Funworld July 2008

by Marion Hixon

Thirty-year-old Puy du Fou is a rare find. With nary a ride in sight, soil-packed walkways add to the French show park’s overall organic milieu, with trees that loom overhead and provide safe haven for exotic birds flying in choreographed swoops.

Puy du Fou’s seven historically themed shows alone provide enough magnificence and action to thrill audiences spread across the majestic landscape of Les Epesses, France, a slice of country near the city of Nantes. Here, all the world really is a stage, where entertainment professionals help the shows always go on through meticulous training, excellent customer service, and top-notch acting talent.

In fact, the park is known regionally as a prestigious place to hone an actor’s craft, with its Junior Academy training program, a long list of volunteer actors, and commitment to historically accurate and detailed stories.

While Puy du Fou’s focus on bygone times is not unheard of, its presentation quality is extraordinary. “It is not a park to visit, but rather a place to live the most unique experience—a historical journey,” says Laurent Albert, Puy du Fou’s general manager, who has worked there all of its 30 years.

The facility’s 110 acres of forest provide beautiful transitions for guests moving through the different themed areas, each set in specific time periods with actors to match. These painstakingly crafted arenas include the Gallo-Roman Stadium, which uses lions, spectacular chariot stunts, and true-to-form colored stone to replicate Rome’s Coliseum. In these areas, the park hosts six daytime shows and one spectacular night production, attracting 1.2 million people during the April-to-September season. Puy du Fou is the fourth most-popular theme park in France, ranking top in the country with 65 percent of its visitors returning during a given two-year period, according to a study conducted by French communications agency Efficience.

Elaine College, vice president of entertainment for Tampa, Florida’s Busch Gardens Africa, sings the park’s praises after an inspirational recent visit. “[The park’s] unique approach to a theme park and the quality of the shows set Puy du Fou apart from other attractions,” she says, adding she was most impressed by the large scale of “The Phantom Bird’s Ball,” with its 100 trained birds of prey flying in unison. College dubs the show “unsurpassed”: “You cannot describe the grandeur of the shows. It must be seen.”

A Volunteer Effort
Founded in 1977, the park touts itself as a show experience with a family spirit, a label proven true by David Nouaille, Puy du Fou’s director of marketing and communications. Twentyfive years ago, he volunteered as an actor at Puy du Fou; impacted by the park’s community and legacy, he returned after his education and has been at the park for eight years.

His story is not uncommon; thousands of actors volunteer for positions in “La Cinéscénie,” the night show, and that dedication underscores the community’s commitment to the park. Many of the volunteers ultimately train at the facility’s Junior Academy to become permanent fixtures in shows, or return to the park later. “If there are no volunteers,” Nouaille says, “there is no Puy du Fou.”

Created in 1998, the Junior Academy is an important aspect of integrating volunteers and actors into the fabric of the park. It allows children who have volunteered in the night show to attend a training camp where they choose to learn skills such as horseback riding, dancing, stunts, or costume design. Five hundred students attend the program in the winter and can choose from 27 disciplines.

Nicolas de Villiers, president of the Cinéscénie volunteer association, explains that after four or five years of training, students have a chance to become paid artists or technicians in the live shows. “We pay careful attention to motivate our students because it is very important that they love what they learn,” he says. “It is a beautiful purpose for them.”

An Unconventional Approach
At Puy du Fou, de Villiers says neither target markets nor demographics drive decisions on show and artistic direction. Instead, creating a new performance piece starts with choosing a historical period not yet represented in the park and crafting a presentation around it—a process that takes time. “The creation of a new show lasts from two to four years before its first presentation,” de Villiers says.

Nouaille, who credits Albert and the creative team with shows and storyline progression, says it’s a collective process. “For the Gallo Romaine show, created in 2001, we wanted to speak about the Roman period, so we decided to create a Roman Village with artisans in it,” he says; next came the idea of having a chariot with four horses on display, and after that, a suggestion of a gladiator fight and the presence of lions. Slowly, the concept evolved into Puy du Fou’s “Gladiator” show in an arena more than 350 feet long and 250 feet wide.

While a primary focus on history and storytelling can be difficult to market, Nouaille says it’s important for both repeat visitors and newcomers to understand what to expect season after season. “The repeaters are very important to us—we have to explain our new shows to them, as they are already familiar with the quality,” he says. “For newcomers, it’s more difficult. We have to explain very precisely what the park is about and what they are going to experience.”

Helping the marketing team with this undertaking is an elaborate and sharply designed web site (www.puydufou.com created two years ago. It features six different languages (English, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, and Russian) and a virtual tour map with high-resolution images, so visitors can feel as though they’ve been dropped in the middle of the park.

Puy du Fou has a small advertising budget, so it currently only conducts television, radio, and print advertising within France. Thus, the web site is a critical tool for reaching potential visitors outside the country.

The Customer Comes First
Attributing the park’s accomplishments to its guest-focused operations, Busch Gardens’ College says: “The park has such success and visitor satisfaction because of the entire experience they provide. They are passionate about guest service.”

This passion is seen in management’s willingness to build the park around guest behavior. “Three years ago, we developed a system that allows us to be very reactive,” Albert says, referring to the park’s “no queuing” policy, which determines the number of shows that take place each day by the number of visitors in the park. That means if there are fewer than 6,000 visitors a day, the Gallo-Roman Stadium, which houses the gladiator show, only puts on one production. If between 6,000 and 12,000 visitors come, two shows are scheduled; and more than 12,000 visitors constitute three shows.

But the numbers have to come from somewhere. Prior to the day’s events, the park operators will estimate the number of visitors based on weather forecasts and historical attendance. This process helps staff members determine how many show guides to print every morning. “With this process, we’re able to react very quickly for the visitor’s comfort, and the shows’ artists and technicians know how to modify the program accordingly.” While such spontaneous planning might normally lead to chaos, Puy du Fou stays under control through careful personnel management. “Our artists are trained to play many roles in the park, so one actor can take part in many shows in the same day,” Albert says.

Accommodating guests seems to be Puy du Fou’s specialty, as the park is also managing a recent hotel addition and has another in the design phase. The fully functioning Villa Gallo Romaine is a themed, 100-room hotel with easy access to the park and the night show. Each room is built to accommodate a family of five. La City of Clovis, the upcoming hotel, has a completion date of 2010; it will also hold 100 rooms and sit next to the Villa Gallo Romaine. Park management saw value in providing lodging for guests, as most visitors stay at least two days to fully experience the park and attend as many shows as possible.

Constant growth at the park and events planned based on attendance exist to ensure the comfort and happiness of the park’s guests, says Albert. “We try to do everything in order for our visitors to feel comfortable in the park,” he says. “Each year, we develop new services and shows for our guests, because they are our richness.”