 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
Would
you like a subscription to If
you have a comment ©2003,
Minton Enterprises LLC |
|
|
Member of
|
|
|
In
this issue: Weeki Wachee's mermaids emerge from the threat of closure, and parks, zoos and aquariums emerge from the wrath of Hurricane Isabel; Turkey's AquaLand rides the back of dolphins to survive a regional war, and Parque da Monica rides out Brazil's economic woes with backward thinking; Holiday World takes a painful stance against overly enthusiastic behavior, and Universal Studios Hollywood prompts enthusiasm from tech-savvy ticket buyers; A new lease brings Old Tucson's Halloween event back from the dead, and Kennywood uses an old hearse to carry the not-dead-yet; We report on trends at Fun Expo, watch IALEI's president campaign for growth and take aim at a target market program; We become fully aware of AZA's awareness campaign and honor a Marlin Perkins fellow; We welcome a Holocaust exhibit, while in the nursery we find a new restaurant in Efteling; and, We comment on rider behavior and tee up for Give Kids The World. For
a printable version of this newsletter, For
more information on the facilities and organizations featured in
this newsletter, visit our Connections Page. For
back issues of THE LOOP, Mermaids were in the swim after Weeki Wachee won a landlord's reprieve. Photo courtesy of Weeki Wachee. Not
on their Wachee In
one important way, both were different. The 56-year-old Weeki Wachee
fell into disrepair from a lack of investment, whereas 67-year-old
Cypress Gardens maintained its facilities until the day it closed
last spring. And therein lies an even more significant difference
between the two parks: “Cypress Gardens closed themselves.
We want to keep Weeki Wachee open. We want to save the tradition
of the mermaids,” said John Athanason, the park’s director
of marketing. The
park’s landlord, the Southwest Florida Water Management District,
agreed. On Tuesday the state agency’s governing board approved
the management team’s business plan and decided not to forfeit
the lease. It was a close call. Due
to years of neglect the property was unkempt and some of the buildings
termite ridden. Only the park’s famous mermaids—swimmers
in fish tails performing synchronized water ballet in a clear-spring
water theater—distinguished Weeki Wachee. That, though, was
a key distinguishment, much as the water skiers were for Cypress
Gardens in Winter Haven. “The mermaids are what made Weeki
Wachee,” Athanason said. “People come still from all over
the world to see the world-famous Weeki Wachee mermaids. It’s
like Shamu is to SeaWorld, Mickey Mouse is to Disney, the mermaids
are to Weeki Wachee.” Athanason
also points out that the mermaids’ theater, with audiences
sitting 16 feet below the surface watching the mermaids not in an
aquarium tank but in an actual spring, also has significant historic
value. “No one could ever duplicate that kind of theater again.
I’m a native Floridian and it would just kill me to see this
park go away. I remember coming here as a boy, and I had a crush
on the mermaids. And the little girls, you see the wonder in their
eyes. Mermaids have that mystical thing behind them, and this is
the closest thing you’ll see to real mermaids, with turtles
swimming by and manatees and occasional alligators.” The
park’s previous owners/leaseholders had not kept up the park,
Athanason said, and ignored the Southwest Florida Water Management
District’s demands and deadlines. Then, rather than fix up
the park, the absentee owners on August 1 donated it to the city
of Weeki Wachee—population nine people. Robyn Anderson, a former
mermaid, not only is the park’s general manager, she’s
the town’s mayor. Athanason, too, is a town resident. Rather
than cave in, they decided to try to save the park. “We
basically had two weeks to put together a business plan,” Athanason
said. The residents/staff went to work cleaning up the property,
demolishing some of the old buildings and fixing up what facilities
they could. “We have made more progress in four weeks than
what the previous owners did in four years,” Athanason said.
The park mounted a “Save Our Tails” fundraising campaign,
and Home Depot donated lumber. “Cypress Gardens (closing) had
a lot to do with it," Athanason said. "There was a public
outcry to save Florida’s historic attractions, and now comes
news this one is about to close.” Meanwhile, Buccaneer Bay,
a spring-fed waterpark with modern facilities, earns the park some
income. Noting
the efforts, the Water Management District postponed a final decision
on the property until this month. The business plan Weeki Wachee’s
staff put together calls for further facility rehabilitation, improving
the kiddie pool at Buccaneer Bay and doing more educational shows
at Weeki Wachee. The staff also comes with impressive credentials;
Anderson is a 19-year veteran of the park, much of the rest of the
management has been in place more than a dozen years, and others
like Athanason came in with theme park experience from other Florida
attractions. Handcuffed by lack of money and support from absentee
owners, the staff had maintained frustrated vigil over their prized
park and now relish the opportunity to bring it new life, though
that requires working seven-day weeks. Still, heading into Tuesday’s meeting, Athanason said, the Water Management District’s governing board “wanted to tell us we had a default of the lease. But with all the public support and the nostalgia this park has, they decided to work with us and were very cooperative. There’s a couple of minor things they want to change in the lease. The main thing is they want to keep this park alive.” Storming
through Along
the way Isabel left a swath of unforgettable experiences among parks,
zoos and aquariums. Virginia
Zoological Park, Norfolk, Virginia The
park’s annual ZooToDo fundraiser was scheduled for last Saturday
and has been re scheduled for tomorrow. Afterward, the zoo plans
to help a neighbor in need, the Norfolk Botanical Garden, which
lost more than 400 trees and took significant damage to four of
its gardens. “As soon as we’re done with ZooToDo we’ll
send our staff over to help them out,” Greene said. Given that
Isabel did little damage to his own property, Greene was thankful
for the experience. “Now we’re going to sit down and figure
out what we did well and what we need to work on so we can be prepared
for the next storm. Before the storm hit, I instructed the staff
to write things down. I told them 'When you find something, think
about something, don’t depend on remembering it later: write
it down.'” Busch
Gardens, Williamsburg, Virginia Busch
Gardens used its own landscaping staff and called in other experts
to clean up the debris and inspect remaining trees to ensure their
safety, a job which meant keeping the park closed throughout the
weekend, although full power did not return to the park until Monday,
anyway. The park was to reopen today with a soft opening of Howl-O-Scream,
which was supposed to have had its grand opening today, but all
of the decorations and attractions will not be restored until next
week, Centeno said. Meanwhile, Busch Gardens had staff issues to
consider. “We had a lot of employees who had personal issues
to take care of,” Centeno said, like tree damage on their own
properties and continuing power outages. Busch Entertainment consequently
authorized early paycheck distribution to its employees. “People
need money. They’ve been without power so they're having to
pay for more food and batteries,” said Centeno, who did not
get power back to her own home until Tuesday. Paramount’s
Kings Dominion, Doswell, Virginia Except
for a few toppled trees—none in any of the landscaped areas—Kings
Dominion suffered no damage and could have opened Saturday. However,
after a thoroughly cleaning and inspection, the park opened Sunday
to what Sanfilippo described as a “typical crowd on a fall
Sunday. People didn’t have power, electricity, telephone; they
needed something to do.” Because Busch Gardens was still closed,
Kings Dominion also honored that day’s Busch Gardens tickets
as well as season pass holders. Then, in the middle of the afternoon,
park officials decided to open again on Monday because the schools
would be closed. “We felt we could staff the park adequately,”
Sanfilippo said. “We were doing what we felt to be a public
service to our community.” He said park management was “very
satisfied” with the attendance, “considering we made the
decision mid-afternoon Sunday. We did some scrambling to get the
word out.” Six
Flags America, Largo, Maryland At
stake for the weekend were two private buyouts of the park. With
no power Saturday morning, that day’s event was postponed a
week. When electricity returned to the park just before noon, operations
and maintenance crews spent the rest of the day inspecting and testing
all the rides, and Sunday’s private event “went off without
a hitch,” Korpowski said. Meanwhile, the Annapolis resident
remained Thursday without power at her own home. “I think I’m
the last one (on the staff) who doesn’t have power,” she
said. National
Aquarium, Baltimore, Maryland All
of that preparation proved essential. As flood waters began seeping
into the building the staff cut off the electrical supply themselves
as a preventive measure and turned operations over to the generators.
But the generators sputtered off when water got into their main
fuel tanks. The staff then supplied animals with oxygen for several
hours until new fuel could be ferried in for the generators. The
normal power supply was restored Friday afternoon. Though the exhibits
and animals were above the flood waters, the ground floor conservation/education
and volunteer offices endured significant damage. Both staffs now
occupy a single classroom, “A lot of people in a small space,”
Fiegel said. “But everybody has pulled together to make sure
we get through this.” The aquarium reopened Sunday and hosted
3,000 visitors, which was “close to what we were expecting”
without the storm, Fiegel said. New
Jersey State Aquarium, Camden, New Jersey The aquarium secured the canvas as well as possible and had engineers posted to watch the tent. Sure enough, when Isabel rolled in about 7 p.m. (19,00) the canvas started ripping. The engineers sent out an SOS, and various staff came in to drag the tarp away from the shark tank. “It sounded like a movie to me,” Public Relations Manager Jesse Cute said. “All these people working through the storm, in the darkness, rain pelting them” heroically saving sea life. Then the aquarium’s publicity team jumped on the incident for its promotional value because the Open Ocean Tank now had no roof, allowing aerial views and a look at the tank in open sunshine. “Never before have the animals been so vivid,” said an aquarium press release. Postwar
promise Thus,
after the first part of her waterpark’s year was almost totally
wiped out by the impact of the Iraqi War, Nihan Ozbakir, sales and
marketing manager for AquaLand in Antalya, Turkey, noted that traffic
began to pick up slightly through the summer. “September, we’ll
see proper numbers, at least,” she said, and she anticipates
rising attendance through November as tourists who stayed away in
the spring return in the fall for their annual fill of this Mediterranean
coast resort city. “Inshallah,” Ozbakir hastened to add. War
in the Middle East may have had a rippling effect through the amusement
industry around the world, but for parks in the Middle East the
effect was more tsunami-like. AquaLand, a 40,000-square-meter (10-acre)
waterpark founded by Alke Tourism in 1996 and now part of a 3.5-kilometer
(2-mile) entertainment district called Beachpark Antalya, regularly
bested 200,000 visitors per year. About 85 percent of its guests
were tourists, primarily from Russia, who spent week-long holidays
in Antalya. That flow cut to a trickle thanks to Middle East woes.
Ozbakir
has been attempting to diversify AquaLand’s demographic makeup
in view of how events beyond her park’s control could so drastically
cut into attendance. “We are trying to push the schools and
youth conferences (camps),” she said. “We’re also
trying to push local business. But everybody’s trying to push
the local market.” Competition
is fierce in Antalya. Rival Aquapark opened nearby a few years ago,
and hotels are adding waterpark elements to their pools. “Hotels,
about 95 or 98 percent of them, are operating as all-inclusive (properties),”
Ozbakir said. “That gives us a hard time to operate.” Like
the heroes of ancient Middle East mythology, dolphins came to AquaLand’s
rescue this year. In February 2002 Alke Tourism opened DolphinLand
adjoining AquaLand. The 5,500-square-meter (59,201-square-foot),
718-seat marine mammal stadium, the third largest in Europe and
up until recently the only one in Turkey, this year presents a show
featuring dolphins, sea lions and Black Sea white whales. The
dolphin show carried the business through the war, Ozbakir said,
in part because it helped attract in-country visitors. While the
Mediterranean-caressed Antalya has a long tourism season from March
through November, DolphinLand gives AquaLand a year-round product,
which is vital when your primary market, Russian tourists, traditionally
don’t travel in winter months. The marine mammal show also
gives AquaLand an edge with tour operators, primary bookers of most
of the week-long and 10-day holidays to Antalya. “It’s
a new park, it’s for all ages, it’s easier to sell,”
Ozbakir said. “Most hotels have small waterparks, so it’s
not easy to sell the waterpark as a daily excursion. Dolphins are
something else.” Packaging AquaLand with DolphinLand provides
a price-point advantage for tour operators, too. DolphinLand is working on another element that could further enhance AquaLand’s appeal: a swim-with-the-dolphins program. The park still must obtain certification to offer the program to the public, but it already is conducting dolphin swims as therapy for children from a private German hospital, Ozbakir said. Such a product would position AquaLand among tourists and locals alike to better withstand wars, weather and other woes. Inshallah. Parque DA Monica did big business despite the Brazilian economy. Photo courtesy of www.monica.com.br. Reversal
of fortune In
a country still struggling to regain economic vitality, the two
indoor family amusement parks—one in Sao Paulo, the other in
Rio De Janeiro—themed after the popular Brazilian television
character Monica were seeing a 40 percent increase in sales the
first half of this year compared with last year. Considering the
ailing Brazilian economy last year that is only now beginning to
recover, one might think that 40 percent increase figure a bit skewered
by perspective. Not
so, said Francisco Lopes, Parque DA Monica’s CEO. “Last
year was tremendous,” he said of his properties which attracted
some 1 million guests. This year simply has been even better. The
secret has been a shift in marketing strategy. Instead of going
after families with more money, the 10,000-square-meter (107,639-square-foot)
indoor parks for children 2 to 10 years old targeted families with
little money, especially during off-peak periods. “They pay
less, but it’s off season,” Lopes said. “And when
they are inside the park, they will buy and eat and drink. They
usually spend more per cap than the usual customer. It’s understandable;
this is the occasion they can come to the park. They don’t
know when they will come back.” Lopes
has used birthday parties, strong targeted advertising and school
groups to promote the Parque DA Monica to lower income families.
For school groups he altered his live shows to take on educational
themes, such as recycling. The parks have also launched driving
schools—“We teach them what’s important in terms
of driving and how children must behave while their parents are
driving,” Lopes said—concluding with the opportunity to
drive tyke-size cars in a mini city. This summer Parque DA Monica
introduced “Engineers of the Park” where children work
together building structures with plastic blocks and fabric. The
Sao Paulo Monica is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year,
which has also contributed to the company’s growth. All year
the park has offered parades featuring the Monica characters, it
is putting on a Halloween party next month and a “big event
at Christmas,” Lopes said. Next
year should be even better, if the continent’s economies rebound.
Overall, the amusement industry in Latin America has been saddled
with the countries’ high unemployment and devalued currency,
which makes capital improvements too costly vis-à-vis the
admission prices parks can charge guests. The upside is that attendance
continues to grow at amusement venues because “South Americans
like to go outside and celebrate and have fun,” Lopes said.
As Brazil’s government continues to slash interest rates, Lopes
sees investors coming back to the market. “I believe the Brazilian
market has tremendous potential for the future.” Even if it does not, Parque DA Monica should fare well because of the management philosophy and marketing acumen of its operators. “A good marketing strategy along with hard work, recognition of good employees and training; those are all things we know,” Lopes said. “But we also have focus. We know what our customers want and we try to reach these targets. I don’t believe in magical formulas.” Soured
enthusiasm However,
it was enthusiasts’ behavior in the aftermath of that tragedy
that caused Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari to decide
that, for next year at least, it would not host enthusiast events
(see story in Extra!
Extra!). In a letter to 20 enthusiast club presidents and Internet
forum administrators, Holiday World also announced a new zero tolerance
policy, permanently banning from the park people who have engaged
in unsafe behavior on rides or even announced an intention to do
so on the Internet. “It’s
not the happiest day in my life,” Holiday World President Will
Koch said the day he made public the letter. “We’ve enjoyed
a wonderful relationship with the coaster enthusiasts over the years.
The vast majority I would call friends, we trust and get along with
them just great. It’s this dang fringe element out there, and
we feel it’s time we put our foot down and say ‘enough
is enough.’” Gone
is the annual Stark Raven Mad, which would have celebrated its 10th
year next season. The event had become one of the most popular coaster
enthusiast gatherings every year; but it was at May’s Stark
Raven Mad that a woman, whom investigators determined was standing
in the back seat of The Raven roller coaster, fell to her
death. Contributing
to Holiday World’s decision was the fact that next year’s
Stark Raven Mad would ostensibly have been an anniversary of the
tragedy. “It would be darn difficult to be here and be happy
and have fun,” Koch said. “It’s hard to imagine that.
It would be difficult and painful for our ride operators. Several
of them are still struggling with what we went through in May. And,
the idea of being here worrying about what people are doing played
into it.” Exacerbating
that last point were Internet postings Holiday World officials saw
throughout the summer which festered the hurt of May’s accident:
enthusiasts bragging about their daredevil antics on coasters, enthusiasts
offering detailed instruction on how to subvert park safety procedures,
and enthusiasts making what Koch said are “libelous” claims
about Holiday World activities. “The
Internet is the great frontier, the wild west,” Koch said.
“It’s wide open, and you can post without having your
name attached. I don’t want to make it sound like we’re
opposed to anybody saying anything negative about the park, but
the issue is talking about and planning ways to override safety
procedures and mechanisms, or saying things authoritatively that
are just not true. Those things really bother us. It’s not
our desire to reign in free discussion about what people like and
don’t like about parks and roller coasters, but we all need
to be on the same page as far as safety is concerned. We don’t
need people out there planning ways to subvert our systems.” ACE
President Carole Sanderson feels enthusiast clubs are being unfairly
blamed for past incidents and tasked with sole responsibility for
policing even those people who are not club members. “What’s
annoying to me as an individual, not as president of ACE, is what
do they do with the public? ACE is not a professional organization,”
she said: it’s a hobbyist organization. “Out of 8,500,
we have our 5 or 10 percent that are problems. I don’t have
a problem getting rid of whackos.” However, citing a lack of
rider responsibility laws in many states and other enforcement standards,
she said, “There’s a lot more issues out there we need
to address than a few bad ACE members.” She
admitted that ACE had been reluctant to kick out violators of the
organization’s code of conduct because of lawsuit threats.
When ACE removed a board member several years ago, the resulting
lawsuit cost the organization about $18,000 in legal fees though
the organization won the suit. Nevertheless, even before May’s
tragedy at Holiday World, ACE had inaugurated new standards concerning
on-ride photography and member responsibility at ACE events, and
since the accident the organization has stiffened its resolve to
take disciplinary action against any member who violates the club’s
code of conduct (THE
LOOP, June 27, 2003). Four such cases already have been advanced,
turned in by parks and other members; in two of them, the charged
members quit the club. Now ACE has no jurisdiction over their behavior,
but they are still out there visiting parks. It
is specifically those “fringe enthusiasts” Koch is targeting.
Still, he wants the clubs and web administrators to take a stronger
stand and more formative action against such safety hazarders, and
he wants to start meaningful dialogue on this issue among other
parks. His
is a gutsy move. Cedar Fair in late August sent to enthusiast clubs
a letter signed by Ronald K. Fussner, corporate director of loss
prevention, reiterating Cedar Fair safety standards and asking the
clubs to clamp down on violators at Exclusive Ride Time events.
Still, Cedar Point is scheduled to host next year’s annual
ACE Coaster Con. Holiday
World’s move to cancel next year’s events (the park has
made no decision on 2005 or beyond) risks an enthusiasts’ backlash,
one which would be broadcast on the very same Internet forums that
built the park’s national stature in the first place. “I
hope things go back to the way they used to be,” Koch said.
“Heck, we love that relationship.” Which is the other
side of the coin in Koch’s action: among amusement parks, Holiday
World arguably carries the most clout among enthusiasts, and the
park’s decision is, at the least, a profound wake-up call.
“There’s a significant risk that the enthusiasts are not going to find the doors as open as they used to be,” Koch said. “To do things they like to do, changes are going to have to happen. At least at Holiday World that is true.” (See
editorial comment in Eric's Turn below) Ticket
mastering The
opportunity to offer home-printed tickets grew out of the park’s
on-line selling capability through its web site. In conjunction
with Sygnus Entertainment, Universal Studios Hollywood decided to
extend the capability to order tickets on line by allowing the public
to print out their own tickets. The attractiveness to customers
was the chance to bypass the ticket kiosks and the will-call windows
and go straight to the turnstiles where their bar-coded printouts
could be scanned like any other ticket. The
computer also knows if a ticket or its bar code is being used more
than once. “With any kind of ticketing program some people
would find fraudulent ways to get into the park, but so far so good,”
Cole said. “We’ve only had a positive experience.” One
element did need tweaking. One of the benefits of printing your
own ticket is to avoid shipping charges. Some guests would order
the at-home tickets but, because they didn’t have their own
printer, use the confirmation number to get a printout at the park
and so avoid the shipping charges. “We had to add ‘Access
to a printer required’ on the program,” Cole said. Guests also can enhance their home-printed tickets with season passes and front-of-the line passes. In terms of staff training, it is just another ticket for front gate and guest service employees. In terms of public use, the ratio of print-at-home tickets mirrors that of the park’s general demographic, used by both locals and tourists. But
in one significant aspect, it’s a whole new ticket. “I’ve
worked shifts at the front gate,” Cole said. “One of the
benefits that makes me excited—and I saw this from the get-go—was
how happy (guests) were with the ticket, especially when they see
long lines. There was a pride, as if they were saying, ‘I was
smart enough to do this, I’m so tech savvy.’” So is Universal Studios Hollywood. Old Tucson may not have all the ingredients for a proper Nightfall, but it will stir up a bewitching Frightfest. Photo courtesy of www.oldtucsonstudios.com. Nightfall
rises again The
park owners and the landlord county had been moving toward an agreement
for several weeks, but at the end of August Old Tucson officials
announced that their annual Halloween event, Nightfall, would be
canceled. The decision may not have directly influenced the Pima
County Board of Supervisors, but the fact that an 11-year tradition
and the region’s most popular October outing—not to mention
Old Tucson’s primary moneymaking event—would be going
by the wayside shook up the community and illustrated just how dire
Old Tucson’s economic state had become. The
real reason Nightfall was canceled, however, was uncertainty over
the park’s future, said David Girton, Old Tucson’s vice
president of operations and general manager. Staff continued planning
for the event even after its demise was announced, but no money
was actually spent on the material, equipment or talent needed for
turning Old Tucson into the town of Nightfall with its own special
mazes, rides and shows. “Nightfall is our big money maker of
the year, it has always been,” Girton said of the event that
drew more than 50,000 to the park last year. “Ownership was
not going to not do it if they could. But, you also aren’t
going to pour the money into opening the doors without the knowledge
that you are going to be here.” By
the time the new lease was agreed to, Nightfall didn’t have
enough time to come to full fruition. “We’re not going
to have the time to implement the programs that our customers have
come to expect in an event called Nightfall,” Girton said.
However, the park had already booked groups for a smaller scale
event, so the park decided to name it Nightfall Presents Frightfest
and open it to the general public for almost half the price ($9.59
instead of $16.95) and for just 13 days instead of the entire month.
“We got everything together we could get together with a short
stream of money,” Girton said. “It will be a nice strong
event.” Frightfest
will feature a stage show, Old Tucson’s strong suit, called
"Frightmares: Dead Again"; the "Scary Slinger Show,"
a takeoff on TV talk show host Jerry Springer; two walk-through
mazes, one of those the park’s mine; talking gargoyles doing
a comedy routine and something called Manimal, a “split-second
horrifying event” in the Old Tucson town square. For the first
time in years, too, the park will add haunt features to its train
ride. “For
people coming out, I don’t think it will be a disappointment,”
Girton said. “If they thought 17 dollars was worth it in the
past, they will think this is more than worth ($10).” As for
the ideas and designs Girton’s staff didn’t have time
to implement this year, “the beauty of that is it’s finished
for next year.” The beauty of that is that for Old Tucson, there will be a next year. This Civil War hearse brought new life to Kennywood's Phantom Fright Nights. Photo courtesy of Kennywood. Not
so funereal Not
Kennywood. The West Miflin, Pennsylvania, amusement park opened
its second annual Phantom Fright Nights on September 12 with a mock
funeral. “We were looking for something different,” said
John Rodgers, Kennywood’s director of promotions. “Obviously,
this is different.” The
park teamed up with one of Pittsburgh’s top rock ’n’
roll radio stations to promote a contest inviting people to apply
for the chance to attend their own funeral and hear their own eulogy
with six friends serving as pall bearers. The only stipulation set
by the radio station was that the dearly not-so-departed could not
stand over 6-foot-5 or weigh more than 300 pounds. Good thing; the
winner from among 73 applicants weighed 250 pounds, “and that
was a challenge,” Rodgers said. “His friends were complaining
as they picked him up and put him into the hearse. Next time we’ll
ask for somebody 5-foot-5.” The
centerpiece to the whole promotion in Rodgers’ eyes was the
hearse, an authentic Civil War-era horse-drawn wagon purchased at
a Buffalo, New York, auction a couple of weeks before. “It
was just too good to pass up,” Rodgers said. The Kennywood
carpenters and mechanics refurbished the hearse, Marketing Director
Keith Hood provided horses Nell and Bell from a farm in Ligonier,
Pennsylvania, and an appropriately dressed driver and footman completed
the effect. The
deceased, made up to appear gaunt, was laid out in one of the steel
coffins Kennywood had made for Phantom Fright Nights. “We had
to take the top off because there was not much room in the hearse,”
Rodgers said. Besides, although the man was supposed to be dead,
he still needed to breath. “We didn’t want any bad situations.”
Accompanied
by a 10-piece band playing New Orleans funeral march music, the
procession moved to the park’s main stage where the memorial
service was held. The passageway from hearse to the stage was too
narrow for the coffin, so the owner got out to help his pall bearers
pals tilt the box and place it on the stage. Lying back down, he
endured the roasts of a local comedian giving the eulogy and several
friends and family members called on to offer their own remembrances.
“After
the eulogy was done, he once again had to get out of the box to
carry it outside,” Rodger said. “Then he got back in and
they put him back in the hearse.” Transported now to a graveyard
set up for Phantom Fright Nights, the pall bearers placed the coffin
in a mausoleum Kennywood carpenters had built, and the deceased
emerged, zombie-like, through a back door to the cheers of the crowd. Rodgers said the funeral promotion seemed to add to what would have been a typical opening night crowd. The promotion will likely be repeated next year, he said, “now that we’ve purchased this beautiful horse-drawn hearse.”
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
Trading
places With
that ambivalence, we gauge the start of trade show season. First
came the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s annual conference,
which drew standard numbers (about 1,600) but left many of the 121
exhibitors frustrated—and some outright angry—with the
lack of traffic in the exhibit hall. The show almost unanimously
described by vendors as slow was a reflection of a zoo industry
grappling with budget challenges, not only from this year’s
attendance drops at many zoos but also from restricted local government
funding. Jim
Seay of Premier Rides, who was exhibiting at both AZA and Fun Expo
for the first time, raved after the first day of Fun Expo about
the amount of interest and number of sales his Cari-Co designed
electric karts were generating. He and his sales staff had their
biggest shock when one FEC owner jumped in the Premier booth’s
kart and drove off down the aisle, the Premier staff in hot pursuit.
“Scared us to death,” Seay said. “We finally stopped
him and he said, ‘I’m a member of the (IALEI) board, I
can do this,’ so we let him go.” After his test spin the
operator parked back at the booth and ordered a fleet. Preston
& Barbieri Worldwide scored well with its line of Eureka rides,
an interactive family round ride. While Barbieri alone represented
the Italian manufacturer faction at Fun Expo, another surprise overseas
vendor came all the way from Russia, Pax Design Company, which also
had some meaningful meetings during the show. For these ride manufacturers,
family entertainment centers are a market worthy of diversifying
their product lines. The
annual Fun Expo Academy’s 41 seminars drew more than 1,600
attendees. The two-day Rookies and Newcomers Workshop had 80 participants,
a record high. Both strong numbers are evidence that Fun Expo is
establishing itself as an appealing educational forum—after
all, the academy does require a registration fee—and that the
FEC industry is in continuing good health. Fun
Expo and AMOA revealed a couple more clues to trends worth watching
as the industry nears the IAAPA confab in November. One, the Fun
Expo/AMOA trade show traffic included a larger percentage of international
buyers than previous shows, veterans said, particularly from the
Pacific Rim and Latin America. Two, family appeal is a key watchword.
That
latter notion emerged notably around Fun Expo’s staging a Paintball
Tournament. The event drew eager contestants and curious crowds,
and the camouflaged kids added an exotic energy to the floor traffic.
The tournament also drew a bit of angst from some operators and
suppliers, especially when people carrying authentic-looking rapid-fire
rifles set up in the aisles to shoot each other (sans ammunition,
but with realistic sound effects). Paintball arenas could be a good
investment for FECs, but a vocal contingent also believes the sport
is not conducive to the first word in the industry’s identifying
acronym: “Family.” Clearly, Fun Expo has rebounded from its almost moribund status two to three years ago, and this year’s performance in particular reinforces the industry trend that, in today’s economy, size DOES matter: small IS good. IALEI President Vondriska got as good as he gave with Fun Expo vendors like SGD’s Donald Karlson. Photo by Eric Minton/THE LOOP. Presidential
campaign He
looked like a man running for president, not one already appointed
to head the International Association for the Leisure & Entertainment
Industry this year. He even stopped at a Convention Center food
cart where he handed its attendant, Denise, a business card. “I
was trying to get a free hot dog,” Vondriska said later in
defense; except that Denise didn’t sell hot dogs at her cart. While
Vondriska got a certain amount of gentle ribbing for his campaign-style
demeanor, his purpose was nothing short of profound: simple, logical
even, but something rare for an association president at an annual
confab. Over the three-day trade show Vondriska intended to visit
all 153 booths, give vendors a name and face to the organization
and get feedback from those vendors on the show’s traffic and
their problems or concerns. “I’ve
been in this business 30 years,” said Vondriska, COO of International
Theme Park Services, Inc., “and one thing I know is if you
want to keep your customers happy, you have to go out and shake
their hand and talk to them and ask how they’re doing.”
Vondriska “instructed” all the IALEI board members to
do the same. By the time he reached some booths, the vendors told
Vondriska he was the fourth or fifth IALEI officer to stop by. “I
think it’s important to put a face to the association,”
he said. Or many faces, for that matter. “IALEI
owns half of this show,” he said, referring to the trade show
CO-located with the Amusement and Music Operators Association International
Expo. “It’s important to keep the suppliers happy.”
One of the surest roads to happiness for trade show vendors is heavy
traffic, and that comes from increasing membership, Vondriska said.
IALEI just launched a new strategic plan with 12 goals that he summarized
in three primary objectives: —
To improve the association’s education efforts by recruiting
an education director, by developing manuals and videos, and by
“taking the show on the road” with regional seminars. —
To increase membership, currently at about 800 members including
200 suppliers, by at least 25 percent by 2006. Vondriska calls that
benchmark “aggressive,” but the association is aiming
to meet that target by attracting more FECs through its education
and member services, by courting small parks with attendance between
100,000 and 400,000—an initiative begun last year that also
seems to be bearing fruit, based on the small parks attending Fun
Expo—and by courting zoos. “They do the same things FECs
do: birthday parties, sleep-overs, souvenirs, food and beverage,”
Vondriska said. —
To improve Fun Expo. Vondriska took his first big step on that final goal down aisle 100 with business cards in hand. “Every vendor here has had a positive response to that,” he said; even those couple of vendors with gripes. “I hope they remember that when they re-up.” Sample
sampling For
10 years, those outlets included skating rinks across the United
States, thanks to a program Target Market Concepts developed for
the Roller Skating Association. The nice thing for the skating rinks
is that the products, promotional samples that the rinks could hand
out to customers, are free. IALEI
wanted its members to get a taste of that action. “Your (guests)
like it, you like it, and it costs nothing,” said IALEI Executive
Director Carole Sjolander. “What more could you want?” The
official name of the IALEI/Target Market Concept program is the
Family Entertainment Center Promotion Network. Any IALEI operator
member could sign up for the chance to receive free snacks, magazines,
toys, games and, mostly, candy that they could then pass out to
their patrons. “We go to all the major packaging brands,”
said Brian Scott Sockin, managing partner of Target Market Concepts.
“We eat a lot of chocolate; it’s a very dangerous business.”
Indeed, at its Fun Expo booth Target Market Concept had samples
of some of the samples FECs could give their guests, like miniature
candy bars, M&Ms and other chocolate goodies. Furthermore,
250 participating FECs will receive a free LED message board. The
family entertainment center could program any messages they want
to put on the board while Target Market Concept places national
brand advertising on the side panels. Through such advertising and
the FEC Promotion Network, Target Market Concept gives its clients
entree into the coveted family market and also provides back-end
research. The “win-win” phrase is well worn, but it perfectly describes this symbiotic relationship, with Target Market Concept as the bridge. To Sjolander, as an IALEI member privilege, the FEC Promotion Network is a no-brainer. “If you’ve got a program like this and not want to do it, you have to be brain dead,” she said. For a full list of awards at Fun Expo, click here. |
||||
|
AZA Report For
a list of exhibitors
Eye
opener Before
swearing in the AZA’s new board members, Immediate Past President
John Lewis at the podium removed his coat and tie and donned a T-shirt—bearing
Aza’s eyes and the legend “I Am Aware” —handed
out by the association’s National Awareness Campaign Committee
earlier in the week. Then, instead of merely replying to their charges
with “I accept,” Lewis had the new board members repeat
“I accept and I am aware.” “Awareness”
was the catchword of this year’s conference. AZA has, for the
past couple of years, mounted a campaign with the help of Proprietary
Media, a New York media and consulting firm, to improve public understanding
of both the organization and its mission. Part of that campaign
was creating a cartoon mascot, a hybrid creature called Aza, and
working with former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley on a survey of children
and a resulting white paper (THE
LOOP, April 25, 2003). This
year the campaign reached groundswell proportions, thanks to the
efforts of the AZA’s National Awareness Committee, a blue ribbon
leadership committee formed last year. “What we realized last
year was that everybody was not at the same stage of understanding,”
said Lyn Frankel, senior director of marketing at the National Aquarium
in Baltimore, Maryland, and vice chair of the committee. The campaign
also honed its intent: with the primary message being wildlife and
habitat conservation, it is not so much promoting AZA itself but
the collective that is AZA. “We can be much more impactful
if we operated with one voice of 215 strong institutions and 33,000
experts,” Frankel said. Last
year the campaign forged a five-point plan: to secure buy-in from
institutions at the director level, to establish leadership, to
generate understanding of the concept, to draft goals and objectives
and a subsequent marketing plan, and to improve internal communications.
The first is in progress: 160 institutions have signed on. “We’re
80 percent there,” Frankel said. The leadership has been established
via the committee. The drafting of objectives and the marketing
plan is still under way, and internal communications was the key
component of this month’s conference, highlighted by a morning
general session devoted to the National Awareness Campaign and culminating
with Lewis’ visual and verbal statement at the banquet. AZA
institutions traditionally partner in almost all aspects of their
missions, but that communication “is in silos, if you will,”
Frankel said. “The animal people cooperate with the animal
people, the marketing people communicate with the marketing people.
This is breaking down the silos and getting everybody talking with
everybody else.” Generating
understanding of the concept is, perhaps, one of the most difficult
challenges within and without the organization. The committee under
took extensive surveys of zoo patrons over the past year, compiling
data that reinforced the information Proprietary Media had previously
gathered. According to the surveys, the American people are concerned
about wildlife, they love zoos and aquariums, but they don’t
know what those AZA-accredited institutions do outside their walls
in regards to worldwide conservation efforts and species survival
programs. Significantly, while several other organizations push
conservation agendas, the surveys indicated that many people “don’t
know who to trust,” Frankel said. “They want someone to
tell them what to do. They trust us. They want us to take that role.” That role can be profound when it is voiced with 33,000 animal experts in 215 respected institutions, not to mention the fact those institutions represent the one tangible link between the civilized world and the wildlife world: the animals themselves. “We have the collective expertise, we have the physical contact with people,” Frankel said. “Our animals connect with people in an emotional way. In order to change minds and activate hands, you’ve got to open eyes. It’s a winning recipe for high-impact education.” AZA President Mark Reed presented his mentor Hoessle with the prestigious award named after Hoessle's mentor. Photo by Eric Minton/THE LOOP. Teacher’s
teachers As
one of Perkins biggest fans, Hoessle was inspired to pursue his
own zoological career, eventually conducting outreach programs on
reptiles and other small animals for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and
other social groups in St. Louis. He did one such program for the
Women’s Auxiliary of the St. Louis Natural History Museum;
in the audience was Carol Perkins, who told her husband, Marlin,
he needed to hire the young Hoessle at the St. Louis Zoo. “He
called me up asking me to help as keeper in reptiles and to eventually
start an education program for the zoo,” Hoessle recalled.
“That was the carrot to get me to join him.” That meeting
was his first face-to-face with his idol. “I was in awe,”
Hoessle said. It
was an audience of friends and admirers at the American Zoo and
Aquarium Association’s Annual Conference who were in awe of
Hoessle as he accepted the R. Marlin Perkins Award for a lifetime
of outstanding service to the AZA and wildlife conservation and
outreach. “I was absolutely shocked,” Hoessle said. He
had been tipped off a few weeks before the conference, he said,
but, “I didn’t think I deserved it. There are so many
other people in AZA who have contributed so much.” The
Perkins award is so highly regarded it is presented only in years
when a suitable recipient is identified, sort of the zoo industry’s
elite hall of fame. That Hoessle should receive the AZA’s most
vaunted award named for his mentor made it all the more “super
special,” Hoessle said. He recalled how TV-star Perkins received
so much fan mail and requests he would ask Hoessle to help answer
the correspondence. “That allowed me a chance to do all that
research.” After Hoessle succeeded Perkins to the position
of executive director at the St. Louis Zoo, assigning responsibilities
and encouraging research, outreach and education among his own charges
became a trademark of his own tenure. His own impact on the industry
was made evident when Bill Boever, St. Louis Zoo's current director
and COO, in presenting the award to Hoessle asked those in the audience
who had gone on from the St. Louis Zoo to leadership positions at
other zoos to stand. More than a dozen did so. “Oh,
I choked up a little bit when I started talking,” Hoessle said.
“There were so many old friends in the audience, a lot of former
employees. I’ve been going to AZA meetings for 40 years. It
was like a family affair.”
The
association annually honors zoos and aquariums for their conservation
programs, their public education programs and their exhibits. Plus,
overall service to the AZA is recognized in various ways, from honorary
memberships to the Marlin Perkins Award. However, no special recognition
existed for those association volunteers who had advanced the association’s
own internal education program. “A
lot of people in our industry were putting in lots and lots of effort
specifically to the professional development program,” said
Deb Fassnacht, executive vice president of the John G. Shedd Aquarium
in Chicago, Illinois, and past chair of the AZA’s Board of
Regents. The association also wanted to honor its own victim of
the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “It was a perfect fit,” Fassnacht
said. “The timing was good to recognize these people, and because
of Tim’s role in the early years of the program there was a
need to honor him in some way.” The
first Tim O’Sullivan Award for professional contribution to
the AZA professional development program was given to another of
the association's education pioneers, Dr. Bruce Carr, currently
holding the Roy Disney Chair of Conservation Education at AZA.
|
||||
|
New Arrivals Holocaust witnesses told their stories for rapt listeners in the museum's attic. Photo courtesy of the Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education. It’s
a Holocaust exhibit! Racelle
Weiman, after visiting the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington,
D.C., stood at the exit and surveyed visitors about what impacted
them most. The overwhelming answer was the survivor testimony broadcast
in one of the museum’s rooms. “I thought, why go into
a side room to get the most important feature? Why not make it front
and center?” Weiman said. That
notion drove the design for the new exhibit at her own Center for
Holocaust and Humanity Education in Cincinnati. Aside from making
the testimonies the centerpiece for Mapping Our Tears, she wanted
to give visitors the impression that survivors were talking directly
to them in person. The gallery is designed as an attic. The audience
sits on steamer trunks. As survivors recount their experiences on
the plasma video screen, lighting and sound effects highlight aspects
of the stories in the room. When a survivor describes hiding in
an armoire, an armoire in the room is lit. When a survivor describes
the Nazi crowds shouting outside, guests hear the crowds. When a
survivor describes a mother’s lullaby, the lullaby plays, the
only time music is used in the exhibit. “We’re
not teaching history, we’re teaching human experience,”
Weiman said. “The experience is as if you’re sitting in
this attic, almost a safe hiding place. There’s nothing evil
or vicious—it’s an attic. And it talks about the time
of innocence past.” The testimonies are all drawn from people
living in a 150-mile radius of Cincinnati and include not only Holocaust
survivors but also resisters, liberators and Nuremberg Trial officials.
Graduate
students further set aside compelling stories that were combined
in three different vignettes representing three human emotions:
courage, love and loss. “Afterward you don’t feel you’ve
been battered; you feel privileged,” Weiman said. “You
sit and listen to wisdom.” Throughout the whole exhibit are
artifacts donated by survivors and liberators, supplemented by some
props from the 1930s. Drawers contain documents, such as letters,
that guests can read. Opening
such an exhibit required a ceremony that struck a balance between
celebration of the exhibit’s debut and respect for the victims
of the Holocaust. The event featured chamber music, responsive readings
and addresses from a survivor, a liberator, a Nuremberg prosecutor
and a Catholic high school student, the last speaking on behalf
of the first students to view Mapping Our Tears. Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk,
the college’s chancellor emeritus and himself a Holocaust survivor,
gave the keynote address. The ceremony also included the placing
of a Mezuzah, a scroll of scripture Jews put on doorposts to bless
a new house; this one was carried to Cincinnati in a survivor’s
purse after World War II. About 400 people attended the official opening, Weiman said, a surprising turnout for a mid-week event. “The college had never seen this many people at one event,” she said. In
the nursery It’s
a restaurant!
|
||||
|
Zero
tolerance no debate It
is heartening to see such a topic—safety—being discussed
so openly. Here’s hoping that discussion maintains an intelligent,
even tone and temperament, for it could devolve into blanket judgments
and defensive postures that would ultimately undermine one of the
industry’s most important relationships without ever accomplishing
the safety standards the parks are seeking among its customers. One
phrase in Koch’s letter should be the anchor to all future
responses to the issue of rider behavior: zero tolerance policy.
That means anybody, no matter who they are, enthusiast or not, who
is caught engaging in unsafe behavior should be disciplined. That
disciplinary policy should be established in writing and applied
uniformly to all ages, genders, demographic classes, organization
affiliations (this goes for train and carousel enthusiasts, too,
as well as journalists). It should become part of the operator training
standards. It should become part of coaster organizations’
constitutions. There can be no exceptions and, more importantly,
no excuses for not carrying out such policies. I
have two experiences to share along these lines, one from back before
I started covering the amusement industry full time, and one from
my visit to a theme park on Sunday. One
of the topics I have covered as a magazine journalist was workplace
violence, from bullying and hazing among office workers to fatal
acts of aggression. Inevitably, the former would lead to the latter.
Subsequently, the only means of prevention for the latter was a
zero tolerance policy of the former. First violation would mean
a warning, second violation was termination. Could a termination
lead to an act of violence? Possibly. Would kid-gloving the violation
lead to violence? Certainly. The key to carrying out the policy
was no exceptions, no excuses. If a worker even joked about “going
postal,” that worker would receive a warning and be referred
to an employee intervention program. There
are parallels here with what we are dealing with in the amusement
industry right now. We are not talking about violence, but we are
talking about consequences, and both lead to fatalities. Sunday, I saw the no-tolerance attitude put to practice, and I was, in fact, a party to it. It was at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, and I was visiting with two friends from Germany. Heading up the lift hill of the Jaguar coaster, I heard the “voice of god” coming over the publi | ||||
