Theme parks jump aboard brand wagon
By Todd Pack|Sentinel Staff Writer
June 7, 2003
Just as whiz kid Jimmy Neutron was landing at Universal Studios in Orlando, SpongeBob SquarePants surfaced at Paramount's five U.S. and Canadian parks.
SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D plunges audiences into the Nickelodeon star's undersea home of Bikini Bottom.
Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast at Universal rockets riders through the whole Nick neighborhood, including SpongeBob's home, but Jimmy rushes right by him.
It's the same with the parks themselves. Regional parks are adding name-brand attractions, but Orlando's megaparks keep zooming ahead.
Friday night, Universal Studios gave a group of invited pass-holders a peek at Shrek 4-D -- an all-digital 3-D movie projected onto a giant screen using four high-definition video projectors.
"We are using cutting-edge technology," said Scott Trowbridge, the Universal vice president who is overseeing the project, which includes versions of the show at Universal Studios Hollywood and at the company's park in Osaka, Japan.
Outside the Universal parks, "you're not going to see this anyplace else," he said.
Disney is finishing work on a revolutionary ride called Mission: Space.
Built for a reported $100 million, the ride gives passengers the sense they're blasting off by securing them in capsules attached to a centrifuge like the contraptions used to train astronauts -- or those carnival rides that pin thrill seekers against the wall of a spinning chamber.
Bob Zalk, a senior show producer for Walt Disney Imagineering, said passengers won't feel the capsule spinning but will be pushed back in their well-cushioned seats by the centrifugal force.
That, combined with the photo-realistic views outside the capsule "windows" and sound effects you feel rather than hear, will create the illusion of liftoff, he said.
"This is the only way you can get an experience like that, short of being launched into space," he said.
Next spring, Universal Studios is expected to open Revenge of the Mummy, an $80 million "psychological thrill ride" the company claims will be one of its most technologically advanced, with a skeleton warrior seemingly leaping aboard ride vehicles, and a "ceiling of flame" burning inches overhead.
Big parks can buy spectacle
Such spectacular rides are outside the reach of even the most successful regional parks, said Steve Baker, an Orlando-based theme-park consultant.
The combined cost of the Mummy ride and Mission: Space, Baker said, is about what it would cost to build an entire regional amusement park from scratch.
Even if a smaller park wanted to build a ride on the scale of a Mission: Space, "they'd never get their money back," Baker said.
Such rides depend on parks attracting millions of people throughout the year, and regional parks usually close in the winter and attract a fraction as many visitors as one of Orlando's big parks.
Paramount's Carowinds in Charlotte, N.C., for example, drew 1.9 million visitors in 2002, compared with the Magic Kingdom's 14 million, according to estimates by the trade publication Amusement Business.
Regional players acknowledge that Disney and Universal are in a league of their own -- Paramount parks spokesman David Mandt said, "It's comparing apples and oranges" -- but analysts say that the smaller attractions have no choice but to compete.
"It's the people who come to Central Florida," Jerry Aldrich, an Orlando-based theme-park consultant. "When they go home, their expectations are at another level," he said.
Mandt said research has shown that people are drawn to the park by branded attractions such as Nickelodeon Central, a cartoon-theme neighborhood that expanded this spring into all five Paramount parks.
"We talked to folks about Nickelodeon Central, and 75 percent said it improved their overall impression of the park experience," he said. "Ninety percent said something similar about SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D."
Universal spokeswoman Susan Lomax said the ways the characters are presented at the Orlando park are "completely different" from how Paramount uses them. Nickelodeon and Paramount are owned by Viacom Inc.
"We have a wonderful relationship with Universal in Orlando and a wonderful relationship with our sister company," said Howard Smith, senior vice president of recreation for Nickelodeon. "We want Nick to be where kids are."
Small parks must compete
Regional parks such as Paramount's for years have relied oncartoon or movie characters to attract kids and their families. Kings Island, for example, had rides and attractions based on Hanna-Barbera characters such as Fred Flintstone, while Six Flags Over Georgia and other Six Flags parks used Warner Bros. characters such as Bugs Bunny.
But branding began playing a greater role in the regional parks in the 1990s.
Paramount Communications Inc., now part of Viacom, bought Kings Island near Cincinnati and Carowinds' parent, Kings Entertainment, for about $400 million in 1992. Time Warner Inc., now AOL Time Warner, bought Six Flags the next year, calling the deal an opportunity to extends its movies, comic books and other brands.
Soon after the deals closed, Klingon warriors from Star Trek were strolling Paramount's Kings Island near Cincinnati, and a Batman coaster, with a gritty Gotham City-theme queue, opened at Six Flags Great America. Premier Parks bought Six Flags in 1998 but continues to license the Warner Bros. characters.
"Since the regionals have been purchased by corporate entities with rather deep pockets, the investment into those parks has moved to a new level," said John Robinett, a Los Angeles-based consultant who specializes in the economics of attractions.
Location is vital
But while they still aren't on par with the Orlando parks, he said, the regionals have at least one advantage: location.
With the economy still expected to drive many families to take shorter vacations closer to home, "there's something of a substitution effect," Robinett said.
Orlando's rides and shows may be bigger, he said, but given the cost of hauling a family down to Florida, a lot of families could seek thrills closer to home.
"It's something I call 'the McDonald's theory,' " said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, a Cincinnati-based consulting firm: If there's a McDonald's around the corner, why would someone drive to one across town?
But 8-year-old Mallorie Moore may have the answer.
Orlando, she said, has "funner rides."
Mallorie's family went to Six Flags St. Louis last summer and Orlando this summer, and "there's really no comparison," said her father, Deron, 43, an Omaha, Neb., police officer.
Strolling with his family through Universal Studios on the family's first visit to Orlando, he said, "There's nothing close to this."
Todd Pack can be reached at tpack@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5407.
Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel
By Todd Pack|Sentinel Staff Writer
June 7, 2003
Just as whiz kid Jimmy Neutron was landing at Universal Studios in Orlando, SpongeBob SquarePants surfaced at Paramount's five U.S. and Canadian parks.
SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D plunges audiences into the Nickelodeon star's undersea home of Bikini Bottom.
Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast at Universal rockets riders through the whole Nick neighborhood, including SpongeBob's home, but Jimmy rushes right by him.
It's the same with the parks themselves. Regional parks are adding name-brand attractions, but Orlando's megaparks keep zooming ahead.
Friday night, Universal Studios gave a group of invited pass-holders a peek at Shrek 4-D -- an all-digital 3-D movie projected onto a giant screen using four high-definition video projectors.
"We are using cutting-edge technology," said Scott Trowbridge, the Universal vice president who is overseeing the project, which includes versions of the show at Universal Studios Hollywood and at the company's park in Osaka, Japan.
Outside the Universal parks, "you're not going to see this anyplace else," he said.
Disney is finishing work on a revolutionary ride called Mission: Space.
Built for a reported $100 million, the ride gives passengers the sense they're blasting off by securing them in capsules attached to a centrifuge like the contraptions used to train astronauts -- or those carnival rides that pin thrill seekers against the wall of a spinning chamber.
Bob Zalk, a senior show producer for Walt Disney Imagineering, said passengers won't feel the capsule spinning but will be pushed back in their well-cushioned seats by the centrifugal force.
That, combined with the photo-realistic views outside the capsule "windows" and sound effects you feel rather than hear, will create the illusion of liftoff, he said.
"This is the only way you can get an experience like that, short of being launched into space," he said.
Next spring, Universal Studios is expected to open Revenge of the Mummy, an $80 million "psychological thrill ride" the company claims will be one of its most technologically advanced, with a skeleton warrior seemingly leaping aboard ride vehicles, and a "ceiling of flame" burning inches overhead.
Big parks can buy spectacle
Such spectacular rides are outside the reach of even the most successful regional parks, said Steve Baker, an Orlando-based theme-park consultant.
The combined cost of the Mummy ride and Mission: Space, Baker said, is about what it would cost to build an entire regional amusement park from scratch.
Even if a smaller park wanted to build a ride on the scale of a Mission: Space, "they'd never get their money back," Baker said.
Such rides depend on parks attracting millions of people throughout the year, and regional parks usually close in the winter and attract a fraction as many visitors as one of Orlando's big parks.
Paramount's Carowinds in Charlotte, N.C., for example, drew 1.9 million visitors in 2002, compared with the Magic Kingdom's 14 million, according to estimates by the trade publication Amusement Business.
Regional players acknowledge that Disney and Universal are in a league of their own -- Paramount parks spokesman David Mandt said, "It's comparing apples and oranges" -- but analysts say that the smaller attractions have no choice but to compete.
"It's the people who come to Central Florida," Jerry Aldrich, an Orlando-based theme-park consultant. "When they go home, their expectations are at another level," he said.
Mandt said research has shown that people are drawn to the park by branded attractions such as Nickelodeon Central, a cartoon-theme neighborhood that expanded this spring into all five Paramount parks.
"We talked to folks about Nickelodeon Central, and 75 percent said it improved their overall impression of the park experience," he said. "Ninety percent said something similar about SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D."
Universal spokeswoman Susan Lomax said the ways the characters are presented at the Orlando park are "completely different" from how Paramount uses them. Nickelodeon and Paramount are owned by Viacom Inc.
"We have a wonderful relationship with Universal in Orlando and a wonderful relationship with our sister company," said Howard Smith, senior vice president of recreation for Nickelodeon. "We want Nick to be where kids are."
Small parks must compete
Regional parks such as Paramount's for years have relied oncartoon or movie characters to attract kids and their families. Kings Island, for example, had rides and attractions based on Hanna-Barbera characters such as Fred Flintstone, while Six Flags Over Georgia and other Six Flags parks used Warner Bros. characters such as Bugs Bunny.
But branding began playing a greater role in the regional parks in the 1990s.
Paramount Communications Inc., now part of Viacom, bought Kings Island near Cincinnati and Carowinds' parent, Kings Entertainment, for about $400 million in 1992. Time Warner Inc., now AOL Time Warner, bought Six Flags the next year, calling the deal an opportunity to extends its movies, comic books and other brands.
Soon after the deals closed, Klingon warriors from Star Trek were strolling Paramount's Kings Island near Cincinnati, and a Batman coaster, with a gritty Gotham City-theme queue, opened at Six Flags Great America. Premier Parks bought Six Flags in 1998 but continues to license the Warner Bros. characters.
"Since the regionals have been purchased by corporate entities with rather deep pockets, the investment into those parks has moved to a new level," said John Robinett, a Los Angeles-based consultant who specializes in the economics of attractions.
Location is vital
But while they still aren't on par with the Orlando parks, he said, the regionals have at least one advantage: location.
With the economy still expected to drive many families to take shorter vacations closer to home, "there's something of a substitution effect," Robinett said.
Orlando's rides and shows may be bigger, he said, but given the cost of hauling a family down to Florida, a lot of families could seek thrills closer to home.
"It's something I call 'the McDonald's theory,' " said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, a Cincinnati-based consulting firm: If there's a McDonald's around the corner, why would someone drive to one across town?
But 8-year-old Mallorie Moore may have the answer.
Orlando, she said, has "funner rides."
Mallorie's family went to Six Flags St. Louis last summer and Orlando this summer, and "there's really no comparison," said her father, Deron, 43, an Omaha, Neb., police officer.
Strolling with his family through Universal Studios on the family's first visit to Orlando, he said, "There's nothing close to this."
Todd Pack can be reached at tpack@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5407.
Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel