Is manually updating all the ticket inventory and prices for your resellers a hassle you would rather avoid?  You need Redeam’s Channel Manager!  It allows you to easily manage all of your resellers, including Reserve with Google, from one central online platform.  Channel Manager puts YOU in the driver’s seat with more control, more data, and powerful real-time connectivity.

Don’t wait to get recovery ready.  Get centralized today!  Go to www.redeam.com/attractionproscm to learn more now.

Ryan Stana is the Founder and CEO of RWS Entertainment Group, a live entertainment production company across many different platforms and sectors, ranging from touring attractions and Broadway shows to corporate functions and the hospitality industry.  Ryan grew up as an only child in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, PA.  He learned his “no fear” mentality from his two entrepreneurial parents.  This would give him the courage to open his own company in 2003.  

 

Ryan loved performing as he grew up, and he also loved handling the logistics and organizational aspects of performances.  When he was 17, Ryan got a gig with an entertainment company in Pittsburgh to organize, write, and choreograph a corporate event.  This opportunity really helped him solidify his love for the entertainment industry.  Later, Ryan would go on to become an associate producer for an entertainment company.  While he absolutely loved the creative aspects of the job, he found himself frustrated with the company’s seeming lack of financial sense.  This inspired Ryan to quit and form his own company, RWS Entertainment Group.  Ryan would e-mail his previous clients, saying he worked for this new group, without admitting he was the owner yet, since he was still very young and worried that he lacked credibility as an owner.  It wouldn’t take long for RWS Entertainment to grow into an impressively large company that Ryan was happy to claim ownership of as its Founder and CEO.  (As a side note, Ryan emphasized the importance of having your employees sign non-compete agreements to prevent this exact scenario.)

 

When asked if he had advice for people interested in starting their own business, Ryan admits that he would never be able to start a business now that he is in his 40s.  When he was in his 20s, he was ready to work around the clock.  Though, that seems to still be very true today as well.  Ryan did say that a business owner needs to be prepared to experience the lowest lows that anyone can experience.  However, he also went on to say that business owners will be rewarded with the highest highs as well.  That sort of experience may not be for everyone, but Ryan absolutely loves his business.

 

Ryan has been very successful at sustaining and even growing his business during times that are challenging for the entertainment industry.  In 2008, when the United States was experiencing a severe recession, RWS had its largest growth of about 220%.  During this time of economic hardship, RWS’s value became even more evident.  Instead of a theme park hiring several individual actors and paying a company to come up with a new show, they could utilize the one-stop-shop solution that RWS Entertainment offers.  RWS would audition and select a single group of entertainers who could, for example, perform six different shows with six different themes or IPs represented.  This was extremely valuable to theme parks and took a lot of the responsibility off of the park’s shoulders, allowing them to streamline and focus their attention on maximizing their guest experience offerings and profit.

 

Understandably, the COVID-19 pandemic was tougher to navigate, especially when many of the shows, tours, and other entertainment offerings RWS supported were forced to completely suspend operation, bringing in no money for months.  Navigating the pandemic as RWS’s CEO has been incredibly challenging for Ryan, but he also emphasized the importance of stepping up and being a true leader

Is manually updating all the ticket inventory and prices for your resellers a hassle you would rather avoid?  You need Redeam’s Channel Manager!  It allows you to easily manage all of your resellers, including Reserve with Google, from one central online platform.  Channel Manager puts YOU in the driver’s seat with more control, more data, and powerful real-time connectivity.

Don’t wait to get recovery ready.  Get centralized today!  Go to www.redeam.com/attractionproscm to learn more now.

 

Melanie Meador, CEO of Redeam, has over 25 years of experience in attractions industries.  She started in hospitality.  Then, she began working in the online travel sector at Orbitz Worldwide, where she played a part in transitioning hotels from a largely offline, manual industry to a highly digital, online ecosystem.  She then spent over six years in fintech, which is the intersection of finance and technology, at Bankrate.  She also has run a humanitarian non-profit foundation with her husband.  The travel industry is Melanie’s passion, and she would make her return to it by joining Redeam as CEO.

 

When people go on vacation with their friends and family, they want the process to be easy and seamless so they can focus on enjoying the experience.  Many aspects of the travel industry have made their products and services easy to find, buy, and start enjoying or using immediately.  For example, airlines utilize mobile boarding passes and kiosks to make checking in for a flight as convenient as possible.  Similarly, hotels utilize online bookings and mobile phones as keys to allow guests the ability to head straight to their room whenever you arrive.  Unfortunately, the attractions industry has been a little slower to adopt these conveniences than the rest of the hospitality industry.  Melanie  is helping to modernize and digitize the attractions industry to help improve the guest experience.

 

Redeam offers a variety of products and services that aim to increase efficiency for attractions operators, ticket resellers and vendors, and guests.  Redeam began as a voucher processing platform.  Before its introduction, attractions ticketing was largely a manual process, especially if a guest purchased a ticket from a reseller or distributor.  Melanie shared a personal story that proved to her that a change was necessary for the attractions industry.  While on a trip with her husband in Kyoto, she purchased tickets for a rickshaw tour.  After the purchase, she received instructions saying that she needed to print out the voucher and take that voucher to the attraction’s ticketing center.  However, she was staying at an Airbnb with no way to print it out, but she figured that the attraction could look up her reservation using the information she had on her phone or some identification.  However, when she made it to the rickshaw tour’s ticketing center, her reservation wasn’t recognized or in the system at all.  They needed that physical print-out to be able to move forward.  Not only was it disappointing that the experience that Melanie had already paid for couldn’t be honored, the episode highlighted how clunky and inefficient many ticketing experiences are within the attractions industry.

 

Originally, Redeam aimed to tackle the voucher distribution problem by offering a service that added barcodes to tickets that guests purchased from redistributors.  This would allow a guest to take that voucher to the attraction’s ticketing booth, have the voucher scanned, all of their data would be transferred to the attraction, and then the ticket could be given to the guest.  However, while this did add some efficiency to the process, it still wasn’t addressing the root cause of the issue.

 

Melanie and the team at Redeam took things a step further by creating a channel management system for attractions and distributors.  Redeam’s system seamlessly connects attractions and ticket resellers.  An attraction might, for example, use this platform t

John Riggleman retired in 2020 after a career of over 40 years in the themed entertainment industry.  He started as a ride operator at Cedar Point and Busch Gardens Williamsburg back in the 1970s.  Over the years, he has opened multiple new parks and dozens of new attractions and acted as an expert in theme park operations.  Most recently, he was Senior Director of Global Operations, Standards, and Harmonization at Universal Parks & Resorts.  Even after retiring, John is still very involved with the industry, helping to lead safety committees, educational initiatives, and acting as a mentor for many young professionals in the attractions industry.

John started out as a chemistry major in the pre-medical track at West Virginia University.  During the summers of his college years, he worked two summers at Cedar Point and two summers at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.  Though he started out as a ride operator, he was given more responsibility each year, soon gaining leadership positions despite his young age.  John realized from those frontline operations experiences that he wanted to have a career in themed entertainment because he loved working outdoors and truly enjoyed interacting with people.  Getting hired full-time after graduation was actually a challenge for John in the 1970s, so he stayed in school and earned a second degree in medical technology as he continued to submit different applications to different parks.  Eventually, he found his landing spot in 1980 at Cedar Point as an area manager.  After finding his way into the industry full-time, John would stay for 40 more years, work at about 10 different parks, live in 9 states, open 4 new parks, and open over 40 new attractions.

While they do have a variety of similarities, John noticed some key differences between seasonal and year-round theme parks during his time working at each type.  One challenge for seasonal parks is that they often have smaller teams that must wear more hats.  Year-round parks tended to have larger, more specialized teams.  This led to a difference in how quickly employees, especially young workers, were able to climb the ranks and gather more responsibilities.  Like John experienced himself, young employees at seasonal parks that returned each year and excelled were given new role with more duties and oversight of other employees.  At a year-round park, this sort of quick progression is less common.  At either type of park, whether the employee ultimately wants to be in a guest-facing role later in their career, John sees the value of all theme park employees spending some time on the frontlines.  For example, back-of-the-house operations employees can often design better service, training, and operations manuals if they have empathy for what ride operators experience each day.

Day-to-day operations have their unique challenges, but opening new rides, lands, or parks is incredibly challenging and rewarding.  When a new park is part of an existing chain of theme parks, such as Six Flags or Universal, the new park has the luxury to learn from the existing parks and take many of their operations procedures to the new park.  While this makes it easier for the new park, it also is beneficial to the company because consistency across parks in your portfolio is very beneficial.  When creating a park that is completely new, they can start their operations manuals from scratch.  This was the case that John experienced when he was on the opening team for the short-lived Hard Rock Park.  They first benchmarked existing parks and looked at what worked well as well as identified opportunities for improvement.  Hard Rock Park had the opportunity to run completely differently than parks with decades of history.  John enjoyed the ability to incorporate new efficiencies in the park’s operations plans, but unfortunately, the park didn’t even last for an entire season.  

When asked about Hard Rock Park and some insight into possible reasons why it d

Jeremy Grunert began his career in themed entertainment as a fan of theme parks.  He grew up in Florida, constantly going to the local parks, and eventually scored his first job working at Busch Gardens.  Fifteen years later, Jeremy has the dream job of many theme park fans:  designing new rides, lands, and theme parks as an Executive Producer at FrankNDesign.

After being a fan for years while growing up in Florida, Jeremy started working as a sweeper in the Egypt area of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay at the age of 15.  Over the years, he would work his way through various jobs within operations.  He became a ride operator, then a trainer of other ride operators, and then attained a leadership position in operations, all before he finished high school.  Jeremy moved to Orlando, where he attended college, and began working at Universal Orlando Resort.  There, he had the opportunity to commission and open multiple rides, work in the entertainment department, and work on multiple events, such as the Macy’s parade and Halloween Horror Nights.  However, Jeremy really wanted to design these things that he had been operating for years, whether they were events, rides, lands, or whole theme parks.  In order to make that move, Jeremy utilized his network of industry professionals to find his next dream role.

When he was still in school, Jeremy volunteered at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) Expo in Orlando as an IAAPA Ambassador.  There, he was able to connect with Thinkwell’s Cynthia Sharpe, our guest from the previous AttractionPros podcast.  (This was such a cool, unplanned illustration of how small and connected the themed entertainment industry is.)  Even to this day, Jeremy considers Cynthia one of his best mentors and one of the reasons that he was able to take his next career step into working on designing experiences at Thinkwell years after he first connected with her at IAAPA.  A few years later, Jeremy would return to Orlando to join Universal Creative and work on Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure and Universal’s upcoming new park, Epic Universe.  

Recently, Jeremy transitioned into a new role as an Executive Producer for FrankNDesign.  When describing his role as Executive Producer, Jeremy called himself a “vision keeper” and “team cheerleader.”  He uses his project management skills to keep projects on track while also making sure that the original creative vision is not lost along the way.  When asked how this role compared with his previous few, Jeremy said that before, he had always been representing the client, such as Universal, in his work.  This time, though he is still supporting the clients, he is working more on the vendor side of things.  FrankNDesign wants to expand its streamlined attraction creation pipeline from large clients to a wider audience.  

FrankNDesign’s secret to success is utilizing a highly detailed 3D model built in Revit to design rides instead of many separate 2D drawings.  This model is “smart,” capable of telling you how much of a certain material you need, identifying interferences, and other useful integration features.  All of the different people collaborating on a new attraction or land, whether they are ride vendors, building architects, HVAC designers, or operations managers, can work together in this single model.  Working in 3D has the benefit of being intuitive to most people, unlike 2D drawings which may only be accessible to a small subset of the people that would benefit from seeing this previsualization of the ride and show building.  By having more people take a look at the ride in an approachable manner throughout the development, potential mistakes are more likely to be caught and better solutions are likely to be identified.  These robust, buildable models can be imported into video game engines for detailed design reviews or even used by marketing for promo videos.

Jeremy also stressed the value of these deta

Cynthia Sharpe is a self-proclaimed flipper of tables and setter of fires, according to her Twitter handle.  She hasn’t come across a challenging topic, especially ones related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), that she hasn’t been willing to tackle, discuss, learn about, or educate others about.  

Cynthia began her themed entertainment journey at the Museum of Science in Industry in Chicago.  Over the course of seven years, she had seven different roles ranging from a focus on traveling exhibits to developing permanent installations.  When asked about the experience, she said it was an amazing opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the museum side of the themed entertainment world, including both the good and not-so-good aspects.  While museums have the ability to educate people on challenging topics or events they may not have gotten a chance to learn deeply about, museums can also do harm by perpetuating harmful stereotypes, showing a one-sided view of an event or argument, or furthering the agenda of those who paid for the exhibit.  Cynthia discussed the importance of being very aware of those pitfalls and not being afraid to tackle them head-on, often unintentionally.  She went on to say that museum exhibit creators choose what stories to tell and what faces to show in their exhibits, and those choices have a huge impact on whether the often marginalized groups that Cynthia and others aim to serve feel heard and welcome in the museum’s halls.

Cynthia has been in her current professional role as the Principal of Cultural Attractions and Research at Thinkwell Group for 16 years.  At Thinkwell, she wears many hats, ranging from acting as an executive creative director for museums, aquariums, large-scale cultural events, theme parks, and other themed entertainment venues to being an executive liaison for Thinkwell’s Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Council.  When asked further about her role, Cynthia explained that she uses her privilege as a “47-year-old white woman with an executive title” to tackle issues that her junior or more marginalized colleagues might not safely be able to discuss.

When asked what her strategy is for addressing folks in a room who have either intentionally or otherwise been pushing tough topics under the rug or need a wakeup call on an idea that is being discussed, Cynthia shared her approach as the final speaker at the 2019 Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) Story + Architecture + Technology = Experience (SATE) Conference, where the entire two days focused on DEI.  Cynthia took the stage and, after introducing herself, stated, “I’m racist.  I’m sexist.  I have bias.”  By doing this, as a keynote speaker at a conference focused on tackling this bias, she admitted her faults and vulnerabilities, an act that invites those in the audience to do the same.  Cynthia went on to say that she, and the rest of us, grew up soaking in media that portrayed people in damaging ways.  She went on to cite specific failures of her own early exhibit designs to show that it is important to learn from past mistakes in order to avoid the same negligence in future projects.  Most people don’t want to think about how their past work may have hurt someone, but there are valuable lessons to learn from reflecting on past poor choices.

When asked what themed entertainment’s role is in current DEI and social justice movements, Cynthia said that the industry has a huge part to play because of its power of storytelling.  The types of stories that are told, the voices that are being elevated, and the identities being portrayed are incredibly important, and the attractions industry has a responsibility to use its storytelling abilities to enact positive change.  For example, when working on a themed land inspired by a certain country or culture, it is important to be respectful in your authentic portrayal, not appropriative.  

It is important to understand the subject matter that you wish to take inspiration

Nathan Jones is the founder and CEO of eXP Maven, a company that analyzes the extensive data that themed entertainment venues already have to find opportunities to improve their guests’ experiences and become more successful.  Nathan founded eXP Maven in 2020, seeing an opportunity to help the attractions industry do more with less and find opportunities for improvement that are beneficial to both the business and its guests.

Nathan grew up in Vancouver.  When he was a child, he attended the Expo 86, the World’s Fair of 1986 that was held in Vancouver.  There, he experienced the wonders of the themed entertainment industry, including instant classic attractions like Vekoma’s Scream Machine roller coaster.  Inspired by the fair, Nathan learned that he could someday have a career in themed entertainment, and that is exactly what he has succeeded in doing since then.

Nathan’s first true taste of the themed entertainment industry came in 1998 when he joined WhiteWater as a construction manager.  Years later, he would leave WhiteWater as one of its vice presidents in order to join Vekoma, the makers of the inspirational Scream Machine that he had experienced years earlier at Expo 86.  When asked about the differences between the two companies and their attractions, Nathan said that there are more similarities than differences.  Despite focusing on different styles of attractions, waterslides versus roller coasters, WhiteWater and Vekoma both make incredibly high precision attractions that require a delicate balance of different criteria, such as weight distribution and monitoring part tolerances, in order to create rides that delight and thrill amusement park guests.  One unique aspect that Nathan loves about WhiteWater is its involvement throughout the entirety of a new project, from concept and design to manufacturing, delivery, and install.  It was that unique vertical integration aspect that drew Nathan back to WhiteWater to become the president of its water rides division.  Later, he would also go on to join Cavu as its COO.

During 2020, much of the attractions industry was being devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic.  During this challenging time, Nathan realized that attractions owners and operators were being forced to make difficult decisions and take a deeper, introspective look at their operations in order to survive.  Businesses were looking for ways to work more efficiently and effectively with what they already had instead of investing in new product offerings.  Nathan realized this was his opportunity to use his skills to create a new company that would help new and existing businesses thrive despite the pandemic.

Nathan founded eXP Maven as a company that would utilize the vast amounts of data that attractions operators already have and look across the different silos of information to find trends and common threads that would lead to recommendations for more efficient operations, additional revenue opportunities, and, most importantly, opportunities to improve the guest experience.  Most data dashboards are backwards-looking and tell you about how you did yesterday, but eXP Maven aims to use data to tell you how you can improve tomorrow.  One simple example involves looking at a company’s historical attendance trends and how they correlate with different weather phenomena, like rain.  If the data shows that 30% fewer guests show up on rainy days, then a rainy weather forecast can inform a need for less staff in order to match the expected attendance.  This is known as dynamic staffing.  Another interesting example involves using hundreds of heat sensors around a park to identify things such as areas where people congregate, how well fans and misters are doing at keeping areas cool, and potentially profitable areas for an ice cream cart. 

A key focus of eXP Maven is its focus on creating the right, comprehensive guest experience.  According to Nathan, the guest experience is not limited to the simple model

Ryan Borton is the CEO of Funovation, best known for its custom laser mazes and other small footprint attractions for family entertainment centers (FECs).  Since its founding in 2007, Funovation has installed over 400 attractions in 33 countries, and each installation is unique.  In this interview, Ryan talks about innovating fun, “beamers,” and the importance of booster attractions.

Ryan had a unique route into the attractions industry.  He started in the subprime mortgage space.  From there, he transitioned into various roles focusing on sales and opportunity identification.  All of these roles helped Ryan be a successful business leader when he joined Funovation and soon became its CEO.  When asked what lessons from the subprime mortgage industry he’s continued to utilize throughout his career, Ryan discussed the importance of integrity.  In the mortgage industry, he would sometimes see clients approved for home loans that they potentially shouldn’t be approved for and made the personal commitment to instead choose to do what he thought was morally correct.  This same philosophy is integral to his role as the CEO.

When asked about the difference between sales leadership and other types of leadership, Ryan shared that, to him, they have many similarities.  One of the key aspects of his leadership style was learned from being a fan of UCLA Basketball and their coach, John Wooden.  Coach Wooden understood that each member of the team was unique and thus needed to be utilized in an appropriate way.  Similarly, Ryan takes the time to learn about his employees, their motivations, and their individual skill sets in order to know how to uniquely manage each of them.  He also stressed the importance of empowering employees and giving them a certain level of autonomy.  He does this by asking all of his employees to make decisions with the mindset that Funovation is their own business.  Ryan also mentioned that this autonomy allowed employees to learn from mistakes but also have an opportunity to try new things and discover better ways of doing things than what had been done in the past.

Funovation’s guiding mission is to “remind the world to play.”  They’ve been accomplishing this amazing objective by creating unique attractions that utilize both brain and brawn to encourage problem-solving and play.  Funovation creates booster attractions for FECs, which are high-value, small footprint experiences that offer an alternative opportunity for play outside of a complex’s core offering.  When “innovating fun” and coming up with new, exciting product offerings, Funovation is careful to make sure that the new ideas are consistent with its corporate values and goals.  Another exciting aspect of these offerings is that no two of these attractions are the same.  When a client asks Funovation for assistance designing a new attraction, such as one of their signature laser mazes, they provide the available footprint of the space.  Then Funovation uses faux walls to recreate the space in their facility.  Then, a “beamer” comes into this space and uses string to mock-up where all of the lasers will go.  These unique footprints and custom laser layouts are what make each Funovation laser maze unique.  Another aspect that makes each attraction different is the unique relationship between Funovation and the attraction’s client.  Understanding each FECs’ individual needs and goals helps Funovation tailor their attractions to best suit their needs.

Ryan discussed the power of getting to experience an attraction when making a sale.  Josh fondly remembers enjoying his yearly visit to the Funovation booth at the IAAPA Expo.  He even has score stickers from the attractions on each of his old International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) badges.  Being able to see and experience something personally is an excellent way to help people understand how an attraction could best work for them in their facility.  Unfortunately, th

Linda Rose Hayes serves as Operating Partner at Hospitality Connect of Florida.  They generate best-fit concierge service, activity ticketing, housekeeping, maintenance, vacation marketers, and transportation providers for hoteliers and management companies in Orlando, Florida. 

In addition to all that, both Josh and Matt had the pleasure of working with Linda while they all worked at Universal Orlando Resort. In fact, Linda was Josh's manager and in this episode, we get a glimpse of what a young Josh Liebman was like as an employee!

Linda also talks about her guest service and leadership philosophies (get ready to take notes), the relationship between hospitals and hospitality and why it's so important to let your employees make mistakes. 

For more on Hospitality Connect: https://hospitalityconnectflorida.com/

To connect with AttractionPros: [email protected]

#weareallattractionpros

Adam Sandy has one of the coolest titles ever... Roller Coaster Sales & Marketing Director at Zamperla. Adam loves sharing the newest innovative coasters from Zamperla and is a frequent contributor at Blooloop.com. 

This conversation has lots of twists and turns and we get to share our nerd-level love of all things roller coasters and amusements. Adam talks about the roller coaster sales process and how listening to his clients and having boots on the ground is one of the most important aspects of getting it right.

For more on Zamperla:

Website: https://www.zamperla.com/

Twitter: @zamperlarides

For more on Adam:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-sandy/

Twitter: @Adam_F_Sandy (Roller Coaster Sales Guy)

Instagram: rollercoastersalesguy

 

To connect with AttractionPros: [email protected]

#weareallattractionpros

Debbie Evans provides boutique marketing service and attention to detail with big brand corporate experience. Sound strategic counsel, honest feedback, and superior results.

During this conversation, Debbie discusses how being authentic is the best way to "sell" anything, why it's important to take your own advice and what to do to get started with a crisis communication plan.

To connect with Debbie or to learn more:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/keymessagepoint/

To connect with AttractionPros: [email protected]

#weareallattractionpros