MEMORANDUM TO: Dick Burlazzi FM: John Hoover RE: Rationale for Roller Coaster Corporation of America as Design Build Contractor for the Wooden Roller Coaster. DT: October 19, 1990 The selection of a Wooden Roller Coaster for Fiesta Texas has been an ongoing pursuit that, literally, has spanned the past seventeen years. For that is how long Opryland has been investigating wooden coasters and coaster designers and builders. The key player in Opryland's ongoing search has been Keith Sanders; initially as a function of his position of Director of Park Operations and, in more recent years, as Executive Director of Product Development. Additionally, Keith is Chairman of the American Society for Testing and Materials F-24 Committee, which makes recommendations and sets industry standards for rides. Mr. Sanders, along with several other members of Opryland management, has been personally involved in researching all aspects of wooden coaster acquisition including; various types of coaster, differences in design and intent among leading coaster designers, key construction techniques used by the leading coaster builders, improvements in design, equipment and construction techniques, fair market values and price trends, etc. Perhaps the most useful knowledge came through personal visits to parks and candid conversation with the owners and operators of virtually every major theme park in the country. This solid cumulative knowledge base has allowed the Opryland management team to make sound, qualitative assessments with regard to what is available in the wooden coaster marketplace. Foremost would have to be economic considerations. Wooden coasters are undoubtedly huge investments. Consequently, any decision regarding possible acquisition would not be made lightly. It is interesting to note with respect to price that the cost for major coaster construction has actually gone down over the past five to ten years. This is due in part to a depressed economy which adversely effects the construction industry in general, and largely due to the progressive incorporation of modern design, engineering and construction techniques. Today each of these disciplines relies heavily upon computer augmentation. As recently as ten years ago, coasters were designed and built for the most part the way they were in the l920's and 1930's. In a modern economy these antiquated methods proved both slow and costly. Another evaluatlive barometer that has tended to dictate heavily to the decision makers of the theme park industry is guest opinion and commentary. Broad spectrum guest surveys have, historically, ranked wooden coasters near the top among all rides for popularity and perceived value. A park that has a quality wooden coaster is Dick Burlazzi Memorandum Page Two universally perceived as a provider of a classic piece of Americana and a truly unique and thrilling entertainment experience unlike any other. As mentioned above, over the decades that wooden coasters have existed various philosophies have developed as to ride quality and type. Strong opinions exist as to ride smoothness, "thrill quotient", coaster purism, etc., etc. The one comment that can be said in favor of virtually every quality wooden coaster that has ever been built is that the addition of the coaster in an existing park increased park attendance. Some of these increases have been dramatic; a few in the past decade in the range of 15% - 20%. For the parks who made the investment in a wooden coaster (and in some cases two and three wooden coasters), the increased dollars at the front gate quickly convinced them that they made a good buy. Another method used to determine the relative value of the wooden coaster to other rides within the theme park setting can be achieved through direct comparison of the calculated cost per entertainment unit for each ride. These figures are achieved simply by dividing the estimated ridership per hour of a given ride into that ride's total cost. In the case of rides at Fiesta Texas, the wooden coaster compared favorably to its cousin the steel looping coaster. The wooden coaster figured at $4,971 per entertainment unit compared to the steel coaster at $5,695. When comparing the coaster to other park hard rides on the same basis there is no question that the roller coaster, whether made of wood or steel, is the premier ride. And so it is, according to guest surveys. All of the above information and much more went into the selection process for the wooden coaster at Fiesta Texas. When considering companies which would be able to design and build a project of this magnitude, it was learned that virtually all of the "traditional" coaster builders who had built the many great coasters over the past few decades had gone out of business. Two of the most active coaster builders over the past several years are the Dinn Corporation and Roller Coaster Corporation of America (RCCA). Both companies were contacted to see if they might be interested in bidding the job and both responded positively. Over a period of about a year, between August of 1989 to August of 1990, a series of conversations, correspondence and visits took place with principals of Dinn Corporation and RCCA. Included by both companies were site inspection visits to the quarry in San Antonio. It should be noted that each company knew that the other company was actively involved in preparing a bid for Fiesta Texas. To that extent, the environment in which the bids were developed should be considered competitive. Both companies came to Nashville during June and made presentations of their conceptual designs along with preliminary "budgetary" cost estimates. Dick Burlazzi Memorandum Page Three From this point, RCCA continued more aggressively and within another two months presented a solid design/build proposal. Dinn Corporation, who we now know was simultaneously pursuing other coaster projects (they announced during this time the signing of a deal to build a coaster for King's Island in 1991) chose not to offer Fiesta Texas a formal proposal. Dinn has been very busy during the past couple of years and perhaps they felt taking on multiple projects simultaneously would be stretching their resources too far. In summary, many years of ongoing research and evaluation by Keith Sanders and Opryland management were used to develop a short list of two prospective wooden roller coaster design/build firms. These two firms, Dinn Corporation and Roller Coaster Corporation of American, both actively pursued the Fiesta Texas project in a competitive bid process. The result of that process was a solid bid for designing and building the coaster from Roller Coaster Corporation of America. John