Did anyone know that IAAPA (International Association of Amusemnet Parks and Attractions) are holding their summer metting next year at Conrads Jupiter casino at the same time that AALARA is on. I think we are pretty luck get the IAAPA coming over here. Has anyone been to an AALARA (Australian Amusement and lesiure Recreation Association) meeting? Do they have anything there intresting to look at or do? I wonder if they will have much of a trade show with IAAPA their too? Do you think it would be worth going too? www.iaapa.org/products/p-summer.htm Anyway all comments welcome Shaun

Just before my post, I'd just like to mention that the head of IAAPA was out last year for AALARA, and had something very interesting to say about the parks. When asked what he thought about the parks, without any hesitation, he said that he'd been to some of the biggest parks in the world, but no parks he had been to were of such a high quality. Anyway, I had the pleasure of attending AALARA last year, and I'm really looking forward to the prospect of IAAPA being there. The trade show was really interesting to check out, although none of the major manufactures (Arrow, B&M, Intamin ect.) made an appearance. The only 2 ride companies I found were Zamparela, and I think Mossier (I've long since thrown out the brochure, so don't quote me on that). Hopefully with IAAPA there we may see some major industry players out. Most of the booths were occupied by companies which developed pipping, queue rail systems, ice-cream freezers and the like. The only other booths I remember was a photo company that had on-ride photo technology and were showing how its been installed on Space Probe, and a company (Polar Crush I think) that was offering some beautiful slush drinks. IAAPA being there could make the trade show very interesting, and who knows, one of the parks might buy something.

Richard have you ever been to an AALAR meeting, and are you going to go to one?

I considered going this year, but the one seminar I particularly wanted to attend this year had a presenter change, which was enough to talk me out of it.

What seminar might that be?