Full Transcript for Mr. Theme Park

kind of rebranded it, but I'm I'm curious what the future of that park is. 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:43.439 And I wonder if that park succeeded because of her personal brand. 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:54.959 Well, let me tell you, I Dolly's manager and the president of her company, who just retired recently, Ted Miller, was one of my first friends in the theme park business. 00:05:54.959 --> 00:06:01.600 He and I started out at the same age, uh, 50 some years ago, and have remained friends all through the years. 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:10.639 And through Ted, I got to meet and be with Dolly uh uh several times, have lunch and dinner with her, and just enjoy her. 00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:12.000 I want to tell you something. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:20.480 The way you described her, you always hope when you meet a celebrity that they're gonna live up to your expectations and they won't let you down. 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:25.920 She not only doesn't let you down or didn't let you down, she exceeded everything. 00:06:25.920 --> 00:06:29.439 And the time spent with her was just fabulous. 00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:32.160 She is what you saw on television. 00:06:32.160 --> 00:06:35.040 She was the same way, off and in the back room. 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:37.279 It never changed, and she was wonderful. 00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:49.680 The impact that she had on that park down in Pigeon Forge when it was uh, it was actually uh Gold Rush Junction early on, did about 150,000 people a year, okay? 00:06:49.680 --> 00:06:51.519 Real tiny small park. 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:58.399 It was bought by Silver Dollar City, the Hershen family in the mid-80s. 00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:09.040 They called it, they changed the name to Silver Dollar City, and that elevated the attendance back then around 82 uh to about 250,000. 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:17.600 They got into business with Dolly, saw the opportunity to put her entertainment value into that park. 00:07:17.600 --> 00:07:22.240 That year they named it Dollywood, and it opened. 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:28.399 The park went from 250,000 to a million two hundred thousand the next year. 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:37.439 We've never seen in the industry before or since that kind of uh impact from a person's intellectual property name. 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:43.839 So she she really uh brought that park into vogue and it's been growing ever since. 00:07:43.839 --> 00:07:44.959 It hasn't stopped. 00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:46.000 And you know what? 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:57.759 Because of Dolly being who she was and the way she was and her generosity and contributions to everything, that park will continue to grow for years under the Herschel banner with her name on it. 00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:06.959 You just wrote, I think, a piece sometime over the last week of how that park is a good example of one of the regional parks that has made a pretty major investment. 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:14.720 I think they're doing, is it called Night Flight, which is

like this $50 million addition to the park, which people are just raving about. 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:15.759 I'm curious too. 00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:27.360 I like I know she let the business people run the thing, but it does seem like she had, at least from a brand perspective, she had a a pretty decent amount of involvement with that place. 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:28.480 Yeah, absolutely. 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:37.279 Well, first of all, one of the reasons she wanted to be involved with that park in that market is because that's where her family is from. 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:38.000 She was from. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:47.039 She was born in Severeville County, which is where the the park is, down of Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, that whole area, the Smoky Mountains. 00:08:47.039 --> 00:08:52.799 So she's employed a lot of her family through the years, and she loved that park. 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:54.320 She was there all the time. 00:08:54.320 --> 00:09:06.080 Whenever they wanted her to come out for something special, an introduction or an announcement of some type, Dolly was there uh in spades recently with her health. 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:09.200 She wasn't able to be there for that ride you mentioned. 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:11.840 It's called uh Night Flight Expedition. 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:14.720 It is a $60 million ride. 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:22.960 It incorporates audiovisual, roller coaster, water attractions, story immersions. 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:28.159 It's the biggest ride Herschan uh family entertainment's ever put into a park. 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:31.360 And Dolly was totally invested into that. 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:32.559 She loved the ride. 00:09:32.559 --> 00:09:33.360 She'd been on it. 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:45.759 I was told it'll live on with her, and that park will continue to grow and and prosper because of the Hershen name and the way they do business in our theme park industry. 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:47.679 You've worked all over the world. 00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:50.559 Is it universal what people want from theme parks? 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:55.440 I wonder when you go into different regions, is the need basically the same? 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:57.440 Are the rides basically the same? 00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:06.000 Or have you encountered situations where, for one reason or another, culturally certain rides or certain experiences just do not translate? 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:17.759 The one thing I have found during my 50 years in the business, the common denominator among everybody in the world, everybody wants to have fun. 00:10:17.759 --> 00:10:26.399 You evolve the level of entertainment in an emerging market, just like we did here in America. 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:33.279 And the best example I can give you is uh when we introduced the roller coaster, there weren't any loops in them. 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:37.840 And then Cedar Point put in the corkscrew, kind of a barrel. 00:10:37.840 --> 00:10:40.480 Woo! That was really exciting. 00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:47.919 And then after the corkscrew, we figured out, well, if they like that, now we can put a loop in this. 00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:48.799 Why? 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:51.600 To entice people to come back. 00:10:51.600 --> 00:11:06.399 So you don't start an emerging market with a well, except in Saudi Arabia, with a 600-foot of roller coaster where they just did in Kidia Park, Kidia Park in Riyam. 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:10.559 Uh, you usually start out slower and you build that uh that pace. 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:16.320 And uh that's how you entice people to come originally and keep coming back. 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:36.799 Our business lives on repeat visitation, and repeat visitation is built on new product and new introductions, and that's why we do it on intervals of one to two to three years in a park, uh, to give them something new to get them to come back and have them something, uh, have something new that they can enjoy. 00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:41.519 What's the nuttiest concept that died during the feasibility phase? 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:47.120 Did did you ever get hit with somebody who's like, we're gonna build a water slide across the English Channel? 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:52.559 Or we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna send kids to the moon in our new ride. 00:11:52.559 --> 00:12:00.799 Did you ever encounter anything that was just just off the wall that kind of made it uh an executive meeting? 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:10.799 One thing we always laugh about in our staff meetings here at ITPS is that as long as somebody has a crazy idea, we have a job. 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:11.360 Okay. 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:14.960 And a few years ago, a gentleman came to us. 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:22.559 He wanted to create this roller coaster, and he wanted to do it on a new park he was talking about down in Texas, and all of this kind of made sense. 00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:36.559 He wanted to create a roller coaster that the station looked like a six gun, a cowboy six gun, and the trains would load in the barrel of the six gun in Texas, you say. 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:39.600 And then, as we do, we have multiple trains. 00:12:39.600 --> 00:13:03.440 So you would be in the train, we could have six trains in there, and you would rotate up to the barrel to be launched or shot out, and in the at that, this was his idea, and at that time of launch, the hammer would come back and boom, shoot you out of the thing with the noise, and you'd be launched like like we do with lineal induction motors. 00:13:03.440 --> 00:13:05.679 Sounded like an interesting idea. 00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:09.600 Well, at that time, this is 15, 18 years ago. 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:25.200 Uh, we didn't have exactly the the type of uh uh of engineering that we have today, and uh, but a company did try it with a smaller model down at Myrtle Beach theme park, uh the hard rock park at Myrtle Beach. 00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:29.200 And

uh they tried to build it, and the damn thing just never worked. 00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:33.039 They got stuck in the chamber, they couldn't get out of it. 00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:35.440 I went down to see it. 00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:39.279 I went, oh my god, I'm sorry you ever heard this idea. 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:47.279 Well, uh, feasibility and taste issues aside, I am, I have to admit, I'm a little curious to see it. 00:13:47.279 --> 00:13:52.799 See, that's the thing about these rides, is that they can just be insane, they can just be batshit crazy. 00:13:52.799 --> 00:13:53.759 Yeah, exactly. 00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:57.600 Like, oh, all right, I kind of want to see it, I kind of want to get in it and do it. 00:13:57.600 --> 00:14:00.159 Let's talk trends here for a second. 00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:05.120 If you were appointed theme park czar for a day, you have a magic wand. 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:12.240 Is there a a park trend out there or operational practice that you would ban immediately? 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:14.559 Yeah, uh there is. 00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:18.240 This is a two-edged sword in in my mind. 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:19.120 Can I guess? 00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:20.399 Can I guess what you're gonna say? 00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:22.000 And it's the cell phone. 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:23.840 Oh, the cell phone, that's not what I was gonna guess. 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:25.200 I thought you might say fast pass. 00:14:25.759 --> 00:14:27.440 Well, that I'm coming to that. 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:39.279 A cell phone, really, because uh, I mean, go to the kitchen table, go to a restaurant, and look around, you see everybody sitting there texting, and no one talking. 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:55.919 Today in the theme parks, we're using those smartphones to improve your your uh stay while you're there to get you quicker on the rides, find out where the crowds are, tell you things that are happening in the park, but still they're a pain in the butt. 00:14:55.919 --> 00:15:04.399 And you know, we have issues every once in a while when somebody sneaks one on a roller coaster and it flies out of their hand, hits somebody in the lip or something. 00:15:04.399 --> 00:15:06.960 Uh but we've got to have them. 00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:14.240 We're gonna use them, we're gonna continue it, but I wish we could control them not only at the theme parks, but in life in general. 00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:16.799 Let me talk about the fast pass, okay? 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:18.799 The fast pass is important. 00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:24.080 It's gonna be here, it's part of the fabric of where our industry is going. 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:33.519 There'll always be someone who will pay that additional money, no matter how much it is, to avoid standing in line. 00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:39.919 But it's always gonna piss somebody off who's in line, who sees them get ahead of the line. 00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:48.559 Now, Disney actually has done a very good job of circumventing the primary line with secondary lines for the VIP. 00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:51.840 So you really don't run into those conflicts as much. 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:54.639 But, you know, it's expensive to operate theme parks. 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:59.759 Labor's expensive, the cost of sale issues uh that are associated with the park. 00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:03.279 And we can't keep always raising the price. 00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:07.200 And the way you do it is through what I call the biggie fry. 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:10.399 You want the biggie fry and the 58-ounce coke. 00:16:10.399 --> 00:16:14.320 Okay, well, we're gonna sell that to you for our X here, and you can do this. 00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:18.000 And that's what they've done with dining passes and programs like that. 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:27.600 It can just feel a little bit like some economic stratification, which I think when you're in the park can come over a little bit as a drag. 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:32.799 Theme parks, I think for a long time were sort of democratic in their own way. 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:37.440 And I think Disney was maybe at the top of that list of like, oh, everyone can come here. 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:40.559 And now it I feel like we're getting away from that. 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:51.919 Well, let me tell you the one thing that's always irritated for me from when I got into the business at King's Island, Coney Island, to today, and no matter where I go, it's the parking charge. 00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:55.120 I mean, you it when we started King's Island, parking was $2. 00:16:55.120 --> 00:16:57.279 It's $26 now. 00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:01.120 You go to some parks, it's $50 for VIP parking. 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:03.039 What is the additional cost? 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:11.920 It's a way that parks have developed a way to really maximize their profit margin on that single issue. 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:23.759 If you probably took a poll of all of the people who go to theme parks, that's probably, along with the the fast pass, the most distasteful thing they do when they go to a park, pay that park each ar. 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:28.400 What ride have you ridden more times than any other in your life? 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:30.720 Uh well, it'll be a roller coaster. 00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:40.000 And uh I remember when we opened King's Island uh and we introduced the double racing coaster in 1972. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:43.119 I rode that 33 times in a row. 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:58.319 And uh I got it, I got so bored on it after a while through the years, and I didn't do this while the public was there, but I would get my assistant to go out with me. 00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:11.279 We'd ride the ride, I would stand up backwards, put the lap bar up, fold my arms to it, and tell him to hold his arms around my legs, and I would watch the ride backwards, standing as we went through the ride. 00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:13.680 And uh, not a safe thing to do. 00:18:13.680 -->

00:18:15.279 Don't don't ever try it. 00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:30.480 But as a result of that, that ended up being the reason Kings Island put the trains on the coaster backwards, giving people new experience for about 15 years because it gave a it took that ride and made it a totally different experience. 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:35.519 So the coaster has always been my kind of my favorite ride. 00:18:35.519 --> 00:18:47.039 Uh and I've, as you said at the outset of the show, uh ridden hundreds of them all all around the world, uh, everywhere I can, China, Japan, you name it, and uh still like that. 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:53.359 The only thing I can't do today is uh I don't like the teacups or something that goes around a circle. 00:18:53.359 --> 00:18:57.920 I get vertigo, but I can go up and down and out and back and do that kind of stuff. 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:00.960 What's your favorite theme park food? 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:03.039 Uh I like a corn dog. 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:06.559 I can eat that at the theme park or a state fair. 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:07.200 Totally. 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:07.680 Oh no. 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:18.319 Believe it or not, I like cotton candy as sticky and as humid as it can get in in the park uh during the summer. 00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:21.839 Uh, but you know what's happened to food and theme parks, Matt? 00:19:21.839 --> 00:19:24.960 Uh, there's been a lot of branding that has come in. 00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:34.720 Theme parks have figured out we can make more money by doing this, by bringing in uh the low uh an international pizza chain or a hamburger or something. 00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:37.279 The major thing is it's still finger food. 00:19:37.279 --> 00:19:42.720 People come to the American theme parks, they want to eat it quickly, get through the park, have fun. 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:45.519 They're not there to sit down and have a three-hour dinner. 00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:47.200 In Europe, that's a little different. 00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:48.319 They will do that. 00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:57.759 I feel like, given the number of times that you've ridden roller coasters and your propensity for corn dogs and cotton candy, you have a you have a strong gut. 00:19:57.759 --> 00:20:02.799 You could your stomach can take a lot of things that it gets hit with. 00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:03.920 And I admire that. 00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:07.519 I wonder, too, with some of the regional parks, how many of them? 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:13.920 I've not done research on this, but how many of the regional parks are, if at all, are embracing kind of the food truck vibe? 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:14.799 Interesting. 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:15.680 You would ask that. 00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:25.039 That is an evolving concept that's coming into the park business, just as you've seen it spread through downtown urban areas of cities around the United States. 00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:28.240 We're working on a project outside the country. 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:46.559 Uh, I was just there uh two weeks ago, and one of the discussions I had with the owner, developer, was that he wanted to create a food area developed around food trucks because he had seen the great success that it had in the United States. 00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:51.039 So it's something that's on the just on the cusp, it's starting to come. 00:20:51.039 --> 00:20:53.119 You're gonna see more of it in the parks. 00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:56.319 And the great thing about that is you can move them. 00:20:56.319 --> 00:20:57.519 They're mobile. 00:20:57.519 --> 00:21:04.559 When we put a restaurant in and it's got the foundation, we can't move that with the flow of the people during the day. 00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:13.920 But we can take a food truck and we can move it into a an area that's more heavily trafficked during the evening hours or during the early hours. 00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:17.680 You can add more trucks, you can change with culinary trends. 00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:26.000 I was reading a little bit about how some casinos uh in different parts of the country are experimenting with it too, just to kind of juice their their food revenue. 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:29.759 And it's easier to just outsource it. 00:21:29.759 --> 00:21:32.079 Charge them a fee, it'll be a huge fee. 00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:36.799 But you they come in, they take care of everything, they pay you a fee, and then you're done. 00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:48.160 One thing we we probably should have talked about, and we can do it some other time, maybe, is how important the hotel aspect has become to the theme park industry. 00:21:48.160 --> 00:22:02.480 Uh, not only the destination parks, but the regional parks now, the Dollywoods, the Hirsch, Hershey's, all of the parks are looking at adding hotels on property because what does it do? 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:07.279 It keeps the guests there longer and it creates a bigger spin in park. 00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:14.160 And in Florida, uh in 2010 when Harry Potter opened, they didn't have any hotels. 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:18.400 Disney, of course, was the major domo with their however many they had. 00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:24.000 And what happened was Universal finally said, hey, let's build some hotels. 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:36.240 They have 11 or 13 now on site, and they're planning more hotels because, again, just keeps the people there, keeps them on their property, and it creates a bigger spin for them. 00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:38.480 So regional parks are doing that now. 00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:54.400 They're adding the clamping, Great Wolf Lodges around them, the Kalaharis, things like that that that uh really create the vicinity of or the plethora again of uh people who visit theme parks. 00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:57.279 Did this ever come up when you were starting out? 00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:04.640 Um, did did did the hotel component to theme parks, was that ever raised when you were beginning your career? 00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:19.680 Yes, it was, but it was secondary because we needed to put all of our cash into the theme parks, and we didn't have the money back when the industry was building and developing to put into the hotels. 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:23.920 Uh that didn't mean that we didn't reach out to some hotels. 00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:40.079 We had one at Kings Island from a local developer uh who totally full ran 110% occupancy during the summer, but 26 miles north of Cincinnati in the winter, he probably ran about a 20% occupancy. 00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:42.240 So there wasn't that happy medium. 00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:44.160 But uh it's changed now. 00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:55.039 It's changed dramatically, and they figured out ways to, even with the drop and occupancy, to have hotels in or on properties, and uh they do quite well with them. 00:23:55.039 --> 00:23:59.759 I mean, they during the season, they're full, over full. 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:03.119 Dennis Spiegel, thank you for being a guest on No Show. 00:24:03.119 --> 00:24:04.160 It was amazing. 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:05.759 My pleasure. 00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:07.599 Let's do it again.