The Giant Dipper’s 100th anniversary got me thinking about other Boardwalk anniversary celebrations over the past 4 decades. I joined the Boardwalk in July 1981 to plan and direct the Boardwalk’s 75th anniversary which would be celebrated the following year. I was told, jokingly, that if I was lucky enough and played my cards right, I might possibly still be at the Boardwalk in 2007 to plan the Boardwalk’s 100th anniversary. As it turned out I was and I had the privilege to lead the team that planned, presented and promoted the Boardwalk’s Centennial Celebration.
Recognizing and celebrating milestones and significant dates in the Boardwalk’s history have been an important way for the Boardwalk to feature and promote its special place in the history of Northern California and the amusement industry. Of all the events celebrated, the park’s 100th anniversary was my all time favorite.
Planning for the Centennial started in 2002 with research and development of a book to chronicle the history of the Boardwalk. Event and activity planning began in earnest in 2004, three years preceding the celebration.
Deciding on a theme and what to call the 100th anniversary were the first projects that needed to be completed and frankly the most challenging. They needed to be determined before we started planning events and activities to mark this important milestone.
It took a number of meetings before we settled on the name “Centennial Celebration” and the campaign’s theme: “Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, 100 Years, Millions of Memories”.
Picking up on Disneyland’s approach to their 50th anniversary in 2005, we focused on our visitors’ vacation memories and personal connections to our park.
The history of the Boardwalk has always been important to the park’s staff and ownership, but we learned that it wasn’t the history the public was connecting with, it was their personal experiences, their memories of times with family and friends at the Beach and Boardwalk.
Through our website, we reached out to the public to share their memories and photos of the Boardwalk. This was in the early days of social media (Facebook in 2006 had 12 million users…today it has 3 billion users). Developing a web-based conversation and connection with the public was innovative and successful. This brought in a treasure trove of personal photos and stories that shed a new light on how integrated the Boardwalk was in peoples’ family memories and how important it was in their hearts.
The input from the public gave Boardwalk leadership a much better understanding of the public’s powerful affinity with the Boardwalk. The Centennial helped us understand that it was the individual’s memories of a visit as a child or with a loved one that was important. It made us all so much more aware of this personal connection. I recall seeing a mother lifting her 3 or 4 year-old daughter onto a Carousel Horse and telling her, “This is the same horse that Nana put me on when I was your age”. I can image that years from now that daughter will be putting her child on the Carousel to tell her the same thing.
So what did we do for the celebration? The year included many new offerings and activities including: introducing Movies on the Beach; adding the Moscow Circus as Boardwalk weekday entertainment; bringing in a June fireworks show; adding Centennial banners and displays along the Boardwalk and Beach Street; hosting a historical Boardwalk exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (which was also featured at the Oakland and Fresno Museums); offering public behind the scenes tours; producing and airing a Boardwalk TV special; producing a Boardwalk DVD that included historical photos and films; writing and publishing the book, “Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, a Century by the Sea” (which received positive reviews from local media including the San Francisco Chronicle); giving away, via an online sweepstakes, a pair of Season Passes valid for 100 years, until the Boardwalk’s Bicentennial in 2107. My favorite Centennial event was a black-tie Cocoanut Grove Centennial Gala that featured a personalized video salute from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and, yes, he said, “When visitors go to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk they come back impressed. They will say…. I’ll be back”.
The Centennial Celebration was an immense success. The Boardwalk’s identity shifted from a local and regional amusement park to a nationally and internationally recognized attraction. The Boardwalk received numerous awards and recognitions that year, including being acknowledged as the World’s Best Seaside Amusement Park with the prestigious attraction industry Golden Ticket Award. At the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Convention in November 2007 the Boardwalk beat out world class parks including Disney, Universal, and Sea World, receiving top marketing awards including Best Integrated Marketing Campaign, Best Public Relations Campaign, and Best Press Kit.
Leading the team that created and implemented the Boardwalk’s 100th Anniversary celebration was the high point of my 40-year career at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
