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Hopi Hari Teams with Warner Bros.
As Brazil prepares for two enormous events that will propel the country onto the world stage and usher in tens of thousands of visitors—the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympic Games in 2016—an amusement park in São Paulo has landed a major agreement with Warner Bros. Consumer Products (WBCP) that will bring some of the studio’s famed entertainment characters to the park.
Hopi Hari, a 188-acre facility with 68 attractions that draws around 2 million visitors per year, is the first park in Latin America to team with WBCP and bring the Looney Tunes, DC Universe, and Penelope Pitstop characters to guests.
“They have legions of fans in Brazil,” says Armando Pereira Filho, who has been CEO of Hopi Hari since 2002 and has guided the park through a period of growth and increased international visibility. “We are very confident that Warner Bros. will be the right choice for our family-friendly park.”
The partnership gives Hopi Hari brand-licensing rights to the names, likenesses, and logos of Warner Bros.’ intellectual properties and makes the park WBCP’s largest partner in Latin America. The park will spend R$100 million (US$61 million) in capital expenditures, marketing and promotion, advertising, and sales support as a result of the agreement.
Plans call for themed environments and entertainment activities in the park like rides, restaurants, shops, shows and parades, and character meet-and-greets, as well as new products and merchandise, such as clothing, toys, games, and novelties inspired by the Warner Bros. characters, much of it developed exclusively for the park.
Filho says Hopi Hari will dedicate two of its five themed areas to the Warner Bros. characters. Infantasia will be themed after Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny, Taz, Tweety, Sylvester, and Daffy Duck. Aribabiba, which means “live life with joy,” will target teens and feature superheroes from the DC Universe, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and Aquaman. Penelope Pitstop will be the focus of an entirely new themed environment for guests.
Major new attractions will be rolled out as well. “We will bring two different attractions—one for the Looney Tunes area and one for Aribabiba,” Filho tells Funworld. “We are developing those now.” He also notes that the park is working on exclusive-time experiences with characters for guests.
Though he declined to state the exact terms of the agreement between Hopi Hari and WBCP, Filho affirms a long-term deal. He says the partnership came about when WBCP heard Hopi Hari was looking for a new contract and sent the park a proposal about 16 months ago.
The park doubled its attendance over the past 10 years, and Filho expects this new agreement, along with the flood of visitors coming for the World Cup and Summer Olympics, to continue that growth. As a result, he says Hopi Hari will add 2,000 more employees to its current staff of 1,000. www.hopiharionline.com.br
SIX FLAGS NEW ENGLAND’S JASON FREEMAN: From Parking Cars to Running the Park
 One nagging concern often expressed by the customers and employees of big businesses is whether the people at the top are truly interested in their well-being and have any clue at all about what happens on the “ground floor” of those businesses. But that can’t be said of Jason Freeman, president of Six Flags New England (SFNE) in Agawam, Massachusetts. Freeman began his career at the park some 26 years ago as a parking lot attendant and has worked his way to the top. He responds to a few questions from Funworld about his rise through the ranks:
When were you a parking lot attendant?
I parked cars from 1984 to 1985, and way back then, it was called Riverside Park
What other positions did you hold before you entered management?
From 1984 to 1986 I was doing parking and security. I always enjoyed doing stuff with the public, and so in 1985 I became an EMT as a senior in high school and that summer I worked in first-aid and security. Then in 1987 I became the fulltime safety and security supervisor.
[Editor’s note: In 1992, Freeman was promoted to manager of general services. Then in January 2001, he was asked to join Six Flags’ corporate office in Oklahoma City, where he served as director of safety and risk management. In June 2010 he was named president of SFNE.]
Does your journey up through the ranks help you relate to frontline employees?
Oh, absolutely. Even today I’ll park cars or jump in the booth, as do our other [managers], and it clearly allows me to understand what they’re dealing with because I’ve walked in their shoes.
Your work experience reflects a very strong background in safety. How do you get employees to treat safety as a top priority, day in and day out?
It’s all about the culture, and I’ve been on the ground floor creating that culture. It truly is the first thing employees hear when they’re hired. It’s an expectation, and they hear about it constantly. But there are challenges with that, too, and any team member here has the authority to stop an unsafe act, and it’s the communication of that expectation that is so important. Safety is not just a book on the shelf.
Have your children shown any interest yet in working at parks?
Yes. I have a daughter who’s starting her fourth season in food operations. My 13- year-old son is a park enthusiast, and he may start as a parking lot attendant because I want them to have the same sweat equity as I did! www.sixflags.com/newengland
Thinkwell: Thinking Differently About Attractions
Following Warner Bros. purchase last November of Leavesden Studios near Watford, Hertforshire, England, the Thinkwell Group of Burbank, California (www.thinkwellgroup.com), announced it will design a one-of-akind behind-the-scenes look at these studios where all eight Harry Potter movies were made.
The tours will afford guests the opportunity to visit several of the original Potter film sets and see many of the actual costumes, creatures, and props used in the productions, as well as the remarkable creativity and artistry that brought the film series to life.
Warner Bros. is currently mum on the exact details of the attraction, but the film studio said it will be a part of a $160 million-plus redevelopment of the 170-acre Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, which will open in mid-2012.
Although Kelly Ryner, vice president of business development for the Thinkwell Group, is not yet at liberty to elaborate on Thinkwell’s involvement, she can comment on the firm’s creative work on other ventures.
“Most of our clients approach us to talk through strategically how they can take assorted intellectual properties and leverage them into various business opportunities,” she says. “We’ve become really known as an entrepreneurial company that’s looking at things very differently. We’ve got a business unit in our team called Thinkwell Development, headed by Liam Thornton, and he comes out of Universal Studios and House of Blues.”
In the past few years, after the early announcement of ambitious projects like this one at Leavesden, funding difficulties and other variables have often prevented them from becoming a reality. Though Ryner can’t speak about the Leavesden initiative, her general remarks about Thinkwell projects are a promising indication of its viability.
“We look for projects that are actually going to get built—not just prospects,” she says. “These clients are interested in great guest experiences— immersive, and unusual. They have their feasibility studies done and money in the bank. They are going to do things right, and we help them strategize how to get the most immersive experience possible for their business plan. We’re currently working on a project in China that is incredibly immersive, and the client is planning for the kind of capital required to do it right.”
François Bergeron, chief strategy officer for Thinkwell, contends the work Thinkwell is doing helps parks and attractions tremendously because it gives guests the ability to be entertained, even when they’re stuck in line.
“It would be a missed opportunity to not give things for people to do when they’re waiting in line, and for a low capital expenditure,” he says. “Another thing that is an indirect product is crowd control. Even a virtual treasure hunt through a park really helps. We bridge the digital world and the real world, and that led to the creation of Studio Thinkwell— we have all of this under one roof.”
Thinkwell doesn’t see the digital world of advanced home-based gaming, virtual reality, augmented reality, etc., to be a threat to replace theme park attraction experiences, but rather a rich complement to them.
“I think that fear is like the feared death of the movie theater when large home theater [systems] appeared,” says Bergeron. “But it didn’t happen. There is a human need to gather in a place and experience the same experiences and the same emotions, and then have another experience online that continues the experience after you leave that place.” www.thinkwellgroup.com
Legoland Discovers Atlanta
Continuing the impressive worldwide growth of its attraction offerings, Merlin Entertainments announced it is expanding its portfolio of Legoland Discovery Centers (LDC) by building one at the Phipps Plaza shopping destination in Atlanta.
 Opening in March 2012, the 32,000-square-foot center will have a staff of about 100 and offer a two- to three-hour interactive indoor experience for families with children ages 3 to 10 years old, all based on the Lego brick. The Discovery Centers provide numerous interactive play areas, like Lego rides, 4-D cinemas, and classes from Lego Master Model Builders. They also feature the popular Miniland exhibits that re-create the iconic structures and skylines of each individual attraction’s home city in intricate detail.
Explaining why Merlin Entertainments chose this location for its next LDC, Sally Ann Wilkinson, the company’s head of corporate affairs, tells Funworld: “We believe that Atlanta, and particularly Phipps Plaza and the adjacent Lennox Square, are already popular ‘destinations’ for family visitors [and are] exactly the right location for it. Our experience has also shown that bringing together an exciting mix of retail, catering, and quality leisure attractions like the LDC creates a whole new element to a family shopping day, delivering significant incremental business to both the mall and to the area as a whole. Such projects play an important part in Merlin’s future growth strategy for our ‘midway’ or indoor City Center attractions.”
To make such an entertainment attraction work over the long haul, a retail environment needs to be able to produce a heavy traffic flow, and Dewayne Herbert, manager of Phipps Plaza, explains why he believes this LDC will get 400,000 to 500,000 visitors annually. “First, it’s all about the market,” he says. “Merlin’s market research came back as extremely favorable for Atlanta. We cater to a large base into South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and northern Florida. Phipps Plaza is located inAtlanta, not a suburb, and we’re successful with conventions and tourism.” Herbert added that an indoor mall attraction benefits greatly from the heavy holiday shopping traffic.
Sometimes retail stores worry that a fee-added attraction can drain away dollars that shoppers would otherwise be spending in the stores. But Herbert doesn’t believe this will be the case with the LDC. “I think it will have the opposite effect in that it turns their visit into more of an event, not just a trip to the mall.”
Though Merlin says it’s too early to comment on whether and how this LDC will cross-promote with the new Legoland Florida theme park opening this October in Georgia’s neighboring state, Herbert sees it as an ideal opportunity: “We’ll give Legoland Florida visitors a taste of what they’ll see down there, and the Legoland Discovery Center will benefit from people being able to relive some of what they experienced at Legoland Florida.”
With Legoland theme parks in California and Florida, and Discovery Centers in Texas, Illinois, and Georgia, Merlin has covered the southern, western, and central areas of the United States. But the most populated region in the northeast remains untapped, to which Wilkinson responds, “We are constantly looking for new sites for all our attractions and may be looking at more than 100 potential sites at any one time, but we never announce anything until all plans are final and agreed. We have no other Legoland/LDC projects at that stage in the U.S. at the moment.” www.legolanddiscoverycenter.com
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