As you’re cruising down a U.S. interstate highway, you’re bound to come across them—space-needle-like towers, figure eights drawn by thin-as-rails curlicued roller coasters, and, most likely, a Ferris wheel. Hersheypark is no different. But as you look closer, you’ll find a community and a town steeped in history and oozing with flair.

In 2004, visitors will see more from the highway, as the park expands its operations, responding to customer demand, environmental pressure, and evolving technological advancements.

A New Fence
It’s been a banner year for Hersheypark, which has debuted four new rides, an environmental project, and a refurbished theater, and will debut the world’s first hydraulically launched coaster with inversions for the 2004 season.

Though it’s meant some late nights and quite a few weekends, Hershey is no stranger to rapid expansion. Since the park’s inception, in 1907, rides and entertainment were being added every couple of years—even when the park was still technically a “picnic and pleasure grounds”—Milton S. Hershey’s words—for the chocolate factory employees.

But there was never a greater indication of Hersheypark’s growth and need for expansion than when the park was enclosed by a fence in 1972.

Hershey Park (the name became one word when the park became a theme park), originally a “pay as you ride” facility, first offered about two dozen “amusement and fun devices,” entertainment, and food. But the addition of the fence brought Hershey to a new level, as a business and as a provider of fun. With the increase in patronage came the need for greater security, more rides, and additional offerings, and the park began charging a flat rate for admission. Then several new rides went up—Coal Cracker flume ride, Giant Wheel, and the Kissing Tower—over the next several years.

The Early Years
Even during the 70 years leading up to the fence, evidence of change was unmistakable. The park steadily gained popularity and eventually demanded more to serve its guests. In fact, every few years Milton Hershey added something a little more special, beginning on April 24, 1907, with the new entrance sign—“Ye who enter here leave dull cares behind”—beckoning customers to while away hours on its grounds. Hershey added a conservatory and greenhouse in 1910, a huge outdoor pool/winter skating rink a year later, a convention hall in 1915, and finally the zoo, which is now known as ZooAmerica, but was founded on Milton Hershey’s original concept of housing his own animals and sharing them with the guests. In 1923, the town of Hershey marked its twentieth anniversary by installing the park’s first roller coaster—the Wild Cat.

Additions continued throughout the following decades, adding the Hershey Hotel, the Hershey Lodge, the golf course, and others, drawing more tourists than ever before. Hershey Lodge’s online description even cites the lodge’s inception as a project “with expansion in mind.” Hershey, as a town with a thriving business run by an entrepreneur who believed in fun, was becoming a full-scale destination with enough fun to have for days.

Facing Roadblocks
For about 10 years, between 1977 and 1987, Hersheypark made only minor improvements, but it didn’t make any big-ticket purchases, says Assistant General Manager Gary Chubb. “As a company, those were rough years,” he says. “We were looking to do things outside the town of Hershey.”

Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Co. (the owner and operator of Hersheypark) began to build other businesses throughout the country. This external growth was brought on by the incident at Three Mile Island, a polio scare, and a gas crisis in 1979. The park thought it best to develop some assets outside the area in order to continue to bring in revenue for the company during these anxious times.

The businesses Hershey got involved with—Lake Compounce Amusement Park in Connecticut, a hotel in Philadelphia, and another hotel to be part of a proposed convention center in Corpus Christi—didn’t generate the revenue Hershey was expecting.

By the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, however, the park had added the Sidewinder and the Canyon River Rapids—projects that generated a major turnaround in terms of revenue and attendance.

Since then, the park has expanded in acreage (it has gone from 60 acres to 120 acres in the last 25 years) and in attendance—bringing it on par with some of our country’s biggest chains.
But Chubb doesn’t necessarily see the park’s growth as synonymous with competition. “We always want bigger numbers, sure. But we look at making the park the best it can be,” he says. “We continue to strive to be the best, and we always try to relate to the vision of Hershey—to provide the ultimate experience for your guests.”

Today, the park’s draw includes concertgoers coming to see current pop stars or reunion tours. Staff has doubled, salaries have increased, and even the parking lot has gotten bigger.

With the physical growth, it only follows that the park’s marketing efforts would receive an upgrade. Recently, Hersheypark launched a Washington, D.C.-centric campaign to appeal to those who might enjoy the concert series, the spa, and other attractions in the general area, such as the Amish country and Gettysburg. Locally, advertising and marketing focus mainly on news items, such as a new ride or show.

“We try to be extremely efficient in everything we do,” says Public Relations Manager Kathy Burrows. “More money isn’t always better if it’s not put in the right place. It’s about knowing your audience and working smarter.”

New Improvements
Though Gary Chubb insists that Hersheypark is still just a nice community park, recent additions and upgrades to the park suggest otherwise. Just last year, four rides were added. The spinning thrill ride The Claw made its debut this year, and kiddie versions of two popular Hershey staples—the Pirate and the Scrambler—were also added to maximize the fun potential for the little ones. Additionally, the Music Box Theater was completely rebuilt to provide an improved venue for all the park’s popular entertainment.

But the mother of them all is the new hydraulically launched coaster with inversions—the first of its kind for the world, let alone Hershey. Burrows describes it as similar to the Xcelerator at Knott’s Berry Farm, in California, but with inversions, which means this coaster will be big and fast. Using hydraulic launch technology, the new coaster will go from zero to 72 mph in about two seconds, says Chubb, and it rounds out Hershey’s cachet of coasters, providing a thrill ride for just about any type of guest. “From the Comet built in 1946, the sooperdooperLooper, a steel looping coaster, the Trailblazer, the new Wildcat (which was named for the original ride and built in 1996) . . . everything’s really different, so people can have different coaster experiences by coming here,” he says.

Chubb adds that while there’s a thrill embedded in each of Hersheypark’s coasters, its core family-oriented customer base won’t be alienated by the new super-fast coaster.

“We always try to position ourselves as a major family park,” Chubb says. “We’re not just a thrill park; we try to do things keeping the family in mind.” The ride weaves in and out of other rides, giving passengers the illusion that they’re about to encounter another structure. The coaster, whose name was chosen in a contest and was not available at the time of this writing, was manufactured by Swiss company Intamin and cost approximately $12.5 million.

Hersheypark is also interested in upgrading its entertainment. But as opposed to the complexity of adding a new ride, the park has more or less found a formula to the entertainment.

“We generally do a country show, which involves country hits or what’s popular now, a rock show, a ’50s and ’60s type music and Broadway style dance numbers,” says Entertainment Director Stacey Benson. “It just hits the different audiences that we have. Generally anyone walking through the gates will find something they like.”

For next year, Benson would like to see more strolling musicians and performers—they would entertain the guests waiting in line with magic or physical comedy—and a continued effort at fine-tuning The Green Team, a project that is getting attention as the park ramps up its environmentally friendly agenda.

Clean and Green
These days, Hersheypark is not lacking in pride, especially when it comes to being eco-friendly. Part of the mantra, and thus, a major goal of the park, is to maintain a clean and green park. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) realized this several years ago, when one of its representatives saw The Green Team, a juggling and comedy act with a recycling theme. The show features 25 minutes of gags, physical comedy, magic, and interaction with the guests, but with an educational twist about recyclable materials and big-picture implications of pollution.

The DEP then forged a relationship with the park by sponsoring the show, as well as the addition of a 10kW wind turbine and 60 2kW solar panels, which were donated by Community Energy, Inc. This extensive partnership is known as the Renewable Energy Project.

“The DEP approached us,” says Kent Bachmann, the park’s head engineer. “And they looked at it like, we have 2.4 million guests coming through the park and kids learn by having fun. They started thinking about things and appreciating things. When I talk to kids about physics, they never thought of roller coasters as gravity trains. And I have fun telling them.” When the project was announced, Kathleen McGinty, the acting secretary of environmental protection of the commonwealth, said at a press conference that she was excited that Hersheypark and Pennsylvania were the forerunners for renewable energy. The park even uses mostly recyclable products.

These additions are technically connected to the park’s power grid, but they don’t provide a significant amount of power. The idea behind these projects is to bring awareness to visitors and the community about alternate sources of power. They are both located near The Green Team Stage in the Pioneer Frontier area of the park.

Since the inception of these projects, Bachmann has received several positive comments and questions from guests. Bachmann and Benson are confident that the projects will pique the interest of other parks and businesses nationwide.

“It’s been a great educational tool about what we can do to help save our environment; it’s a fun, entertaining addition to the shows,” Benson says.

“As our energy crisis grows, parks and other businesses are going to be looking at other energy sources.”