WAVEs of Excitement: Double Play

Hey all (assuming people are actually reading this)! I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

It’s starting to get very busy at the aquarium, as we are prepping for Mermaids and Pirates, arriving September 28th – so busy that I am covering two weeks of the internship in this one post because I didn’t have time for the last weeks. This week was filled with brainstorming, meetings, and filming (Oh my!) while looking ahead to the weeks and months to come. I had the opportunity to create another quick video, highlighting our Albino American Alligators – Snowball and Snowflake – for Alligator Awareness Day on September 12th. You can view that video here. I must say, filming them before public hours was quite a treat, as I was the only one there, so they seemed very playful with me! However once the guests poured in for the day, they went back to hiding like they’re regular selves. I think we really bonded!

Next was to create a video for the Aquarium that featured all of our animals “dancing” – that is, make Instagram boomerangs of them moving around, compile them in to one big mashup, and make a “Git Up Challenge” video. I just took my phone, not really having too big of a vision for it, and just did a LOT of videos of our friends. Luckily, many of them were very playful and in good moods, so I got pretty lucky when it came to footage. You can view that fun video here.

The weekend was kinda the same. I got to do photography for a wedding, which was the first one I’ve done since I’ve devoted more time to editing and shooting. Always a good time getting experience. (see below)

The annual Golden Ticket Awards was that night as well, which are presented annually to honor the “Best of the Best” in the amusement industry and are calculated from an international poll conducted by Amusement Today. The survey asked experienced amusement park voters around the country and world to rate the “bests” in 22 categories. It’s always fun watching these as I hope to go into the amusement industry one day. I have to give a huge shoutout to my home park Kings Island, which was presented with the Renaissance Award, “for respecting its roots and being committed to guest experience as evidenced in the installation of the Kings Mills Antique Autos and makeover of historical park attractions and aspects.” The marketing and PR crew over there did a fantastic job this season, running campaigns constantly and back-to-back. For example, if looked at from a PR’s perspective, Opening Day, the debut of Kings Mills Antique Autos, AND the beginning celebration for The Beast’s 40th Anniversary season started right away when the park opened to the guests for the season on April 20th. A few highlights of the year included events like the first ever PiviP Tournament hosted by the park, the world-unveiling of the world spectacle that is Grand Carnivale (Can’t wait for it to return in 2020!), and the announcement of some ride for preschoolers called Orion or something (learn more about that here). Probably nothing to be too excited about – (can you read the sarcasm in my writing?)

(Cedar Fair accepting the award for Kings Island) *@aceonline

I also recently became a member of IAAPA – the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, which represents over 5,300 amusement-industry members in more than 100 countries worldwide and operates several global amusement-industry trade shows. I’m very excited for the new connections I can make, and I am planning on attending IAAPA Expo when it comes to Orlando in November – fingers crossed!

Back to the aquarium. This week is First Responders week, and I got permission from one of our amazing on-duty officers if he would allow me to follow him around and capture just a glimpse of what his job looks like – at least, here at Newport Aquarium, of course. We’re so thankful for all our first responders do, and could never thank them enough.

This week I also got to tag along to Local 12 News and WLWT News 5 for segments with our ambassador animals. I think it’s so awesome to see the connections we have with others be shown in action.