Volume 3, No. 17. September 12,2003
Sunken
treasures
On Labor Day in
the United States, it’s hard sometimes to get people to play at your amusement
or water park. For Raging Waters in San Jose, California, the competition comes
not only from free concerts, family picnics, wine festivals, and the beach,
it comes from a huge, free annual arts festival downtown. “You’re
competing not just with people who are similar to you, you’re competing
with the entire area,” said Jaime Friday, Raging Waters’ promotions
manager.
So, Raging Waters counters with cash. “We wanted to offer something real
exciting for Labor Day,” Friday said. “What’s more exciting than
winning money?” The park gave out various door prizes, such as gift certificates
to local restaurants and retailers, autographed professional football memorabilia
and, this year, Southwest Airlines tickets. Every person under 18 years old
received a free ticket to a Stanford University football game. Twelve of the
raffle tickets distributed at the front gate were “instant winners”
that selected the contestants for the day’s centerpiece event, the Splash
for Cash.
The waterpark closes its wave pool for a half hour and staff distributes 3,000
dollar coins in the shallow end. This year the dollar coins were supplemented
with specially marked coins: 10 worth $20 apiece, six worth $50 and five worth
$100. In the three years Raging Waters has been staging the event, this was
the first time it used the higher-value coins.
It made for a more interesting competition among the 12 contestants. The splashing
sprints into the water are still standard, but instead of flailing away to scoop
up as many coins as possible in the allotted three minutes of time, one woman
specifically looked for the $100 coins. She found four en route to a total take
of $670. The man who took home the most money, $713, just grabbed as many coins
as he could and happened to grab the other $100. The lowest tally was $121.
This year's Splash for Cash was the biggest-drawing so far, Friday said. Given
the competition for attention outside the park that day, Friday considers the
competition for cash inside the waterpark the only thing that could bring in
near-capacity numbers on Labor Day Monday. “You give away money, people
come.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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