In this issue:
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Bonfante Gardens looks for an investment partner while Disney's California Adventure looks for a younger demographic;

Golfers raise the Harris Cup with a championship playoff, the New York Aquarium raises awareness with its Aquaravan, and Star Trek: The Experience raises a few eyebrows with wedding planners;

Roger Williams Zoo and Louisville Zoo treat big numbers to Halloween tricks, and Universal Orlando offers guests a bad night's sleep;

We welcome Flik's Fun Fair to Disney and New Mexico Rattler to Cliff's;

We see Splash and Amusement Today part ways, and our ad manager gears up for IAAPA.

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Empty Garden
One of the missions of the American Coasters Enthusiasts is to promote preservation of endangered parks and rides. Another is to have fun at any park and on all rides. With both missions in mind, the ACE Northern California region sponsored a trip two Saturdays ago to Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, California. Some 200 enthusiasts took behind-the-scenes tours, partook of a barbecue lunch and enjoyed exclusive ride time on the Quicksilver Express.

Bonfante Gardens, though, will need more than the support of such devoted fans and families. To survive, the park likely will need more than just more devoted fans, even. Despite a new management team, new marketing initiatives, an $8 million loan to get its second season underway and promise of a Christmas Lights festival, the 2-year-old park announced for the second year that it is closing early. October 20 will be the last day of its 2002 season.

Current General Manager Ed Hutton said he hopes to get the park reopened for the 2003 season in early April. To accomplish that, the park is canceling its planned Christmas lights celebration and laid off three-fourths of its full-time staff. “We have a bare crew of security and landscapers and a couple of accounting people,” Hutton said, a total of just 10. “We’re going down to that to regroup.”

That will get the park reopened in the short term, he is certain. “We have enough cash to make this work to the spring.” To keep it open for the long term will mean overcoming several obstacles, among them high operational costs and debt service and a market that is suffering the worst of the nation’s recession, an economic slump that has hurt other theme parks and attractions in northern California as well. Those other attractions, however, have the benefit of long histories and long-gone start-up debts. With a capacity of 800,000, the park needed only 500,000 to break even with operating costs, Hutton said. Though he wouldn’t reveal figures, he said the park did not approach that projected attendance.

“We need an infusion of capital,” he said. “We need an operating partner or management firm to invest in it.” To that end, the board of directors, which has taken over running the not-for profit park from founder Michael Bonfante, is currently soliciting potential partners. “They are putting tremendous hours into working all this out,” Hutton said. “They are talking to a few people” about partnering.

Just about everybody who visits Bonfante Gardens shares the consensus that it is America’s most beautiful theme park. Only if its board of directors can find a savior will that beauty be everlasting.

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After staging a live, intercontinental press conference with Aladdin's creative team (above), Disney's California Adventure introduced new resident characters at the park (below). Photos by Eric Minton.

Getting younger with time
In one day, Disney’s California Adventure skewered its demographic average down about five years or more.

In planning the Anaheim, California, park, Disney’s imagineers aimed for an older audience than neighboring Disneyland traditionally drew. But almost immediately upon opening in February 2001 (THE LOOP, February 9, 2001), California Adventure drew criticism from the general public that the new park didn’t have enough for families.

“Our guests told us, ‘I want more for my little kids to do,’” Cynthia Harriss, president of Disneyland Resort, said. “So we listened, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job on answering that question today.”

That day was Monday when the park celebrated the grand opening of Flik’s Fun Fair and a revamped Bug’s Life thematic area (see New Arrival story). That event was followed by a preview of the new show “Disney’s Aladdin—Live on Stage” opening December 9 at the park’s Hyperion Theatre. The preview featured composer Alan Menken playing a medley of his Disney hits on the piano and a segment of a new song he wrote for the show followed by a press conference with live satellite feeds from Paris, France, of the show’s director Francesca Zambello and from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett.

That ensemble of theatrical talent will undoubtedly create a true Broadway experience in a 40-minute theme park show. “I see a lot of opportunities by bringing theater into the theme parks,” Menken said. “When Beauty and the Beast was brought to Broadway one of the things it did was bring a new audience into the theater, and the opportunities in the parks are the same. You can introduce serious theater craft in a new context.”

Later that afternoon Cynthia Harriss announced plans to install a production of “Playhouse Disney—Live on Stage!” at California Adventure. Already playing at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida, the Disney Channel production features popular children’s characters from the shows Rolie Polie Olie, Stanley and Jim Henson’s Bear in the Big Blue House, all of whom showed up for the announcement to the cheers of guests crowded against the cordons.

Notably, rather than occupying the park’s Hollywood Backlot Stage the Playhouse show will take over the building currently housing the ABC Soap Opera Bistro. “The guests liked it,” Harriss said of the restaurant utilizing sets and props from daytime television soap operas, “but it wasn’t our most popular restaurant. And, frankly, having Playhouse Disney here was more compelling, and the Bistro is the perfect room for it.”

That move alone illustrates how much Disney is lowering the age demographic of its newest American theme park. Yet this is not to say the company is surrendering the teen and young adult market to the thrill-ride-oriented theme parks up the road. Physically looming over all of Monday’s proceedings was the skeleton frame of the park’s next major attraction, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror opening in 2004.

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Uribe celebrated first, but Heinly (in cap) got the final win in the dramatic Harris Cup finish. Photo courtesy of Harris Miniature Golf Courses, Inc.

A Tiger of a time
Tim Heinly started the final round up by three strokes, but the Allentown, Pennsylvania, golfer squandered his lead. Down by one coming to the Twin Falls course’s 18th hole, he made an incredible birdie putt to force a playoff, which he won on that same hole to the cheers of the gallery crowded around the green. “I don’t know if you could have written a script for a finish any better,” said Darin Van Tassell. “It was very tense and highly competitive, which was neat to see on a miniature course.”

Van Tassell is co-owner of Hackers Golf Park in Statesboro, Georgia, whose Twin Falls course served as the site of the Harris Cup National Miniature Golf Championship September 28. Harris Miniature Golf Courses, Inc. in Wildwood, New Jersey, introduced the tournament to its clients last year as a marketing tool. This year Harris teamed up with Children’s Miracle Network for the nationwide tournament that involved about 30 courses.

“We wanted to give our course owners an opportunity to give back to their communities and give them a way to cross-market and promote with other businesses in their communities,” said Sophia Disney, the company’s marketing director. “A tournament seemed the best way to do it, and teaming up with Children’s Miracle Network seemed a good way to create continuity throughout the entire tournament.”

All proceeds from the local qualifying tournaments held in July and August went to local chapters of the Miracle Network (the entire tournament raised about $45,000, Disney said). Golfers played for prizes offered by local sponsors and for the big prize, a trip to east-central Georgia. If that doesn’t seem prize-worthy enough, the top four finalists split a purse of $5,000, with the winner taking home $2,000 and a trip for two to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for the annual Children’s Miracle Network celebration in March.

“We had participants from Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York,” Van Tassell said. “It was a terrific cross-section of America.” Ironically, it was a local man, Paul Uribe, who nearly won the cup, shooting a 42-46 to tie Heinly, whose 39 in the first round was two strokes off the par-40 course record. Heinly, representing Sittler Golf in Allentown, scored a paltry 49 in the second round but prevailed in the playoff. Both golfers were cheered on by a gallery of about 100 people, who moved from green to green as the finals progressed and behaved just as a gallery at professional tournaments would, Van Tassell said. “We did everything you’d do at a major golf tournament, just scaled down,” he said.”

“What was neat was taking a leisure activity and really stepping it up a few levels in terms of the competitive dimension,” said Van Tassell who, along with CO-owner Larry Bryant, had experience organizing collegiate and professional baseball tournaments and so volunteered their course for the Harris Cup final. “It is a whole new avenue for course owners, and it has a huge marketing dimension.”

Disney said at the least participating courses gained notice in their local communities. “People recognize you when you do something like that.” She said no course lost money doing the tournament—golfers paid to play—and some parks profited by players practicing on their courses several days ahead of their local tournaments.

Harris plans to field the tournament again next year, choosing a finals site by the end of October so that courses can begin planning their qualifying rounds throughout next year. “We’re hoping it grows every year,” Disney said. “It takes a little while to catch on, but once it does. ..”

Once it does, miniature golf on the whole wins big.

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New York Aquarium brings wanted attention to itself trafficking in education outreach. Photo courtesy of the New York Aquarium.

Riding the tide
Gary Holliday can sometimes feel a little crabby when he arrives at his destination after driving through New York City traffic. And sometimes he just looks crabby, thanks to the hermit crab costume he wears. “It’s highly embarrassing,” he said of the clothes he wears visiting New York area schools, “but they seem to like it.”

Holliday is coordinator of outreach services at the New York Aquarium, and in that position he operates the Aquaravan program, a fleet of two Chrysler Voyagers that visit schools, libraries, hospitals and nursing homes. Armed with puppets, animal artifacts, art activities, stories to tell and costumes to wear, Holliday makes topical presentations about marine life, various species or conservation. Occasionally he takes along live animals, namely horseshoe crabs, sea urchins and sea stars, the species typically occupying aquarium touch pools. “People always want me to bring a sea lion, but I joke that we argue about who is going to drive,” Holliday said.

The New York Aquarium began offering Aquaravan five years ago. “The idea is that for people who may not get to the aquarium, we go to them,” Holliday said. The idea is not unique to the New York Aquarium; some aquariums have even abandoned the program, preferring to bus school groups and summer camps in to the parent facility. But when Holliday took over New York’s program two years ago, he expanded Aquaravan’s reach to hospitals, nursing homes and “a lot of rehabilitation centers,” he said. He also expanded Aquaravan’s geographic reach to New Jersey and “far out onto Long Island.”

Aquaravan visits cost $125 to $200 an hour, depending on the venue’s need and financial limitations. Charges may be added for mileage to more distant locations and parking (lower Manhattan costs $20 to park).

While reaching out further with his outreach mission, Holliday beefed up the program’s marketing efforts, putting together a mailing list and posting notices in libraries, newspapers and newsletters. Among Aquaravan’s visits now are various festivals, which Holliday sees as an advertising opportunity for the aquarium. “People are starting to call out of the blue,” he said. “They tell us they heard about it or read it in the paper or talked to somebody who experienced it.”

Thanks to these efforts Holliday is now driving his van through New York traffic almost every day of the week, sometimes making two visits a day. With the vans colorful murals of an octopus, seahorse and shark, Aquaravans have proven to be “great advertising on their own,” Holliday said. “I’ll stop at a stoplight and people come up asking for my card. Or they ask for directions. They think I know where I’m going.”

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Vows to cling onto
Las Vegas: the city of casinos, wedding chapels and immersive themed entertainment. Two out of three were doing pretty good for Star Trek: The Experience, the $70 million Paramount Parks attraction opened at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1998, a themed voyage into 24th century space travel that embarks at one end of a space-age casino.

The third element kicked in two years ago when Star Trek: The Experience decided to jump on the Vegas bandwagon and offered its Enterprise bridge for weddings. Prior to that, the attraction hosted weddings sporadically. Now, couples can choose from three packages: a Starfleet Wedding or Vow Renewal ($999), a Captain’s Wedding ($2,000) or an Admiral’s Wedding ($3,000). The rates are based on number of guests (though more guests can be added at a per-person charge), the number of photos shot and the number of Star Trek characters present.

“You can be married by a Star Fleet minister and have a costumed Ferengi at your wedding,” said Joe Reuter, The Experience’s director of sales and marketing. Thanks to word of mouth and national exposure via media coverage, the attraction staged 30 weddings last year and will host more than 200 this year.

Those figures don’t necessarily reflect the number of Trekkies entering matrimonial states. “It’s not just the dedicated fans who do it, but a lot of casual fans who want a memorable wedding or a memorable vow renewal,” Reuter said. “They’re not into Elvis, they’re into aliens, so they’re here, where you can have a Klingon for your witness.”

What you can’t have is a full-fledged Klingon wedding. “They are pretty brutal ceremonies,” Reuter said.

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Return visits
After five months publishing Splash magazine as part of its monthly newspaper (THE LOOP, May 24, 2002), Amusement Today Publisher Gary Slade this month backed out of the pending purchase of the waterpark-only title. Slade said the decision was “based on the difficulty in reaching a purchase agreement.” Amusement Today will continue publishing waterpark news in a devoted section as it did before taking Splash on in the spring. All rights to Splash magazine reverts to previous publisher Marilyn Turner. “I wish Marilyn the best in her continuing efforts in keeping the Splash name active,” Slade said. Amusement Today will offer refunds to anyone who subscribed to the newspaper based on getting Splash.

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LOOP Classifieds

FOR SALE—Classified ads in THE LOOP, just $20 per month (two issues) for up to 30 words, $1 per additional word. We accept cash, check, VISA and MasterCard. E-mail lynne@gettheloop.com.

New Arrivals

Heimlich chewed up the scenery on his run through Flik's Fun Fair. Photo by Eric Minton.

It’s a kiddie section!
Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim, California, announces the arrival of Flik’s Fun Fair, October 7, 2002. Measurements: 1.3 acres (1/2 hectare), five attractions and 75 clovers (one four-leaf). Delivered by Majestic Manufacturing, Walt Disney World Central Shops and Zamperla.

Monday was a big news day for the Walt Disney Company’s California properties. Given that, the 350 media members on hand for the opening of California Adventure’s fourth themed area and first devoted to children should not have been surprised by the surprise guest brought on stage at the start of Flik’s Fun Fair’s grand opening ceremony. Michael Eisner, CEO and president of the Walt Disney Company, showed up to formally introduce James A. Rasulo, the new chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Promoted from his position as chairman and chief executive of Euro Disney, Rasulo’s first public task as the new Parks boss was to kick off the celebration of the company’s bona fide return to its core competency: building an immersive themed environment for families based on a popular cartoon. “You’ll see that this is classic Disney theming,” he told the audience from a stage at the new area’s front entrance.

“I’m sure Walt would like to have seen what’s going on back there,” Eisner said, motioning to Flik’s Fun Fair behind him, “Just as Gene Autry would have loved what went on over there on Saturday” he continued pointing in the direction of Edison Field where the late Autry’s and current Disney’s Angels baseball team advanced past the New York Yankees into the American League Championship Series. “It was a great Saturday, and it’s a better Monday.”

For the hundreds of children in attendance, definitely so. Cynthia Harriss, president of the Disneyland Resort, and John Lasseter, director of A Bug’s Life on which Flik’s Fun Fair is based, emceed the proceedings that featured the voice talents of the film (who, for the sake of the gullible children, were introduced as friends, trainers or voice coaches of the various Bug’s Life characters). After Flik “sound-alike” Dave Foley led the crowd in an oath to respect bugs, the new area was pronounced open with a ballet dance of butterfly-costumed women and cannons shooting off confetti.

Then the crowd swarmed into Flik’s Fun Fair, its walkways resembling a California freeway gridlock of strollers. With 18-foot-tall (six-meter-tall) vinyl clovers providing shade on a hot, sunny day, the area truly offered a bug’s-eye view of the world, albeit laced with humor. Guests enter through an empty box of Cowboy Crunchies, the cereal from Bug’s Life’s Pixar Studio mate Toy Story 2. Lamp posts are fireflies perched on bent straws. Benches are Popsicle sticks, still stained from their frozen juices. Flik’s Flyers is a typical balloon ride, but themed as leaves carrying empty food boxes and accompanied by a soundtrack filled with creaks and snaps. Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train turns a miniature railroad into the caterpillar’s narrated jaunt through a land of giant food, from juicy watermelon to candy corn, complete with appropriate scents.

“We wanted the land to appeal to kids, but we also wanted parents to enjoy it,” said Kathy Mangum, executive producer of Flik’s Fun Fair and vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering. “We wanted adults to appreciate the style, the design, the theming, the sense of humor. The longer people are in there, the more they’ll get.”

“That’s the kind of layer and depth that our films have that even this land has,” Lasseter said of the new area. “You walk away from seeing it the first time knowing that you didn’t really see everything in there.”

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Albuquerque's mayor led the charge on New Mexico's first major roller coaster when it finally opened. Photo courtesy of William H. Robinson, Inc.

It’s a roller coaster!
Cliff’s Amusement Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, announces the arrival of The New Mexico Rattler, September 28, 2002. Measurements: 80 feet high (24 meters), 2,750 feet long (838 meters), one 24-passenger train. Conceived by Custom Coasters International and home birthed; train delivered by Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters.

Talk about a long, difficult labor. Even on the Friday afternoon before the day Gary and Linda Hays had targeted—for the fourth time this summer—to open their park’s new wood coaster, the birth wasn’t certain. The train had yet to make it through the whole coaster course, stalling on the final hill.
“We oiled the track, spun the wheels, put more weight in the front, held our breath and prayed, and it went over the hill,” Gary Hays said. “It’s been sweet ever since.”

Finally, three months after its originally scheduled opening date, the coaster caught up in the crash of CCI and completed by the park itself opened to the public on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The crowd was “decent,” Hays said. “We didn’t do a lot of advertising because it was touch-and-go.” Late that Friday, once certain the coaster was ready, the park invited the media and the mayor out for the inaugural ride at noon the next day. Joining Mayor Martin J. Chavez, the Hayses and corporate sponsors on the first train was the project foreman Dudley Hazelwood, the former CCI employee who stayed on at Cliff’s to see the coaster completed.

Also on hand was Joshua Romero, who provided the winning entry in a name the coaster contest. He didn’t get to ride because, just 4 years old, he didn’t meet the 48-inch height restriction, but his family took seats on the first train. The rest of the train was filled out with park guests selected through a drawing.

The media gave the new ride plenty of good coverage, with one television station garnering commentary from guests getting off the coaster. “We’ve heard nothing but praise,” Gary Hays said. Meanwhile, the local paper covered the coaster’s testing phase using a dummy filled train. Rattler is New Mexico’s first large-scale coaster, and as delayed as it was and without the hype an on-schedule construction could have provided, Cliff’s still benefited from the sense of event surrounding the opening.

Beyond the opening? Well, lacking a local coaster enthusiasts community, the Hayses relied on feedback from the engineers who built and tested the ride. “They thought it was one of the best coasters Custom built,” Hays said. Albuquerque could yet become a community of coaster enthusiasts thanks to Rattler. And for the Hayses, when it was all finally done and said, long and troubled though it may have been, Rattler’s has proven to be a labor of love.

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Head to headless competition
The gauntlet has been thrown down.

The Louisville Zoo in Kentucky had attracted the highest attendance for Halloween events among AZA-accredited zoos, peaking at 89,500 people in 2000. But last year, rainy weather dropped attendance at Louisville Zoo’s event to 78,900. Meanwhile, Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island, took on a jack o’ lantern festival and with help from unseasonably warm weather drew 80,000 in its first year.

“It’s great that a lot of people are going to zoos for Halloween fun; I think that’s a great sign,” said Lisa Bousquet, director of marketing and public relations at Roger Williams. Said Louisville Zoo’s Director of Marketing Maureen Horrigan: “We’re going to kick her butt this time.”

To be fair, Louisville is at a distinct disadvantage in this friendly competition. Roger Williams’ year-old event started last night and runs 22 nights through October 31. Louisville Zoo’s 21-year-old festival kicks off tonight and runs only 14 nights through October 30.

Backing down
What started as a series of scary scenes has gradually taken on more of a storybook theme at the Kroger’s World’s Largest Halloween Party in Louisville. “It’s an alternative for 3- to 6 year olds,” Horrigan said. “We tried to do a haunted house a couple of years ago, and they wouldn’t go through it.” Two of the events’ highlights have to do with horses.

One is the park’s antique carousel, which for the Halloween nights runs backwards under black lights. “We wanted to Halloweenize it, but there’s not so much we could do with a carousel,” Horrigan said. Two years ago the zoo tried the backward route, and while it didn’t invite much ridership, adding black lights last year did. “It really attracts your attention as you’re walking on the trick-or-treat route,” Horrigan said. The carousel’s band organ music is replaced by such Halloween hits as “Monster Mash” and the Wizard of Oz theme. Despite its backward run, the carousel has not caused undue discomfort to young ones’ stomachs, Horrigan said. “Which is amazing when you consider they are eating their way through the park.”

The zoo’s other singular offering is the headless horseman. The zoo hires three riders and three horses for the month, and they take turns galloping out of the woods at night to run alongside the train for a stretch before disappearing back into the woods. Being at a zoo, the horses are required to go through a 30-day quarantine before they are stabled on property; however, their nightly train chases do not disturb the other animals, who already are off exhibit for the night. “The horses are the one animal we guarantee you’re going to see,” Horrigan said. “During Halloween that’s our exotic collection.”

While Roger Williams' got a head start with its pumpkins, Louisville Zoo was horsing around for Halloween. Photos courtesy of Louisville Zoo, Robert Kemnitz (above) and Roger Williams Park Zoo (below).

That’s a fact, Jack
Roger Williams galloped ahead in the contest for attendance thanks to a few heads: 5,000 to be exact. That’s the number of carved pumpkins on display on a three-acre woodland trail in the Jack O’ Lantern Spectacular.

Created by U.S. postal worker John Reckner of Oxford, Massachusetts, the display had been an annual tradition in his hometown for 14 years. In 2000, with attendance outgrowing Oxford’s town square, the exhibit moved to Salem, Massachusetts, “which is pretty much Halloween Central,” Bousquet noted. But Reckner was having trouble grappling with the logistics involved in staging such a display for 20,000 visitors, and when a Rhode Island tourism official saw the display and heard Reckner’s concern, he offered a home at the zoo in Providence.

“It’s really a perfect marriage,” Bousquet said. “Not only was the site wonderful, but it was an opportunity for them to partner with an organization that could provide the service they needed, that could handle admissions and security and marketing and promotion, all the things he and his family were having trouble keeping up with. They are fantastic artists and carvers.”

And hardworking. Pumpkins tend to go bad in a matter of days, so the Reckner family does replacement carvings throughout the event, going through a total of 250,000 pounds of pumpkin. Outdated spheroids become compost or enrichment toys for the zoo’s collection of animals. The jack o’ lanterns and some 300 intricately carved pumpkins are set in 26 scenes based on themes such as Middle Earth, baseball, dogs, Egypt and Western America.

Pulling in 80,000 guests in 21 nights, the Jack O’ Lantern Spectacular netted $200,000 for the zoo in its first year, Bousquet said. “Nobody had no way of knowing how successful this could be. We were just thrilled, thrilled with the response.” So inexperienced were the organizers that they grappled with queue issues as lines to get in the exhibit lengthened to an hour long on many nights. This year the zoo is putting up a large screen to show animal footage and zoo trivia contests for queued guests and will offer them karaoke, too, while costumed actors roam through the crowd.

Despite the long lines, the zoo benefited last year from instantaneous word-of-mouth thanks to the exhibit’s exit being located next to its entrance, Bousquet said. “People exiting would tell people waiting without prompting, ‘It’s worth the wait. Stay in line.’”

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Universal Orlando will wish their guests a ghoul night. Photo courtesy of Universal Orlando.

Haunt break hotel
This is the time of year when parks and organizations set out to intentionally scare their patrons, but Universal Orlando in Florida is going to such great lengths to frighten guests it’s, well, really frightening.

Thanks to the growing popularity of its 12-year-old annual Halloween Horror Nights—which this year moved from Universal Studios to Islands of Adventure—Universal Orlando has added a new dimension this year: a haunted room in the resort’s Hard Rock Hotel. The Scream Team that put together the experience wants guests to have a nightmarish experience, from the costumed ghoul who provides tuck-in service to the $585 plus tax and incidentals bill the next morning.

That price includes the room for two people plus two passes to Halloween Horror Nights. Any other amenities? “Terror,” said Universal Orlando’s Director of Public Relations Tom Schroder. There was no hint of humor in his voice. “It’s very interactive, very immersive, very terrifying,” he described the night in the room.

The Hard Rock Hotel has turned one of its two-room “kid’s suites” into the special room, repainted for the occasion and containing cobwebs, skeletons and a real coffin. But the room offers more than mere ghoulish decoration and that real ghoul tuck-in. “The moment happens in the early morning when guests will feel as if someone or something has entered the room with them and has done terrifying things in the room, and they will be the next victim,” Schroder said. “To go into more detail would be to ruin the experience for people who want it.”

Made available with the opening night of Horror Nights October 4, so far the park has received “a lot of phone calls” but only one couple who has booked the room: a couple who asked to be married this Sunday as part of Horror Nights and will spend their honeymoon in the room. Though placed in one of the kids’ suite, the room is recommended for adults. “It’s too intense of an experience for children,” Schroder said.

Though it may truly be a living nightmare for those who choose to stay there, Schroder said the designers kept safety in mind as they designed and built the room. “But you’d be surprised the amount of terror you can bring to someone’s heart while keeping them perfectly safe.”

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An eye for an eye
In the April 2002 IAAPA Exhibitor bulletin, Chairman of the Board, Alain Baldacci stated "The utilization of all resources at hand becomes a valuable tool in our ever-competitive market". Mr. Baldacci was addressing the global challenges and their effect on our industry.

Quoting from Chairman Baldacci out of context is not my intent. But I would love to steal his words for use in the context of internet advertising. I couldn’t have said it better; let’s look at his statement again. "The utilization of all resources at hand becomes a valuable tool in our ever-competitive market."

As we begin our 2002 IAAPA Advertising Campaign, we want to challenge you to utilize all of the resources available to you. Open your minds to new and innovative ways you can get your company logo, company profile, company web site and company message out to the most people in the most places. We’re talking about getting your message out to 16,000 pairs of American, Asian, European, African, and Middle Eastern eyes.

16,000? 16,482 to be exact, the number of visits THE LOOP received during our three 2001 IAAPA show issues. When we posted the November 30, 2001 issue we were the first amusement industry trade journal to report on last year's IAAPA Trade Show. Now this year we are offering you a chance to get your message before those same eager eyes.

For $300 we offer you 3 full size ads on THE LOOP newsletter to be inserted in three issues: November 8 (pre-Show), November 26 (post-Show) and December 13 (end-of-year issue). As we said, last year those three issues combined were read by a total of 16,482 readers; so far this year our readership is up by almost 49 percent over last year's.

Included with this promotion will be your company logo on the Exhibitors Lists and your company logo and profile on our Connections Page for a full 12 months. All ads and logos will link to your company web site.

We’re new and innovative, we’re an available AND affordable resource, and we challenge you to utilize US.
Best Wishes for a successful 2002 IAAPA Show,

Lynne Mosman

To accept the challenge or to get more information, contact
Lynne Mosman, Advertising Manager, THE LOOP
lynne@gettheloop.com
866-902-LOOP

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