Day 4: Awesome By Design

The Planning & Design building is a magical place, sitting in the shadow of its own creations right on the Cedar Point peninsula. Inside the low building, the walls are lined with past Cedar Point concept art. This is Corporate Planning & Design, however, which means that they are responsible for all ride concepts, creative direction, and final imagery that we see when a new attraction is debuted.

I learned that quickly as I stepped inside, only to be greeted immediately by Rob Decker. Mr. Decker is a creative genius in the amusement industry and a personal idol (there's a great interview with him here and an article on the Planning & Design team here, check them out if you're interested). As a long-time Cedar Point fan, I have him to thank for many of my favorite rides and attractions. Extending his hand, Mr. Decker introduced himself and invited me into his office.

With layers on layers of foam project boards leaning against very wall, I managed to catch a glimpse of some of the cool projects the Planning & Design team has come up with. Tacked up on one wall were current projects; Mr. Decker's desk was piled high with papers and the large drawing table against the back wall was overshadowed by a massive poster for Volcano: the Blast Coaster (at Kings Dominion).

Sitting down at the conference table just inside the door, Mr. Decker pointed me to a set of blueprints for a project out at Cedar Fair's northern California park, California's Great America. Mr. Decker has been finalizing plans for a new group dining facility for catered meals. Not exactly the most exciting stuff, but we were just getting started. In one corner stood a large framed drawing of what looked to be a major entertainment complex, something along the lines of Universal CityWalk (see here). Mr. Decker explained that this was a concept for California's Great America as well from back when it was owned by Paramount; unfortunately, the project never got off the drawing board. Next he laid on the desk two large boards, each showing a park in its current state and the same park with new attraction ideas labeled. The first was Carowinds (Charlotte, NC), with the park divided up into various areas for attractions, waterpark, resort, and future expansion. The second was Cedar Point with similar markings. Both of them had several spaces carved out for new attractions - and let me just say, the new attractions look incredible. For those of us right here in Ohio, we've got a lot to look forward to if everything does in fact come to fruition. I can't give away any specific details, but you won't be disappointed.

Before I could get caught up in blueprints and ride concepts much more, however, in walked Mark Schoelwer. Mr. Schoelwer is Mr. Decker's right hand man, next in line for the throne if you will. His arms full of photo boards, he stepped into the office and set them down gently on the conference table. These are for a new dark ride at Canada's Wonderland (Toronto), Wonder Mountain's Guardian. Today, Mr. Decker and Mr. Schoelwer had a conference scheduled with a company called Triotech, their partner in designing and executing the new attraction. Wonder Mountain's Guardian is a new direction for Cedar Fair and will incorporate a lot of new ideas and technology.

I was honored to take part in the conference call as the Planning & Design guys and the Triotech executives discussed anything and everything for Wonder Mountain's Guardian: the ride vehicle, interactive technology, the ride's pacing, digital content, characters and plot, and so much more. The basic premise of the ride is that a dragon has stolen a kingdom's gold, and it is the task of the riders to recover it. By aiming electronic "gun" devices at various points on the projection screens, they'll be able to recapture the gold and will emerge as heroes by the end of the ride. One of the points that needed to be discussed was how the players would distinguish themselves on the ride when shooting at the projection screens. One idea was to use a different-colored dot for each gun; I suggested that riders could choose from a handful of character avatars at the start of the ride, which Mr. Schoelwer seemed to like!

When the conference call finished, Mr. Schoelwer returned to his office and Mr. Decker was kind enough to take me on a tour of the building. We started in the graphic design offices; here, all logos, pamphlets, mailers, merchandise, etc. are created by a team of six talented designers (more on this in a later post). The company also prints nearly all of its own materials here in a massive printing room. They've also got a separate sign shop for making everything from ride signs to speed limit signs. Many of the signs and banners you see in the parks have been made right there, in the back room of the Planning & Design building.

Also in the back sat about 12 carousel horses. Planning & Design isn't a maintenance crew, but they are the chief creative force at Cedar Point. That's why they take a handful of carousel horses each year, strip them down, and then repair them and repaint them by hand. They also maintain some of the finer pieces in the park - one of these is the Snoopy statue that sits in Planet Snoopy. I had just seen it being removed from the park that morning, and now it was sitting in Planning & Design's warehouse as Mr. Decker explained to me how they service it. Because so many kids climb on the statue during the season, they take it in each winter, cut it open and reinforce it to maintain structural integrity, and put it all back together by spring.

By that time, my afternoon with Planning & Design had come to an end. I shook Mr. Decker's hand and thanked him for showing me everything. After such an exciting afternoon, I left trying to figure out how I could quickly turn myself into an architect! It was incredible to see everything that the company has planned for its parks and to be able to see how everything travels from conception to realization right here in this office. Unfortunately due to the super top-secret nature of everything in the office, I wasn't really allowed to take pictures. Still, I'll be back on Tuesday with more from Cedar Point!

Stay tuned for lots more updates very soon!
-Wynn

Day 4: The Nuts and Bolts of Cedar Point

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh uh-huh."

Eric Lapp continued like this under his breath, barely audible over the sound of the rusted-out pickup truck as it rumbled across the causeway. Mr. Lapp is a Ride Maintenance Manager, and I had the privilege of spending my Thursday morning with him on a tour of the Cedar Point maintenance department.

I started the morning by meeting Ed Dangler, the head honcho for all things related to maintenance and construction at Cedar Point. He advised me to grab a coat; I took his advice without question and stepped out of the frigid peninsula air into his truck for a short ride over to the maintenance offices.

Stepping into the low building, Mr. Dangler introduced me to several members of his team before coming to a stop in Mr. Lapp's office. Blueprints rolled up in one corner and walls covered with old Cedar Point posters and bulletins, Mr. Lapp's office wasn't much different visually from those of most employees here. It's quickly becoming clear to me that everyone here loves Cedar Point and loves their job.

From there, Mr. Lapp took over. We wasted no time getting out of the office; making the short trek to the Hotel Breakers parking lot, we hopped in his blue "Cedar Point Maintenance" truck and headed around and out of the park. Our first stop would be the park's new maintenance warehouses, located across from Castaway Bay on Cleveland Road. Mr. Lapp explained to me the process of off-season maintenance: each year once the park has closed, the maintenance team begins "winterizing" the rides. In some cases, rides are left intact in the park and covered with a tight blue shrink wrap. Most of the rides, however, are dismantled to some degree so that parts can be inspected, repaired, or replaced.

This is a particularly complicated endeavor for the park's sixteen roller coasters and other major thrill rides. As Mr. Lapp showed me into the Cleveland Road facility, the first thing I noticed was the stripped-down GateKeeper car sitting in the middle of the floor. GateKeeper is Cedar Point's newest roller coaster (opened in 2013), and this particular car was being disassembled, inspected, and refurbished to be sent down to the IAAPA Attractions Expo for display by the manufacturer, Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M).

Even though this was a special case, Mr. Lapp informed me that every major ride car is disassembled in a similar fashion so that each individual piece can be inspected and repaired or replaced when necessary. In the next room, several cars from Magnum XL-200 sat on wooden pallets while a Raptor car hung from a large metal support structure, ready to be worked on. Clustered in one corner sat every seat from Power Tower, the foam pads for which were being cleaned in a large pressure washer. Mr. Lapp also explained how adjustments are made from year to year; on the Magnum trains, for example, the carpet material that lined the floor of each car had been replaced with a sturdier material used in truck beds. On the GateKeeper trains, they had just determined a way to prevent the vest-like harnesses from tightening throughout the course of the ride after guests were complaining of pain in the shoulders or collarbones. We took a quick walk through the paint shop and outdoor storage, where several employees were repainting the Monster spinning ride and a few retired coaster trains sat dormant.

Across the street is Castaway Bay, Cedar Point's hotel and indoor waterpark for those who may not know. Castaway Bay is currently closed until mid-December as the maintenance crews perform work inside the waterpark. A cloud of concrete dust hung in the air as we entered through the back door, pink and green slides twisting overhead. All of the pools had been drained and several men were working around the facility; Mr. Lapp told me that their main project right now was refinishing all of the concrete in the pools. After taking a quick look around the place and stopping to check in with some of the workers, Mr. Lapp guided me back out of the building and we returned to the peninsula.

Back on Point, Mr. Lapp's truck took a sharp left turn back towards Sandcastle Suites after coming around the peninsula. The Sandcastle Suites parking lot actually conceals the entrance to Magnum's access road. The access road is exactly what it sounds like; all rides usually have one in case you'd need to get to a certain part of a ride in an emergency. Magnum's access road also serves as sort of the back entrance to Soak City Water Park. Last year, Mr. Lapp explained, all of the pieces for Soak City's new slide complex were brought in and unloaded this way. This year however, the most exciting thing we saw (or heard, rather) was one of Magnum's brake sections hissing at us. As Mr. Lapp quickly tried to stop it from hissing, I took a short walk over to where I noticed that a track rail had been cut away. The rails on each coaster naturally undergo a lot of wear and tear, and along the way maintenance makes sure that they check for stress or cracks and reinforce the track where necessary; at this point however, they had opted to remove and replace that section of rail with a new piece altogether. I asked Mr. Lapp how the maintenance crews check the track like that, with an idea forming in my head that I hoped he would confirm. "Well, they walk the track, of course," he answered, explaining to me how that process works. Every coaster in the park is given a track walk at least once a year, some more often depending on the age or condition of the ride. A track walk is exactly what it sounds like: one man with a double harness system hooks himself onto the track and climbs his way through the entire course, checking for any potential problems along the way. More intense rides like Top Thrill Dragster will only receive a track walk once a year - the ride is relatively new, and climbing up 420 feet of vertical track is no small endeavor. For Magnum, however, a track walk is performed usually once a month - Magnum is a bit older, has higher ridership, and is generally easier to perform a track walk on.

Next, we swerved the truck past the Planning & Design offices at the base of Mean Streak and into the park. Entering at the back of the park, we passed Gemini on our left and Camp Snoopy on our right as we saw asphalt being torn up and buildings being torn down. This was the home of "Gemini Children's Area," a nice albeit outdated section of kiddie rides. As we drove through, Mr. Lapp pointed out to me where the new children's rides will be installed and other renovations will be made to liven up this section of the park.

Our first stop within the park was Top Thrill Dragster's hydraulics room - the true holy grail of roller coasters. In this room lies the most ambitious, advanced technology for nearly any roller coaster in the world. Let's just say that "excited" doesn't even come close to describing how I felt. Inside the room, the massive launch cable is coiled around a spool, hooked to dozens of tubes on either side. A mechanical medusa, the system required a lengthy explanation from Mr. Lapp - which I will do my best to convey to you. As I understand it, each launch begins its process when hydraulic fluid fills several large chambers, separated from nitrogen gas on the other side of the tubular chamber by a piston. The pressure is increased to ~4000psi before being released; in an instant, the hydraulic fluid rushes back out of the chambers through thick black tubes into each of 32 motors (16 on each side). With this sudden rush of fuel, the motors fire up and cause the cable to begin spinning, launching the train forward at 120 miles per hour. In the adjoining room, a computer tracks every single launch the ride performs.

On the other end of Dragster's access road sits the electrical room. As Mr. Lapp showed me, this room contains mostly computers that oversee the ride, from train sensors to safety monitors. Stepping out of the little room and up onto Dragster's unloading platform, he pointed out the train sensors to me on the track. These little green sensors along the side of the track, spaced only a foot apart, keep track of the train's location along the track at all times. Similar looking green sensors in the center of the track monitor train movement so that they can move in synchronization through the load and unload stations. Walking around the track, past all of the individual Dragster cars waiting on the midway in individual wooden pallets, we came to the ride operator's booth. This booth houses two employees; facing the station, the first operator handles the largest control panel and is mainly responsible for the ride restraints and train movement. Only when each of the five ride operators (one at each corner of the station plus one in the unload station) are pushing their individual dispatch buttons will the train move out of the station to prepare for launch. At that point, the second ride operator in the booth monitors the trains for any unusual activity or potential problems. After making sure that everyone is in compliance with the "arms down, head back, and hold on" ride audio, the operator will launch the train.

Having seen everything at Dragster, we continued to drive around the park after that. Much of the work that goes on to prepare the park for winter happens within the first few days after the park closes. A Snoopy statue is removed to be touched up and stored, flags and banners come down from their posts, ride test seats are shrink wrapped. Making a full loop around the front of the park, we now headed back towards Millennium Force. Once again, ride cars sat jumbled on the midway as we turned in behind a bank of midway games and crossed the train tracks. As I learned from Mr. Lapp, almost all the ride maintenance is done in-house; the only two exceptions are the Blue Streak and Mean Streak wooden coaster cars, which are sent to a specialist in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia Toboggan Company, Inc.), and the CP&LE Railroad, which has its own set of railroad mechanics that performs track and vehicle maintenance each year. Across the track, however, is access to Mantis, Shoot the Rapids, and Dinosaurs Alive. Stopping at Mantis, there was quite a lot of commotion as a ball bearing on one of the supports needed to be replaced. This would be the first time something like this had happened, and Mr. Lapp stopped to talk with the worker who was preparing to install the replacement part. While I was waiting, the new piece arrived; Mr. Lapp and the other maintenance employee together worked to move it into place to be welded together. As it turned out, angle iron pieces that the other worker had quickly welded onto the support to hold it in place were slightly too short; the new piece wouldn't simply slide into place under the track connector. It seems that this would take just a little bit of reworking before the piece could be installed.

Completing our loop around the back of the park now, the water rides had been drained and Wave Swinger, the swings at the back of the park, had been completely stripped down to the bare metal framework. Even after exiting the park, ride parts and cars sat in the parking lots waiting to be moved indoors for storage and inspection. The Cedar Point maintenance team does an incredible job each year of managing, maintaining, and repairing these rides; to be able to go behind the scenes with Mr. Lapp for the morning was truly an incredible opportunity.

My maintenance adventures described here actually only lasted until about noon; my afternoon was spent with Planning & Design. Rather than go on writing for another mile or so, I think I'll give my afternoon its own post. Stay tuned for that soon!

-Wynn

P.S. There's a lot more really cool pictures from my time at Cedar Point (including behind-the-scenes maintenance work) right here if you're interested!

Day 3: The Amazement Park

My third day was spent with the history makers themselves. I woke up bright and early this morning and made the hour-long trek to Sandusky for my first day at Cedar Point. My day would be spent learning the ins and outs of the fabulous marketing department. Hurrying out of the windy gray weather into their corporate offices, I took a moment to admire the portraits of each former CEO.

Before long, I was met by Billy Clark. Mrs. Clark is the Corporate Director of Human Resources for Cedar Fair, the parent company that owns Cedar Point and 10 other amusement parks across the country. I was pleased to find that they had made me my own Cedar Point nametag and were giving me a copy of Cedar Point: Queen of American Watering Places as a gift!

Mrs. Clark escorted me to the marketing offices and introduced me to the various members of that team. We arrived in the office of Tim Walsh, head of Group Sales; he invited me in and shook my hand. Soon we were joined by several other members of the marketing staff -- Scott, Jason, and Tony came in and introduced themselves, teasing Tim about how two trains somehow ended up on the Blue Streak lift at once while he was operating. After chatting with everyone for a few minutes, Jason took me back to show me the rest of the office. There I met Kristy, one of the Group Sales interns, who I would end up spending most of the day with.

She started by telling me a little about herself: after spending four seasons as a ride operator at Top Thrill Dragster, she took this internship in the marketing office. She explained how the marketing team works, and shared a lot of interesting facts. Apparently very few tickets are sold at the front gate now; most sales are done in advance, and one third of the park's ticket revenue actually comes from group sales!

Looking at the back end of their ticketing system, Kristy showed me how they book group reservations and also make catering reservations. Each week, the entire marketing department receives an email with that week's schedule: events, special arrangements, group visits, job assignments, etc. A typical week would include time in the office, surveying guests, supervising events and catered meals, or leading VIP tours.

By the time 11:30 rolled around, nearly everyone in the office was headed out to a retirement luncheon for the outgoing General Manager, John Hildebrant. I was actually invited to attend, but I ended up missing it after getting caught up in the work Kristy and I were doing in the back. There were several bags of old files that had been removed from their cabinets, and it was our job to take the contents out of each file to be shredded. Some of the files were group sales records from as far back as the late 80's!

When we finished with the files, we took a look around the office for fun. We found several rooms full of archived videos, including commercials, B-roll footage, and promo videos for attractions. We would've tried to watch some of them, but they were all on VHS; we did, however, find a cool documentary on the science of roller coasters that we popped into the computer a bit later. There was also a lot of cool limited-edition merchandise in storage, as well as old press kits and photos that we took a look at. After a bit of exploring, I headed out for a lunch break - but not before getting my photo taken with Snoopy and Woodstock in the office's old Wildcat roller coaster car (Wildcat was demolished in 2011).

When I returned to the office after a quick jaunt into Sandusky for Five Guys, most everyone had returned and everyone was working on sorting Meijer tickets. You know the discount tickets you can buy at most Meijer stores? Well, whatever's leftover at the end of the season gets sent back from each individual store to Cedar Point. It's their job to open each incoming package, sort by ticket type, and then repackage to be stored until spring. It doesn't sound too bad, until you consider that there are single-day tickets, waterpark tickets, two-in-one tickets, season passes, platinum passes, and then about 2-3 designs or styles for each one of those ticket types. It ends up being a lot of sorting, so I was recruited to help. We spent most of the afternoon counting out stacks of 25 or 50 (depending on ticket type) and repackaging them while we watched that roller coaster documentary on the office computer and discussed our favorite roller coasters.

For being my first day, it was a coaster lover's heaven. Getting to spend the day with the Cedar Point marketing team absolutely reaffirmed for me that I must go into the business of amusement parks. I know I'm posting this several days late, but I'll have more blog posts up soon (with lots of pictures)! It gets better and better, I can't wait to show you what I've been doing.

More soon!
-Wynn

Days 1 & 2: Research

The last few days have been simply incredible.

Let me start by giving you a quick recap of Monday and Tuesday. I had the privilege of spending my time on Monday and Tuesday at the Toledo library's main downtown branch. Though all the individual study rooms were taken, I holed up at a quiet partitioned-off desk in the back near all of the patent records. Curiosity getting the better of me, I ventured over to the shelf with all of the 1884 patents, searching through each volume until I found the patent for LaMarcus Thompson's "Gravity Switch-Back Railway."

The rest of my research time has been spent evaluating a project I worked on several years ago that discussed the history of the amusement industry in America. With the goal of publishing this small book by the end of the month, I've been making many minor edits and revisions to each section. Simultaneously, I've been doing additional research on the history of Disneyland, trolley parks, the revival of wooden coasters beginning with the Racer at Kings Island, and other key events that shaped the American amusement park. I'm very excited to be returning to this project and to hopefully be able to share it all with you very soon.

As for my activities today, I have LOTS to share -- stay tuned for that post very soon!

Welcome to (the new) Park Impressions!

Welcome!

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Wynn Turner and I'm a high school senior who is very excited to spend the month studying roller coasters and amusement parks! This is where I'll be posting daily progress updates on the many things I've been working on.

To start, this blog may look a little cluttered; let me explain. This is Park Impressions, an amusement industry blog that I began several years ago to feature news updates, park photos and reports, as well as research and opinion articles. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and other commitments I was not able to continue posting regularly. All of the old Park Impressions material is still here, and I invite my new (and old) visitors to read through it. I hope to revise the blog as part of my work this month, and finally make the transfer to a full website if all goes as planned.

For those who don't quite know what I mean when I talk about my "plans for this month," I mean Winterim. Winterim is a unique program at my school which gives me the opportunity to spend the month of November essentially taking an elective class of my own design. That's why this month I'll be studying the business aspect of the amusement industry. I'm very excited to spend three days behind the scenes at Cedar Point, learning what it takes to be the Best Amusement Park in the World year after year. After that, I'll be headed to Orlando to visit some of our finest amusement and theme parks and to cover the 2013 IAAPA Expo. Not only will I be posting photos from the trade show floor, but I'll also have the opportunity to network with industry leaders and attend numerous educational programs.

What does all of this mean? Park Impressions will be back at least through November, and I invite my family, friends, and former PI readers to follow along. I've set several goals for myself and for Park Impressions this month:

1. Update the Park Impressions blog at least every other day with news, photos, and videos of my work.

2. Revise and publish an iBook on the history of the amusement industry.

3. Network with industry professionals at Cedar Point and IAAPA 2013 to learn more about what business and operations side of the amusement industry looks like.

4. Research the environmental impact of the amusement industry; write a mock business plan for an amusement park with an emphasis on sustainability. 

The next three weeks should be very exciting as I work to fulfill these goals. I look forward to posting my progress on here and I encourage you all to follow along!

See you soon,
Wynn