In this episode, Josh and Matt discuss their experiences at #IAE17, the IAAPA Attractions Expo.  It's a week filled with great new products, insightful education and lots of geeky industry talk! Hear what Josh and Matt learned, liked and are looking forward to!

Eric Davis, founder of Awesome Ocean, Zoo Nation and Stand with Sea World, discusses being an advocate for zooloigcal parks and how wanting to be a zoo keeper at the age of 8 years old eventually lead to him taking on the task of debunking the movie Blackfish.  He also discusses activism and what facilities can do to minimize the impact of radical organizations.

Matt Eckert, President and CEO of Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana, joins us to talk about the parks' history, how they won the Golden Ticket for the Cleanest Park, and their attitude toward trying new things.  It's a fascinating conversation!

Also check out:

Holiblog

Holisounds Podcast

In a very special episode, Matt and Josh reveal their best tactics for networking and building business relationships.

This one is chock-full of useful nuggets!  Some of the topics covered are:

Business cards

Talking to strangers

Putting yourself in a situation to start an easy conversation

Exiting a conversation

Preparing for a conversation

Elevator speech

Open ended questions

How and when to follow-up after a conference

Amy Hollaman is the Creative director and GM of Terror Behind the Walls and Associate Director of Events and Operations at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philedelphia, PA.  

Our conversation takes some really interesting twists and turns as we explore what its like to run a Halloween haunt event in a creepy old jail.  Josh, admittedly, was a little scared.

Chris Gray from Skyline Attractions talks about his lifelong obsession with "anything on rails", what eager wanna-be coaster designers can do to break into the industry and the unlikely importance of his model building career!

Jennifer Berthiaume, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Lion Country Safari in "West, West Palm Beach" Florida joins us to talk about social media, how marketing has changed, preparing a large animal park for a hurricane and what everyone needs to know about birthing a giraffe! 

To see Jennifer and Lion Country Safari's social media effors in action, check them out!

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

Instagram

Ben Story of Avius talks about collecting and using survey data and how he got started as a tech-prenuer.

Adrea Gibbs, Managing Partner of Planet Aqua Group, shares some of the amazing work she is doing regarding access in our industry - fascinating stuff!! 

To view the video episode, click here.

In this episode, we talk with Scott Brown of Family Entertainment Group.  We talk about customer service, social media, marketing, company culture and yes, Jimmy Buffett!

For more information on Scott's book, WHO CARES?, click here.