Saturday, June 5, 2010

A Park, a Parade and a Paycheck

Welcome to Six Flags!

Want to hear more about it? You do? Great! Six Flags (in case you haven't heard of it) is a large theme/amusement park chain with I think about a dozen parks around the US of A and one in Mexico City. Our particular specimen, Six Flags Great America and Hurricane Harbor, is in Gurnee, IL, which we all lovingly refer to as "Chicago." The founding idea of Six Flags is sort of to have a big, professional, well-run theme park in a location and at a price that is more accessible than some other company's big, professional, well-run theme park. It's pretty great. I get in for free.

Six Flags has two themes, Looney Tunes and DC Comics. It's the only place where Bugs Bunny follows Batman in the parade. There's also Scooby Doo and The Wiggles. But Six Flags also balances those themes with awesome roller coasters like the Batman, the Superman and the Raging Bull. And there are plenty of rides for the young 'uns too, plus a big ol' waterpark called Hurricane Harbor (free with admission!).

Where do I come in? Six Flags Great America has several shows (free with admission!) that are run by the Entertainment department, which also takes care of the characters wandering the park. The show I am working is the largest one, called ShowStoppin' (unsure about capitalization on that), and takes place at Grand Music Hall. ShowStoppin' is a song and dance revue-type show that features modern pop, rock, R&B and country music. And I'm going to be flying stuff in and out and helping with costume changes and whatnot. Clearly I'm not sure about my exact duties yet, because ShowStoppin' hasn't opened yet.

That's because the Glow in the Park Parade opened last weekend instead! What's a Glow in the Park Parade, you ask? Well, here's ours. Somebody put it up on YouTube the day after it opened because it's that cool. I gotta run now, more on the parade later! Suffice it to say that other parks have had the Glow in the Park Parade in past years, and it's new for Great America this year, so there's been a lot of work put into it to get it going.

EDIT: Have a Six Flags Day!

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