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Park Operations
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The Time Machine: ex-Led Zeppelin
best time to have the park open because of the heat and the beach as
our main competition during the day. A lot of tourists go to the beach
until 3 or 4 in the afternoon and then come to the park at night, and
that’s certainly when we intend to get them, but there is also a crowd
who doesn’t want to go to the beach every day and wants something to
do. We are going to watch it very closely and determine the best hours
to operate the park in future.
We understand the importance of advertising. The first thing we did
when we came into the market was get the feedback of local tourism
leaders, explain our plans and solicit their support of the park moving
forward. We realised early on that we needed to position the park as an
amenity of Myrtle Beach – not a destination separate from the area. With
that, we pursued opportunities to be part of all out of market marketing
co-operative opportunities with such entities as the local convention and
visitors bureau, hospitality and accommodation marketing co-operatives.
We have also implemented an entire multimedia campaign including
traditional billboards on major arteries coming into Myrtle Beach, which
is traditionally a drive market. We have print, radio, television and online
ads in select feeder markets and in the Myrtle Beach area to target local
residents and tourists while they are in town. We have street teams
order our themed merchandise in time for a Memorial Day (May 25) visiting accommodation in town and grassroots promotions with show
opening, but we have. Traditionally, merchandise is designed, ordered talent performing and promoting the park. Our basic strategy for this
and delivered with much more lead time. We are not expecting the same year is saturation, as there should be no one in the market who doesn’t
per caps this year but we are confident sales of Freestyle Music Park know about the park.
merchandise will increase and improve as the Freestyle Music Park brand
grows. We are also excited about our show merchandise, such as Soft Opening
CSI:Live and Adrenaline Rush. We believe providing a superb guest experience will help drive positive
In order to increase the park's family appeal, further development of word of mouth and perception, which is what ultimately will get people
rides and shows that appeal to this group are on our list. We strongly to give us a try and keep coming back.
believe we have increased the park’s family appeal by re-theming the Was now the right time to be opening a new theme park? We
Kid’s In America area of the park and adding four children’s rides. We’ve purchased the park as a great investment. We are excited about opening
done quite a bit to appeal more to families but want to be conscientious on time and on budget. We know the current state of the economy is
to keep our appeal to teenagers and young adults with thrill rides such soft, but the Myrtle Beach market is more resilient than other vacation
as The Time Machine and shows that appeal to this audience such as destination markets because it is a drive market with a very high visitor
Adrenaline Rush. After all, our team’s background is with Disney and repeat rate. These are positives for us and ones we plan to capitalise on
Universal, so families are what we know best. It’s definitely an area we’ve in order to have a successful park.
focused on, especially this year. I believe there are lots of other reasons why theme parks do not
Operating only briefly, Maximum RPM (from Premier Rides) was succeed and many of those reasons that aren’t related to attendance.
definitely one of the major issues from last year. But I am very pleased to You’ll find a lot of the parks that have trouble are highly leveraged and
report that in the three weeks we’ve been open, The Roundabout, its new heavily in debt.
name, has had a 95% operating rate. We are very happy with the ride The first few weeks were what we expected. We wanted to get open
and expect it to be a fully operational from now on. We’ve also talked and work out the kinks. We considered this period as a soft opening of
about bumper cars, a park staple, and believe they may be valuable and sorts to allow our team the opportunity to get ready – with the limited
beneficial to the park. We love ‘em! amount of time we’ve had to hire more than 1,000 employees and then
get them trained. These few weeks allowed us time to get prepared for
Beach Time the crowds to come this summer.
We recognise that we're a shore park, where the biggest attraction is the We have received a wonderful reception from the local business and
beach. This has been a big point of discussion for us. Our current hospitality industry and a very positive word of mouth and buzz locally
operating hours are 11am to 10pm but we fully understand that visitors since we opened. We are encouraged by early attendance and are
to Myrtle Beach go to the beach during the day. We’ve certainly seen an anxious to see what the full summer tourist season brings when the large
increase in evening attendance in our first few weeks and aren’t opposed number of tourists start coming into the market in the next few weeks.
to modifying our operating schedule if we find that the evenings are the Steve Baker was talking to Paul Ruben
Freestyle Music Park: A Panorama
AUGUST 2009 39
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