In this issue:
(To go directly to a story, click on a blue keyword below):

Holiday World adds sunscreen to free amenities at its waterpark;

Madrid's Parque de Atracciones gets a kick out of a football team's title run;

Artist records life at Blackpool Pleasure Beach through residency program;

Enthusiasts help refurbish Erieview dark ride;

Louisville Zoo gets a bonanza—make that bananas—thanks to new exhibit;

Six Flags St. Louis shares a little Easter cheer with homesick Sally crew;

We indulge in potty talk inspired by the Discovery Science Center;

We welcome to our world a new-style Scooby-Doo dark ride at Six Flags St. Louis, while Six Flags Fiesta Texas gets a Scooby-Doo model, too;

Gorilla Forest sets a benchmark at the Louisville Zoo, and Six Flags Elitch Gardens takes a prototype coaster under its wings;

Roaring Springs opens a Sidewinder in balmy summer weather, but Holiday World & Splashin' Safari opens a family raft ride in winter temperatures;

Bonfante Gardens reopens with a new kiddie section, whereas China's Happy Valley expands with four new teen-oriented sections;

Rasti-Land introduces a new rapid river ride to Germany, and Whiskers reintroduces Ocean Park through his new Wild Ride;

We welcome back an old coaster in a new location at Magic Springs, and we applaud a further union of Amusement Today and Splash.

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Free flowing fluids
First it was free sodas. Now Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari in Santa Claus, Indiana, has expanded the idea of giving away free liquids with yet another popular commodity in its waterpark: sunscreen.

As it did when it introduced free unlimited sodas two years ago, the park has erected kiosks where guests can serve themselves. The two sunscreen kiosks in the waterpark each have four one-gallon bottles of sunscreen that guests can pump out whenever they like. “We think it’s just another way to say to our guests that we care about you and we want you to take good care of yourself,” said park President and General Manager Will Koch. “And we want to provide something at no charge because it says something nice about the park.”

Because of the great success the park had with its free soda campaign, Koch at the end of last season challenged his directors to come up with ideas for similar giveaways in their departments. Splashin’ Safari Director Lori Gogel broached the notion of free sunscreen.

Rather than hand out packets or bottles of sunscreen, the park went with the pump dispensers. “It self-controls itself as far as usage,” Koch said. “If you give away packets, somebody could walk away with 20 packets.” The park already had been buying gallon bottles for its lifeguards, but Koch said he solicited quotes from several suppliers “since we expect we’ll go through some volume.” Rocky Mountain Sunscreen won the contract.

The park has taken a low-key approach to promoting the free sunscreen. Advertisements do not mention it as they do the unlimited soft drinks. Instead, it becomes yet another nice touch for patrons already in the park. The park opened for the season last weekend, but cold weather limited Splashin’ Safari’s attendance. Those guests in the waterpark “were appreciative,” Koch said, the only initial feedback he has received. “It’s going to be a learning experience,” he said. “We may find out after we’ve done it a few weeks we may have to change gears.”

After two years of successfully doing the unthinkable, giving away free sodas, Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari is not likely to reverse gears on free sunscreen.

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Madrid's amusement park highlighted the ongoing exploits of the city's popular football team. Photo courtesy of Parque de Atracciones.

Goooooooaaaaaaaalllll!
The storied football club Real Madrid took home the European Champions League title last week, and consequently boosted ridership on the bumper cars at Parque de Atracciones Madrid in Spain.

What the two have in common is the centenary celebration of the Spanish capital city’s top football club (that’s soccer for you Americans). To honor the occasion, the downtown amusement park is staging "Real Madrid: La Layenda Viva," a season-long promotion that includes special exhibits and shows and temporary re-theming of some of the attractions.

The centerpiece of the park’s celebration is a 1,000-square-meter (3,300-square-foot) exhibition set in a building that simulates the Santiago Barnabeu stadium, Real Madrid’s home grounds, and includes a replication of the players’ locker room, displays depicting the history of the club and many of its trophies. The park also has built a tile mosaic of the club’s insignia and is staging a multimedia light, laser and waterscreen show on the park’s central fountain every night. In one of the more ambitious touches, Parque de Atracciones built a scaled-down replica of the Cibeles fountain, a landmark monument in downtown Madrid where Real supporters flock to celebrate a big win by the team.

For the park’s simulator, Lunatus of Madrid has supplied a film in which the audience watches—and feels—a football match from the perspective of the ball. Then there are the Zamperla-manufactured bumper cars, which park repainted as athletic shoes sporting the colors of Real Madrid and the city’s two other teams, Atletico Madrid and Rayo Vallecano Madrid. Drivers use their Dodgems and hands to maneuver a giant ball around the bumper car arena trying to score for their team.

“It’s very funny,” said Parque de Atracciones’ Lamberto Fresnillo. “It’s another way of getting the park involved in the football world, and it’s something new. It also respects every supporter in the city. We did not want to discriminate against the other supporters.”

The other two teams, however, have not been around for 100 years, nor have they tallied the number of titles Real Madrid has (Atletico’s centennial anniversary is next year, and the amusement park is in discussions with the team to do a similar cross-promotion). Participating in the centennial celebration would have been a strong promotion in its own right, but the park also was counting on Real Madrid bringing home a trophy or three to boost the free publicity quotient. But the club failed to win the Spanish League’s season championship, and lost in the Spanish Cup final. The third title opportunity, however, they won.

“I think it’s the most important competition, so everyone is happy they won the big one,” Fresnillo said. For the occasion, Parque de Atracciones showed the title match against Bayer Leverkusen of Germany on a specially installed giant screen in the park’s theater. At the conclusion of the game, which Real Madrid won 2-1, the 2,000 fans in attendance erupted in a celebration that moved out to the park’s own replica Cibeles fountain.

“There were a lot of media here,” Fresnillo said. “We could watch the team and the real Cibeles celebration—it was a massive event in Madrid—on the screen.” And for Parque de Atracciones: “It was something new and something funny at the same time. It got the attention of the media.”

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Julia Midgley made an impression on Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Photo courtesy of Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

An art of work
For Julia Midgley, the incongruities of an amusement park make for fascinating art. “There I was standing on a rock surrounded by Vikings,” the Liverpool artist said of her participation in the opening ceremony of the Valhalla dark ride two years ago at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in England. “I did a thumbnail drawing of a Viking taking a sneak smoke and another painting her fingernails.”

This experience was part of a two-year artist-in-residency program that has resulted in 200 drawings and paintings and two exhibitions, one running through July 24 at the amusement park’s Globe Theatre and one titled “Blackpool Pleasure Beach” showing June 6-29 at the New Academy Gallery in London. The park also has published a full-color book to accompany the exhibition.

Midgley’s residency was part of a millennium initiative by the Arts Council of England to place 1,000 artists in 1,000 residences. “The idea was that it would engage the general public in a dialogue with artists and enable people to watch artists at work,” said Midgley, a researcher at the Liverpool School of Art. “It would show that not all artists are subversive and antisocial.” The park provided her a studio in Goldmine Gulley between the Gold Mine and the Fudge Shop, and she would spend as many as three days a week there documenting the life and activities of Pleasure Beach and meeting visitors from around the world.

“One of the things that struck me more than anything else I’ve done is that people who go there go to have fun,” she said. “It gives an artist an opportunity to draw people at their most relaxed and unselfconscious. People will walk around wearing the most ludicrous clothes and hats with horns. I saw a group of grown men talking to each other and the whole time they were playing with yo-yos.”

Unlike other workplaces she has documented in the past, Pleasure Beach was a vibrant workplace full of artists in their own right. “Most of the people who work in the Pleasure Beach, the people I was drawing, have an arts background anyway. They are performers or sculptors building props or engineers and creative people. So, there was a common interest: they were interested in what I was doing, and I was very interested in what they were doing.” Then there were the rides, which Midgley described as “vast structures, and a gift for any artist who wants to draw.”

She described her role as a “fly on the wall,” and found that many of the staff were surprised to find her chronicling their workdays. “They felt quite flattered that management would think to have them recorded that way,” she said.

For a sample of her work from Blackpool Pleasure Beach, click here.

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Dark works
Having highlighted coaster enthusiasts’ help in repainting Blue Streak at Conneaut Lake Park in Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, (THE LOOP, April 26, 2002), we now shed a little dark on another restoration effort among enthusiasts. DAFE, the Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts, helped restore the Fright Zone dark ride at Erieview Park in Geneva on-the-Lake, Ohio.

“One of the goals of the group, in addition to supporting and promoting dark rides, is to lend a hand somehow, whether to work up money to save a ride or, ideally, to do what we did, which is go in and do hands-on work,” said DAFE Director Rick Davis. The group set its sites on Fright Zone, originally constructed in 1963 by Bill Tracey for the since-shuttered Westview Park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Erieview owner Don “Woody” Woodward bought the ride, restored it and installed it at his little lake-side amusement park in 1978. It has not received a major overhaul. “It needed to be done,” Woodward said. “Like with everything else there’s priorities. The ride was doing well and working, but they wanted to restore it to its original grandeur.”

“We knew that was a ride that needed attention, and especially with a small park, detail work is the last thing on their minds,” Davis said. “They are more worried about safety and operations.”

Through the month of April a half dozen DAFE members converged on Fright Zone, first cleaning the scenes, then doing touch-up work on the plaster-of-Paris figures and repairing clothes and fabric. Though the labor was volunteer, Woodward paid for supplies. The group used a small portable blacklight when repainting the figures. “You can tell it’s a real labor of love because they did a heck of a nice job,” Woodward said. It’s a labor of love he relates to. “When I was a kid, 11, 12, 13 years old, we had an old pretzel dark ride here and one of the things I tried to do was fix it up. It’s pretty neat that somebody else has that same interest.”

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Louie heralded the arrival of greater things than he at the Louisville Zoo. Photo by Eric Minton

Gorilla their dreams
Horses, at least for a time, are no longer king in Kentucky. The animal of choice in this international race capital are gorillas, judging from the hoopla surrounding the opening of Louisville Zoo’s $15 million Gorilla Forest exhibit. The public may not be fully aware of the creative envelopes the exhibit stretches (see the New Arrival above), giving Louisville yet another industry benchmark exhibit, but they do know it houses gorillas, and the emotional response to that has outflanked even the zoo’s marketing department.

“We had talked about doing ambassador programs or something like that,” said Maureen Horrigan, director of marketing. “Then it started generating traffic by itself. People started coming to us.” The result is Gorilla Fest running through this weekend, an event so big the Monkees pop group agreed to launch their world tour with a concert at the zoo Saturday night.

Horrigan and Diana DeVaughn, media/special promotions coordinator, planted the seed that grew into a statewide infatuation with silverback Frank and his family. It started two years ago with Louie, a 25-foot (8-meter) inflatable gorilla, making appearances around the state. The advertising hit full stride early this month with a float in the Kentucky Derby Festival's Pegasus Parade—the first time in six years the zoo joined the parade—gorilla banners hanging on City Hall and downtown lampposts, and wrap advertisements on two city buses. “If you parked one in front of a forest, you wouldn’t see the bus,” Horrigan said. The two mass transit jungles will be driving around Louisville for six months.

Meanwhile, the community became increasingly involved in the Gorilla Forest promotions, with a portion of all proceeds going toward the endowment to pay for and operate the exhibit. Two Kroger supermarkets built what they hope will be the largest banana displays in the world, unveiled yesterday with Miss Chiquita herself. Saturday the chain plans to give away 6,000 bananas as people leave the zoo. In August the Kentucky Restaurant Association will sponsor a “Go Bananas Over Gorillas” campaign focusing on sales of banana drinks and deserts. Papa Johns pizza is placing gorillas on its box tops and sponsoring television commercials, Dairy Queen is sponsoring a breakfast with gorillas, and a local chef created a Gorilla Forest cake—which Horrigan described as a “banana bread, coffee cake type thing; really good”—to be sold through Kroger stores. The zoo also has Coca Cola machines with gorilla fronts, the first gorilla coke vending front in the world, Horrigan said. “It took 1 1/2 years to get that set up,” she said.

The zoo gave a branding sheet to anybody planning to do promotions, detailing was the zoo considered acceptable and unacceptable in regards to depictions of gorillas. “You can’t dress up like a gorilla or make them look silly," Horrigan said. "We have been stressing respectful, awesome.”

The zoo’s biggest Gorilla Forest coup has been with schools. The Louisville Zoo has never before made strong inroads into Kentucky’s schools. For Gorilla Forest, the zoo published a “Kids & Conservation” workbook and sent them to 310,000 elementary students throughout the state. The 16-page booklet offers information and exercises in gorilla habitats. It introduced students to the eight-member family of gorillas taking up residence at Gorilla Forest, led by Frank the silverback. The workbook also included as a sidebar on the need to raise money for both the Gorilla Forest exhibit and conservation. In just three months, more than 270 schools have responded and raised more than $35,000.

“Schools we didn’t know were in the program are bringing us money,” Horrigan said. Students are doing poetry contests, essay contest, poster contests, challenges and donating their allowances.“It’s the only animal that has generated that kind of devotion by the kids,” she said. Notably, the kids are also driving the knowledge for parents, she said, and that gives cause to rethink the way zoos in general link their educational and entertainment missions. “Zoos usually say, ‘Lets entertain them, and when they come we educated them about the animals,’” Horrigan said. “We’re doing it the other way around. And it’s working.”

How well is it working? During the members' preview on Sunday as an endless line of patrons passed through the exhibit, DeVaughn stood by listening to the comments. “Just listening to the people today, everybody knows Frank.”

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A basket case
Crunch time was at hand for the crew constructing Scooby-Doo Ghostblasters: The Mystery of the Scary Swamp at Six Flags St. Louis in Missouri, and so was the Easter holiday. For more than two months the six-member team from Sally Corporation remained on site to work on the ride (see New Arrival above), consequently spending Easter far from their Jacksonville, Florida, homes.

This fact tugged at the hearts of the theme park’s staff, so they built Easter baskets for each of the Sally technicians, with chocolates and candies and, instead of a bunny, a Scooby-Doo plush doll. To complete the surprise, the baskets were placed in the technicians’ van after they had departed Easter eve.

The technicians arrived the next morning and first endured a moment of consternation. The Easter Bunny had cracked the van’s windows and door so the chocolate would not melt in the baskets. “They thought somebody had broken into their van,” said Dave Roemer, the vice president and general manager of Six Flags St. Louis. But upon investigating, the Sally crew found the gifts. They were so appreciative, Roemer had a Scooby tackle box awaiting him the next morning.

“This crew was here for nine weeks. They get to be part of your family,” Roemer said. The sense of camaraderie goes beyond friendship. “The better they do their job, the better we do our job.”

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Sick with success
This article uses frank language; but, then, so did the press release we received from the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, California. Which is the point of this article. When one of the industry’s public relations professionals sends out a press release that discusses farts, belching, boogers, pus and ear wax in one sentence, it makes you take notice.

Which, of course, is the point of the press release. And that was nothing compared to the press packet that came later bearing a splotch of vomit on the cover and instructions on how to make your own mucus inside. What grabs the media’s attention can also tap into the public’s interest, so here came the Science Center's advertisements prominently featuring a little girl picking her nose and the headline “It snot what you think. It’s science!”

All of this was touting the show “Gross Me Out!” which took up residence at the Discovery Science Center in March and runs until June 2. And all of this worked. “The Orange County Register put three color photos (of the show) above the fold on the front of the local section and wrote a two-page article,” said Erin Marshall, the Discovery Science Center’s PR/marketing manager. “Everybody wanted to know who I paid off.”

The show talks about all of the body's byproducts that so dominate playground humor and puts them in their biological settings. Though the show, geared for kids, uses gross-out terminology to provide entree to the topics, the actual presentation is wholly educational and sneaks in some sermonizing on maintaining good habits, like covering your mouth when you sneeze and NOT picking your nose. “We’ve had parents come up and say, ‘Thank you. Our kids don’t listen to us, but they are finally listening to somebody,’” Marshall said.

Though she heard no negative feedback from her 463 media contacts, the advertisements did draw criticism from “less than a handful of people,” she said. “It is an ad that walks the edge, I’ll be honest. But the opposite response has been overwhelming. People are bringing their kids in to see the show either because they’ve seen the articles or the ad.”

While the ad walks the edge, the press kit plunges headlong into bad taste, and we don’t mean that in a judgmental sense but in a ...well, look at this cover.

What this picture cannot translate is the 3-D nature of that splotch.

The fake vomit is the product of a tight budget and one interesting evening in the Marshall kitchen. She could have purchased slabs of vomit for $3 apiece, she said, “but being a nonprofit I don’t have that kind of budget.” Instead, she took a latex leather mold, pine cones chipped to look like beef jerky and crushed up crayons—“Not the bright colors but the darker ones”—put it in the mold, mixed it all together, spooned it onto a metal plate, shaped it into splatters, let it dry for three days, peeled it up and used spray glue to mount it on the press kit. “It’s pretty gross,” Marshall said.

And she’s proud of it. “Where else but a science center can you make your own fake vomit and put it on a press kit and send it out? That’s the nice thing about here, I can be creative. I have to be. I can’t get away with four-color on my letterhead.” But she sure made up for that with a four-color-and-then-some splotch on those press kits.

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Rebirths

It’s a roller coaster!
Magic Springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas, announces the rebirth of Big Bad John, May 18, 2002. Measurements: 2,349 feet long (712 meters), 55 feet high (17 meters), 40 mph (64 k/ph), 30-passenger, five-car trains. Original coaster delivered by Arrow Dynamics, Inc., rebirth by Great Coasters International.

Once again, Magic Springs went the route of finding an old favorite to deliver new thrills when they nabbed the Thunder Express of Dollywood (and, previous to its Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, home, the River King at Six Flags St. Louis in Missouri) for installation at the Arkansas park. Rehabed, retracked and renamed, the steel-track, wood-frame Big Bad John runs through a wooded ravine at Magic Springs, concluding with a plunge through a tunnel.

“It fit perfectly into our family setting,” said Maria Partlow, vice president of marketing and sales for Themeparks LLC, the company managing Magic Springs. She said the company approached Dollywood when the Pigeon Forge park decided to take Thunder Express out, even before Magic Springs was open. “In the back of our minds we knew we had a good shot of opening Magic Springs,” Partlow said. “We knew pretty much where we were going to put it and how beautiful it would be in that setting. It worked out pretty much as we planned, in fact, better than we thought.”

As he has every year since the park re-opened in 2000, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee turned up for the media day preview Friday with his thrill-seeking wife, Janet. “She will ride any ride in the park,” Partlow said, as will Gov. Huckabee—once. “The governor’s very game. He does it, but he doesn’t necessarily like it all that much.” However, Big Bad John he enjoyed, she said.

As did the public who turned out under a crystal-blue sky and warm spring temperatures. The new coaster, Partlow said, “was full all day long.”

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Eric's Turn

2 for 1, and 1 for all
I went to the 2000 IAAPA Trade Show in Atlanta, Georgia, having just ended my tenure with Funworld Magazine but eager to keep writing for the amusement and attractions industry. With a prototype LOOP newsletter in hand, I made the rounds of friends, associates, operators and manufacturers, gauging the potential success of publishing the column on my own.

Consistently, I heard two reactions from the people I talked with. One, "We love THE LOOP; keep doing it." Two, "Don’t send us another magazine to clutter our desk, we have too many publications as it is." Based on this response, I took the route of publishing THE LOOP as an on-line newsletter delivered via e-mail link: quick to read on the computer or easy to print out, it would continue to fill the need people wanted fulfilled, but wouldn’t unnecessarily clutter their desk or cost them anything. Sure, I had to learn web design and make a few sacrifices on look and content, but the end result proved the right thing to do.

Gary Slade in the past few weeks has faced a similar dilemma. The Amusement Today publisher, with whom THE LOOP shares a cooperative agreement, had just purchased Splash magazine and published his first issue of the former World Waterpark Association magazine. He set up a new advertising rate card for Splash, and established a subscription package allowing readers to get either Amusement Today or Splash, or both for a discount rate.

Even before the new Splash hit the streets, Gary began hearing feedback that in some ways echoed what I heard back at IAAPA 2000: no matter how good the magazine is, the industry does not need nor want another publication, and despite a price that was still lower than much of the competition, many said they could not afford subscribing to both publications, even with the dual discount.

Gary listened. Next month, Amusement Today and Splash will arrive in their readers’ mailboxes as a single newspaper, with Splash taking on a new life as an insert section in every issue of Amusement Today. Think of it like your daily newspaper, which has the main news section, a sports section, and a lifestyle section. Amusement Today will now have a section devoted solely to the water leisure industry, and that section will be called Splash. It will contain the same sections outlined in the redesigned Splash, including Al’s archive, and it will continue the Splash tradition of presenting profiles and service articles for the industry. It also will have more news about the water leisure industry than even Amusement Today had run in the past, now that Gary has a whole section to devote to that sector of the amusement and attractions industry.

You get one newspaper with all that for the single subscription rate. While Gary and Splash Editor Marilyn Turner wanted dearly to keep Splash magazine going as a separate glossy publication, not only will they be serving their readers and advertisers better with the new combined publication, it will make for a stronger newspaper, one that reflects the synergy of this industry.

It is the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to keep checking on that other combined effort, the Extra! Extra! page on www.amusementtoday.com managed by THE LOOP. Extra! Extra! has daily news updates from around the industry, and you should be checking in several times a week to read the Internet's first credible reports of developments and events that affect and interest you. If you haven’t been logging on to Extra! Extra! since the last issue of THE LOOP, take a look at the red box atop this newsletter; there you will find the headlines of just some of the stories we have posted in Extra! Extra! since the last LOOP two weeks ago. Click on the box, and you will go directly to the Extra! Extra! page. Bookmark either this page or that page, and keep in touch. It's a good thing to do.

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Volume 2, No. 10.  May 24, 2002

212.265.0043
lvhnyc@msn.com

Ohio Six Flags wins approval for hyper coaster

Amusement Leisure promotes Orr

ACE appoints new PR assistant

Chance completes reorganization

Western Playland owner plans second park

Chance, KMG form Revolution partnership

Colorado aquarium's otter has pup

VisionLand bondholders vote to foreclose

Fire damages closed Mountain Park

Six Flags takes over Jazzland management

For updates, click Extra! Extra!

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If you have a comment
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©2002, Minton Enterprises LLC
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New Arrivals

Scooby-Doo, where are you? In the queue, for a ride that's new. Photo by Eric Minton.

It’s a dark ride!
Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka, Missouri, announces the arrival of Scooby-Doo! Ghostblasters—The Mystery of the Scary Swamp, May 18, 2002. Measurements: 32,000 square feet (9,697 square meters), 650-foot-long water trough (197 meters), 25 scenes, 117 Ghostblaster targets, 22 four-passenger boats, 70,000 gallons of water (266,000 liters), five-minute ride. Delivered by Sally Corporation.

You would think the last thing St. Louis wanted was more water in the news. Weeks of record rainfall had caused flooding around the metropolitan area and swelled the Mississippi River to dangerous levels. However, the city was abuzz with anticipation about the new attraction going into their Six Flags park, a ride featuring a dog in a swamp.

That dog is named Scooby-Doo, and the swamp is a makeover of a boat ride that originated with the 32-year-old park as Injun Joe’s Cave (and had been resurrected in less-than-successful guises twice between Joe and Scooby). The new ride promised in addition to a succession of scenes a chance for guests to manipulate those scenes by firing at targets with handheld laser lights. For Six Flags St. Louis, it was also a major offering aimed at the too-often-overlooked family market, a demographic that dominates this region more so than perhaps any other Six Flags market. “It’s nice to have something that’s not wet and not outside,” said Hollie Goodwin of nearby Fenton, a guest with her children, 8 and 11, at the media preview two days before the public opening. “I’m sure we’ll be on it all the time.”

“It’s not often a dark ride is the premier ride of the park; here it is,” said Howard Kelly, Sally’s president. “We’re not normally the opening act of the new season.” Sally has been building its interactive dark rides since 1996, and has done three other Scooby-Doo! Ghostblasters versions (one opening at Fiesta Texas the same day as the St. Louis version; see story below). The Mystery of the Scary Swamp is Sally’s first interactive boat ride, and it takes the company’s successful formula to a new level of entertainment value. As guests leisurely float through more scenes filled with more gags, the pace is such that they can appreciate the ride’s artistry and subtle humor, all the while scoring more points with their Fright Lights.

The region’s persistent rainfall doused the Thursday media day, featuring Scooby’s creator, animator Iwao Takamoto, and families representing two local children’s hospitals. More rain deluged the school groups visiting the park the next day when Scooby was put through its first public paces. The ride’s opening to the general public dawned promisingly enough, a clear albeit chilly day—the first sunny weekend for Six Flags St. Louis this year—with a gospel festival promising to drawing bigger-than normal crowds.

When the gates opened, much of that crowd ran to Scooby, where, 15 minutes before, a power spike blew one of the ride’s boards. A quick fix got the ride operating within an hour, and it soldiered on even as a the local utility blew a substation later in the morning that darkened about four-fifths of the park. Scooby maintained two to three-hour waits throughout the day—a little longer when all the parks’ coasters sat dormant during the two-hour power outage—and appeared to fulfill that all-important demographic Sally touts with its dark rides: 8 to 80.

The ride also won kudos from Takamoto, whose passage through The Mystery of the Scary Swamp was his first experience on a Sally ride. “It’s very good,” he said. “It has a feeling of what the show had. One of the things they managed to do is understand that it is not a total scare show, it is a comedy mystery. And that, I think, the ambiance has captured. I’ve seen a lot of people try and miss.”

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Congratulations


www.sallycorp.com

for a successful delivery!

For more photos and information on Scooby-Doo Ghostblasters—The Mystery of the Scary Swamp,
Click Here

For a story about the ride's design, see the June issue of Amusement Today.

Frank, right, and his family wowed Louisville Zoo members at a sneak preview of Gorilla Forest. Photo by Eric Minton.

It’s a gorilla exhibit!
The Louisville Zoo announces the arrival of Gorilla Forest, May 23, 2002. Measurements: Four acres, four exhibit areas, eight western lowland gorillas, two pygmy hippos, 8,000 plants, one gift shop, three interpretive stations. Delivered by Arrasmith, Judd, Rapp, Inc. (architects), A Thru Z Consulting and Distributing (cage systems), Cemrock Landscapes, Inc. (rockwork), CLRdesign (project management), Del Industrices, Inc. (ozone), Digital Streams, Inc. (sound effects), Geograph Industries, Inc., (interactive graphics), Googleplex (murals), Hadley Exhibits (interpretative graphics), Korfhage Landscaping & Design (landscape), Mee Industries, Inc. (fog system), T.A. Maranda Consultants (life support systems), Weber Group, Inc. (theming), Whittenberg Engineering & Construction Company.

Themed as a gorilla sanctuary and research station in Africa, the $15 million Gorilla Forest at Louisville Zoo is, in fact, a gorilla sanctuary for North American zoos. The family taking up residence upon the exhibit’s opening came from the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago while that institution renovates its exhibit. Several other zoos also have plans for gorilla exhibit upgrades over the coming years, and Louisville established its exhibit as a temporary home for the displaced animals.

“People are asking, ‘What happens when they go back to Lincoln Park?’” said Maureen Horrigan, the zoo’s director of marketing. “It’s the best question to ask us because it allows us to describe the conservation program and Species Survival Plan process.” Under the SSP, the Louisville Zoo had been ranked 37th among institutions that could get gorillas. When Zoo Director William Foster five years ago unveiled the zoo’s plans for Gorilla Forest, Louisville shot to number one.

That was thanks in part to the cleverness that went into this exhibit which, as Islands did four years ago, again sets Louisville at the forefront of creative zoo habitat designs. The immersion experience has guests entering an African forest on the lookout for Western lowland gorillas. They follow a trail that looks as if it were made by pygmy hippos, then they come upon Hippo Falls, where the pygmy hippos live among lush flora and a waterfall cascading toward an underwater viewing pool.

Around the corner comes the first of the gorilla habitats, including the 9,300-square-foot (2,828-square-meter) “Gorillas in the round” exhibit. Next stop is the research station overlooking another gorilla habitat and staffed—as are other interpretive stations—by acting students from nearby Bellarmine College playing researchers, trackers and native residents.

Such is the popularity of the new exhibit that about 2,000 people showed up for the official grand opening featuring Louisville Mayor Dave Armstrong, Pizza maker Papa John’s wife and zoo benefactor Annette Schnatter, and actress Betty White, who flew in from Los Angeles for the “ribbon pulling” ceremony. “Ribbon cuttings are always too low, and the scissors don’t work and nobody can see the cutting,” said Horrigan. “With 2,000 people lined up down the path, we wanted them all to see the opening.” Instead, the zoo hung a bouquet of flowers over the Forest’s main entrance and hung 60 brightly colored ribbons from the bouquet, creating a veritable curtain. About 30 invited children took hold of the ribbons and pulled them down to the beating of drums.

Thursday’s opening ceremonies culminated a statewide anxiety to see the gorillas, an anticipation that gathered steam when the troupe first arrived March 20. Kept in isolation, even zoo staff could not see them except on an as-needed basis, said Diana DeVaughn, media/special promotions coordinator. She recalled the day three weeks ago when the gorillas were allowed to venture into their habitat above the zoo’s train tracks.

“The first time the train came by, the engineer did a double take,” she said. “The second time he was pointing and giving a tour. The third time he went by real slowly as he did the tour. The fourth time the train was full of employees.”

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It’s an interactive dark ride!
Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio, Texas, announces the arrival of Scooby Doo Ghostblasters—The Mystery of the Haunted Mansion, May 18, 2002. Measurements: 15 scenes, 91 Ghostblaster targets, 10 four-passenger cars. Delivered by Sally Corporation.

On the same day Six Flags St. Louis was opening its Scooby-Doo Swamp (see story above), down in San Antonio, Six Flags Fiesta Texas was opening a standard Sally dark ride unit in the park’s Boardwalk area, with vehicles on a track moving through a mansion of scenes featuring the Scooby gang. Though not the revelation that its St. Louis counterpart represented for the amusement industry, the Fiesta Texas version was a novelty for its region, and Communications Manager Sydne Purvis made the most of that fact.

For a media preview on three days before the Saturday grand opening, the park hosted about 50 kids from two San Antonio boys and girls clubs. Not only could the media cover the event, they were invited to participate in a contest of their own. Five teams of two players each representing local media competed for the grand prize, a fully catered picnic for 100 plus park admission for a children’s organization of the winner’s choice. Each team rode through the ride twice, and their combined scores added up for total points, with the Univision team nabbing the grand prize.

For the public opening, the park hosted first riders who won the privilege through radio and newspaper promotions. That was a good way to get an early experience on the ride because, on both days, “people were walking very swiftly into the Boardwalk area as soon as the gates opened,” Purvis said, and the queue generally grew longer as the day progressed, she said.

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Six Flags Elitch Gardens guests took their turns on a prototype flying coaster. Photo courtesy of Six Flags Elitch Gardens.

It’s a prototype coaster!
Six Flags Elitch Gardens in Denver, Colorado, announces the arrival of The Flying Coaster, May 18, 2002. Measurements: 1,253 feet long (380 meters), 66 feet high (20 meters), 26 mph, six four-passenger gondolas. Delivered by Zamperla.

Talk about convergence. Saturday was THE day to be at Six Flags Elitch Gardens. The waterpark opened for the season. High school bands and choirs came in from across the state. The Christian group Audio Adrenaline performed a concert. A charity walk for Cystic Fibrosis ended at the park. And the deadline for season pass holders to get their bonus free buddy tickets was Sunday. Oh, and the weather was “absolutely gorgeous,” said the park’s public relations manager Eric Curry. “Saturday was a busy day,” he understated.

Amid all this, the industry got a new ride, Zamperla’s entry into the flying coaster field. Despite only a two-week heads up, the park’s PR efforts got enough word out that The Flying Coaster was the first destination for most guests entering the park Saturday, the first 500 receiving wing pins. The queue for the ride reached three hours shortly after. “Judging by when those gates opened and the hordes of people who ran in that direction they obviously knew about the ride,” Curry said.

Boosting attention was a media onslaught the day before. A local radio station concluded a two-week contest for preview riders who turned out that Friday for their free rides. Local newspapers gave the coaster front-page coverage and supplements, a local television station devoted its entire morning news show to the ride and the coaster merited a mention on Good Morning America. A satellite uplink received a viewership of 19 million people Saturday outside Colorado; Curry didn’t have the in-state reports yet.

All this coverage helped get the industry's newest flying coaster off to a flying start, a convergence that bodes well for the Zamperla product’s future.

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The Avalanche helped catapult Roaring Springs to a successful season start. Photo courtesy of Roaring Springs Waterpark.

It’s a waterslide!
Roaring Springs Waterpark in Meridian, Idaho, announces the arrival of The Avalanche, May 18, 2002. Measurements: 40 feet high (12 meters), 76 feet long (23 meters), 35 feet wide (11 meters), three-person tubes. Delivered by Waterfun Products, Inc.

Roaring Springs could have been tempting fate when it celebrated the groundbreaking of its new $300,000 thrill ride by breaking an ice-sculpture rendering of the ride. Would ice exact revenge on the ride’s—and the park’s—Opening Day?

Not in 90-degree Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) temperatures, which southern Idaho enjoyed last weekend. About 1,500 people entered the park on its opening Saturday, and another 1,200 visited the 4,000-capacity park on Sunday. “That’s a good opening weekend for us,” said Roaring Springs General Manager Lee Hovis.

Avalanche probably played a hand in those numbers. The ride is part of a one-acre (half hectare) expansion of the park which also included a sand area with two volleyball courts and more lounge chairs. The ride gives the waterpark a singular thrill. “One thing we were lacking was a thrill ride,” Hovis said. And the boomeranging Sidewinder fit the bill. “When you get to the top of that tower and look down and can’t see the bottom, that’s when people chicken out.”

Hovis got a big boost in publicity through what he called an “MTV-style contest,” referring to the music channel’s famous party competitions. Anybody who bought season passes could enter for a chance to invite 50 friends to a private party at Roaring Springs and ride Avalanche the evening before it opened to the public. A local radio station partnered in the contest, allowing non-season pass holders to enter via the station’s web site.

The winner was a season passholder with an 11-year-old son, and she invited kids from her son’s school, along with relatives. Winner and son were transported via limousine, courtesy of the radio station, who also provided a deejay for the party. Roaring Springs served hamburgers and hotdogs and operated Avalanche for the evening. “We really catered to them, and they felt special,” Hovis said. “It was a real good promotion for us, and right before we opened.”

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ZOOMbabwe and the weather combined for a purple thrill and a blue-lipped chill at Splashin' Safari. Photo courtesy of Holiday World & Splashin' Safari.

It’s a waterslide!
Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari in Santa Claus, Indiana, announces the arrival of ZOOMbabwe, May 18, 2002. Measurements: 102 feet tall (31 meters), 887 feet long (269 meters), 24 five-passenger rafts. Delivered by ProSlide Technologies, Inc.

Even an attractive, purple, twisting family raft ride is only as enticing as the air temperature allows it to be. Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari found itself in the grip of a cold wave that chilled much of the Midwest the past week when it was debuting its $1.7 ZOOMbabwe to the public.

Thank goodness for the Boy Scouts. On Splashin’ Safari’s opening Saturday, the park was hosting a Boy Scout family jamboree. “Boy Scouts are always pretty brave,” said Will Koch, Holiday World’s president and general manager. “They put on swimsuits and rode.” Given the chilly water and stinging wind, the Scouts probably could have earned some sort of merit badge for their adventuresome spirit. Koch himself also took a spin down what Holiday World is touting as the world’s largest enclosed waterslide. “I went down it once,” he said. “I braved the cold water and weather to do it. I’m not a big cold water person.”

Except for a media preview the day before, when local reporters got a chance to try out ZOOMbabwe, the giant slide opened without any ceremony. Koch said that soon after Splashin’ Safari opened, ZOOMbabwe did see a rush of patrons; “rush” being a relative term in this case. “It was moderated by the temperature,” he said.

For a more thorough account of the ride, see June's Amusement Today.

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It’s a kiddie section!
Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, California, announces the arrival of Twiggville, May 11, 2002. Measurements: 20,000 square feet (6,061 meters), six attractions. Delivered by Allen Herschell, D.F. Mangles and Everly Aircraft.

Bonfante Gardens didn’t engage in much fanfare upon its re-opening day, save for a few behind-the-scenes tours for media outlets in the week leading up to the Mother’s Day weekend season opening. “We just opened the gates,” said Gena Sakahara, education and public relations manager at the park. When they did, a total of 12,000 people passed through the gates for the weekend, the bulk of that on Mother’s Day, which Sakahara described as “huge.”

Guests did not have to go far to find the new kiddie section, occupying a large space near the front entrance under an awning where park owner Michael Bonfante had parked his classic cars last year. The area is geared for children 44 inches or shorter, but features refurbished antique rides any park connoisseur would appreciate: Miggo race cars by the Every Aircraft company, Rita’s Convertibles by Hershell and a Mangles firetruck round ride. The area also has a bounce house, crazy circus mirrors and a performance stage.

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Happy Valley got on the right track with its new expansion. Photo courtesy of Happy Valley Tourist Development.

It’s a theme park!
Happy Valley in Shenzhen, China, announces the arrival of its second phase, May 1, 2002. Measurements: 13 hectares (32 acres), four themed areas, 14 attractions, six restaurants and six concession stands. Delivered by Happy Valley Tourist Development, HUSS Maschinenfabrik, OD Hopkins, SCS Interactive and Vekoma.

At first, Happy Valley sought to spread joy via aesthetic beauty and cultural merit. Opened in October 1998, the 21-hectare (52-acre) park has seven themed areas with shows, historical replications, animal exhibits and some rides, but not too much excitement, said Louis Xiaoming Liu, a senior advisor for Happy Valley Tourist Development. “The first phase we tried to make something different,” he said. “Young people don’t really care, and kids don’t like it.”

Phase two he described as much more aggressive, especially in the ride category. The region known as Shangri La has a Vekoma suspended looping coaster and a number of domestically made games. Gold Mine has a Vekoma mine train plus several Old American West attractions and shows. Hurricane Bay includes a Hopkins 26-meter (86-foot) shoot-the-chute, a HUSS Top Spin and Flying Willy, and two small SCS Foam Factories plus laser-equipped bumper cars. The fourth new section is Sunshine Beach, a real beach with volleyball and sand sculpting areas.

Other than a special concert on the eve of phase two’s opening, Happy Valley didn’t throw much of a grand opening bash. No matter: 42,000 guests showed up at the park May 1, and 49,000 turned out the second day. Attendance then fell off to 47,000 on the third day. These are stellar numbers for a park whose previous record attendance was 28,000. “We didn’t expect people to receive this park so well,” Louis said. But, he noted, “we are giving young kids and teen-agers what they like.” Most popular ride? the Vekoma coaster. “People are waiting three or four hours to get on,” Louis said. “Crazy.”

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Rasti-Land took a new spin on the rapid river ride when it opened Germany's first whirlpool style raft ride. Photo courtesy of Rasti-Land.

It’s a rapid river ride!
Rasti-Land in Salzhemmendorf, Germany announces the arrival of a rapid river raft ride by Hafema, May 1, 2002. Measurements: 500 meters long (1,650 feet), 5-meter (17-foot) drop in the course, 9 seats per boat. Delivered by Hafema.

Taking two years to complete, the new rapid river raft ride garnered much curiosity among Rasti-Land’s guests long before it opened. When it did open, its unique-to-Germany super whirlpool that seems to suck boats out of view into a swirling maelstrom further intrigued guests who made the new ride a huge hit.

“From the day of opening the new ride was our visitors’ favorite, especially because of the super whirlpool” said park owner Ludwig Ratzke. “The reaction was really enthusiastic.”

He described the new ride, which also includes a 400-square-meter (1,320-square-foot) wave basin with a 10-meter (33-foot) waterfall, as Rasti-Land’s “biggest and most sensational attraction so far,” costing 2.85 million Euros (US$2.6 million), including a 30-meter (99-foot) bridge and footpaths. Yet to come is theming, which the park will accomplish in the next year, and with that theming the ride will receive a name. In conjunction with Rasti-Land’s 30th anniversary, the park will host a special celebration and media event for the raft ride at that time.

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The stars of Ocean Park's new Wild Ride added the proper perspective to the movie's premier. Photo courtesy of Ocean Park.

It’s a simulation ride!
Ocean Park in Hong Kong announces the arrival of Whiskers’ Wild Ride, April 28, 2002. Measurements: 100-seat, 900-square-meter (2,970-square-foot) theater, two-minute pre-show, 4:45-minute film on a 15-by-20 meter (50-by-66-foot) screen. Delivered by Centro Digital Pictures in a theater by Iwerks.

In one significant aspect, the opening of the multi-sensory Whiskers’ Wild Ride was the most important in Ocean Park’s 25-year history: this HK$70 million (US$8.98 million) film was locally produced. “It’s the first time we used local companies to produce this kind of digital animation for simulation rides,” said Vivian Lee, marketing manager for the theme park.

This being the park’s silver anniversary, the new film celebrates the park via its mascot, Whiskers the sea lion, and his five friends: a parrot, a shark, a dolphin, a butterfly and a tortoise. The sextet takes the audience on a tour of Ocean Park, going through eight scenes from the perspectives of the mascots, who, unlike their human visitors, can fly, crawl, swim and flutter through the attractions. “It gives you a whole new look of Ocean Park,” Lee said. “Given that it’s digital film, it is a different point of view than you would see by walking around normally.” The theater seats have also been equipped with buzzers, air hoses and water sprayers for effects.

Given the new ride’s local importance, the opening ceremony featured Ocean Park executives, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Economic Services Sandra Lee and the chairwoman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Selina Chow. Whiskers gave the special guests safari hats, and the guests presented Whiskers with a telescope, fitting for a day which was all about new perspectives.

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