with thousands of theme parks and
amusement parks across the globe
it's easy to forget the challenges that
are overcome in the process of operating
these large attractions
from ensuring the happiness of all of
its guests to providing a collection of
reliable and exciting attractions
a large number of individual tasks must
be handled at once on a daily basis
to learn more about how theme parks
operate we spoke to paul gentilly
operations manager at adventureland in
long island new york my name is paul
gentilly i've been involved at
adventureland for 35 years now i uh been
here since 14 years old cleaning tables
in our restaurant and i've assumed the
role at this point as the operations
manager
watching over the outside operations of
the park
after spending some time at a theme park
it's often quite easy to determine the
main target audience
sometimes it's thrill seekers while for
other parks it's families quite often
however it's a delicate balance of both
regardless the type of guests visiting
the theme park is reflected by the rides
and attractions on offer
we have 28 rides and attractions here
and our main target audience would be
families
we
dedicate a lot of our rides outside to
family fun and creating memories for all
these families
year after year and
as long as we have rise that the
families can enjoy together with mom and
dad and the kids it's uh i would say say
that's our target audience
obviously there's a lot more to theme
parks than just rides and attractions
the needs and wants of all of the
visitors must be catered for
everyone coming to the park
uh wants to eat has to eat they get
hungry so that's a big aspect of the
park uh we have our games operation
where people uh once they're riding the
rides they like to try a game or two out
like the basketball game
as well as our gift shop we have
different kind of gifts in our gift shop
so
between the gifts shop the games
food service and of course the rides
practically every theme park has a
collection of flagship attractions these
rides are often the park's largest
investments requiring extensive amounts
of research and analysis before plans
can be made
all investments especially those
producing a theme park's biggest rides
must be beneficial
in 2015
adventureland debuted what is now their
flagship attraction turbulence a custom
designed mack rides spinning coaster
turbulence was researched and reviewed
among
different coaster manufacturers and we
settled in with mac rides mack rides is
a family
operation as well and we were
comfortable
dealing with them and uh they made the
experience uh
a wonderful experience and uh that
showed uh in the product that we have up
there and the people going on the ride
all our guests really enjoy that ride
day after day week after week a large
amount of unseen effort goes into
ensuring a park is ready for opening
each day
attractions must be checked and tested
before guests can ride which occurs well
before the park's opening time
we get here uh every day 8 30 a.m and we
leave when the park closes uh there's a
lot of preparation uh between the
mechanics end of it as well as the
operations end of it so just kind of
coordinating things and keeping everyone
moving in the right direction in the
morning until we open and then
throughout the day there's always
different things you need to attend to
once a theme park is open to the public
and the rides are up and running park
staff frequently face a large number of
challenges on a daily basis
biggest challenges i would say between
the weather and personnel
the weather is always a tricky
setup where you have to worry about if
it's going to be nice out it's going to
be raining out and uh here on long
island we do get all kinds of weather we
get sunny weather we get rainy weather
uh windy weather uh so i would say the
weather as well as personnel and people
happy is a prime concern for us here
aside from the day-to-day challenges
that arise from operating a theme park
staff must ensure that certain criteria
are constantly met
the top priorities of every operations
manager and their constituent theme park
are often quite the same
top priorities is providing a clean safe
fun entertainment venue for the people
on long island and new york
we like to pride ourselves on safety and
hospitality and
i think we do a pretty good job at it
and
again safety is a the most important
issue in the amusement industry and uh
just kind of keeping track of everyone
coming and going between the personnel
and the
guests coming in and out you want to
make sure everyone is having a good time
and
to attend to their needs and wants
throughout the day
by keeping visitors happy they are
consistently oblivious to the amount of
work that goes on behind the scenes
i think a lot of people don't know the
different challenges that arise
they don't know that we do get here
first thing in the morning if the park
opens at 11
we get here at
again 8 30 in the morning we don't get
here at 11 a.m
uh and then when the park is closing we
we leave once the park is closed but
there's a lot going on from uh open to
close that a lot of people don't see the
behind-the-scenes uh preparations
uh to keep the park
moving in the right direction
naturally theme parks adapt
change and develop over time the exact
ways in which parks do progress varies
case by case
we've evolved in many ways
technologically
technology is uh always advancing as we
all know just the moving with
technological advances through the years
we've evolved in that way
we've also evolved with our
turbulence ride we themed it we added a
lot of landscaping to the ride which we
haven't done in the past and we also
provided music to the ride as you're
going up the lift hill it was a nice
feature to kind of get you into the ride
as you're ready to run ride the ride so
i would say between the technology
the landscaping and theming of the rides
going forward we have a new ride coming
on board next year it's a dark ride so
hopefully we can provide the same
experience
with that right as well everyone
involved with the theme park wants their
attraction to succeed
most park employers are honored to work
towards the goal of providing a
fantastic day out to a multitude of
guests
proud of uh again just providing clean
safe entertainment to the people on long
island
i'm also proud of the family atmosphere
we have created here at the park
we've been here for 55 years on long
island and
we deal with a lot of different families
and we have uh families who come back
time and time again um as employees and
the employees really uh
love to work here i feel and that family
atmosphere we created
we've created a very family-friendly
culture
and it
shows in the work they do outside
a successful theme park often strives
for guests to visit their attraction
multiple times a year
this can be done through the use of
season passes and annual passes
interestingly the average ratio between
season pass holders and regular ticket
holders changes depending on the type of
park in question
for us here at adventureland the season
passes it's a smaller percentage
uh where we're a local park or many
other parks where season passes are more
of a destination park so um i would say
our percentage would be really low maybe
five ten percent
you know the other parks they discounted
a lot a lot more because their
destination park
in reality we have all dreamt about
starting our own theme park at some
point in the future
from first glance it can seem like a
relatively easy and relaxed job
however after diving deep into the
details this is definitely not the case
if you're ready to start your own theme
park then you make sure you do all your
research and your due diligence and to
make sure you're just ready for anything
that comes your way and to be ready to
dedicate 100 of yourself
along the way because if you think
you're going to go halfway with it it's
not going to work you really need to
pour yourself into it
and give 110 day in and day out
a huge thanks goes to paul gentilly
adventureland's operations manager for
taking the time out of his busy schedule
to be interviewed by us i'd also like to
thank vinnie b a close friend of mine
for both contacting paul and filming the
interview on the day
thank you all for watching and we'll see
you next time
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