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

Trade show news: IALEI broadens its appeal at Fun Expo, AZA members embark on a homegrown conservation initiative, IAAPA basks in Cedar Point's Summer, and Sally Brown gets a new sweet baboo;

Coaster tradeout has Six Flags Great America's PR team spinning;

GM union lends free labor to the Oklahoma City Zoo;

Nellie Bly founder is remembered with a new street name;

Magic Springs goes deep with its end-of-season discount;

We welcome Heracles to Waterworld Waterpark; and,

We pay homage to a great host and offer classified information.

For back issues of THE LOOP,
click here

For a printable version of this column,
click here

For more information on the facilities and organizations featured in this newsletter, visit our Connections Page.
Click here

Whizzer's fate sent Six Flags staff through several twists and turns. Photo by Eric Minton.

Gee, Whiz
This week’s news that Six Flags Great America is taking down the Shockwave to make room for a new attraction in 2003 (see Extra! Extra!) concluded a figurative coaster ride for the Gurnee, Illinois, park’s public relations crew in which prompt forthrightness may have saved the park from negative PR backlash.

The landlocked Six Flags needed to remove something before it could build any new significant ride. Speculation long centered on Shockwave and Whizzer, and on August 6 the park announced that the latter would be vacated. The Anton Schwarzkopf coaster, with the bobsled type trains circling through a seven-story spiral lift and speeding around a track of 70-degree banked turns, opened with the park in May 1976. Originally named Willard’s Whizzer after Willard Mariott, the park’s original owner, the ride introduced many Chicago-area children to coasters.

At the time of the announcement, the park had planned a farewell party for the coaster that upcoming weekend and had mounted a publicity campaign to that effect. “Saying we were taking it out was supposed to be a publicity bonanza; that was our goal,” said Susie Storey, the park’s public relations manager. “We wanted to get as much coverage as we could because it was a favorite ride here and we wanted people to know they had a last chance to come and ride it. What we did not anticipate was the public going the next step, responding, ‘Don’t take it out.’”

That response manifested in children writing letters to the park, and parents calling Six Flags’ corporate office begging them to keep the ride. Corporate acquiesced, leaving the park’s PR team scrambling to notify the press that the decision to remove Whizzer had been reversed. “We announced (the ride’s closing) that Monday,” recalled Storey, who joined the park’s team in the spring. “The story ran on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times—it was my first-ever front page story—and people started calling. Late Wednesday night we were making phone calls (to the press) saying ‘It’s staying, it’s staying.’”

Some reporters questioned whether the sequence of events was nothing more than a ruse, a publicity stunt. “I think that was a legitimate question,” Storey said. “We said, ‘We are responding to our community and to the people of the Midwest,’ and we had letters from kids to back it up.”

The key, she said, was notifying the press of the change as soon as she got the word. If the park had celebrated Whizzer’s “final weekend” knowing it really wasn’t, and then announced it was staying on Monday, she feels the media would likely have dismissed it as a stunt. Instead, that weekend brought the park a flurry of good-news stories as the media portrayed the reversal in heroic terms, a David-and-Goliath fable. “The public spoke up and the big park listened,” Storey said.

That, it turns out, gave Six Flags Great America long-term public relations equity. “We just got a letter from one father who wrote in and said, ‘You made my daughter happy by keeping it,’” Storey said.

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

GM plant worker Richard Bradford took care of Oklahoma City Zoo's plants this summer. Photo courtesy of the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Assembling workers
When it comes to staffing, zoos usually tap two sources: paid professionals and unpaid volunteers. The Oklahoma City Zoo in Oklahoma has found a third source: paid-for professionals at no cost.

This summer the zoo took advantage of the Jobs Opportunity Bank Security (JOBS) program, a joint effort by the United Auto Workers Local 1999 union and General Motors to keep GM factory workers from temporarily losing their paychecks. “It’s a safety net that catches those people who would be laid off,” said Don Berryman, UAW Local 1999 JOBS coordinator. Indicative of the partnership that created the program in 1984, Berryman has a counterpart, Craig Guy, who serves as the GM JOBS coordinator.

When a plant needs to cut back on its work force because of a slowdown in orders or a retooling of the assembly line, instead of laying off workers GM assigns them to jobs at local community service organizations. GM continues paying the workers’ salaries and maintains their benefits and seniority status. The community organization gets free and dedicated labor until the GM employees are recalled.

The GM plant in Oklahoma City this spring sent 169 employees to 29 different agencies. The Oklahoma City Zoo started out in May with 33 and by September were down to 19 as the plant started recalling its workers. “They are just a delight to work with, cooperative and happy and kind and very positive people,” said Donna Mobbs, executive assistant to the zoo director and manager of the program for the zoo. “You want happy people working here, and they are.”

They also come with valuable skills. Many were assigned according to their talents and interests. A couple with graphic arts experience were assigned to the zoo’s graphics department, and some of the mechanics worked in maintenance. Others said they wanted to learn new skills, and some of those went to the horticulture department or helped the animal keepers. “Some didn’t care, they just said, ‘Put me anywhere,’” Mobbs said, and the zoo was able to supplement its car park, front gate and children’s zoo staffs. “About everything you can think of, they do,” Mobbs said. “We had them building fences, we had them in birds, we had them cleaning barns and feeding antelope.”

Through August the GM workers had logged 15,544 hours of work. “They’ve helped us accomplish so many things much more quickly than we could have without them,” Mobbs said. “We don’t have to pay a cent.” The only requirements placed on the receiving organization is that the GM employees work 40 hours a week, eight hours a day and get their contractual breaks and lunches.

As GM’s fortunes rise, however, the zoo’s access to the workers drop;. “I hate it when (GM) calls; I say, ‘No, you cannot have them,’” Mobbs said. “Then I call the GM employees, and they are always ‘No, we don’t want to go back.’ They work on the assembly line, and here they are out and about and get to do what I think is cool stuff.”

“You’re outside, not inside doing the same thing every 45 seconds to a vehicle,” said Barryman, who agreed that many of the workers were loath to give up their zoo jobs. "You get spoiled, like a kid." So did the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

Gena Romano, left, and her mother, Antoinette Delogu Romano, took the high road with the late Eugene. Photo courtesy of Nellie Bly Park.

Memory lane
Gena Romano gestured to the weather: sunny, light breeze and T-shirt temperature, perfect weather to be hanging out on a street corner in Brooklyn, New York. “If you don’t think my father’s still around, look at this day,” the owner of nearby Nellie Bly Park told a crowd of about 100 people.

On this day, September 17, this was no ordinary street corner. This was the newly named corner of Eugene R. Romano Lane, formerly Bay 41st Street from the Shore Parkway to Gravesend Bay, a two-block passage past the two-acre family park the elder Romano founded 38 years ago.

Shortly after Mr. Romano died in October 1999, Community Board 11 District Manager Howard Feuer began a campaign to get the street named in honor of his late best friend. “Gene was an icon in the community, loved by all,” Feuer said. “He was generous and truly cared about children.” The City Council approved the legislation authorizing the name change and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani signed it last year.

Borough President Marty Markowitz also spoke at last week’s unveiling ceremony attended by city politicians and various community leaders. “It was like old home week,” Gena said. “I was a little worried about getting through the ceremony, but I wound up enjoying it because all these people were there that we’d known through the years.”

Though Nellie Bly has become something of a Brooklyn institution, Eugene Romano was honored for spreading the park’s core value—giving joy to families—throughout the borough by participating in community events and organizations. “He didn’t get the honor by starting a business,” his daughter said. “Lots of people start businesses, but he gave so much in time and spirit. He really enjoyed being a Brooklynite.”

This is the industry’s second newly named road of the year. In the spring, Indiana renamed a portion of State Highway 162 the "W.A. Koch Memorial Highway" after the founder of Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari in Santa Claus. “It very well could be a trend because a lot of those original entrepreneur at that time created businesses that added so much to their communities,” Gena Romano said. “The ones that last are the people and families who do the right thing.”

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

A Spring fling
End-of-the-season discounting is common enough in the retail industry; does any reason exist that the same can’t be true in the amusement industry? Magic Springs & Crystal Falls is about to find out.

For its final day of the season tomorrow, the Hot Springs, Arkansas, amusement park will charge $10 admission. Do the math: that’s 65 percent off the regular adult ticket ($28.96, which, with tax, comes to $30), and 30 percent off the regular under-52-inches and senior citizens admission ($14.37). Additionally, the park is offering 40 percent off all its merchandise.

“Every year we do something special the last couple of weekends, and decided to do this a couple of weeks ago,” said the park’s general manager, Vicki Berni. “It’s a last hurrah.”

She admits charging full admission would not be fair because the waterpark will be closed (it ended its season Labor Day). However, even on the hottest of days Crystal Falls does not make up more than half the value of Magic Springs. Rather, the discounted price she believes will entice people who could not afford a family outing to the park earlier in the year. “This gives folks who did not have the opportunity before to come out and see the value we have to offer.” And that, she hopes, will be remembered when season ticket sales for the 2003 season begin in a couple of months.

The park’s intentions are far from mercenary, though. Magic Springs could just as easily raise prices in an attempt to gouge out a little more end-of-season revenue for the bottom line. The park, has a longer range view, though. “This is sort of a Hot Springs Appreciation Day,” Berni said, noting that the region’s tourism season has waned. “It’s a good neighbor thing.”

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

New Arrivals

George Karas and Suzanne Melas awarded the brave initiates who were the first to take on Heracles at Waterworld Waterpark. Photo courtesy of Waterworld Waterpark.

It’s a water slide!
Waterworld Waterpark in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, announces the arrival of The Quest of Heracles, August 16, 2002. Measurements: 19 meters tall (63 feet), two 73-meter (240 foot) slides. Delivered by Ashtec, Bridgestone, Capers Hill, George Karas and Associates and Whitewater West.

Waterworld has gotten into the habit, for one reason or another, of opening its new attractions well into the season in August, right as Cyprus resort town’s tourist season peaks. Conventional wisdom asserts new attractions should help launch a season, a tenet the waterpark’s Director Suzanne Melas had adhered to. But her experiences the past couple of years has turned that tenet on its head.

Last year, for example, the August opening of The Fall of Icarus (THE LOOP, August 24, 2001) created a buzz for the waterpark when Ayia Napa was at its busiest, and enticed local residents to make return visits to the park in September. “I’d rather not do it (late), but then it’s always exciting when it opens and it's a success, and it’s just at the right time because it shortens our queues at the other rides,” she said. “And it brings the Cypriots back.”

That last factor is even more vital this year as Cyprus on the whole suffered through a 30 percent drop in tourism. While Waterworld has been down a little each month, the park maintained its annual attendance in the peak months of July and August thanks to some 30 different marketing campaigns and partnerships.

“Figures show we would have been down 30 or 40 percent without the extra coupons,” Melas said. A campaign through McDonalds proved most valuable as the fast food restaurant handed out 20 percent discounts for admission to Waterworld, and the waterpark reciprocated by giving those coupon bearers additional coupons for McDonalds.

Heracles gives the park a formidable hero in its attendance sustenance campaign. Another prototype slide by Whitewater West that Waterworld dressed up in detailed theming—an ancient Greek pharos with two snakes (the enclosed body slides) curling around the tower—The Quest Of Heracles raced to the top of the park’s thrill offerings. The seven-second passage from top to the snake's fanged mouth makes Heracles a faster ride than even the park’s Freefall Plus.

This became obvious when the ride opened just after noon on that Friday on the eve of Waterworld’s busiest week. The park announced Heracles’ imminent opening over loudspeakers and on the Melas-owned radio station, and with a long queue waiting to inaugurate the ride, Melas and the park’s managers along with the ride’s installation team lined up to watch the first 20 children take the plunge. These kids received souvenir caps, and Melas received encouraging reviews about how fast and frightening the ride was, reviews that received confirmation in subsequent days by the long—but constantly moving—queue at Heracles.

Melas had to rely on the reports of these guests and her lifeguard crew—who also rated Heracles the park’s scariest and, therefore, best ride—because she herself has never been on it. Normally she rides a slide before declaring it ready to open, but when she got to the top of Heracles’ tower, she said, “I chickened out. It’s too scary for me.” She said she would wait until Whitewater West officials visited before she would venture into one of those snakes. “I choose the rides for my market, not for myself,” she said.

Once again, it seems, she chose right.

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

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.

Trade Show Reports

Eyeing Exponential growth
The amusement industry as a whole may be struggling through tough economic times, but the International Association for the Leisure and Entertainment Industry had reasons to be hopeful.

More precisely, the IALEI had figures to boost its hopes. Going into the organization’s Fun Expo trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, last week, IALEI had a membership roster closing in on 850. Of those, 250 were new members who joined the organization over the past year, a 50 percent increase. Among the new members was the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, the association’s first zoo. Meanwhile, the 1 1/2-day “Rookies & Newcomers” workshop at the Fun Expo Academy drew a record high 67 people, of which only two were already operating family entertainment centers.

“Because of the economy, people are losing jobs at the high end of management and are looking for something to get into,” said Jack Cohen, IALEI’s new president and owner and president of Safari Sam’s family entertainment center in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania.

The family fun park sector had seen a similar influx of new development in the 1980s when many doctors, military officers and other skilled professionals opened FEC’s as a post-retirement business. Within just a few years that boom turned to bust as the demands of operating entertainment centers overwhelmed the inexperienced owners.

IALEI’s academy is intended to stave off such another occurrence.
“One of our responsibilities to our membership is to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Cohen said. Randy White, CEO of White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group and the moderator for the “Rookies & Newcomers” session described his mission as “preventing road kill” in the industry.

“I had a guy come up to me and say, ‘You scared the hell out of me,’” said Ken Vondriska, IALEI first vice president and chief operating officer of International Theme Park Services, inc. “I said, ‘Good, I hope I scare the hell out of everybody.'”

New operators can see plenty to frighten them off. Located in the metropolitan Pittsburgh area, Cohen’s venue has suffered the effects of two of the city’s major employers heading for bankruptcy. Sales increased in only one month since last September. That upturn month was August, which gives Cohen cause to hope the rise might continue.

Fun Expo further provided him a rejuvenating tonic in the camaraderie of colleagues and the sharing of business ideas, he said. “I can’t look on (the economy) as an excuse. If I wait for the economy to turn around I might as well close the door and go home. We have to find ways to bring people back so we can entertain their families. I come to these seminars to talk to successful people and see what they do.”

Even if entertainment centers, like amusement parks, have had a soft year, other sectors of the small park industry are prospering. IALEI already represents miniature golf operators, go kart tracks, bowling alleys, paintball operations and sports centers. Now the association’s leadership is gearing up for a membership drive targeted at other small-scale entertainment venues, such as zoos, aquariums, museums, extreme sports attractions like skateboard parks and BMX tracks. The association also wants to recruit small parks with annual attendance of up to 400,000.

The key word, Vondriska said, is “small operators,” and he points to the Cincinnati Zoo, where he was appointed director of ride operations last month, as an example. “Zoos have rides and operations, sleepovers, food service and retail, and many are getting into birthday parties. They are essentially FEC’s with animals: the real, four-legged kind.”

For a list of IALEI Golden Token winners, click here.

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

Continental cohesion
With 208 accredited member associations, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s constituency covers the spectrum in size, age, focus, endowment and even mission. Indeed, most have only one thing in common: “American.”

With that in mind, Tony Vecchio, director of the Oregon Zoo in Portland, and Margo McKnight, executive director of the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida, are championing a conservation campaign that could be embraced by all AZA member organizations because it would focus strictly on North America. “If we could get everybody to wrap their arms around a North America project, we could be huge in North America,” McKnight said.

With just this idea the duo made a huge impact of their own at the AZA’s annual meeting in Fort Worth this month (THE LOOP August 23 and September 13). Their session “Can 135 million people really make a difference? A conservation vision for zoos!” drew about 275 people, stellar numbers for a seminar that took place on the conference’s last day after all of the major events had concluded and many of the 1,700 attendees had repaired for home. A 90-minute after-session workshop spilled over into a larger meeting room with a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100.

Vecchio, who moderated the session, argued that zoos and aquariums need to change the focus of their conservation messages. “One, we need to be more concerned with getting (people) thinking more with their hearts and more caring about conservation and less concerned about dumping tons of factual information on them. Two, we have to be able to identify with the message, which means local issues will be more important. Three, it’s time for us to be more positive in our vision, less reactionary; less trying to solve environmental problems and more proactive in creating a vision about what we want the world to look like.”

The session presented The Wildlands Project and Megatransect North America, the former a group of conservation biologists providing ecological design expertise to grassroots groups trying to rebuild America’s wilderness. The organization can provide the kind of alliance that would help AZA members focus on specific needs in their areas.

“Personally I’m coming to the conclusion that people can’t identify with these faraway places we are always talking about,” Vecchio said. “Here at the Oregon Zoo we’re adding more local focus and still doing the faraway stuff, and people seem more excited about turtle reintroductions here in Oregon than penguins in South America.”

That said, Vecchio and McKnight are not advocating a fundamental shift in current conservation efforts in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. Those programs should continue with support from AZA institutions already involved in those efforts. Meanwhile, a North America focus would provide a glue that all member institutions, regardless of size and type, can stick to. “Even if you’re a zoo without a lot of money, you can be part of the education about saving local habitats,” McKnight said. Wildlands currently does not address marine systems, the initiative would find such an angle to include aquariums, Vecchio said.

One thing that is a bit revolutionary in Vecchio's and McKnight's vision is their method of formulating the campaign. Their back-to-back sessions were intended to present the grand scheme to the general membership, then hear feedback and ideas from anyone interested in jumping aboard. “It’s better to listen to members’ ideas first and use those ideas to create a vision,” Vecchio said. “I think we’ve all experienced too much of other people coming up with ideas and trying to sell us on them. It’s a hard sell. It’s going to be the animal people and educators and marketers and public relations specialists who will make this work. We wanted to hear from them to see if it’s possible, and if it is possible, how will it work.”

That dialogue continues. Based on the inputs, a steering committee will be formed and a listserve created to continue developing a formal, nationwide, AZA-all-inclusive conservation campaign. For more information on The Wildlands Project, visit www.wildlandsproject.org. To get involved in developing the campaign, e-mail McKnight, margo@brevardzoo.org.

For a complete list of AZA's annual award winners and newly accredited institutions, click here.

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

Two times the charm
The gift card was both a welcome and an accurate forecast. “We’ve only begun to have fun!” said the note placed in the rooms of those IAAPA members attending the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions annual Summer Meeting at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. The card accompanied a Cedar Point stadium blanket and a comfy bathrobe, bearing the legend “IAAPA Summer Meeting 2001.”

Yes, 2001.

Cedar Point, delayed by the terrorist attacks of last September 11, finally hosted the IAAPA Summer Meeting this month. That postponement, and the reason for it, were evident in more ways than the leftover bathrobe. Whereas 350 had registered to attend the 2001 conclave, about 260 showed up for this year’s. Talk among the attendees inevitably included references to the world-change of 9/11 or its economic/political fallout and the impact that has had on the amusement industry.

Still, Summer Meetings are all about fun and fellowship, and this year’s version was no different. The host park pampered the attendees almost to excess. Every evening, guests returned to their rooms at the park’s Hotel Breakers to find a new gift and card: a bottle of specially labeled local wine “now that you’ve had a taste of North coast island life and rocked and rolled in the great city of Cleveland;” a photo from the closing banquet and dance as a keepsake of their "picture perfect time;" a box of park-made fudge because “we hope the remainder of your evening is sweet.”

That fudge had a back story. Cedar Point similarly had prepared boxes of fudge for last year’s Meeting and distributed as many boxes as carryable to the few who had arrived before the skyways closed. The remaining 125 boxes the park gave to the hotel’s first 125 public guests who registered at Breakers after the attack.

Such customer service initiatives, so obvious in the day-to-day experiences of the Summer Meeting attendees, invited praise from the industry professionals who descended on Cedar Point from around the world. “We’ve been so pleased and delighted and quite humbled by the response we got from fellow industry colleagues, not only about the Summer Meeting but about Cedar Point and, specifically, our staff,” said Janice Witherow, Cedar Point’s public relations manager.

That points to one of the more peculiar differences between what didn’t happen in 2001 and what happened in 2002. Last year, given the choice between a local winery tour and a behind-the-scenes look at Cedar Point’s operation, 220 people signed up for the wineries and only 40 chose the backstage look. This year, just 30 people visited the wineries while 120 took the Cedar Point insider’s tour.

Noting that Cedar Point this year has seen an increase in attendance and revenue, the most valuable gift the park gave its industry fellows during the Summer Meeting was itself.

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to to

Sally Brown (right, with brother Charlie and friend Lucy) may have a big head, but she granted a dance to a fan. Photo courtesy of Cedar Point.

Swinging with Sally
The first dance at IAAPA Summer Meeting’s grand finale—the Sentimental Journey Dinner and Big Band Party in Cedar Point’s 96-year-old Coliseum Ballroom—belonged to the Peanuts characters. The park’s mascots were gussied up in formal wear for the evening, and with the introduction of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the characters moved onto the floor, paired up and began dancing.

Suddenly, Jeff Pike of Great Coasters International appeared on the floor. He tapped Charlie Brown on the shoulder, asked if he could cut in and, with Charlie Brown’s gracious acquiescence, finished the song dancing with Sally. “She was always the cutest Peanut,” Pike gushed afterward.

Pike has a history of finding romance on the dance floor. Four years ago he met a woman named Andrea in San Francisco. “She was into swing dancing,” Pike said. As they dated, his own appreciation for ballroom moves deepened along with his appreciation for Andrea, culminating in a romantic proposal at the Skee Ball alleys of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and their wedding last year.

Now something of a swing dance aficionado, Pike found Sally Brown an adept dancer, but she had one quality that was just a little too hard to get around. “Her head was too big,” he said. “I was spinning her and I couldn’t get my arm over her head.”

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

Taking AIM at future shows
While the trade show season has made a promising start—both the AZA Annual Meeting and Fun Expo yielded better-than-expected attendance—three important industry conclaves are still approaching this winter.

First is the annual IAAPA Convention and Trade Show in Orlando, Florida, November 18-23. For more information, visit www.iaapaorlando.com.

The European Association of the Amusement Supplier Industry has scheduled its third annual Euro Amusement Show for Genoa, Italy, January 29-31. Some 65 manufacturers have signed up to exhibit at that show. For more information, visit www.EuroAmusementShow.com.

Also in January, the Amusement Industry Manufacturers and Suppliers (AIMS) International will conduct its safety seminar and manufacturer classes. Scheduled for January 12-16 at the Renaissance Worldgate Hotel in Orlando, Florida, these classes represent some of the industry’s best professional education opportunities for operators and technicians of amusement venues ranging from waterparks to family entertainment centers, with topics as diverse as loss prevention measures, water quality standards and dynamic ride forces. For a full list of scheduled classes, click here.

Registration for classes begin in October. For more information on the AIMS International seminar, visit www.aimsintl.org, or call 1-772-398-6701.

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top

Eric's Turn

Photo courtesy of Cedar Point.

A host of good times
Angela Wright, owner and general manager of Crealy Adventure Park in Devon, England, was so eager to meet Dick Kinzel. This was on Saturday, September 14, day four of the IAAPA Summer Meeting at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. She asked me to introduce her, which I happily did.

But it struck me a bit odd: she had yet to meet the Kinzels? Dick and Judy (above) seemed to be everywhere we were that week, welcoming the guests to the various receptions, greeting people getting on and off the boat to Put In Bay, greeting people getting off and on the buses at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As titular hosts, they were Emily Post-perfect. However, as someone pointed out to me, even while playing host the Kinzels maintained a low-key presence, blending in with us rabble. They never once brought the spotlight on themselves until IAAPA Chairman Alain Baldacci persisted in bringing Dick on stage at the closing banquet to accept a thank-you gift from the association.

For me, the IAAPA Summer Meeting was the centerpiece of a two-week continuous trip that started from my new home in Tucson and took me to the AZA Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, then to Cedar Point, then to Fun Expo in Las Vegas and finally to Charlotte, North Carolina, for my brother’s wedding (the happy couple are currently honeymooning at Orlando theme parks). So discombobulating was the journey that when I checked in at Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport for my flight to Ohio, the Delta representative behind the counter called her colleagues over to look at my itinerary. I was glad to be the cause of good-natured laughter that day, which happened to be September 11.

Though physically tiring, the trip rejuvenated my spirits and rekindled at a most timely moment my love for the amusement industry: or, more accurately, my love for the people who make up this industry. The fellowship at the AZA conference was so fun it pained me to tear away at midweek. The enthusiasm at Fun Expo was contagious. Attendance at both was higher than expected, offering hope that our economic doldrums may have bottomed out and we’re on the rise again.

The highlight of my twice-transcontinental journey was the Summer Meeting. There, the industry and all its fractious factions were fused together in feelings of mutual respect, at least, if not in a common goal. There were no haves and have nots, no reserved tables, no VIPs. All around us was Cedar Point and its stellar staff. And in the middle were Dick and Judy Kinzel, generous of their time and resources, gracious as gracious can be.

To them and all the industry fellows I encountered through those two weeks, thank you for the smile I’m still wearing.

Classified material
As a business-to-business news organization with global reach, THE LOOP has always been a forum for connection among amusement industry professionals and shared ideas. Such a forum is a natural venue for classified advertisements whereby readers for a low fee can advertise products or jobs (or themselves for jobs).

OK, it may be a natural fit, but we didn’t think of it. A handful of readers have approached us the past couple of months asking for the opportunity to run classified ads, and we are now ready to do just that. Beginning with the next issue of THE LOOP (posting October 11), we will offer classified ads on the newsletter itself. You can use it to seek jobs, find job candidates, sell used equipment or post announcements. The rate for a two-issue (one-month) run is $20 for a 30-word ad ($1 for each additional word). To the left is an example of how the new classified ad section will look.

If you would like more information, click on the advertising button near the top of this newsletter or contact our ad manager, Lynne Mosman, lynne@gettheloop.com, 866-902-LOOP (outside North America, dial 1-937-294-3406).

Print this article

Comment on this article

Back to top