Volume 3, No. 17. September 12,2003
Feeding
time at the zoo
The idea that Bernard
Harrison, longtime zoologist, presented to Sentosa CEO Darrell Metzger was intriguing.
“We really liked the idea,” Metzger said of RIMBA Sentosa, a combination
restaurant and boutique zoo on the Singapore resort island. “I said, ‘Let’s
take a look and see how this works. Where is it being done?’ He said, ‘There
is nowhere you can go. I wouldn’t bring this to you if I had done it somewhere
else.’”
In a way, Harrison, CEO of RIMBA International, has done it before. While serving
as CEO of Singapore Zoological Gardens, Harrison had come up with a Breakfast
at the Zoo in 1981, setting up tables in front of the lion exhibit. “That
was a roaring success,” he said, pun probably intended. “We were getting
up to 500 or 600 people for breakfast.” prompted by that success he started
doing other dining with animal experiences, including turning one of the trams
of his popular Night Safari into an Orient Express-type train with dining cars
for 36 guests and a chef on board.
“We found that animals and eating is a very popular and very stimulating
experience,” Harrison said. Having left the zoo to run his own consulting
firm, Bernard Harrison & Friends, Harrison was looking to attempt a more
permanent application of the concept. His former food and beverage director
at the zoo, Frank Yeun, was now working as Sentosa’s food and beverage
director. “Frank was there, he was comfortable, Darrell was comfortable
with Frank.” Through such mutual trust, the concept of a restaurant seating
1,000 people, serving three meals and housing 500 wild animals evolved. “When
you start talking about it like that, it puts it in a league all its own,”
Harrison said. “The closest anybody has done is in aquariums.”
He’s calling it a boutique zoo. The 10-acre (4-hectare) facility will feature
20 to 25 species, a mixture of diurnal and nocturnal animals to provide round-the-clock
wildlife activity. This also allows him to double up use of enclosures. In another
space-saving ploy, he is choosing highly sociable animals to populate his enclosures.
Two main exhibits will be a savannah containing lions and cheetahs, and a rain
forest with jaguars. Other than the cats and various monkeys, most of the animals
will be free-ranging birds.
The restaurant will be divided into five different serving areas, including
private banquet space and outdoor cocktail seating. The animals will be located
behind 40 meters (131 feet) of glass. In the main dining room, the tables continue
through the glass into the animal enclosure, so that a big cat could jump up
and join diners for dinner. “When the lion jumps on the table outside,
your cutlery rattles, and you know you’ve got a dinner guest,” Harrison
said. In a sense, the diners will serve as the animals’ enrichment programs.
“We are very concerned about being taken frivolously,” Harrison said.
“One of the main buy-ins I got is that everybody must be totally cross-trained
in everything. So, waiters will be able to give guests in-depth discussion about
animals they see around them, as well as plants. You can talk to a keeper who
can recommend the best of steaks or the portabello mushrooms.” The menu
Harrison describes as “World Barbecue” featuring a variety of barbecue
meats and vegetables from different cuisines.
What Metzger describes as a “Rainforest Cafe come to real life” certainly
is a revolutionary concept, but he has faith in Harrison. “He’s been
doing this for 30 years,” Metzger said of Harrison’s experience in
zoos. “I figure he’s made most of his mistakes already.”
Metzger is most excited about RIMBA Sentosa’s curbside appeal. The restaurant/zoo
will be located at the island’s entrance. “When you drive by on the
monorail or bus or car, you’re going to drive right by the RIMBA restaurant,”
he said. “And you’re going to get glimpses of something over there
through the bushes, and you’re not going to be sure what it is if you hadn’t
heard about it.”
Scheduled to open next spring, RIMBA Sentosa is costing the resort SGD$15 million
(US$8.6 million). Metzger calls it a “relatively small investment with
high marketability. It’s going to promote international tourism immediately,”
he said. “If it was just a mini-zoo, we wouldn’t do it. It’s
not a petting zoo with tigers and cheetahs and lions. It’s a restaurant
in a live environment. It’s the themed restaurant evolving into the next
generation. If it works, we’re going elsewhere, we’ll export this
concept. It will be a difficult concept for somebody to copy. There might be
cheap versions. but this is not cheap. It takes a lot of land and takes a lot
of expertise.”
That is what, respectively, Sentosa and Harrison bring to the table.
Cum laude Sentosa
If Sentosa is to
reap the maximum benefits of its SGD$3 billion (US$1.6 billion) expansion over
the next 10 years, it is going to need help. Good help. So, Sentosa CEO Darrell
Metzger stepped forward to help create good help, not just for Sentosa but all
of the Pacific Rim and eventually the world.
The Tourism Academy at Sentosa should begin offering classes in 2005. The Academy
is actually a satellite campus of Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore, which already
offers a hospitality tourism program accepting 500 new students a year. The
university needed more space to handle more students, and Sentosa had four old
army barracks in the center of the island that, because they are listed as heritage
buildings, cannot be torn down. Sentosa Leisure Group had planned to renovate
the buildings as hotels, but decided a 50,000-square-foot (4,645-square-meter)
campus was a better use, both for Temasek Polytechnic and for Sentosa.
“Part of our overall strategy is to create a world-class destination,”
Metzger said. “The quality of service in the attractions business in Asia
has not been one of our strongest assets, and that’s putting it mildly.
We’re attempting to put the spotlight on service at Sentosa.”
The academy fits into that concept on several levels. One, it will serve as
a workplace laboratory for Temasek students; some of the faculty will be Sentosa
managers, and many of the students will work in the resort's hotels, golf courses,
marinas, restaurants and attractions. “We’re introducing them to the
full range of the resort and amusement industry,” Metzger said. Two, the
academy’s location at the literal center of Sentosa Island will put pressure
on the island’s operations to perform up to the standards taught at the
academy. “Hopefully, this helps set us up as a showcase for what a tourism
destination should be like,” Metzger said. “With the academy here,
we better give good service or we’re not a good example.”
Ultimately, Metzger hopes the academy grows in stature so that it begins attracting
students from throughout the Pacific Rim which, in turn, raises hospitality
industry standards in general throughout the Asian cultures. “The attractions
industry is not perceived as a career in Asia, it doesn’t have the credibility
it has in Europe and the United States,” Metzger said. “If you said
you worked for Disney in the U.S., that’s a good thing. If you said you
worked for Sentosa Island here, that may not necessarily be a good thing because
it’s not considered a real business.”
Metzger, who once ran the Disney University, Not only envisions the Tourism
Academy at Sentosa becoming a respected institution of hospitality education
in Southeast Asia, he sees it becoming a benchmark for the industry globally.
Sentosa won’t earn income off the academy, per se, because Singapore’s
education system is subsidized by the government and the campus belongs to the
Polytechnic. “Financially we could have done better with a hotel,”
Metzger said. “But for the longer term strategy, (the academy) was a better
use (for the old barracks) than just putting in another 200 hotel rooms.”
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.”
Four times
ROI
Gröna Lund
installed one ride for the 2003 season and got four new rides out of it.
The park, landlocked in downtown Stockholm, Sweden, was looking to build a Wild
Mouse, something to fill the gap in coaster riding for kids between the ages
of the park's Zierer family coaster Ladybug and the steel Schwarzkopf
Bergbanan Jetline. The ride most in need of retirement was the
Dreamboat, said Peter Osbeck, Gröna Lund’s ride manager. However,
he didn’t think Dreamboat's location provided enough space for the
Gerstlauer Vilda Musen that the park wanted to install.
Osbeck, however, struck on an idea. “The Jetline coaster is designed
to be able to carry the weight and wind strength of a covering,” he said.
“When we ordered it we thought maybe we’d cover it with a mountain.
We decided not to do that because of the expenses, and probably that would look
ugly. There are not many artificial mountains that look good.”
His idea was to utilize Jetline’s structural strength by building
the Vilda Musen into it. With help from engineers Werner Stengel and
Wendelin Stückl, Gerstlauer accomplished the feat. It made for a singular
layout of the Gerstlauer mouse that not only engages in several fly-bys with
the Jetline trains but has turns so sharp the manufacturer had to cut
away some of the hood of the Vilde Musen’s cars.
The larger coaster is not the only ride with which Vilda Musen interacts,
either. Coming off the lift hill mouse riders take a 180-degree curve that seems
to pass right in the path of the 55-meter (180-feet) S&S Power Combo drop
tower. Gröna Lund and Gerstlauer engineers went to the very edge of the
TUV envelope when spacing the two rides. “There’s not much between
them,” Osbeck said. “When you’re both moving pretty fast, it
seems very narrow.” Additionally, Vilda Musen cars fly by the six
rotating arms of the Mondial Top Scan ride.
By changing the experience for riders on the other three rides, Vilda Musen’s
installation effectively created four new rides for Gröna Lund. And, by
putting the Mouse’s station one story up, the park used the ground floor
area for an arcade, souvenir shop and kiddie bumper cars. In a season marked
by 32-degree Celsius (90-degree Fahrenheit) temperatures in July that kept local
residents indoors or in water somewhere, Gröna Lund was fortunate to have
the additional hardware, real and virtually real, this year. Vilda Musen
has notched 550,000 riders, the other three attractions have seen increased
ridership, Osbeck said, and the park pulled in 1.25 million visitors, about
even as last year.
“You always get a good effect (on attendance) when you put in a new ride,
and for us this was a pretty big ride,” Osbeck said. All four of them.
Heaven helped
them
The word “lunatic”
derives from “lunar,” the moon, which is said to inspire madness in
people. Martiatic is a whole other madness, and one experienced by guests at
both Stone Mountain in Atlanta, Georgia, and Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York.
The occasion was Mars’ closest approach to earth in almost 60,000 years,
a once-in-an epoch chance to throw a promotional event. Stone Mountain Park
scheduled its “Mars Mania on the Mountain!” for August 29, two days
after the red planet reached the epoch of its neighborliness. Stone Mountain
figured a Friday night, especially one kicking off the three-day Labor Day weekend,
would draw more guests than 5 a.m. (05,00) Wednesday morning when Mars made
its closest pass.
The event had more historical meaning in Atlanta than that of some planet doing
a near-miss, for this was the rare occasion when Stone Mountain itself was open
after dark. After the park’s nightly laser show concluded about 8:30, guests
were allowed to ride the skylift or walk the 1.3-mile (kilometer) trail to the
top of the mountain. Up to a thousand people used the skylift and another couple
hundred walked for a chance to view through one of 11 telescopes, two from astronomers
at the nearby Fernbank Science Center and nine from eight members of the Atlanta
Astronomy Club.
“The visibility from here was not that great,” said Christine Parker,
Stone Mountain Park’s public relations director. “It was hit and miss
with the clouds. Overall people just seemed excited to look through the telescopes,
even to see a glimpse of (Mars), and talk to astronomers.” Most of all,
people seemed excited to be standing on top of Stone Mountain at night. “A
lot of people brought blankets, and after going through the line, they sat on
the mountain and star gazed or looked at the Atlanta skyline.” An event
that was supposed to end at midnight saw Parker escorting the astronomers back
down the mountain at 1:45 in the morning (01,45).
Astroland Park on Coney Island, in partnership with the neighboring New York
Aquarium, staged its “Mars Madness” last Saturday, more than a week
after Mars’ visit. For one thing, the promotion didn’t go to waste
on a Labor Day weekend night when traffic would be heavy anyway. For another
Mars was not the only show in town—or, rather, in heaven. As astronomer
Joe Patterson of Columbia University noted, the moon was particularly close
September 6, too. “The moon was definitely more impressive than Mars, frankly,”
said Jen Gapay, Astroland’s special events director who played Astro Girl
for the occasion along with a co-worker who is particularly good with hula hoops,
hence her stage name of Saturn Girl.
The event was themed to aliens. Astroland offered alien face painting, a live
rock band dressed in alien ware and costume contests for children and adults
with top prizes of $100 and passes to both the park and the aquarium. The Aquarium
allowed special admission to its Alien Stingers exhibit featuring sea jellies,
anemones and corals. The alien theme certainly drew a crowd—more adults
entered the costume contest than kids, and many adults dressed as aliens didn’t
even enter the competition—but seeing heavenly bodies on the beach was
the true attraction.
These were authentic heavenly bodies, of course. The Columbia University astronomers
set up four high-power telescopes about 30 feet out on the sand away from the
boardwalk to minimize interference from park lights (they were joined by a hobbyist
who brought his own telescope and offered it for public use, too). A consistent
queue down the boardwalk of about 200 people, Gapay said, waited the chance
to see Mars and the moon on a “beautifully clear night” throughout
the 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. (20,30 to 23,30) event. It was a better-than-expected
turnout, but, then, “we didn’t know what to expect,” Gapay said.
“We never did a Mars event before.”
Nor are they likely to do so again; Mars won't be back for a few more epochs
or so. Stone Mountain, however, had such a draw for making the mountain available
at night the park is discussing with Fernbank a regular series of astronomy
events on the granite top. At Astroland, Gapay said she may stage an event if
Venus visits. “A meteor shower would be good, too.”
Love of labor
SeaWorld Orlando
in Florida has had a most prolific summer in terms of breeding.
A total of 45 births were recorded at the park in the past few months: 15 sea
lions, 15 sting rays, three cow nose rays, six harbor seals, four dolphins and
two flamingos. “It’s not completely out of the ordinary,” said
publicist Jackie Wilson of the population boom, but it is a lot.
What may be out of the ordinary is that the animals on display are not the only
ones experiencing a baby boom. Many of the park’s people on display are
having babies, as well. Six of the 75 employees in SeaWorld’s Animal Training
department have welcomed family additions this year.
AZA Report
Seizing
an opening
Jack Hanna had a tough act to follow.
Andean musicians, Japanese drummers and African dancers woke the crowd up for
Monday morning’s Opening Session and Ceremony of the American Zoo and Aquarium
Association’s 2003 Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus Mayor
Michael Coleman extolled his city (among the platitudes Columbus is ranked the
eighth best city for pets) and exhorted the delegates to spend money while in
his city. Then came Dewey Stokes, Franklin County commissioner.
“I’ve noted the theme of your conference, ‘Re:Connect with Wildlife,’
and that got me to thinking about tonight’s pub crawl” he said of
that evening’s scheduled social event. “I’m a little worried
for our local residents. I’ve met a few of you and I’m not sure what
to expect.” The joke brought appreciative applause from a group known for
following intensive work sessions with intensive socializing.
The morning’s key moment, unquestionably, was the keynote, given to the
audience of about 1,100 by a reluctant Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the
host Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and world-famous television star. In his latter
guise he has become a lightning rod of controversy. On one side, PETA-type objectors
demonize him because he represents zoos; on the other side, conservative animal
collection officials cringe at his penchant for taking animals on late night
talk shows and education outreach programs that include public handling of otherwise
wild species. Despite years of being in the public eye, Hanna was obviously
nervous at the AZA podium. “I probably worked harder on this speech than
on my television shows,” he said in an interview afterward.
In that speech, interspersed with videos of Columbus Zoo's outreach program
and clips from his own TV shows through the years, Hanna made no apologies for
his opinion that children should be allowed to lay hands on and otherwise experience
in their classrooms or hospital wards the wonders of wildlife. He also urged
the AZA delegates to intertwine entertainment into their conservation and education
missions because the first is the most effective way to get the general public
interested in and supportive of the last two. He set up an analogy with NASA.
“We don’t know 90 percent of what NASA does,” he told the audience.
“We don’t know all that they’re doing in research and satellite
development. What we do know is the space shuttle launches are cool to watch,
that space walks are like science fiction.
“One hundred and twenty-one million visitors come to our zoos each year.
Most understand the F word: fun.”
It wasn't so much what Hanna said as what he showed of himself throughout his
presentation. AZA Director Syd Butler, in presenting Hanna with a plaque of
appreciation, noted his passion for what he does and compassion for all he reaches.
And while, as Hanna said in the interview afterward, his ongoing television
and outreach programs are not intended to “reach the people in this room,”
he at least wanted the people in the room to, if not like him, to understand
him. “I expected people to walk out (during the speech),” he said.
No one did. Instead, upon ending his speech with a graceful benediction—“I
respect all you’ve done for the animal world; I hope I’ve earned your
respect as well”—the audience rose to a sustained standing ovation.
Hanna sat down trying to stifle tears. “I had a few tears in my eyes, I
admit it,” he said later. “To get a standing ovation from this group
was one of the great highlights of my life.”
On
The Menus
This story is for
all those who bugged out early—and it’s a souvenir for those who didn’t.
It also allows me to relive my days as a music critic 20 years ago before, even,The
Menus were getting started.
Capping Zoo Day Wednesday night at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Jack Hanna,
with all the gusto of a classic rock deejay, introduced The Menus, Ohio’s
most popular cover band. Lead Singer Tim Goldrainer emerged dressed as Hanna,
complete with blond wig. The joke, cheered by the Columbus Zoo crew, was unappreciated
by the rest of the audience simply because the rest of the audience didn’t
know what was yet in store for them (the Columbus Zoo staff did know because
The Menus play regularly at the zoo’s annual Zoofari fund-raising gala).
The Hanna costume was the first of seven Goldrainer wore through two sets. He
came out in 1950s styles women’s bathing suits, a frilly halter top with
chartreuse leopard-spotted micro skirt, stars-and-stripes shorts and cape, and
backless shorts. Such was his costume-changing acumen it inspired no less a
person than AZA's Immediate Past President John Lewis. At Thursday night's closing
banquet, Lewis switched from suit to an AZA "I Am Aware" T-shirt to
swear in the new board members. Changing back into his suit, Lewis told the
audience, "The guy in the band last night taught me how to do this."
Costume
changes was just a small part of the guy in the band's showmanship. When he
wasn’t wearing a wild hat, wig, shark head cap or Elmo head, he flung around
long locks of black hair that, Medusa-like, had lives of its own. He maintained
almost constant repartee with the audience, singling out people who looked like
Burl Ives and Kenny Rogers, giving away plush dolls and archaic LP albums. Goldrainer
also was an able mimic, singing as Jim Morrison, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley,
Bob Seger, the Commodores’ Clyde Orange and, briefly, Brittany Spears.
Throughout the show he popped confetti balloons hanging 10 feet above the stage;
popped them with his high-kicking feet.
Most of all, though, Goldrainer is a musician, and his antics in no way detracted
from the band’s solid play: John Casster on bass, Steve Chiori on guitar,
Jimmy Orwig on keyboards and falsetto vocal, Brandon Ryan on drums, and Goldrainer
himself. His vocal range not only covered the gamut of superstar singers but
the spectrum of musical genres from classic rock to country to R&B, and
he could scale octave after octave at will.
“This is the best band we’ve ever had at a zoo conference,” said
Liza Herschel of Proprietary Media, who has been attending national and regional
conferences for seven years. Much of the audience seemed to agree. The large
dance floor in front of the zoo amphitheater’s stage was as jammin’
packed with people at the end of the show—which included an encore—as
it was at the beginning.
The Audubon Institute, next year’s annual conference host, will likely
give us a slate of New Orleans jazz, which is both good and appropriate. But
here’s hoping they put The Menus on their entertainment menu, too.
Woes
be gone
No question, it
has been a troubled zoo. No doubt, too, it has a brighter future than its dismal
recent past.
Even before the American Zoo and Aquarium Association tabled the accreditation
renewal application last spring of the Smithsonian Institution’s National
Zoological Park (National Zoo) in Washington, D.C., the zoo already was pursuing
a new strategic plan. The AZA’s action, effectively putting the zoo on
probation for one year, in fact fit in with the zoo’s efforts to accomplish
that plan.
Now entering her fourth year as director, Lucy Spelman feels the zoo is poised
to make a strong comeback to a level she desires. Being the “National Zoo”
in the nation’s capitol, “We ought to be one of the best zoos in the
country,” Spelman said. She plans to accomplish that by allying the zoo’s
strongest resource, its large scientific arm, with a concerted effort to renovate
facilities and improve the animal collection. Already she has “reshaped
the whole senior staff,” she said.
As for renewing facilities, the process has been painful but expected. “I
had worked at the zoo as a veterinarian. I knew we had old facilities,”
she said. She started by creating a “failure map,” surveying all the
zoo’s structures. Using that methodical process, the zoo identified 14
out of its 29 major buildings as being more than 25 years old, many of those
up to 100 years old. They have undergone just minor renovations over the years.
Using the failure map, Spelman has set a priority list for which buildings need
to be renovated or replaced.
Over the years the National Zoo also has shrunk, she pointed out; fewer buildings,
fewer staff, fewer animals, but growing needs. The purpose of the strategic
plan is to reverse that trend, and the first big step along that way, Asia Trail,
is under way and expected to be open in early 2005. It will feature sloth bears,
fishing cats, giant salamander, clouded leopards and a new home for the giant
pandas. Phase two of Asia Trail will focus on elephants.
A key element of Asia Trail’s development is its funding: half is public
money (the Smithsonian is an official arm of the U.S. federal government) and
half is private. Raising money in the private sector is a new frontier for the
National Zoo. “Private funding hadn’t been my predecessor’s primary
job,” Spelman said. “It is one of my primary jobs.” So far this
year she has raised $4 million. Since 2001, the zoo has received about $11 million
a year in non-federal funds, such as grants and donations.
Funding, Spelman said, is not a problem for the zoo, except that so much work
needs to be done so quickly. The state of the physical plant is this zoo’s
problem, and when the AZA tabled National’s accreditation application,
it served notice to the government and Washington society that their zoo’s
state should no longer be ignored. The committee also recognized that Spellman
had already launched her strategic plan, and by tabling the application the
accreditation committee was giving National a chance to come back with a stronger
case. “We have been able to build on what the Accreditation Committee asked
for,” Spelman said.
“We’ve accomplished an awful lot,” she said. “For 10 years,
a whole lot didn’t happen at the zoo.” For the next 10 years, at least,
a lot likely will happen there.
Shark
pod
Do it right, do
it big. That meant doing it together.
When the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago opened the $47 million Wild Reef:
Sharks at Shedd on April 15—only the second expansion in its 93-year history—President
and CEO Ted Beattie wanted an all-out opening event and a big-buzz-creating
publicity campaign. In an AZA Conference seminar this week, Shedd officials
and their guests shared with other zoo and aquarium marketers and operators
how they carried off the major news event of the year for Chicago and one of
the top feature stories of the nation for that month.
Tantamount to all individual efforts was the work of the Launch Team comprising
representatives from each of the aquarium’s departments. Similarly, the
whole marketing effort intimately involved not just the marketing and public
relations team and their contracted agencies but also the other departments
within the aquarium, from animal care to education volunteers. This wasn’t
cursory “tell them what you’re doing” type of outreach, either.
Everybody was in the loop from the beginning, two years out from the Wild Reef’s
scheduled opening date.
Representatives from the Shedd’s PR firm, Public Communications, Incorporated,
and from the advertising agency, Chicago Creative Partnerships, attended exhibit
planning meetings. Such was the devotion of these team players that Jill Allread
of Public Communications, Incorporated, and Brad Most of Chicago Creative Partnership
joined the Shedd staff in the panel discussion in Columbus, Ohio, Sunday, giving
up their weekend family plans to do so.
Curators and volunteer staff from throughout the aquarium received continuous
training and updates on the developing exhibit and its animal residents. This
served two purposes: the staff could talk up the coming exhibit, and they could
answer the questions that would inevitably come from guests at the aquarium.
What made those questions inevitable were the visual hints Shedd’s creative
team built to tell the city that something 27,000-square-feet big (2,601 square
meters) was coming. Fifteen shark dorsal fins showed up in exhibits throughout
the aquarium; even the humpback whale sculpture hanging above the cafe atrium
sported a foam core fin bearing the legend “Coming in Spring” and
fastened on a belt around the whale’s belly. Later, three shark fins appeared
on the Shedd’s domed roof. “That was an architectural feat,”
said Bert Vescolani, vice president of aquarium collections and education. “They
were on a roof, in ‘The Windy City,’ and they’re balloons and
could act like kites. We had to bring structural engineers in to make sure they
were anchored safely.”
Shedd extended these partnerships beyond its own self. The aquarium teamed up
with the Chicago Art Institute to project a 50-story image on the 310 South
Michigan Avenue building across the street from the Art Institute. The projection
featured a picture of the shark from below—already being widely displayed
as the Wild Reef’s logo in advertisements and literature—and “Sharks
at Shedd” scrolling along the bottom. The projection towered over the annual
Taste of Chicago festival and could be seen from tour boats on Lake Michigan.
Because the Shedd sits on city park district land, the aquarium partners with
the city park district on education and outreach programs. For Wild Reef, the
Shedd called on these children campers to participate in the opening day ceremonies.
The aquarium also got permission to place 10 decals representing various species
in the Wild Reef exhibit on major artery sidewalks leading up to the aquarium.
Using an adhesive back to stick to the pavement, the seals were, perhaps the
most popular promotional stunt of all. “We knew we had done a good job
because people were stealing them and in some cases putting them on their cars,”
said Amy Ritter, the Shedd’s vice president of marketing and public relations.
“They were cool, really cool. They disappeared fast.”
FUN EXPO Preview
Getting
the shift
Fun Expo in Las
Vegas, Nevada, is making a significant shift, even if it is just one day. Instead
of a Thursday-through-Saturday trade show, Fun Expo opens next Wednesday and
concludes Friday, September 19.
In a way, the shift in days mirrors the show’s subtle shifts. After a devastating
2001 show when many pundits predicted it was on its deathbed, Fun Expo rebounded
last year with solid if not spectacular traffic. This year the rebounding trend
looks like it will continue as numbers of exhibitors and registration are even
with or better than last year’s. Attendees likely will see a shift in goods
on the trade show floor, too, with more extreme sports equipment and activities
and more rides.
Another shift is noticeable in the Fun Expo Academy, the education program run
in conjunction with the trade show put on by the show’s host, the International
Association for the Leisure and Entertainment Industry. This year’s schedule
evidences the organization's intention to maintain its relevancy among small
operators in particular and for the amusement industry as a whole.
The Academy opens Sunday with a now-traditional program for rookies and newcomers,
people wanting to get into the business. The “somewhat superficial overview”
gives participants insights into all areas of family entertainment center operations,
said IALEI President Carole Sjolander. Because of these sessions “Probably
half of (participants) will have their eyes open real wide and not get into
the business,” she said. IALEI approves of the dropout rate because the
entire industry is stronger if only dedicated and knowledgeable operators open
FECs.
Supplementing the traditional Birthday University by F.L. Price and Associates
will be the Advanced Birthday University, also taught by Price. “This assumes
that people have a good idea of how to run birthday parties,” Sjolander
said. “This takes them to a higher level in all aspects, from the party
itself to marketing and management and training.”
Also new this year are couple of training seminars that will tackle highly charged
controversial topics. Traditionally, seminars on arcade games have been conducted
by revenue sharing vendors. “We’ve never addressed the advantage and
disadvantage of owning your own games,” Sjolander said. This year, a panel
combining revenue sharing vendors and operators who own their arcade units will
offer their points of view. Similarly, a panel will tackle the issue of serving
alcohol in family entertainment centers.
Last year, IALEI for the first time booked a keynote speaker for its business
meeting, conducted on the morning before the trade show opened its doors. With
the success of last year’s meeting, IALEI has again scheduled a keynote
speaker for the Wednesday morning session, Rob Peck of Zestworks. A juggler,
he incorporates his acrobatic act into his management message: “Left Brainers,
Right Brainers, and No Brainers.”
Border time
If you are a resident
of any country except the United States and plan to attend the IAAPA 2003 Annual
Convention and Trade Show in Orlando, Florida, in November, you need to look
into your visa and passport requirements for entry into the country .
In post 9/11 America, all non U.S. citizens are subject to increasing travel
restrictions and delays. It is not just paranoia; it also is an extra-burdened
bureaucracy as the increased scrutiny of visa applications is causing delays
in processing. “Perhaps more than in anytime during IAAPA’s 85-year
history, visitors traveling to the United States need to contact their respective
US consular office or embassy far in advance of their intended departure date,”
said J. Clark Robinson, IAAPA’s president and CEO. “For those wishing
to attend the IAAPA Orlando 2003 Annual Convention and Trade Show, that means
now.”
Your application may be subject to additional screening procedures or you may
have to physically visit the embassy or consulate for a personal interview before
your visa will be issued. Even if you have traveled to the United States since
September 11, 2001, you need to ensure you know the latest requirements, for
they can and do change. Among the changes issued in 2003 are new requirements
for visa photographs.
One key change announced this week applies to the citizens of the 27 countries
who do not usually require visas to enter the United States. An October 1 deadline
for those citizens to have “machine-readable” passports with text
that can be read by computerized scanners will likely be delayed to 2004, pending
approval by US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Belgium already enforces
the requirement for their citizens to have machine-readable passports. While
this is good news for this year, consider it a heads-up in your preparation
for IAAPA 2004.
Visit the US State Department’s website for The Bureau of Consular Affairs
at www.travel.state.gov
for more information.
— Sarah-Janette Smith
New Arrivals
It’s
an eagle exhibit!
Knoebels Amusement
Resort in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, announces the arrival of two American bald
eagles, August 22, 2003. Measurements: two eagles, two rooms, one of them off-exhibit.
Long, long time ago, Knoebels had a petting zoo. The arrival of two bald eagles
named Henry and Hattie after the park’s founders is the first time Knoebels
has had live animals on display in at least 25 years.
Knoebels got back into the animal exhibiting business by mere happenstance.
A veterinarian in Florida knows Page Knoebels, cousin of park President Dick
Knoebels. Both the vet and cousin have an interest in animal rescue. The vet
had the two eagles which, due to injuries, could not return to the wild. He
happened to see a feature about Knoebels on the Discovery Channel, and when
he ascertained the connection between his friend and the park, he decided Knoebels
needed eagles.
“I think that had we thought about it as getting into the animal business,
we would have had trepidations,” said Joe Muscato, Knoebels’ marketing
director. “But it was more like, ‘Oooh, eagles!’ This ia a patriotic
family with the Iwo Jima monument replica in the park, and these were birds
that needed a home. This just seemed the right thing to do.”
Nevertheless, it was a complicated thing to do because of strict permit procedures
the park had to go through with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The eagles
must be displayed to provide an educational opportunity to the public—“We’ll
build this into our school outings,” Muscato said—and the public must
have unimpeded access to view the raptors. This requirement caused a hiccup
in the process because Knoebels is an amusement park; Muscato said the park
had a hard time convincing federal agents that every bit of the pay-as-you-ride
park is unimpeded.
Meanwhile, with direction from a Pennsylvania raptor club, Dick Knoebels himself
went to work on the exhibit itself. When it was done, club members looked at
the rock and tree strewn exhibit in astonishment. “They said, ‘You
needed to build a habitat; you didn’t have to build the best one in the
world, but that’s OK,’” Muscato recalled. Even at the official
welcoming ceremony August 22, featuring local officials and state representatives,
Knoebel could not help pointing out his special brand of craftsmanship: “The
cables you see supporting the structure are from the 16-car Elie Ferris wheel
we’re not using anymore,” he told the crowd “in typical Dick
fashion,” Muscato said.
The exhibit’s draw, of course, are Henry and Hattie. “From that moment
(of the opening ceremony), a steady stream of people will wander up and look,”
Muscato said. “People really get excited about it. People really just like
seeing these two eagles up close and personal.”
In
the nursery
Other recent New
Arrivals.
It’s
a simulator!
At last, the perfect break room. The Adventure Science Center in Nashville,
Tennessee, opened its first-ever simulator July 11, 2003, a MaxFLight
FS2000 two-seat flight simulator for pilot and weapons officer that the
museum calls BlueMax. “This has been so wonderful for us,”
said Amy Vineyard, the science center’s director of marketing. “When
we lose our CEO, that’s where we find him.” Of course, he has to stand
in line. All summer BlueMax, the first flight simulator in the Nashville
area, drew long queues as guests of all ages paid $4 per member, $5 per non
member for the chance to fly. “The Science Center is all about hands-on
learning,” Vineyard said. “One of our focuses is air and space, so
it’s a perfect fit for us.” In fact, the center is about to embark
on a Centennial of Flight celebration, and the BlueMax will be a major
promotional piece. Helping with funding of and exhibits around the BlueMax
was the Aerospace Department of Middle Tennessee State University. The university
officials’ assistance wasn’t all altruistic, apparently. “They
came up and flew it, too,” Vineyard said.
It’s
a hotel!
Drawing on the “Asia” in Phantasialand, the Brühl,
Germany, park decided to give its China Town section more than a genuine-looking
thematic facade, but to make that facade a genuine hotel with genuine Chinese
craftsmanship. The Hotel Phantasia opened July 4, 2003, with a
press preview of the hotel’s spacious lobby and a sampling of its 165
rooms, like the family rooms featuring bunk beds shaped as Chinese junks.
The 14,300-square-meter/153,924 square-feet hotel includes a restaurant,
terrace, show kitchen, bar, five elevators and “lots of wood,”
said Christoph Molitor of Phantasialand’s marketing department. “With
the richness in detail and craftsmanship, it is a most spectacular building.”
It’s
a water play structure!
The second of KoalaPlay Group’s interactive water structures opened
for play at Myrtle Waves Water Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
on July 1, 2003. Like the first one at Quassy in Connecticut (THE
LOOP July 11, 2003), this one is called Saturation Station and includes
two four-level platforms connected by wood plank bridges, three slides
and dozens of water shooters and fountains, with a capacity of 150
people, large and small. The tiki theming, including a net full of coconuts,
is capped not by a tipping bucket but by a 700-gallon volcano that erupts
onto the guests below every six to eight minutes.
Eric's Turn
Scare
tactics
IAAPA’s current
chairman of the board, John Collins, said in an Amusement Today interview
at last year’s IAAPA Convention and Trade Show that the association would
need to explore any new markets that could generate potential business for supplier
members. “If they say, ‘Look, you’re overlooking such and such
a market,’ it’s up to us to get into that marketplace, get the message
to that marketplace,” he said.
He wasn’t talking just geographic markets.
The International Association of Amusement parks and Attractions has just secured
a strong footing in a market of great growth potential when it signed an alliance
agreement two weeks ago with the International Association of Haunted Attractions
(see Extra!
Extra!). The potential of such an alliance we reported in THE
LOOP on May 23, 2003. The alliance begins with this year’s IAAPA Convention
and Trade Show in Orlando.
Most notable for IAAPA members and vendors will be the addition of the Haunt
Zone on the trade show floor, a designated section of up to 200 booths in an
area of the exhibit hall that will remain dark. That way, haunt vendors can
show off their wares in their true light—or lack, thereof. Most notable
in the future will be the education seminars IAHA will provide IAAPA.
Most notable for IAHA members this year will be registration discounts for the
IAAPA Show and official recognition of IAHA’s social event at Disney World’s
Tower of Terror. Most notable in the future will be the annual business meetings
that will move to the IAAPA Convention on the IAHA calendar.
The portion of the agreement that most stands out is that of IAHA’s annual
business meetings moving to IAAPA’s convention. Traditionally, IAHA has
used the annual TransWorld National Halloween Costume and Party Show every March
in Chicago for its primary trade show and annual business meetings. In May IAHA
President Liz Foral had said her organization was not planning to depart from
TransWorld. Obviously that position has shifted, in part because the association’s
contract with TransWorld ends this November, and the trade show company has
not entered negotiations with IAHA to continue the relationship.
The alliance with IAAPA has given rise to some criticism within IAHA’s
membership, much of it unfounded. Timing is bad because IAAPA occurs hard upon
haunted attractions’ tear-down period: a spurious argument given that hard
on the heels of your season is the best time to purchase next year’s upgrades—that
is when most amusement attractions shop. IAAPA does not allow photography and
video: but, then, most professional trade shows do not allow photography and
video, including TransWorld (they didn't enforce the rule at the peril of angry
vendors). IAAPA is not the purchase-heavy show it used to be just a few years
ago: true, but no trade show in any industry is meeting 1990s numbers.
IAAPA is still the Big Event for the amusements and attractions industry. Operators
may shop at other, smaller confabs during trade show season, but they buy at
IAAPA. Even if sales and traffic on the floor have dropped the past few years,
IAAPA still generates more business than most other amusement industry trade
shows combined.
Besides, it is THE amusement industry trade show. Haunters should never have
been relegated to a costume and retailers show. Haunters are attraction operators
providing entertainment. They belong in an amusement and attractions trade show.
At IAAPA, not only will their purchase power, however small, be welcome (a problem
cited by many haunters at TransWorld), they will have more appropriate vendors
to browse. Plus, they will have access to seminars on more generic—but
important—amusement operation issues, such as crisis management, loss prevention
and marketing trends.
Meanwhile, IAAPA members should be excited by this alliance. If not at this
coming show, by next year they will be getting seminars on building and operating
haunted attractions from a wide range of experts. They will peruse IAHA’s
exhaustive safety and operations manuals. They will get tips on everything from
makeup application to ghoul training, and they will see a host of fascinating
costumed characters strolling the halls (like, perhaps, Dr. Blood, who got a
hold on me in the picture above). The haunt industry is filled with dedicated,
talented and experienced operators, and IAAPA is the richer for embracing them.
“Richer” is a purposely chosen word. Halloween is the fastest growing
holiday in popularity globally. October is a ripe month to be plucked. It is
IAHA’s month. IAAPA will be better able to take advantage of that market
thanks to IAHA’s help; and IAHA will be better operators during that month
thanks to IAAPA.
Last
call
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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
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