Funworld September 2011

Conner Prairie Mixes Live Actors with High-Tech Showmanship in New Civil War Exhibit

Guests visiting traditional museums today expect to see displays that utilize advanced entertainment technologies. When they visit live history museums, they anticipate seeing performers acting out famous scenes from history. What they do not expect to see is a merging of the two—productions that integrate stirring live performances with sophisticated special effects. But that is exactly what Conner Prairie Interactive History Park in Fishers, Indiana, has achieved with its new experience, “1863—Civil War Journey.”

Five years in the making, the exhibit is the creation of Bob Noll, owner and creative director of Boston Productions, who understands the challenge museums face in the informationtechnology age. “Contemporary visitors today in special venues have been exposed to a tremendous amount of technology—smartphones, iPads, laptops, holograms, 3-D, etc.—and the level of expectation for a venue has been ratcheted up,” he says. “The living history museum has relied on live actors to bring stories about. The challenge is that you can’t do extraordinary events that way. The Civil War was a big event for [Indiana], but how do you re-create that—you can’t fight the Civil War every day. That was the challenge and that’s where the technology comes into play.”

The $4.3 million exhibit opened June 4 and re-created one of “Morgan’s Raids”—attacks in Indiana during the Civil War by thousands of Confederate soldiers. Led by John Hunt Morgan, they looted and ransacked towns, destroyed railroad lines, and cut telegraph lines. “1863—Civil War Journey” recounts the raid on the town of Dupont, Indiana.

One of the most vivid re-creations takes place in a building that appears to be the Mayfield and Nichols Dry Goods Store. “Visitors are ushered in and it’s really a theater,” says Noll. “There are five screens in it—the windows and walls are screens and they dissolve away and an attack starts. People run in and shoot out the lights and the lights explode—they ransack the place. It is very surprising and it’s all about the story of what happened that day. It uses technology for effect and also live actors.” The room also reverberates with sounds of the attack coming from hidden subwoofers.

Other buildings in the production include a home with 3- D projections that retell the accounts of a black man who was imprisoned there by the raiders before he escaped. Touchscreens in one of the rooms challenge visitors to stop the raiders.

Amid the pandemonium of the re-enacted raids are the actors, who can change the intensity of the experience at their discretion. “The actors have enough flexibility to adjust the experience based on the audience,” says Dan Frees, Conner Prairie’s vice president of guest experience, “so if the audience has a lot of children, they can be more of a calming and reassuring influence; if it’s an older, more mature audience, they can heighten the terror and fear. That flexibility is something you can’t do when you’re just dealing with straight technology.”

The surprise chaos of falling shelves, falling trees, and a burning building is termed “disruptive technology” by Conner Prairie. Noll says guests aren’t necessarily expecting such hightech elements from the museum, so the effect is doubly surprising and effective.

Conner Prairie anticipates the experience will increase attendance 5 to 7 percent over 2010’s total of 220,000. Says Cathy Ferree, Conner Prairie’s senior director of strategic planning, “We hope it engages and inspires people about the Civil War raids and, on a higher level, about things like states rights and central government.” www.connerprairie.org

Live Park Brings Guests to Animated Life in 4-D Adventures

d’strict, the Seoul- and New-York- City-based 4-D creative company, unveiled Live Park at IAAPA’s Asian Attraction Expo 2011 in June at Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa. It is d’strict’s theme park entertainment platform in which visitors interact with various 4-D entertainment elements to create their own unique adventures. Guests work with avatars personalized to reflect their facial characteristics.

Live Park consists of eight attraction zones, comprising 13 adventures, three mixed-reality performances, and three mobile-and-web-integration-service platforms. Noi Ring is d’strict’s RFIDenabled system that tracks each visitor’s progress through each attraction-zone adventure. It will save individual player’s data during an adventure to allow every visitor’s experience to be unique.

One attraction zone, called “Meta,” consists of a giant 360-degree pano - ramic screen designed for interactivity with visitors using the RFID system and mobile device integration. Technology allows visitors to have partial control of the animation on the screen by use of a 3-D camera.

According to d’strict, what distinguishes Live Park from other 4-D attractions is how visitors create their own adventures, and their smartphones can be used as controllers in the experiences. This gives visitors a tremendous amount of interactivity in the attraction, allowing them, for instance, to check on what items they have accumulated during an adventure in real time, and even to “throw” items from their smartphones to the screen. d’strict says it cannot provide detailed information about the interface but notes a downloadable app turns Androids and iPhones into controllers that allow visitors to play interactive games and see their play status during an adventure.

At the start of the adventure, a picture is taken of the visitor and “morphed” into an avatar. It will have similar facial characteristics to the guest, along with some fantastical features.

One adventure example is the “Giant Wall,” which d’strict says is the world’s largest spatial 3-D animation wall. It makes users feel as if they are actually standing in the oversized screen space. Visitors can bring their avatars and have an avatar game on the Giant Wall, or they can join in an avatar parade.

d’strict confirms that five years of research and development went into producing Live Park. Company founder, CEO, and creative director Eun Seok Chey talks about what inspired him to create his new attractions: “In 2008 I decided to take a big and bold step to create game-changing entertainment by combining Xboxstyle gaming experience, art, technology, performance, and edutainment,” he says. “My passion was to create new types of entertainment—a theme-park platform that is fun for the younger generation of families who are familiar with interactive gaming and user-oriented adventures. My focus was also driven [toward] content updates without [having] multimillion-dollar infrastructure investments in ride park platforms.”

Live Park has the capacity for 250 visitors to participate simultaneously in creating their own avatars and experiencing the attraction’s games, quests, and adventures. It is designed as a 220,000-square-foot permanent installation, or as a 150,000-square-foot touring attraction. d’strict says a permanent attraction location in Singapore is already under discussion with investment groups. d’strict is the sole producer and distributor of Live Park global services. www.thelivepark.com

Scottie’s in Illinois Goes from Skating Rink to Full- Fledged FEC

After operating successfully for more than seven decades, you might think the oldest family-owned roller skating rink in the United States would be satisfied to sit comfortably in place and not embark on any risky new ventures, especially during tough economic times. That is not the case with Scottie’s Skateland in Quincy, Illinois.

The facility celebrated its 75th anniversary in June, just months after opening a $2.3 million, 15,000-squarefoot expansion that turned it into a fullfledged family entertainment center (FEC), now named Scottie’s Fun Spot.

Jeff Scott, the FEC’s general manager and the grandson of Albert Scott, who founded Scottie’s Skateland in 1936, says going from a skating rink to an FEC was an idea that just kept popping up.

“We were going to the roller skating trade shows and they were all adding laser tag or play areas to their facilities,” he says, “so we looked at that and it kind of grew into what it’s become now. It just kind of snowballed because the area needed a full-fledged fun center.”

So he and his parents, Bob and Jan Scott, who own the facility, commissioned a feasibility study with Jerry Merola of Alpha-Omega Amusements. Despite the study’s positive results, securing financing as a small business was tough during a recession. “We just never gave up,” says Scott. “We believed in our project and in the feasibility study, which was well worth the money, and we finally found a banker that thought the community also needed a project like this.”

Because the Scotts had to start the expansion more modestly than would be necessary in a strong economy with easier financing, it was important that they selected the right attractions from the start. “We attended Foundations [Entertainment University] to give us a start in the process, then hired Jerry Merola,” says Scott. “We also went to the IAAPA show and to a lot of other FECs, and talked to other promoters. We went to places that had the Ballocity play systems, and I took my kids to see what they thought of it.”

In the end, the attractions they settled on included a two-story Ballocity play area from Prime Play; Highway 66 mini-bowling from QubicaAMF; a 3,700-square-foot laser tag arena from Zone Systems; Spin Zone bumper cars from American Products; a Laser Frenzy laser maze; and a 65-game arcade. Scott says the FEC also went with an Embed debit card system and notes that Scottie’s Fun Spot is one of only a few FECs that allow guests to choose whether or not to use redemption tickets.

Amid all of the progress, one thing that has not changed at Scottie’s is a strictly enforced code of behavior to maintain a safe family atmosphere. The FEC does not allow muscle shirts, baggy pants, bandannas, hoodies with the hoods up, foul language, or borrowing money from other patrons. “My grandfather had a lot of ‘tough ship’ rules!” asserts Scott. “On a Friday night, we keep a book on kids we kick out, and if we have to call a deputy, we take a picture and put them in a book.”

Scott says his only real concern now is that the operation has no outdoor attractions. So in 2012, the facility will embark on the second phase of its expansion, which will include go-karts and minigolf. www.scottiesfunspot.com

New Zealand 4-D Theater Marks Several ‘Firsts’

The new 4-D theater installed at the International Antarctic Center (IAC) in Christchurch, New Zealand, by Simworx Ltd. boasts an impressive list of firsts: It is the first 4-D theater in all of New Zealand; the first 4-D theater Simworx has ever built to withstand earthquakes; and the first to debut the first 3-D movie ever made in Antarctica.

Called 4-D Extreme Theater, it opened earlier this year as a NZD$2.3 million (US$1.9 million) addition to the Antarctic Attraction, a tourist segment of the IAC intended to entertain and educate visitors about Antarctica. The IAC is a working campus from which many Antarctic expeditions are organized.

Simworx is headquartered in Kingswinford, West Midlands, England, some 12,000 miles from Christchurch. Despite this great distance, and the fact that the 4-D theater is currently the only one in New Zealand, Simworx Managing Director Terry Monkton says the facility will have no problem getting technical and maintenance support: “First, we always have online diagnostics, so even though we’re in the UK we can look at the system and see if there are any problems. Second, we worked in conjunction with a local engineering company that provides maintenance support to the International Antarctic Center and trained them fully in first-line maintenance. And third, we would fly there to support them if needed, but that hasn’t been necessary.”

One unusual feature of the IAC’s new 4-D theater is the fact that it is built to withstand earthquakes—the first of 4- D theaters termed by Simworx as “earthquake proof.” Christchurch is in an area prone to seismic activity, and, in fact, the city has been struck by multiple earthquakes and aftershocks this year.

Monkton explains the work Simworx did to accomplish the earthquake proofing: “The client supplied us with four walls, and we installed everything— the grandstand, the seating, all the audio/visual effects, etc. When we designed things like the grandstand, we used double-strength steel compared to what we’d normally use, and the fixings for the floor were double strength and reinforced compared to what we’d use on a normal 4-D cinema. So it was just some thought on the fixings, the tensile strengths, and the sort of steelwork we used to ensure that this theater was resistant to earth tremors, because they’re a real occurrence there. They’ve had tremors since the theater was installed and we’re pleased to report there have been no problems.”

Though the new addition that houses the theater cost about $1.9 million, Monkton says the 4-D cinema portion was about $500,000.

Because of the specialized nature of the IAC, Monkton says the current library of existing 4-D theater films would not work so “Ice Voyage” was custom-made for the center. Filmed by Emmy-award-winning cinematographer Mike Single, it is the first 3-D movie ever shot in Antarctica. www.iceberg.co.nz