PW-MAR20-05-Frontgate.qxp_Frontgate 30/03/2020 17:17 Page 5
Park News
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Front Gate
Big Question What has been your 2021 season highlight?
colouring in pages for our guests to print at home that will both keep them engaged with our brand and keep our brand front of mind. • Use honesty to create impactful social content – Our park has wildlife that needs care even in a lock-down situation, so we’re telling and showing our guests how we’re continuing to do this.
Claudia Leicht, HANSA-PARK, Germany To have made it through the second season without a single case of Covid 19 due to a great hygiene concept which kept all our guests and staff healthy and safe. This clearly demonstrates that amusement parks are enjoyable even under pandemic circumstances. And we are glad that we were able to contribute precious and fun moments to many guests during a time like this. Additionally, we are proud of the fact that we kept investing in the park without almost any delay.
Paul Callander, chief strategy officer, Dreamworld, WhiteWaterWorld, SkyPoint: Adapt your brand presence to the environment –We have created
• Find aspects of your business to make virtual –We have set up live stream filming of some of our wildlife so that guests can watch them from home and keep having “Dreamworld” experiences.
• Bring your product or service into the homes of your guests – Our SkyPoint business is working on how-to videos for menu items and cocktails that guests can create at home.
In association with in associationwith How do you keep guests engaged, while gates are shut?
90km/h. The channel also has walk-throughs of the recently opened attraction, Fabula as well as three different journeys through the magical Symbolica: Palace of Fantasy. Alongside this, users can get Efteling tips from Efteling
employees, behind-the-scenes access and sneak peaks of the new double family roller coaster,Max &Moritz.
Coen Bertens, theme park director, Efteling: Thrill seekers can still experience the adrenaline rush of riding a roller coaster through our series of on-ride videos available on the Efteling YouTube channel, which are filmed from the front carriage on rides at Efteling. For Example, viewers can experience the tale of De Vliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman) and the jaw-dropping Baron 1898 dive coaster – which plunges 37.5m into a mineshaft at
platforms and online channels to support its membership with education, professional development, discussion and networking. The program will support online discussion threads, webinars, watch parties, virtual mixers and more – including an online job fair.
Aldo Maria Vigevani, Gardaland, Italy Gardaland’s 2021 highlight has been the big opening, in June, of LEGOLAND Water Park Gardaland, the first LEGOLAND Water Park in Europe: our guests really appreciated the thematisation of the water park and the Miniland monuments, realised using LEGO bricks. The season then went on very well during the summer - when the three hotels of the Resort registered an average occupancy of 90% - and during the Halloween period, thanks to the containment of COVID infections in Italy and to the very favourable weather conditions.
TEA Digital launches The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) has launched TEA Digital to use the organisation’s dedicated, global
Nick Laister, Fairytale Farm, UK The opening of our new extended Illuminations was the highlight of the 2021 season for me. Designed by Richard Ryan, who oversaw Blackpool Illuminations for several decades, our illuminated Fairy Dell looks magical, as does Dino Valley and the Enchanted Walk. It is a special time of year when we switch on our lights, and to hear all the positive comments from our visitors was delightful. And the Illuminations really came into their own for our October half term week, which was the busiest week we have ever had at Fairytale Farm.
Justien Dewil, Walibi Belgium
Pia Adlivankin, CEO, Linnanmäki Amusement Park: During this exceptional time we want to keep our guests close and still offer them fun and joy with amusement park -like
experiences through our multiple channels. For children who are being homeschooled right now, we offer joy in the form of free-of-charge learning materials on our website related to Linnanmäki Amusement Park and also current topics such as learning media skills. Across our popular social media channels we offer
attendance than the summer before.
Olivier Heral, Futuroscope, France 2021 has been a very special year for the park but also for the whole profession.
In 2021 we hope to finish at around 1.3 million visitors instead of 1.9 million and we were closed for five months. Fortunately, we had a very nice summer, even higher in
Suzanne Smagala-Potts, public relationsmanager, Ripley Entertainment:With so many families staying at home and looking for ways to keep their children
The most significant event of the year was without doubt our 300-million- euro development plan, which was accepted during the crisis with the support of all our partners. We have been working on the development of this plan for 10 months now and it includes the construction of two hotels, a water park, three new attractions and a new night show. The hardest part has been adapting to new ways of working, a lot of it with video conferences, file sharing and tele-presence. It is a great satisfaction for the park to develop and a real message of optimism for all our teams.
entertained, we have created a way for our guests to engage with Ripley’s virtually. Ripley’s Aquariums at Home and Outside the
Odditorium can be used as hubs for a schedule of live Facebook events, downloadable educational materials, arts-and-crafts, and more. Be sure to follow us to tune in for events like Story Time
Live!, Champs & Chumps with Dustyn, and even live readings ofMoby Dick… on toilet paper! These sites will be continuously updated with additional
lesson plans and activities throughout the week. Following advice from health officials to practice social
Although this 2021 season has been very tough for Walibi Belgium – the major floods that struck us on 15 July 1 caused a temporary closure until 2nd October – we look back on one long-awaited highlight: the opening of Exotic World and Megacoaster Kondaa on 8 May. They represent the pinnacle of Walibi Belgium’s multi-year Master Plan to transform the park’s offer into a collection of unique worlds, each one an immersive experience through its theme, attractions, landscaping, restaurants and retail. During construction works we already felt a great interest for the novelties, but the guests’ reception was everything we had hoped for!
amusing content such as many quizzes, fun things to do, challenges and funny contests to keep the younger-ones entertained. Also, Linnanmäki has enchanting material throughout its 70-year-old history, so we have brought photographs from our archives to our social media channels for people to marvel and to refresh their good amusement park memories. In addition, this spring we will launch our very own
amusement park boardgame, featuring a range of fun tasks that will challenge their intellect. This game will enable our guests to enjoy Linnanmäki Amusement Park while at home.
Smurfs theme park re-opens in China After a long period of closure, Smurfs theme park ‘Dream City’ in China has opened its doors again for the public. One of the main attractions is Lagotronics Project’s recently installed GameChanger dark ride, ‘Swamp Adventure’, which is completely themed in Smurfs style.
Mathjis Bembom, OK Corral, France This year has been an absolute rollercoaster of a season. So many things stood out and make choosing a highlight difficult; three things however really stand above the rest. #1: The return of visitors in June! COVID forced us to close for over 7 months. We used the lockdowns to create a whole new area, keep our teams employed and surprise our guests. When the time came to welcome them back -and see the joy on everybody’s faces- we realized just how much we are part of people’s lives. #2: Seeing friends and colleagues at the annual French parks meeting (SNELAC). It took a while but being back together and sharing was great fun. #3: Halloween has once again been fantastic for us. We have shattered visitor attendance records over the period and partly caught up the rough early season.
distancing, our Ripley’s Believe It or Not! attractions and Ripley’s Aquariums are temporarily closed, but we are thankful for the opportunity to deliver free, family-friendly entertainment and educational Ripley’s programs directly to your homes.
TessaMaessen, Communications Manager, Toverland:We keep our guests entertained through our social media channels.We share our park shows and on ride videos of our main attractions.We also provide games to play at home and ask our followers to share their best Toverland memories with us.
Amy Thomas, Lake Compounce, USA “Lake Compounce celebrated 175 years this year. As America’s Oldest Amusement Park, the best thing about the 2021 season was the fact that we were able to celebrate this milestone all year long. We kicked off the 2021 season with the addition of our new water slide, Venus Vortex, and the unveiling of stunning renovations throughout the park. We continued the birthday festivities throughout the summer season with events like our Hometown Hero Day, Bites & Pints Food Festival, spectacular fireworks show, and our new Halloween event, Happy Hauntings. Now, we are looking forward to the grand return of our seasonal event, Holiday Lights, on 26 November 26.
Kernels
Covid-19: IAAPAprovidesadditional resources Visitors to the IAAPAMember Resource Center can learn more about the support in their region and take advantage of free IAAPA resources, including Covid-19 webinars, a Crisis Communications Plan Template, the IAAPA Security Advisory Program, Covid-19 Educational Series and more.
Duncan Phillips, DP Associates/360 Play, UK 2021 will go down for us as the year of amazing contrast. From dark days planning how to survive to the warmth of the first smiles on our customers when the businesses started to welcome back visitors. 2021 was also the season we found hidden skills and talent across our
teams. Their resilience and creativity combined enabled our companies to find new ways of delivering our service to meet the world we found ourselves in that will shape the way we do business beyond covid. 2021 for us will be the season we really understood the strength we have when we come together, as a business and as an industry.
Denis Pascal, MOTIONGATE Dubai Undoubtedly, a highlight of our year has been the fourth and spookiest edition yet of MOTIONGATE Dubai’s Fright Nights – a seven-week long celebration of Halloween, with immersive mazes, ghoulish parades, horror shows in the park’s Hollywood Theatre featuring amazing acrobatics and live performances, and more activities than you can shake a witch’s broomstick at. Younger children enjoyed photo opportunities with their favourite Halloween characters, trick or treating, and pumpkin storytelling sessions.
However, the best is yet to come! As the largest Hollywood-inspired
MARCH 2020
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
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