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In
this issue:
(To go directly
to a story, click on a blue keyword below):
We devote this issue to reports from the 84th Annual IAAPA Convention and Trade Show;
The Trade Show tops expectations, the new IAAPA president meets expectations, and IAAPA awards thrill the unexpecting;
Roger Moore helps IAAPA launch into a social services role, with a little confusion from Roy Gillian;
Michael Getlan reprises the clown giggles at GKTW, while Ben Jones tries to pull off a huge card trick;
Coaster enthusiasts in England make a mess of a charity campaign, and coaster enthusiasts in America kick off a museum campaign;
Zoo professionals see two lights calling to the "dark side," and Knoebels gets a taste of the Food Network;
We get updates on Halloween wars between two zoos and on Splash Magazine, and we tip our hat to a good buddy.
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Live
and help live
To have one of the longest-playing James Bonds in the house addressing
the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions membership
at the 84th Annual Convention and Trade Show in Orlando, Florida, the
same week the latest edition of the spy franchise was opening at movie
theaters around the country was apropos synergy. It was one Roger Moore
himself stumbled upon during a press conference following his appearance
at the What’s New Theater opening the IAAPA Trade Show last week.
Moore, the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, recalling childhood memories of
visiting Dreamland amusement park in Margate, England, described theme
parks as “a children’s world, for grown-up children as well,
like Bond films.” Moore called the 40-year, 21-film franchise “quite
amazing,” and he likened the special effects and escapism fantasy
of the movies to the special effects and escapism fantasy of theme parks,
with both mediums taking audiences “right to the edge, yet knowing
they are secure.” Then he brought those similar missions of Bond
and amusements back to his personal mission of saving children’s
lives in the poorer corners of the world.
“It goes to that point that children are entitled to the right to
play, the right to listen to fairy stories, and Bond is one,” Moore
said.
Moore was at IAAPA promoting the association’s new partnership with
UNICEF in a campaign called “Your Change for a Real Change,”
a charity drive that allows individual facilities to set their own ways
and means of raising money to support UNICEF’s food, immunization
and education initiatives. Moore contended that IAAPA is uniquely suited
to such a mission. Amusement parks and zoos are a safe haven for children
of all ages in the more affluent societies. It is fitting, then, that
such attractions can share some of their and their patrons’ affluence
to help give children in war-torn and disaster-shorn societies a meal,
a hospital, a schoolhouse—safe havens in their particular situations.
In addition to celebrating the UNICEF initiative with Moore’s presence—after
What’s New Theater the erstwhile Bond cut the ribbon for the exhibit
hall’s opening and the next day addressed the General Managers and
Owners Luncheon with a rollicking recounting of his career—IAAPA
unveiled another social service initiative: partnership with the International
Institute for Peace Through Tourism. The not-for-profit organization was
founded in 1986 as a counter to terrorism targeting tourism venues. It
stages international forums and promotes programs that help dismantle
barriers to tourism around the world. IIPT does not seek funds, just awareness,
which parks can do by celebrating different cultures or organizing activities
encouraging visitors from other cultures.
Introducing IAAPA to both initiatives was John Graff, who upon retiring
as president of IAAPA last year has since volunteered to serve as an officer
in IIPT. He has also taken the job of coordinating IAAPA’s three-pronged
social services efforts, the third prong being Give Kids The World. “Nothing
will be a diminution of our enthusiastic support of Give Kids The World,”
he said at What’s New Theater.
IAAPA
got more Moore than it bargained for: Roger with wife Kristina, above,
and Roy Gillian (below left) with Hall of Fame inductee Marty Sklar.
Photos by Eric Minton.
Bonded
Waiting for his moment in the spotlight, Roy Gillian, chairman of IAAPA’s
Hall of Fame Committee, stood in the wings of the What’s New Theater
next to IAAPA Second Vice Chair Jane Cooper. On stage, as a video montage
showed the new attractions installed in the past year, performance artist
Jean Francois was making his flourishing conclusions to one of his paintings,
then headed off stage.
Seeing Gillian, the painter enthusiastically approached the owner of Gillian’s
Wonderland Pier in Ocean City, New Jersey, and said, “I love watching
you as 007.” Gillian, a little shocked to learn he was being mistaken
for Roger Moore, didn’t respond, but Cooper said, “Oh, no, this
is our 007.”
Roy was slightly embarrassed by the incident, but his wife, Patricia,
was pleased. “I’ve always said he’s my James Bond,”
she said. “I’m glad somebody else said it because I’ve
been saying that for years.”
Weston,
Getlan, Romano and Tan had plenty to laugh at, as did their audience.
Photo by Eric Minton.
Mime
your business
The characters
may change—and, boy! do we mean characters—but a tradition is
developing on the eve of IAAPA, thanks to Michael Getlan’s penchant
for clowning and caring in equal doses. For the second straight year,
Getlan of Amusement Consultants assembled a team of talent to perform
at Give Kids The World Village in Kissimmee, Florida, on the Sunday before
the IAAPA Trade Show.
“I will probably do it every year we’re ever in Orlando,”
said Getlan, a man who draws an almost transparent line between his persona
as a clown and his own personality. “I’ve made Give Kids The
World my personal charity and I try to give them whatever I can.”
This year he gave them another troupe of amateur clowns who wowed the
children and their volunteer escorts, all unaware the group—Kelven
Tan, deputy director of events at Sentosa Development Corporation in Singapore;
Gena Romano, president of Nellie Bly Amusement Park in Brooklyn, New York;
and Denise Weston, director of imagination for Creative Kingdoms—rehearsed
for the first time just that afternoon.
Whereas last year Getlan was joined by novices Tan and Ben Jones, this
year’s additions were experienced showwomen. Romano has acted in
children’s theater, presents puppet shows at her park and has taken
clown classes with Getlan. Weston, whose father was a clown, was a professional
dancer after college and, because of her pre-amusement industry experience
working with deaf children, performed pantomime. The women brought a variety
of talent that supplemented Tan, reprising his role from last year as
a “shy friend” transforming into Ouch the Clown, and Getlan
the “jack of all trades,” as he described himself. “I do
everything very, very badly.”
For Romano, the afternoon rehearsal was one of the event’s highlights.
“The best part was spending the day with those three. I was in my
element, being with goofy people just like me.” Weston asserts the
four are quadruplets separated at birth. “I always look forward to
the IAAPA Show, but never as much as this year because I knew I would
be doing this,” she said.
She spoke while still wearing her white face, the now-emptied theater
still echoing the show’s big finale—a belly-laughing competition
among members of the audience. “This is what we do,” Weston
said, referring to her day job creating amusement venues. “I could
sign some really great deals this week and it won’t compare with
the deal of making these kids do belly laughs.”
Getting
carded
The clown
missing from this year’s performance, Ben Jones, nevertheless was
doing duty for a terminally ill child during IAAPA. His Congo River Golf
and Games in Kenosha, Wisconsin, hosted a fundraising event for the Make-A-Wish
Foundation, and through that Jones learned of Craig Sheppard, a 7-year-old
boy with an inoperable brain tumor. “I identified with that one child,
and I asked the foundation how I could do more,” Jones said.
He learned that Craig wants to get into the Guinness Book of World Records
as the holder of the most business cards. “I told the liaison that
I was coming to IAAPA and I’ll do what I can,” Jones said outside
the What’s New Theater Wednesday. Though arriving in Orlando only
the day before, Jones had set an ambitious goal of collecting 1,000 cards
by show’s end.
But his own popularity did him in. Each card came with an explanation
of his goal, plus the general conversation that occurs when meeting friends
and colleagues. Jones left Orlando with only 248 cards.
Nevertheless, he still hopes his colleagues will help Craig attain his
goal. Anyone wishing to contribute a business card (one per company) can
send it to
Mr. Craig Sheppard
c/o Make-A-Wish Foundation
30 Perimeter Circle East
Atlanta, GA 30346, USA
European
coaster fans got themselves in a mess raising money for GKTW.
Photo courtesy of the European Coaster Club.
Lunch
money
No question,
a visit to the Give Kids The World Village is an inspiring thing. People
come away willing to do just about anything to help fund the village,
support the foundation or carry out the mission. Plant that fertile seed
in the weird minds of British roller coaster enthusiasts and you get things
like the messiest coaster ride on record.
The event was a re-creation of a stunt aired on British television in
the 1980s when a pack of Scouts ate their lunch on Blackpool Pleasure
Beach’s Revolution shuttle coaster. The European Coaster Club approached
the park about doing the stunt for GKTW, and the park jumped aboard.
The enthusiasts raised money through pledges, including one that club
Chairman Richard Foster nabbed that would collect a Sterling Pound for
every individual food item stuck to his shirt at the end of the ride.
“I thought it was quite an original pledge,” he said. That pledge
accounted for 12 Pounds (US$18) of the total 1,000 Pounds (US$1,600) raised
by the event, which took place last July. “We bought milk shakes
and hamburgers and cream cakes; everything messy,” Foster said. “We
got on the ride and shouted ‘Give kids the world’ and went upside
down. It went everywhere. It was just a mess.”
“It’s so unusual,” GKTW President Pamela Landwirth said
after receiving the check from the European Coaster Club during a ceremony
at IAAPA. The check also included 1,500 Pounds (US$2,400) raised through
an auction. “To want to do something for those that are facing some
of life’s biggest challenges and to have fun doing it and be so creative,
it’s such a passion.”
Foster said the club plans to continue its fundraising efforts for GKTW
next year with a bigger auction and a repeat of the coaster-riding lunch
stunt. “This is a really nice tie-in with the club,” he said.
“The charity is sending kids around to theme parks. We’re obviously
great fans of theme parks. We get that feeling of escape from reality
for a few hours of joy and pleasure an awful lot, because that’s
what we do as a hobby. For these kids, without Give Kids The World they
might not ever get that chance.”
Golden
age
On the American
side of the Atlantic, another roller coaster club was making a significant
contribution of its own at the IAAPA Trade Show.
The American Coaster Enthusiasts kicked off a fundraising campaign for
the National Roller Coaster Museum and Archives by donating a $250,000
check, the first step in a campaign that aims to raise $500,000 over the
next three years. The museum, operating as a separate not for-profit entity,
will house and exhibit the extensive archives already in ACE’s possession,
a collection that includes more than a dozen roller coaster cars, a variety
of publications, videos, photographs and signage, and other artifacts
dating back through the decades.
The ACE Executive Committee voted to make the donation and will help solicit
funds through the club’s membership and as memorials for deceased
members. The museum’s board of directors—currently comprising
five ACE executives plus Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters President Tom
Rebbie and Amusement Today publisher Gary Slade—is seeking
to fill two vacant seats with industry representatives.
A
different animal
Any professional
or political association, however gilded in camaraderie it may be, is
prone to internecine conflict. How an association handles those divides
is the mark of that association’s viability, relevance and ultimate
success.
In
the attractions industry, one of the deepest and oldest rifts runs through
the zoo community, what current American Zoo and Aquarium Association
President Mark Reed calls the “animal side versus the dark side.”
That would be the husbandry and conservation professionals against the
business managers comprising accountants, marketers and guest services
professionals.
Reed, executive director of the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas,
feels the schism is not nearly as pronounced as it once was, citing himself
as an example of a current financial and management professional who started
his zoo career on the animal side. Nevertheless, a rapt audience of about
200 zoo professionals sat through a seminar last Monday titled “Culture
Shock: Bridging the Gap Between the Business and Non-business Sides of
Zoos and Aquariums.”
One of the session’s speakers, Beth Stephens, vice president of Disney’s
Animal Kingdom and animal programs, summed up the situation facing zoo
professionals today as she provided a laundry list of “keys to bridging
the culture.” “I could really be here doing a diversity training,”
she said. “It’s the same thing.”
Pointedly, this session was part of IAAPA's seminar program. Reed fielded
requests from audience members to repeat the seminar at next year’s
AZA annual conference, and he expressed a keenness to see that happen.
IAAPA plays an interesting part in the animal vs. business equation. With
AZA traditionally focusing on its animal exhibitry, husbandry, breeding
and conservation programs, the business and guest services personnel at
zoos have increasingly turned to IAAPA for their professional education.
It is an emigration AZA not only endorses but encourages. “Right
now, we look at the relationship between IAAPA and AZA as a strong one,”
said Reed, who at the session announced a collaboration of the two organizations
on a state-of-the-industry survey. “There’s an awareness of
AZA directors that more and more of them need to get down here. It’s
just keeping up with the industry. IAAPA is providing something that we
can’t. We can’t do it all.”
However, a group of guest relations and operations professionals at zoos
want the AZA to do at least a little more. They are petitioning AZA to
create a committee dedicated to that side of the zoo profession, just
as organization has committees for marketing, public relations, education
and development. “The list of committees that are non-animal is constantly
growing,” Reed said, including a trends committee that met at IAAPA.
The petitioners’ argument is that while IAAPA and other professional
associations provide viable education and networking opportunities, they
lack a key ingredient in their mindset: namely, animals. Operations at
zoos are unique in the attractions industry because they must perforce
put animal welfare and the conservation mission ahead of all other concerns.
Reed is willing to listen to the petitioners. He has asked them to provide
more information on “interest, desires, what they want to put in,
what they want to see out of it. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
He said he will move cautiously, however. One of the first tasks in his
one-year tenure as AZA president was to assign more than 250 members to
various committees. “That’s just vacancies and re-ups and new
committees,” he said.
“Part of my theme (for the presidency) is accountability of volunteers.
Our association is what it is because of the passionate professional volunteers
we get. We’re getting close to being stretched too far on how much
we can demand out of our volunteers. Anything I’m looking to add
has to have a reason for it. That’s the bottom line.”
Payeski
served up his expertise to become a Food Network colleague of Emeril.
Bam!
Photo by Eric Minton.
Networking
at the show
The U.S. cable
network that brought us Emeril, Iron Chef and Naked Chef was ready to
bring us Knoebels. Timing is all, though, and viewers will have to settle
for a vicarious shopping trip with Knoebels Amusement Resort’s food
managers on the Food Network.
Researching a program on amusement park food, the producers were drawn
by the Elysburg, Pennsylvania, park’s winning of the Amusement
Today Golden Tickets Award for food. Producer David Sibila called
Knoebels’ marketing director, Joe Muscato, about filming a food feature
on the park. But the show’s deadline of March didn’t mesh with
the park’s season.
However, when Muscato learned that Sibila is based in Orlando, he suggested
the producer do a feature on the Trade Show. “He got excited about
IAAPA, but he still said, ‘I want to find a way to fit you in,’”
Muscato said. So, a camera crew followed Ed Payeski, manager of the park’s
Phoenix Junction Steakhouse and several sweets and beverage stands, as
he visited the booths of J&J Snack Foods, Electro Freeze, Gold Medal
Products and Quick n’ Crispy.
“It was a typical television day,” Muscato said. “It took
longer than you think it should, it was slow, and there’s lots of
standing around. But I have to give these guys credit; I’ve done
enough of these, I was very pleased it didn’t go longer than it did.”
The only hiccup was Payeski’s shirt. He showed up for the opening
interview wearing a shirt he had borrowed from fellow food manager Tony
Rodriguez because it bore the Knoebels logo. But the navy blue shirt blended
into the background, so Payeski swapped for Muscato’s Hawaiian shirt.
“I’m wearing Tony’s shirt while Ed wears my shirt,”
Muscato said. “All for a plug.”
For
more news from the IAAPA Convention and Trade Show,
see Extra!
Extra! on amusementtoday.com.
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This special edition of THE LOOP is brought to you by the following sponsors (click on the buttons for more information):
For exhibitors listed alphabetically, click here. For exhibitors listed numerically, click here.
We
beg to disagree with this ancient seer's dire warnings at the Sally
Corporation booth and see good times ahead. Ending
on a high note Robinson
was chosen to continue his rule of IAAPA. Choicest
choices He
ain't British, but he's a brother, so Moore offered congratulations
to the award-winning Knoebels. Accenting
the obvious Click
on the following categories for the full list of award winners at
this year’s IAAPA. For
more news from the IAAPA Convention and Trade Show, And look for more IAAPA coverage in Amusement Today.
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Photo by Eric Minton. Slade.
Gary Slade
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Return
visit Splash Magazine is set to resurface as an on-line Suppliers Directory. Marilyn Turner, the magazine’s editor, introduced Splash on-the-net at the IAAPA Trade Show last week and announced plans to launch the new program on its web site at www.splashmagazine.com in January. Turner said she will distribute links by e-mail to 15,000 companies, amusement parks, waterparks, hotels and resorts. Suppliers will get complimentary listings the first six months and will have a place on the site to post press releases.
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