Funworld AUGUST 2007

New Rides and Attractions 2007

by Jeremy Schoolfield & Keith Miller

Expect the Unexpected

As it turns out, 2007 is a year bent on defying expectations. For an industry most commonly associated with big, fast scream machines, some of the biggest headlines this season came from various forms of live entertainment. Consider: Who would have thought an art-house outfit like
Blue Man Group would ever appear at a theme park, much less set up a permanent shop? Or what odds would have been given on the co-creator of “24” ever being involved with a live-action stunt show at an amusement park?

Then there’s Dollywood—which made its name on entertainment—delivering “Mystery Mine,” a combination coaster/dark ride that proved to be one of the hottest tickets around for thrill seekers. Or how about Cedar Point, the park that built the world’s first 400-foot coaster, deciding to go against its own traditions and offer a low-to-the-ground speedster that barely cracks the 100-foot barrier.

And, finally, 2007 proved that an industry labeled by some as “mature” is actually far from it, as new parks, waterparks, and other amusement facilities are springing up everywhere around the world.

In this the second annual edition of the New Rides and Attractions special section, FUNWORLD tries to sort it all out.

Feel the Rhythm

by Jeremy Schoolfield

Like the resounding beat from one of the Blue Man Group’s massive drums at its new theater in Universal Orlando, live entertainment made some
serious waves this year in amusement parks across the United States. Several of the country’s biggest chains recruited top-flight talent to produce some of the best shows the industry has ever seen. The list of accolades for project producers runs from Tony Award winners to the creator of an Emmy Award-winning television show, the aforementioned Blue Man Group to Cirque-style shows and some of the most popular characters in children’s entertainment.

In many cases this year, live entertainment went from being an “add-on” to the biggest draw of the season.

“This is an exciting time,” says Elaine College, vice president of entertainment for Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa, Florida, and chair of the IAAPA entertainment committee. “Entertainment is the lifeblood of the park—it makes the park come alive. It adds value, excitement, and energy.”

Those involved in amusement industry entertainment interviewed by FUNWORLD all agree on several basic concepts that make live shows successful: They’re more timely, less expensive, and more malleable than bigger, permanent installations such as roller coasters or intricate dark rides; they provide an oasis in the middle of a hectic (and typically hot) day; and, most important, everyone in the family can enjoy them—at the same time.

“I love the idea of family entertainment, something I, as a parent, can come and watch with my kids,” says Joel Surnow, co-creator and producer of the hit TV series “24,” father of five daughters, and producer of “Operation SpyGirl,” the new action stunt show at Six Flags Great America in
Gurnee, Illinois.

“Live entertainment has an energy, a feel, that is unique,” says Tom Schroder, director of public relations for Universal Orlando Resort, which opened Blue Man Group in June. “It creates an emotion and an experience. It’s a chance to sit down, relax, and open up.”

Blue Man Group

Breaks Ground at Universal Orlando

Open up. Yes, that’s exactly what the founders of Blue Man Group (BMG) had to do when they were approached by Universal more than five years ago about a potential partnership.

Blue Man Group is a performance ensemble that even its creator, Matt Goldman, has a hard time defining. Although based around the group’s unique percussion instruments (the most famous being a large moveable tube played with drumsticks), a Blue Man show incorporates humor, mesmerizing visual effects, choreography, audience participation, and even a bit of sly social commentary, all done in mime by its three main stars.

The group formed in the late 1980s when Goldman and fellow creators Phil Stanton and Chris Wink dressed in bald caps, vivid blue grease paint, and black uniforms and began giving mute performances in New York City’s East Village. The trio’s first official show started in an off Broadway theater in 1991 (still running to this day) and has been evolving and expanding ever since. There are now more than 60 Blue Men performing in eight permanent open-ended shows around the world, as well as a large-scale rock-concert-oriented arena tour.

One place the group had never been before, though, is a theme park. Goldman and his partners were initially.... reticent about the idea (“Are you out of your mind?” they originally asked him when he broached Universal’s proposal). Goldman says the discussions among his fellow Blue Men were long and complex, but essentially they were worried about having to bend their show to meet a more mainstream audience than previous BMG iterations.

What they found out is the Blue Man iconic quirkiness is exactly what Universal execs were after.

“These guys were like, ‘Bring on your irreverence. We don’t want to tone that down—tone it up! That’s who we are,’” Goldman says of his talks with Universal officials. He cites the subversive characters found throughout the Universal properties—Dr. Seuss, Shrek, Spider-Man—as cultural touchstones that share the same “head space” as BMG. “Those are the folks a Blue Man would be hanging with in a smoky bar late at night listening to John Coltrane. There’s a natural affinity with the vibe of the other stuff that’s happening [at Universal]. Orlando’s a little more hip and cool than I ever would have known.”

From Universal’s perspective, limitations were never a question.

“Why would we want to limit them?” Schroder says with a touch of incredulity. “It’s not who we are to change something perfect. It’s who we are to let them be themselves.

“You know when you’re in a crowded room, and you lock eyes with somebody and know you need to say hello? It was that sort of feeling. Our two groups are so perfect for one another. It quickly became a question of not ‘whether,’ but ‘when’ and ‘how.’”

The “when” took longer than everyone originally expected, as Universal was in the process of being bought by NBC, while there were scheduling conflicts on the part of BMG as it launched several more show locations. After the NBC deal went through in May 2004, however, Goldman says everything started to fall into place. Blue Man Group opened in June 2007 inside the 1,000-seat Sharp AQUOS Theatre (former home of a Nickelodeon show), nestled between Universal Studios and the Hard Rock Café along Universal’s CityWalk. The show is open-ended and has a separate gate from Universal’s two adjacent theme parks; tickets range from $59 to $69, with park ticket packages available.

Goldman says each new Blue Man show is an evolutionary step in the group’s overriding artistic process. The Orlando show features the best elements BMG has spent two decades developing—playing the tubes, using paint balls to paint with their mouths, and a phenomenal crowd-interactive finale—plus a few new bits special to this location. Goldman says if those new segments go over well (and he believes they will), fans can expect them to start flowing back into the other permanent shows.

“There’s a place the Blue Man show takes you that you really can’t go anywhere else,” Schroder says. “A state of euphoria, a state of bliss, utter happiness, and we like to think the same thing happens for guests at Universal Orlando. People come here looking for a certain kind of experience, and what they have in the theme park together is reinforced by what happens at the Blue Man show.

“The reaction we’re getting is spectacular,” he says. “We really see the Blue Man Group show becoming a ‘must-do’ for people who come to central Florida on vacation. There are very few places in the world where you can experience what they offer, and now we’re one of them.”

‘Operation SpyGirl’

Saves the World at Six Flags Great America

When you add them all up, on a good day Six Flags Great America puts on more than 100 shows in the suburbs of Chicago. But even at this park, steeped in performance tradition, this summer provides a first: Its new stunt show, “Operation SpyGirl,” marks the only time big-name Hollywood talent has gotten involved in a production.

Thank Jonathan Koch, chief creative and operating officer for Los Angeles-based Asylum Entertainment, for that. Six Flags has been working with Asylum on various projects for the past couple years, and Koch, a friend of Joel Surnow, began talking to the “24” co-creator about bringing some form of the Emmy-winning action drama to Six Flags parks. “It really wasn’t a great fit,” Surnow tells FUNWORLD . “‘24’ is a little hardcore for family entertainment.”

Surnow was intrigued by the idea of working in an amusement park setting, though, so he offered to bring in some of his “24” cohorts and collaborate with Asylum on an original show for summer 2007. After going through about 30 ideas (“Twenty-nine of them really sucked, and one was really good,” he chuckles.), Surnow & Co. settled on “SpyGirl.” It’s a half-hour show that mixes a little “24,” a little “La Femme Nikita” (another long-running Surnow series), and a large helping of spy-spoof movies like 1966’s “Our Man Flint” or the more recent “Austin Powers” franchise.

Housed in Great America’s 3,500-seat amphitheater, “SpyGirl” is set on a tropical island recently commandeered by the nefarious Max Condor to use as his base of operations for conquering the world. SpyGirl has 24 minutes (get it?) to stop him from launching a deadly missile from his headquarters inside a smoking volcano. The show involves several acrobatic action scenes choreographed by Las Vegas-based E.S.I., including use of huge trampolines and a midair fight while heroine and villains dangle off the side of a second volcano. Most important to the “24” producer, though, was that the story become just a series of fisticuffs and fireballs.

“I approach everything the same way—let’s just tell a good story,” says Surnow, who brought a couple of his “24” writers in on the project to help him write the script. “In ‘24,’ we don’t worry about the stunts. Let’s tell a good story and then figure out where to put the action sequences.

“One of the things we try to do on ‘24’ is to keep the story moving at all times. A lot of stunt shows aren’t as concerned with that, as opposed to just declaring one stunt after another after another. I wanted to give [‘Spy-Girl’] a pace, so you get from stunt to stunt and explosion to explosion with a sense of the propulsion of the story. That’s how ‘24’ influenced ‘SpyGirl.’”

Another goal was ensuring the show’s appeal to a wide family audience. Surnow says “SpyGirl” is something “boys can like because it has cool stunts, girls can like because of [the female lead], and parents can like because it has some humor and storytelling.” (The script includes references to “American Idol,” Chicago-area sports franchises, and, of course, “24.”)

Dameon Nelson, Great America’s entertainment manager, says the goal is to fine-tune “Operation SpyGirl” this summer in hopes of rolling the show out at other Six Flags parks in the coming years.

 

 

Grand Cirque Dreams

in Texas, Darien Lake

This summer, two U.S. amusement parks—one a current and one a former Six Flags facility—opened ambitious Cirque - style performance shows offering the genre’s indelible variety of acrobatics, dance, and breathtaking visual effects.

Six Flags Over Texas recruited Florida-based Cirque Productions to produce “Cirque Dreams Coobrila,” which opened in June in the Arlington park’s 10,000-seat Music Mill Amphitheatre. The nighttime spectacular reconfigures the theater with several stages and performance runways designed to heighten the connection and interactivity between performers and the audience. The word “Coobrila” was coined specifically to define this show’s three key elements: the show’s cool, evening setting; its use of special effects that will illuminate and brighten that night sky; and the park’s decision to stay open later than usual to accommodate the performance.

“‘Cirque Dreams Coobrila’ is a fantastical journey into a world of imagination,” says Neil Goldberg, producer and artistic director for Cirque Productions, which has developed several shows for venues in Branson, Missouri, and Busch Gardens Europe in Williamsburg, Virginia, among others.

At New York’s Darien Lake Theme Park Resort, purchased in April by PARC Management from Six Flags Inc., “Le Grande Cirque” (“The Grand Circus”) also opened in June and features more than 30 performers from around the world. The 45-minute family-oriented show is an adaptation from London-based Spirit of the Dance Productions, whose original “Le Grande Cirque” has played to more than 10 million people around the world and is currently running at Myrtle Beach’s Palace Theater at Broadway at the Beach.

Both shows are included with respective park admission.

Other Top Shows

Hit the Stage
Surnow wasn’t the only big name mak ­ ing noise at Six Flags parks this summer. The Wiggles, a wildly popular Australian music group geared for children, were incorporated into “Wiggles Worlds” at New Jersey’s Six Flags Great Adventure, Six Flags New England, and Six Flags Great America. The heavily themed lands are anchored by a live show featuring Wiggles characters, but they also include kiddie rides from Zamperla, children’s play structures, and a health-oriented restaurant.

Walt Disney World, meanwhile, focused on entertainment for two of its prominent new offerings in Orlando. Disney’s Animal Kingdom is now home to “Finding Nemo—The Musical,” a half-hour musical featuring original songs from Tony Award-winning composer Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q”) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (“Along the Way”). Live actors sing and manipulate

oversized puppets to bring the blockbuster animated film to the stage. At Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney Imagineers continue their “living character” initiative with “Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor,” featuring digital characters performing live comedy routines (they’re voiced by Cast Members backstage) and actually interacting with members of the audience.

Live shows played an important part in SeaWorld Orlando’s new offerings this season, as well, as the aquatic ­themed park opened two new shows. “Elmo and the Bookaneers” is a lagoon-side production featuring several of the popular characters from “Sesame Street,” the long-running children’s educational series. In it Elmo and friends dress up as pirates and have to pass a series of tests to become “bookaneers.” The Orlando park also unveiled a new nighttime extravaganza, “Shamu Rocks,” in Shamu Stadium. The show incorporates modern and classic pop/rock into the killer whale’s bag of tricks. The rock concert vibe provides a high-energy complement to the more inspirational tone of SeaWorld’s other Shamu performance, “Believe,” which runs throughout the day. Both shows are limited engagements and included in park admission.