Adrian and Marie Fisher have deservedly established a reputation over the years for both creating the world’s finest mazes and for giving good party.  Sunday’s gathering was an eclectic mix of relatives, children, relative’s children, ex-spouses, current spouses, relative’s current and ex-spouses and a smattering of amusement industry folk. 

Met Martin Barrett, ex-Merlin and Tussauds and now a director at Vision XS, who with over 20 years senior management experience in visitor attractions  has enormous insight into what’s going down/on in the business. He told me about the origin of Nemesis, Alton Towers’ famous coaster and my own personal fave. Martin and Nick Varney in their pre-Merlin days had had Quatermass in mind, as they were looking for a unique English themed ride, Quatermass being a rocket scientist with a frightfully British countenance and whose ill-advised experiments were the cause of a million nightmares for children of the 70s. Height and space constraints focused minds and the ride became the tremendously compact and intense experience it still is today. Looks like Quatermass’s pit too…

Talked about queues, with queuing being a national pastime. Intriguingly, heart rate studies have shown that if a guest goes immediately on a ride with no queuing at all their heart rate remains the same throughout the ride. However, with just a 15 minute wait the same person’s heart rate getting off the ride has doubled. Seems the trick is not to jump to the front but to jump to 15 minutes from the front.

Rajive Kaul, the CEO of Kolkata's Nicco Parks , his daughter Pallavi and his family were in attendance, they are working closely with the Fishers on various projects and happened to be in London. The next day they were off to Lords, surely the world’s most aesthetically pleasing sports venue.

Neat back-handed compliment on the drive home, Rachel praising me for “meeting someone French and not spouting on about Balzac”.

Yesterday sat in the rain on a wet plastic chair at the school sports day. I came  4th out of 12 in the dad's race, in a strong field of middle-aged, out-of-condition men. Didn’t get a sticker. The kids raced, the mums and dads raced but the teachers did not. The best coaches it seems, are always in the stands.

Currently the Indian Amusement industry is of Rs. 4,000-crore and the leisure industry expects fresh investment of Rs 10,000 crore by the year 2020. In terms of employment generation, the new amusement parks are likely to create jobs for six crore man-hours per month.

Global leaders in entertainment parks and attractions like Universal Studios, Disney, Sony and Ripley Entertainment are mulling over investments of billions of dollars in India considering the vast potential in this region. Private equity funds are also aggressively dedicating resources towards this sector.

The domestic amusement park industry is estimated to grow by 10% per cent per annum till 2009-10.

Robert E Masterson, chairman of Ripley Entertainment Inc, who visited India for the 8th IAAPI Amusement Expo said the world’s leading players would set up bases in India within the next five years.

“The opportunities and challenges are probably the greatest here. All leading players are quietly planning to enter India, a market where the rate of growth is five times of that of North America. India is the fastest growing region in the world,” Masterson said.

The Indian Association of Amusement Parks and Industries (IAAPI) will be organizing its 9th Amusement Expo 2009 in Mumbai from February 21st to 23rd February, 2009. The three-day event would see participation of over 50 exhibitors from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, China, Dubai, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, the US and the UK.

IAAPI is the only platform in the country, which recognizes and facilitates the small and big players in the Amusement Industry looking at the tremendous growth potential of this industry in the next 5 years.

We had many “flat rides,” and “kiddie rides,” but no “majors,” and certainly not a major roller-coaster. In 1984, we changed our name from Santa Claus Land to Holiday World (that was before Splashin’ Safari).  We did so in an effort to broaden our appeal to include kids who were a little older than the Santa Claus Land image would appeal to.

In those years, we were marketing our product in the shadows of major regional parks—one to the east, one to the west, and one to the south. In general, we were perceived as a “second choice,” a “cheaper option,” but one that wasn’t “as good as” the others. Sometime after that, we made a decision to focus our business on one target market: families. We decided we’d leave the teenagers and young adults for other parks—they were building the big roller coasters in those days, and we couldn’t afford them—besides that, families were the group that really seemed to prefer our park over others.

Twenty-five years later, we still focus our business on families.  Every major product introduction, marketing campaign, and service innovation (Free Unlimited Soft Drinks, for example) is measured against this standard gauge: Does this make our product better/more appealing to families?  Our Mission is “To be the World Leader in Family Fun.” This has evolved over the years.  When we first adopted a mission following our decision to focus on families, it was, “To be the first choice for fantastic family fun and entertainment in the region.”  As we’ve grown, we have felt the need to set the bar higher and higher.

This focus has allowed us to make changes to our product that our competitors can’t or won’t. It has also allowed us to avoid doing some things that would have added to our operating costs without serving our target market. As a result, we have become the first choice of families throughout our region. Park customers don’t often visit their second choice. It is far better to be the first choice of a small segment of the population than to be the second (or heaven forbid, third) choice of everyone.  When customers are choosing an outdoor entertainment venue, they visit their first choice.

Focusing on families has been perhaps the most important key to our continued steady growth and development over many years.

The marketing and the buzz created each year around a park's new attractions is often just that: clever spiel and hyperbole selling a revamp as a new attraction or a tweaked ride as a brand new experience. Sure these tweaks might be on grand scale but still the ride itself is nothing new. Perhaps the ride engineers, the hardware guys,  might have something to say about this. Are the software engineers having all the fun?

Totally new I reckon is Brush Boarding. I visited Crealy Great Adventure Park in Cornwall the other day for the launch of Extreme Sports Zone's new ride/attraction. On a beautiful day with a full park and the Beach Boys on the stereo, surf dudes and surfer chicks queued to take a ride on the the Brush Board ramp. A feature will follow for Blooloop but for now above is a clip of an 8 year old's very first go.

See also:

2007 UK Windsurfing Champion John Hibbard to launch Brush Ramp at Devon's Crealy
Devon the Home Of New Surfing And Snowboarding Sport Of Brush Boarding
Brush Boarding to Launch at Devon's Crealy