TOTAL LANDSCAPE

Themeparking, discussed in Chapter 2, is a framework commonly referred to as geo-political or in military terminology referred to as strategic. It is a ‘panoramic view’, to employ de Certeau’s term (Certeau 1984), a view concerned with geo-political goals and socio-economic strategies and the design of complex strategic systems on either regional, national or global scale or all thereby simultaneously. Since themeparking reveals the symbiosis of strategic political and economic decision-making (at the macro level) that has appropriated both space and methods previously belonging to the military realm (the defense), this chapter will discuss the intersections of military, planning, geographic and economic (location) theories. Themeparking attempts to delineate the convergence of the realm of media with the material world of theme parks aimed at the socio-cultural fabrication of consumers’s desires and the construction of routes that facilitate its fulfillment. It also discusses the ‘engineering of leisure’, a professional discourse on leisure that determines normative procedures that organize circulation of people to theme park locations to be consumed as spaces of leisure and amusement. In that respect, Themeparking will initially define the notion of ‘trade theater’ and then discuss strategically important input variables such are demographic data, traffic networks and accessibility, site selection, attendance projections, theme and concept developments, marketing and branding, tourist arrangements, and finally cultural patterns that also greatly determine strategic decision-making within the domain of themeparking.

Themeparking is extremely marketing sensitive because one of the key concepts within total landscape directly relevant to marketing is the dissolution of the boundaries between the world of media and the material environments of theme parks. In fact, in many ways it is through the process of marketing that the two are brought together into an inseparable whole. Since boundaries of thematic environments are no longer defined only by their geographic locales but also by their media presence, mostly on television, the concept known as ‘marketing synergy’ enables theme parks to promote movies, movies to promote merchandise and merchandise to promote theme parks so that cycles of synergetic marketing expand endlessly into entertainment space. As a consequence, theme parks are used as backdrops for a variety of television programs, movies, sport competitions, conventions and convention-related television broadcasting, and at the same time the confluence and interdependence of theme park industry, the airline industry, the cruise industry, the railway industry, the car rental business, drivers associations, the hotel industry, the tourist industry, telephone and communication companies, the credit card industry, incentive travel programs and many other interests is increasing exponentially with the consolidation of the theme park industry and as themeparking grows in scale. These developments will be discussed also in relation to the fabrication of thematic frameworks within themeparking that relies on the synergy of cultural, political and socio-economic factors that are inseparable in the contemporary world of media and synergetic marketing controlled by multinational entertainment and media corporations.

The most complex group of input variables within the themeparking equation are those that establish the relationships between cultural references and thematic frameworks. Some common ways of fabricating bridges between cultural contexts and thematic frameworks will be discussed. This plays directly into the discussion of categorizing theme parks in terms of the scale of operations involved in their design, construction, and operation. Besides the cultural narratives they employ and the complexity of their thematic frameworks, expressions of theme park’s complexity can be read by understanding levels of investment, target populations analysis, anticipated and realized volumes of attendance, and so on. In relation to the above, the distinction will be made between regional theme parks, networks or regional theme parks, and global theme parks, and I will subsequently also discuss specific examples. A true systematic approach to the design of theme parks configures both themeparking and themeing simultaneously by taking into account complex variables related to the design of infrastructure, the design of the physical facility, visitors’s experience, marketing, operations and management and so on. All aspects of theme park design are heavily interdependent and can only be successfully designed and operated if the entire ensemble outlined above is brought into the condition of absolute perfection that reduces and progressively eliminates all uncertainty until the synergetic accumulation of forces in the theater clearly exhibits a desirable totalizing configuration. –