this is dumb. you'll see why.
The `Summer of Fear'
Gives Way to Revenge
Of the Kiddie Rides
---
Jerry Wisdom's Gentle Glides
Appeal to the Squeamish;
Crying at Animal Kingdom
By Robert Johnson
06/08/2001
The Wall Street Journal
Page A1
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
MERINO, Colo. -- This year the meek are inheriting the amusement park, as little kids and scaredy-cats lash back against ever-more-awesome roller coasters.
That's good news for Jerry Wisdom. The 70-year-old former carnival owner runs Wisdom Amusement Rides, a leader in the burgeoning market for rides that don't terrify children. Instead of the 100-mile-per-hour World's Superman, he offers "Space Sled," which gently twirls 24 riders on airborne toboggans.
Just a third of visitors at big amusement parks ever ride the big roller coasters. But amusement parks have spent disproportionately big bucks to entice thrill-seekers, erecting 1,500 coasters world-wide over the past 20 years. The push culminated in last year's "Summer of Fear," when a record 120 new coasters opened for business, according to the British trade magazine Park World. Some cost as much as $20 million.
"I don't like thrill rides," says Carol Murray, a 64-year-old visitor at Tampa's Busch Gardens. Pushing her two-year-old granddaughter, Shannon, through the menacing shadow of "Montu," a 13-story metal coaster, Mrs. Murray adds: "I'd like to see more activities that we can have fun doing together."
This year, amusement parks are listening, adding gentler rides and other attractions that aren't at all hair-raising. Ride manufacturers expect installation of slower rides, costing $100,000 to $400,000 each, to be up 20% this year, to about 250.
Mr. Wisdom's company cranks out about one ride a week, at an average price of $150,000, from January to June. For the past two years, his 160 workers have been working at full throttle to keep up with orders. "The monster rides aren't our market," he says.
His company, based here on the edge of a cornfield, gets expert advice from the likes of J.J. Levy, five years old and the son of Ken Levy, an owner of Kids Star amusement park in Port Charlotte, Fla. J.J. got to try out dozens of new rides built by Wisdom Amusement and other manufacturers at a Tampa area trade show in February. His highest praise is reserved for rides that are "fun but won't make you puke."
Gayle Lemirise, an advertising executive in North Conway, N.H., wants her daughters, who are eight and four, to "know we're all one family. Not us over here and you over there." They frequently visit Story Land amusement park in nearby Glen, whose newest attraction is an interactive water-spraying submarine, called "Oceans of Fun," that park officials helped Wisdom Rides develop.
Mr. Wisdom's rides are tailored to little-kid sensibilities. No loud sound-effects, no explosions or thunder. No creaking or groaning noises to give the impression that the ride is about to collapse. No molded demonic gargoyles or monsters embellishing the action. No loops that take you upside down. Top speeds are between 10 mph and 15 mph.
Mr. Wisdom's favorite decoration: colored lights. At least 3,000 of them adorn many of his rides. "Nobody is afraid of a Christmas tree," he says.
It's a delightful alternative to the scary world of big amusement parks. "Every ride at Animal Kingdom made my kids cry," says Renee Petro, the mother of two young children from Port Charlotte, Fla., who visited the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando last December.
Even the safari ride, with guides who tell riders they'll be helping round up some evil poachers, had Ms. Petro's children in tears. "My kids really believed people with guns were hurting elephants and we would have to stop them," she says.
Easing onto a Wisdom-built "Flying Squadron" at Kids Star, Ms. Petro and her son Joey, who is five, jiggle a joy stick in their little plane -- painted with the name "Green Thunderbolt." Joey squealed happily as they navigate to an altitude of 20 feet at a controlled speed of 12 mph.
At Dutch Wonderland amusement park in Lancaster, Pa., a 1978 Wisdom "Astro Liner" still packs them in, with its pleasing side-to-side roll. "Great," says five-year-old Elliott Royce, emerging hand-in-hand with his dad, Mark, who adds: "And our knees aren't shaking." The 26-seat rocket looks realistic enough that police have stopped Mr. Wisdom's delivery trucks, he says, to make sure they weren't carrying stolen missiles.
Mr. Wisdom's lower-priced rides could be especially important this summer. With the economy shaky and tourist attendance at major theme parks in doubt, smaller attractions such as state fairs, piers and traveling carnivals expect to be popular with a constituency that was lured away by big coasters last summer. While coaster-rich Walt Disney World in Orlando was recently announcing hundreds of job cuts, attendance at the annual Florida State Fair -- where Mr. Wisdom's rides abound -- rose a healthy 15% from the 2000 event, to about 550,000.
Busch Gardens is adding rides and shows geared to kids and parents. It's the wimpy rides people call ahead about to make sure are running. "A roller coaster down for maintenance and we have others. It's no big deal," says Mike Patrick, vice president at Busch Gardens in Tampa. "But if our one and only train ride isn't working, you disappoint the little ones. Those are times I dread."
The Tampa park is opening "Rhino Rally," a slow trek in modified Land Rovers through an African habitat. That's a tame follow to "Drachen Fire," which opened at Busch's other park, in Williamsburg, Va., in 1992 with 355,000 pounds of thrust that made riders feel 3 1/2 times their actual weight.
Busch closed the big coaster in 1998. "It was too rough for some people," says Fred Bolingbroke, chief executive of Arrow Dynamics Inc., in Clearfield, Utah, the ride's builder. Now even Arrow, known for its $20 million coasters, is refocusing on smaller rides it sells for a tenth the price.
These rides won't attract teenagers. Jack Mahanny, a marketing supervisor at Story Land in New Hampshire, who has been working there since 1967, says, "We lose them at 12 to Six Flags and Universal. But we get them back later when they have kids."
my comments:
"coaster-rich walt disney world"? what are there, two or three coasters at the whole park?
if anything, disney is the better than anybody at producing rides that don't scare kids. true, many are scary and i can understand how the few actual rides at animal kingdom could make a kid cry.
methinks mrs. petro should have known which rides would scare her small children. but some parents are selfish and insist on forcing their kids into everything because they're spending a fortune at wdw.
i, for one, don't have much confidence in carnival rides and will continue to take my chances at wdw.
The `Summer of Fear'
Gives Way to Revenge
Of the Kiddie Rides
---
Jerry Wisdom's Gentle Glides
Appeal to the Squeamish;
Crying at Animal Kingdom
By Robert Johnson
06/08/2001
The Wall Street Journal
Page A1
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
MERINO, Colo. -- This year the meek are inheriting the amusement park, as little kids and scaredy-cats lash back against ever-more-awesome roller coasters.
That's good news for Jerry Wisdom. The 70-year-old former carnival owner runs Wisdom Amusement Rides, a leader in the burgeoning market for rides that don't terrify children. Instead of the 100-mile-per-hour World's Superman, he offers "Space Sled," which gently twirls 24 riders on airborne toboggans.
Just a third of visitors at big amusement parks ever ride the big roller coasters. But amusement parks have spent disproportionately big bucks to entice thrill-seekers, erecting 1,500 coasters world-wide over the past 20 years. The push culminated in last year's "Summer of Fear," when a record 120 new coasters opened for business, according to the British trade magazine Park World. Some cost as much as $20 million.
"I don't like thrill rides," says Carol Murray, a 64-year-old visitor at Tampa's Busch Gardens. Pushing her two-year-old granddaughter, Shannon, through the menacing shadow of "Montu," a 13-story metal coaster, Mrs. Murray adds: "I'd like to see more activities that we can have fun doing together."
This year, amusement parks are listening, adding gentler rides and other attractions that aren't at all hair-raising. Ride manufacturers expect installation of slower rides, costing $100,000 to $400,000 each, to be up 20% this year, to about 250.
Mr. Wisdom's company cranks out about one ride a week, at an average price of $150,000, from January to June. For the past two years, his 160 workers have been working at full throttle to keep up with orders. "The monster rides aren't our market," he says.
His company, based here on the edge of a cornfield, gets expert advice from the likes of J.J. Levy, five years old and the son of Ken Levy, an owner of Kids Star amusement park in Port Charlotte, Fla. J.J. got to try out dozens of new rides built by Wisdom Amusement and other manufacturers at a Tampa area trade show in February. His highest praise is reserved for rides that are "fun but won't make you puke."
Gayle Lemirise, an advertising executive in North Conway, N.H., wants her daughters, who are eight and four, to "know we're all one family. Not us over here and you over there." They frequently visit Story Land amusement park in nearby Glen, whose newest attraction is an interactive water-spraying submarine, called "Oceans of Fun," that park officials helped Wisdom Rides develop.
Mr. Wisdom's rides are tailored to little-kid sensibilities. No loud sound-effects, no explosions or thunder. No creaking or groaning noises to give the impression that the ride is about to collapse. No molded demonic gargoyles or monsters embellishing the action. No loops that take you upside down. Top speeds are between 10 mph and 15 mph.
Mr. Wisdom's favorite decoration: colored lights. At least 3,000 of them adorn many of his rides. "Nobody is afraid of a Christmas tree," he says.
It's a delightful alternative to the scary world of big amusement parks. "Every ride at Animal Kingdom made my kids cry," says Renee Petro, the mother of two young children from Port Charlotte, Fla., who visited the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando last December.
Even the safari ride, with guides who tell riders they'll be helping round up some evil poachers, had Ms. Petro's children in tears. "My kids really believed people with guns were hurting elephants and we would have to stop them," she says.
Easing onto a Wisdom-built "Flying Squadron" at Kids Star, Ms. Petro and her son Joey, who is five, jiggle a joy stick in their little plane -- painted with the name "Green Thunderbolt." Joey squealed happily as they navigate to an altitude of 20 feet at a controlled speed of 12 mph.
At Dutch Wonderland amusement park in Lancaster, Pa., a 1978 Wisdom "Astro Liner" still packs them in, with its pleasing side-to-side roll. "Great," says five-year-old Elliott Royce, emerging hand-in-hand with his dad, Mark, who adds: "And our knees aren't shaking." The 26-seat rocket looks realistic enough that police have stopped Mr. Wisdom's delivery trucks, he says, to make sure they weren't carrying stolen missiles.
Mr. Wisdom's lower-priced rides could be especially important this summer. With the economy shaky and tourist attendance at major theme parks in doubt, smaller attractions such as state fairs, piers and traveling carnivals expect to be popular with a constituency that was lured away by big coasters last summer. While coaster-rich Walt Disney World in Orlando was recently announcing hundreds of job cuts, attendance at the annual Florida State Fair -- where Mr. Wisdom's rides abound -- rose a healthy 15% from the 2000 event, to about 550,000.
Busch Gardens is adding rides and shows geared to kids and parents. It's the wimpy rides people call ahead about to make sure are running. "A roller coaster down for maintenance and we have others. It's no big deal," says Mike Patrick, vice president at Busch Gardens in Tampa. "But if our one and only train ride isn't working, you disappoint the little ones. Those are times I dread."
The Tampa park is opening "Rhino Rally," a slow trek in modified Land Rovers through an African habitat. That's a tame follow to "Drachen Fire," which opened at Busch's other park, in Williamsburg, Va., in 1992 with 355,000 pounds of thrust that made riders feel 3 1/2 times their actual weight.
Busch closed the big coaster in 1998. "It was too rough for some people," says Fred Bolingbroke, chief executive of Arrow Dynamics Inc., in Clearfield, Utah, the ride's builder. Now even Arrow, known for its $20 million coasters, is refocusing on smaller rides it sells for a tenth the price.
These rides won't attract teenagers. Jack Mahanny, a marketing supervisor at Story Land in New Hampshire, who has been working there since 1967, says, "We lose them at 12 to Six Flags and Universal. But we get them back later when they have kids."
my comments:
"coaster-rich walt disney world"? what are there, two or three coasters at the whole park?
if anything, disney is the better than anybody at producing rides that don't scare kids. true, many are scary and i can understand how the few actual rides at animal kingdom could make a kid cry.
methinks mrs. petro should have known which rides would scare her small children. but some parents are selfish and insist on forcing their kids into everything because they're spending a fortune at wdw.
i, for one, don't have much confidence in carnival rides and will continue to take my chances at wdw.
