Loop 033 printable

Volume 2, No. 9. May 24, 2002

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.