034-035 PW-November QA Amanda_Park Profile 2.qxd 12/11/2021 13:59 Page 34


Interview www.parkworld-online.com Nothing is impossible


As Amanda Thompson OBE, prepares to hand over the baton of IAAPA Chair to Ken Whiting, she speaks to Park World editor, Becci Knowles about leading the global association - and her park team - through its darkest days.


hen Amanda Thompson OBE, managing director of Blackpool Pleasure Beach took over as IAAPA chair in 2019 she became the third woman to chair IAAPA in its 100-year history, and the first woman in Europe. What she didn’t know however, was that she would also become the only IAAPA chair to lead the association through a global pandemic and for two years, instead of the usual one.


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While the world was brought to a sudden standstill in March 2020, Amanda’s role and personality meant she could do anything but. “It didn’t change anything for me in my role because I still had to lead the way and make sure we kept lines of communication open,” she says. “I think I'm very straight forward; I say what I mean so it gave IAAPA direction, I hope. It certainly meant that they could follow what I believe was the right path. Together we kept moving forward and looking at new challenging ways to help our members through the crisis. That was the difficult thing, all our members on the operator side had closed parks or parks that never opened at all.”


Amanda continues, “A lot of the industry is on the on the M&S size and that maintained operations because many changed what they did - making masks, screens or something to with Covid. It was really a difficult and challenging time; everyone had to think very quickly, move very fast and be very flexible, but our industry is used to that. We are used to changing direction and reacting very quickly to situations, so I think generally we handled ourselves very well.”


As an association, IAAPA managed to pivot very quickly. Amanda explains: “In addition to hosting events online, we worked regionally, looking at the issues each region was facing and how we could help. IAAPA harmonised and became much more international, I would say, due to the strains of the pandemic so through the bad we also found a lot of good. I think that's probably true for everyone throughout the pandemic, but certainly in our industry.”


Of course, as managing director of a shut park, Amanda had many of her own problems to contend with. “It was very complicated, and it was very difficult to understand what the timelines were everywhere around the world. I think that was one of the most challenging things - when was when was the world going to reopen and who was going to reopen first and how it would be done?


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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021


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