to watch it.”
The two Paramount parks decided to cancel their events after President George
W. Bush’s speech the previous Monday setting a 48-hour deadline for Saddam
Hussein’s capitulation. That 48-hour deadline, Anderson said, “was
looking like it would fall right on top of us.” The Carowinds public relations
staff spent the next two full days calling some 1,000 invited guests. The response
from those reached was positive, he said. The response from the media was sincere
thanks. “The media we heard from really appreciated it and were receptive
to coming out at a later date,” Riddell said.
In the end, the cancellations made little difference. Both North Carolina and
Virginia were doused by rain showers that day. “We probably would have
had to cancel anyway because of the weather,” Anderson said. “It turned
out to be an awful day,” said Riddell. While he was disappointed that his
big plans never came to fruition, he felt the park made the right decision,
and it was a decision that made the lost day much more bearable to him than
would have been the case had his big show simply been washed out. Meanwhile,
outstanding weather brought good crowds out to the parks over the weekend even
without the media previews.
Besides, Carowinds had another story going. The park installed metal detectors
at its gates for this season and the PR team pitched that story to local media
the morning of the president’s speech. For the rest of the week, that story
became a hot local angle to war coverage in all the regional outlets. “We
not only got the message out that this is a safe place to visit, but we combined
it with the fact that, ‘Hey, we’re opening this week,’”
Anderson said. “A lot of the coverage we didn’t get from canceling
the media event we got anyway.”
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.
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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