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

The view is better down there at Texas State Aquarium;

Six Flags Marine World freaks out with sideshow publicity

Happy Hollow Park and Zoo gets cellular to help orangutans;

A volunteer at Seneca Park Zoo shows the way for a grabby ape;

Ohio's African Safari Wildlife Park captures a piece of the waterpark market;

Funtasticks gives thanks with thanks;

Lake Compounce counts on LEGO for successful fund-raising promotion;

We welcome Mission: SPACE to Disney's Epcot; Mickey's PhilharMagic to Disney's Magic Kingdom, and The Matrix exhibit to to Warner Bros. Movie World Australia;

In the nursery we find a 4-D movie at Seaworld Gold Coast and a Whirlpool in Australia's Wet 'n' Wild; and,

THE LOOP says farewell .

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The best seats in the house were under the house for Texas State Aquarium's new dolphin shows. Photo courtesy of Texas State Aquarium.

Under-whelming
There’s an old landscaping adage: don’t build your walkways until you see where people walk in an open space. People’s habits often dictate use, and the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi has discovered that with its new $12 million Dolphin Bay.

The largest addition since the aquarium opened in 1990, the 30,000-square-feet (2,787 square-meter), 400,000-gallon (1.5-million-liter) Dolphin Bay opened in May and features two male Atlantic Bottlenosed Dolphins, Kimo and Sundance, who do behavior demonstrations throughout the day. The aquarium raised $15 million in private donations, with the excess going toward a general sprucing up of exhibits, gift shop, food court, rest rooms and signage throughout the aquarium and a $1.5 million endowment to cover future maintenance costs.

Dolphins have always been part of the Texas State Aquarium’s plans “since day one,” said CEO Tom Schmid. “Dolphins swim in the water right off our facility, and (Dolphin Bay) allows visitors to get really close to the species.” Especially downstairs in an underwater viewing room, 2,400 square feet (223 square meters) of air conditioned space with a 50-foot-long, 10 foot-high (15-by-3-meter) curved acrylic window. “Visitors get to literally come face-to-face with dolphins,” Schmid said. “They tend to interact especially with the kids through the acrylic.”

The room also has become a favorite place to watch the demonstrations. The behaviors of jumping in the air, flipping and twisting, may be breathtaking, but equally so are the preludes to those jumps, watching the dolphins picking up speed, torpedoing through the water and launching themselves out. “We thought underwater viewing would be compelling before and after the demonstrations, but we didn’t realize how popular watching the actual presentations would be down there,” Schmid said. “It’s been a real surprise. The most rewarding thing for me is going down there and watching visitors’ reaction in the room, and they are just blown away.”

So popular has the room become during presentations that the aquarium has already started piping audio from the shows into the room, and next year Schmid plans to add live video of the out-of-pool experiences to the underwater viewing audience.

Aside from giving the aquarium what is arguably the greatest show under earth in Texas, Dolphin Bay helped the Texas State Aquarium salvage what could have been a slump year. Attendance since the addition’s opening has been up 24 percent compared to 2002 summer attendance, and annual attendance is expected to top 475,000, well above the 425,000 average, Schmid said. This spike was in spite of near visits from two storms, Claudette in July and Erica in August. Hurricane Claudette cost the aquarium “conservatively 15,000 visitors” over a nine day period, Schmid said, and Tropical Storm Erica another 2,000 to 3,000. “It was the second July in a row we’ve had a huge (hurricane) hit. We’re miffed at the weather gods, but I can’t complain, looking at other theme parks and zoos around the country.”

That’s thanks to a huge (dolphin) hit, both over and under.

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Six Flags Marine World stole the benefits of old circus posters to promote a new sideshow.

Stunt publicity
Supplementing its annual Fright Fest with a freak show-type sideshow, Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California, called on a good old-fashioned, in-your-face circus poster look to mount its media campaign.

Jeff Jouett, the park’s public relations manager, was partly responsible for the park booking sideshow performing artist Harley Newman for Fright Fest which already has two haunted houses, a hypnotist show and a trick-or-treat trail. “My sister in St. Louis has a friend who is a sideshow aficionado,” Jouett said. “He gave me a nice review of the best sideshow artists and recommended Harley Newman.”

The Pennsylvania-based Newman, who studied under French mime Marcel Marceau and theatrical movement master Jacques Lecoq, does such stunts as lying on a bed of nails while a motorcycle passes over, stopping electric fans with his tongue, sticking power drills up his nose and shaving with a blowtorch. He plays these stunts for laughs and so has become a frequent guest on television talk and comedy shows. He will combine his month-long residency at Six Flags Marine World with an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

“October is a really busy month for freaks,” Jouett said. “They get good work in October. You’ve got to book them early.”

Such an act was rich publicity fodder for the creative mind of Jouett. “We decided to really play it up and go to the old-style sideshow look with almost cartoonish art, the wonderful pointing fingers everywhere, hundreds of exclamation points and bursts,” Jouett said. Brian Masuga, an artist with Lunar Cow Design in Fairlawn, Ohio, came up with the artwork, and Jouett derived the copy, including the title “Freak Me Out.”

Jouett started his media campaign with a series of four postcards, each showing a different Harley stunt like the Barbed Wire Futon!, The Human Blockhead!, Breathes Fire! Eats Fire! and Harley Parks A Harley On Top Of Himself On A Bed Of Nails! The weekly-delivered postcards led into the press kit, with more stunt art on the cover and even the press releases printed on circus poster stationary with such headlines as “Harley’s Gnarly!”

“The sideshow unapologetically manipulates your attention,” Jouett said, and that he did. The first day Harley arrived in Vallejo he had local radio and television interviews lined up. “We’ve gotten a lot of calls,” Jouett said.

“It’s been really fun. You send out a postcard of a guy pounding nails in his nose. How often do you get to do that? You can use wildly, weird contrasting type fonts next to each other and write about somebody who staples their tongue to a board after studying with Marcel Marceau.”

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Happy Hollow Zoo got more for orangutans with cell phone disposal program. Art courtesy of Happy Hollow Park & Zoo.

They can hear them now
The most overused phrase in the English language: win-win. OK, so here’s a win-win win-win program.

Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose, California, helps orangutans in the wild, various charities around the country, the environment and local residents with a cell phone recycling program which it began last April, an idea other zoos already are picking up. Vanessa Rogier, Happy Hollow’s public relations and marketing director, said a friend of hers started a cell phone recycling program to raise money for her dog and cat rescue center. Rogier liked the idea. “We took it that step further: we don’t get anything, other than that this is a great program.”

Happy Hollow has become a permanent collection point for used cell phones. When a hundred are gathered, the zoo sends them to ReCellular in Michigan, where many of the phones are refurbished, and those that can’t be are properly disposed. “The majority we get coming through are pretty decent phones,” Rogier said. ReCellular donates some of the phones to various non-profit organizations, and sells the rest, with some of the proceeds going to the donator’s selected charity. For Happy Hollow, that charity is the Balikpapan Orangutan Society, a conservation organization started in 1991 devoted to protecting wild orangutans and their habitats.

So far the zoo has channeled through about 1,200 phones and earned about $1,000 for orangutan conservation, Rogier said. “We’ve gotten phones from The Netherlands, Kansas, the East Coast,” she said, helped along by a link on the BOS site www.orangutan.com. However, it is the local population—mobile phone saturated Silicon Valley—that has really taken hold of the program.

“We did an event about a year ago, a Conservation Marketplace with a flea market and silent auction, and it raised some money,” Rogier said. “But it dawned on me that people are unbelievably busy. They were into it, but they couldn’t embrace it. We decided to start a conservation program that people can do here that makes them feel empowered.” Right up front, the Happy Hollow program helps the environment by getting people to properly recycle phones; at the end of the line, orangutans get better living conditions; along the way, nonprofit organizations get new used phones.

Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, meanwhile, get local publicity and a bit of leadership status among the nation’s zoos. “So far about 15 other zoos have contacted me in regards to starting their own cell phone conservation,” Rogier said. “I think it’s great. There’s over 200 million cell phones sitting in people’s drawers. I just want a million. The more the merrier.”

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Keeping a firm grip
Speaking of embracing and orangutans, in a year when reports of animals getting out of enclosures are dominating zoo news in the media, one such escape could have a long-term effect on zoo operations around the world, not because of any tragic ending but because the people involved responded so right to something so rare. And it wasn’t an escape but an orangutan getting into an enclosure before he was supposed to.

The incident occurred in August at the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York, when Lowell, a 19-year-old male, gained access to one side of 1931-built dual cage enclosure where zoo volunteer Paul Louis was cleaning. The 300-pound orang, which had come to the zoo two years before from the Wildlife Sanctuary in Los Angeles, California, grabbed hold of Louis’ leg and wouldn’t let go as they fell out of the cage through the keepers’ door.

Louis didn’t panic. Nor did he try to escape. He calmly talked with Lowell and patted his head as they walked down a hallway and then returned to the cage, where Lowell actually helped Louis back up into the enclosure, all the while grasping the volunteer’s leg. “Paul remained amazingly calm,” said Shaunta Collier-Santos, public relations and marketing manager for Seneca Park Zoo Society.

That calm remained as Jeff Wyatt, the zoo’s director of animal health and conservation, arrived and began talking Lowell through husbandry behavior, first to determine whether to use a tranquilizer dart gun on the orangutan or to use a hand injection. As Lowell responded to all commands correctly, Wyatt said, “Give me your shoulder.” Lowell complied, and once tranquilized he released his grip on Louis. The whole episode lasted no more than 15 minutes, Collier-Santos said, and occurred in the hour before the zoo opened to the general public but after members had gained early admission. Only a couple of guests where near the orangutan enclosure at the time.

The hero was Louis, precisely because he reacted exactly as he should. “Did he ever,” Collier-Santos said. “I have to say he was so calm that it was almost unbelievable. We had folks from 911, the police and (EMTs), and we had to force him to get his vitals checked. Then we told him to go home, and he said, ‘No, I’ve got to go back and finish my work.’ He was adamant about doing his duties. And he’s still volunteering.”

At the time Louis had only been volunteering at Seneca Park Zoo three months, and his reaction to the episode highlighted how volunteers need training in such protocols, though he had never himself been fully prepared for such a possibility. “There is orientation for volunteers, do’s and don’t’s, but not that in-depth,” Collier-Santos said. “We do train them on animal escape protocol, tell them what they should do. But we’ve never built any drills around that. Now we do.”

Collier-Santos said all the protocols in place for animal escapes were “followed to the letter,” though the animal didn’t escape. “We had been practicing and going through drills to prepare for animal escapes. But we’d never practiced anything with a hostage situation.”

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Bearing out
The African Safari Wildlife Park in Port Clinton, Ohio, had its best April ever in a year when it originally didn’t plan to have an April. That early opening launched a highly successful season for the zoo, thanks entirely to a waterpark resort, said Director Bill Coburn.

It’s not his waterpark resort, mind you, but the Great Bear Lodge in nearby Sandusky. Coburn set up a deal with the resort lodge to offer half-off admission for any guests with a Great Bear room key or waterpark wristband. “People spending three days at Great Bear, after a couple of days they are waterlogged and looking for other things to do,” Coburn said.

Originally scheduled to open May 1, African Safari Wildlife Park moved its opening up 30 days to April 2 to get some of the spring break business at Great Bear. That earlier opening caused some challenges, especially bringing in staff earlier to prepare the park after one of the region’s worst winters on record.

But it was worth it. Coburn called his April “12 times better than we’ve ever had,” and the Great Bear traffic continued through the summer. Even June’s incessant rain didn’t hamper business at the wildlife park. “A little bit of rain doesn’t hurt us because people come off the lake (Erie),” Coburn said, and the safari park can be enjoyed from inside the guests’ cars.

Now, there’s nice market positioning, attracting people wanting to get out of the water on the inside and out from the rain on the outside.

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Children were the stars making this thank you card for Funtasticks.

Memories for the thanks
When customers, colleagues and community sponsors receive a thank you note from Jill Hofer, director of marketing for Funtasticks Family Fun Park in Tucson, Arizona, they get a card with art drawn by a child visiting the FEC. These one-of-a-kind cards came out of program called “Thank You for Fun at Funtasticks” Hofer launched last year at the Tucson park and at sister FEC Fiddlesticks in Phoenix, Arizona.

“That was my best idea of all last year,” said Hofer, whose ideas consistently win her company several community service awards, and this one won a Gold Addy Award from the Tucson Advertising Federation. The program started as a way to send cards of appreciation to U.S. military personnel serving overseas and to veterans in nursing homes. On the Fourth of July and Veterans Day, Funtasticks and Fiddlesticks set up activity tables where kids can come in and create their own card art. The FECs supply the blank cards, crayons and markers.

“Parents love it, kids love it,” Hofer said. And for each card the kids turn in they get a free ride on one of the park’s attractions. “Some of these kids draw eagles. I had several kids draw the World Trade Center towers. There were lots and lots of flags. A lot of kids put profound things in there like, ‘We’re praying for you,’ and “thank you for keeping us free.’ Even older kids get into it.”

The age limit is 14 years old, though Hofer admits “we’re pretty lax. If a teen-ager wants to do it, we don’t turn them away.” The youngest is anyone who can hold a crayon. “Even the scribbles turn into works of art,” Hofer said. “Those are the kind I generally reserve for my own use.”

Which is an added benefit of the promotion. Aside from serving as a military holiday tie in, Hofer always has some cards left over that she uses as her thank you stationary bearing a description of “Thank You for Fun at Funtasticks” on the back. “It’s fun for me because all my thank-you cards are cool now, and every one I send is different.”

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Coach Calhoun's likeness counted on Lake Compounce basketball to count him. Photo by Eric Minton/THE LOOP.

Brick trick
For anybody who played with LEGO as a kid—or, er, even as an adult—the life-size and life-like statues made out of the molded plastic building blocks inspires a bit of awe, a tad of envy (i.e., “Wish I had the time to do that”) and a lot of wonder. Like, how many LEGO pieces did it take to build that?

That question asked of 11 such LEGO statues at Lake Compounce Theme Park in Bristol, Connecticut, helped earn a local children’s hospital more than $50,000 this summer, and the people who guessed the closest won the statues themselves.

A local television station brought the three parties together, Lake Compounce, LEGO Company and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. “It was a great partnership, a natural fit in terms of working with LEGO,” said Richard Bisi, Lake Compounce’s director of marketing. The park’s children’s area included a LEGO Construction Zone throughout the summer, and LEGO built the 11 statues that were placed throughout the park. Some were specific profiles, like American author Mark Twain and Connecticut University basketball coach Jim Calhoun. Others were generic, like a boy sitting on a father’s shoulders. Guests could purchase $2 tickets (or a book of 12 for $10) to guess the number of bricks in a statue. All of that money went to the Medical Center. Lake Compounce supplemented the fund raiser with a Pepsi can promotion, giving guests $3 off regular admission while the park donated $1 to the Medical Center for each can.

Aside from raising money, the models made for a nice addition to the park’s ambiance. “If I saw one family stopping to get their pictures taken with a favorite LEGO model, I saw a hundred,” Bisi said. A favorite was the boy with his father, where guests would mimic the pose.

The last day of brick guessing was September 21 when the winners were announced. Ten of the winners live in Connecticut, and guest from New Hampshire won Twain. But just how close those winners came to guessing the actual number of bricks in the statues—and, for that matter, what number the winners guessed—remains classified information. LEGO never even told Lake Compounce, Bisi said.

But that didn’t spoil the relationship between the two entities. “It was a great opportunity, a great alliance,” Bisi said. “It could very well be the beginning of a long-term partnership.”

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New Arrivals

NASA astronauts gathered for a final test flight, above, in the Mission: SPACE simulators, below. Photos by Eric Minton/THE LOOP.

It’s a simulator!
Epcot at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, announces the arrival of Mission: SPACE, October 9, 2003. Measurements: 45,000 square feet (4,181 square meters), 35 feet high (11 meters), four ride bays each with 10 four-passenger simulator units, four-minute flight to Mars plus pre-show training. Delivered by Disney Imagineers, Environmental Tectonics Corp., Hewlett Packard.

Not surprisingly, in dedicating his company’s latest ride, Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner invoked the memory of Walt Disney, whose love of space travel inspired a whole themed section, Tomorrowland, in his original park of Disneyland. “Space travel was a personal fascination of Walt Disney’s,” Eisner said. But Eisner could have been accused of overstating when he called Mission: SPACE the “quintessential Disney attraction.”

We find Eisner innocent on all counts: he was not overstating. More than 350,000 imagineering hours went into the new ride’s design and operation. Give an Imagineer that much time and a budget reportedly topping out at $100 million, you are bound to get a special ride and a truly Disney-singular experience. Feeling sustained g’s during a liftoff, while being thrust around the moon and with touch-down on Mars, plus weightlessness in between, is a sensation so apparently authentic it lapsed retired astronauts into reveries of nostalgia.

Plenty of astronauts were doing just that on Thursday. An afternoon ceremony featured 17 former astronauts. Paired with local middle school and high school students studying aerospace technology, the real space travelers took the faux space trip and reported the experience was not so faux. “There are a lot of things to compare with the authentic (space travel), but this was easier,” said Gordon Cooper, an original Mercury astronaut who also flew Gemini. “They did an excellent job of bringing you back to earth; it was a good look, a good perspective.”

"In some ways it's better than the simulators we do at NASA," said Robert "Hoot" Gibson, a Shuttle pilot. "In real simulators it's real time and this speeds it up, but this does show you the G forces you feel. You feel the weightlessness. It's an ambitious thing for them to do."

One reason for the ride’s authenticity is the involvement of NASA itself in the project, so astronauts also featured prominently in the ride’s evening dedication. NASA’s Chief Administrator Sean O’Keefe joined Eisner and HP CEO Carly Fiorina on the stage and introduced six astronauts representing the epochs of NASA space travel: Wally Schirra of Mercury, Jim Lovell of Gemini (and Apollo 13 fame), Buzz Aldrin of the moon-landing Apollo 11, and shuttle astronauts Guion Bluford Jr., Joan Higginbothem and Bruce McCandless. Then, the two astronauts currently living in the space station in a link-up from their orbit led the countdown to a fireworks display officially opening Mission: SPACE. Then it was off to more spacey experiences with live concerts from Sugar Ray and the B-52s rock bands.

The Disney Company is banking heavily on this ride. The resort used the Mission: SPACE dedication as the keystone of a media event attended by thousands of journalists with international representation. For the three-day festivities, company officials unveiled new travel incentive programs, plans for upcoming rides (see Extra! Extra!), a new resort, a new fireworks show and another new attraction, Mickey’s PhilharMagic at Magic Kingdom. Fortunately for the company, Mission: SPACE delivered on its promise and generated nothing but rave reviews among those who rode it, even those who came off feeling slightly queasy. The sensation of space travel was worth a little discomfort, it seems.

Nevertheless, Eisner needs to take care in using a phrase like “quintessential Disney attraction” to describe his latest greatest hope. For impact as a new attraction, Mission: SPACE already has serious competition. Surprisingly, it came from an old duck at another Disney park. (See story below).

For more pictures of the Mission: SPACE opening, click here.

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Mickey's magic and Donald's humor filled 'em in at Disney's Magic Kingdom. Photo by Eric Minton/THE LOOP.

It’s a 4-D film!
The Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, announces the arrival of Mickey’s PhilharMagic, October 8, 2003. Measurements: Wrap around screen measuring 150 feet long (45 meters) and 28 feet high (8 meters).

Imagine a 4-D film in which each segment begins with a gasp and ends with applause. Imagine a cartoon that has kids giggling and most parents guffawing throughout. Imagine all this featuring only classic Disney cartoon characters.

Walt Disney World officials lumped the opening of its newest 4-D effort at Magic Kingdom in with the media extravaganza surrounding the opening of Mission: SPACE over at Epcot (see story above) and ran the risk of having Donald Duck steal Mars’ thunder. The 3-D is good, the special effects of wind, spotlights, popping champagne corks, scents of dinner and dessert and, of course, water are executed well. But it is the story itself and the characters’ performances that make this multi-D presentation special the first time and even better with each return visit.

It starts off merely cute as Donald Duck mischievously puts on Mickey Mouse’s wizard hat to conduct the orchestra. The spell gone awry sends Donald and instruments into a whirlwind, allowing for the standard cheap 3-D effects that have audiences grabbing at flutes and symbols. Then it’s lights out until Beauty and the Beast's Lumiére lights himself and launches the PhilharMagic on a delightful journey as Donald chases Mickey’s hat through classic Disney musical scenes (“Be Our Guest,” the marching brooms, Little Mermaid, Lion King, Peter Pan and Aladdin). All the while the humor grows richer as the screen itself expands into a surround sensation, particularly noticeable in Ariel’s grotto and Simba’s pining to be king. Even when the movie is done, the comedy continues with the back end of an animatronic Donald performing the denouement at the back of the theater.

The entire movie was created on computer, so some of the classic characters have Toy Story looks to them. However, original animators returned to do the 3-D Lumiére and Ariel, and most of Donald Duck is voiced by Clarence “Ducky” Nash, the duck’s original voice, as the producers used Donald’s lines from classic Disney films in PhilharMagic; only Donald's humming to “Be Our Guest” is newly recorded.

After debuting the show for visiting journalists Wednesday evening, the queuing public on Thursday created a traffic jam in the square behind Cinderella’s Castle, and even the Fast Pass queue looked imposing. That popularity is likely to continue because this is the kind of film that requires second and third viewings to fully appreciate.

Whether it was Ariel dancing with Donald, the duck’s magic carpet chase through Arabian alleyways or a giraffe wearing a Fantasia wizard’s hat, Mickey’s PhilharMagic proves that while 4-D effects may provide the awe, storyline and good acting are the things that make it a wonder.

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It’s a Matrix exhibit!
Warner Brothers Movie World in Gold Coast, Australia, announces the arrival of the Matrix Exhibit, September 20, 2003. Measurements: about 2,800 square meters (30,139 square feet), seven real Matrix movie sets, countless authentic and replicated props, 15 Mr. Smiths. Delivered by Brandi Exhibitions.

The popular Matrix film franchise was filmed at Warner’s studios in Australia where the movies, including the sequels, are huge hits and even bigger hits elsewhere in the Asian market, so it only seemed natural that the studio’s sister complex, the theme park, should showcase the show’s, well, case.

That showcase, however, is more than a display of movie memorabilia. It is a full-scale interactive exhibit featuring actual sets from the film with large plasma screens showing scenes from the movies set in those sets. Smaller galleries feature some of the props used in the films. Fifteen of those props reside in one room that starts off in pitch-black darkness when a spotlight illuminates the evil Mr. Smith, played by Australian actor Hugo Weaving. Then another Mr. Smith appears, and so on until 15 of the wax models used in the Matrix Reloaded’s famous cloning sequence are standing before the guests.

“It’s very much about being in the set and a part of the set and getting the educational experience from guides who walk and talk people through the area,” said Steve Peet, chief operating officer for Warner Village Theme Park Group. “We don’t just explain the movie but show how it was made.” Some of the exhibits, therefore, are more interactive. At one point guests can enter a phone booth, where the phone rings and if the guest answers he or she will hear “You’re in!” a re-enactment of a scene in the first movie.

Of course, if you haven’t seen the first movie, you won’t understand the significance of that scene and the pivotal line “You’re in.” That, though, doesn’t seem to be a factor in guest reaction to the exhibit. “Everyone’s really enjoying the exhibit because it’s so educational about movie making,” Peet said. “The Matrix fanatics, they spend a long time in the exhibit. For those who have not seen The Matrix, they are fascinated with all the aspects of how the movie is made.” And, perhaps, will determine to see the movies.

Ah, synergy. That synergy goes both ways. The third installment of the film trilogy is due in November. “That will make this (exhibit) one of those attractions that’s going to be top of the mind right through the important holiday period,” Peet said. Then, video releases of the two sequels throughout the rest of the year should cause further spikes. The exhibit is contracted to stand for at least 12 months, and could last much longer depending on demand. “By its essence it’s still an interesting exhibit from an educational point of view,” Peet said. “We do see ourselves as a movie studio theme park and need to keep contemporary by linking things back to the movie industry.”

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In the nursery
Other recent New Arrivals.

It’s a 4D film!
Seaworld had fun 4-D. The Gold Coast, Australia, marine theme park was showing the Pirates film in its 400-seat theater that was neither clever enough nor befitting its setting to please the park’s management. So, they replaced it September 20, 2003, with Planet SOS, produced by Ben Stassen and nWave Productions for the World Wildlife Fund. The 12-minute film takes guests through three ecologically challenged regions: the polar cap threatened by global warming, a coral reef threatened by reckless fishing practices and a tropical rainforest threatened by habitat destruction. Along the way guests get sneezed on by a polar bear, caught in a drag net and feel the chainsaws coming. “It’s very thought-provoking; we’re very pleased with it,” said Steve Peet, chief operating officer for Warner Village Theme Park Group which includes Seaworld. The park supplemented the main film with a 2 1/2-minute introductory movie filmed aboard the park’s own marine research and rescue craft Seaworld I and narrated by the park’s Director of Marine Sciences Trevor Long. “It’s a nice way to do a little flag waving for what we do at Seaworld,” Peet said. It fits the film Planet SOS, which, in turn fits the setting of Seaworld.

It’s a whirlpool10!
Wet ‘n’ Wild in Gold Coast, Australia, decided to get double use out of its new Whirlpool water ride. For the spring, summer and fall, the ride designed and built by Wet ‘n’ Wild’s own creative team, is a 25-meter/82 feet whirlpool containing a 10-meter-wide/33 foot-wide bubbling channel through which guests whirl about in one- or two-person rafts. For the winter months, the channel is drained to the bottom and the lids come off of ten 1.5-meter/5-foot hot tubs able to hold 20 people each. “Depending on weather conditions the 20-person tub has grown to 31,” said Steve Peet, chief operating officer for Warner Village Theme Park Group which includes Wet ‘n’ Wild. That group of 31 was a visiting rugby union team, among the many guests who enjoyed the hot tubs this past winter before the whirlpool officially opened as Whirlpool September 20, 2003. “It was a very ambitious project,” Peet said. “We built our own models, did our own testing. We probably discovered a lot of hydraulic science that we didn’t know existed. It’s amazing all the different dynamics trying to get water to do what you want it to do.”

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Eric's Turn

Photo by Paul McDonald/Amusement Today

Good-bye
The airport concourse was virtually empty. This was Atlanta. This was before 9/11. This was almost midnight, February 5, 2001. I was changing planes en route from my then new home in Dayton, Ohio, to Los Angeles, California. My destination: Disney’s California Adventure, officially opening that week. I was to cover that opening on my first assignment with Amusement Today and, more importantly, for THE LOOP, a brand new on-line newsletter I was launching for the amusement industry. Our first-ever issue we would post from Disneyland (see THE LOOP, February 9, 2001).

At that moment, waiting for my next flight there in Atlanta, I had only one thing surging through my mind: why?

Why was I leaving my wife, Sarah, my moving boxes-filled home, my financial security to travel to a distant (faux) land, to launch a perilous adventure (mine, not Disney’s)? The scary thing was that I couldn’t answer that question. I was as equally enamored with the idea of flying back home right then as I was terrified of continuing on, both on the trip to California and the journey into a new enterprise. But I also knew I didn’t want to shirk from my wishes. I was committed.

Two and one-half years later—34 months, 65 issues—we are producing our last edition of THE LOOP. Much has happened in that time, in and to the industry, most notably 9/11. We have posted 482 articles in THE LOOP, and announced the arrivals or rebirths of 303 attractions, plus written 65 Eric’s Turns.
Much remains the same. The people in this industry are, for the most part, good people, the product is, for the most part, great value.

We are ending our run for only one reason: money. Rather, the lack of. We tried advertising to support THE LOOP. Not enough. We tried subscriptions. Not enough, at least not in the time we had to meet our budget needs. Given that 7,500 people have been visiting each issue of THE LOOP since May, I’m sure we didn’t get the chance to fulfill our potential when we did go to paid subscriptions and got less than 500.

Ours is, however, only a financial failure. Otherwise, I consider THE LOOP nothing short of hugely successful. I’m proud of the content. I’m proud of the output. I’m proud of the consistency. I’m proud of the Customer service, which will continue even as we end for we will fully refund those of you who have already paid your subscription fees.

Most of all, I’m proud of us: Gary Slade, my Amusement Today ally; Ian Minton, my production manager; Lynne Mosman, my ad manager and, effectively, associate editor; Sarah Smith, my webmistress and my partner.

And you, my readers. Thank you for your support, for your patronage.

There’s eerie irony in my writing this at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where I'm covering the opening of more Disney attractions (picture above). We started at a Disney event. We end at a Disney event.

Today, I’m flying through Atlanta again on my way home. No more whys, though. Only sincere satisfaction.

Thank you.

Eric Minton

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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.