Back in Business, Sort Of…

I used to have a fair number of art concessions businesses that operated in theme parks and tourist centers around the eastern half of the U.S. At one time I had locations in Atlanta, St. Louis (two there, actually), Agawam MA, New Orleans, and two here in Minnesota- Nickelodeon Universe, the theme park within the Mall of America, and Valleyfair, a seasonal theme park south of Minneapolis. Over the years I’ve slowly gotten out of that business, and now only have the two operations in Minnesota still going.

Back on March 17th, Nickelodeon Universe shut down due to pandemic stay at home orders issued by the state. Valleyfair never opened up at all, and just announced last week that they will not open in 2020.

Up until Wednesday, we have remained closed at Nick U. The park just reopened on a very limited basis. State orders require gatherings of no more than 250 people in a space, masks at all times when indoors except when seated eating and drinking, and maintaining 6 feet of social distancing. Nick U has to restrict the number of people in the park to 250 at a time, and observe all the other rules. We reopened as well, taking the appropriate precautions including plexi screens, social distance directives and using masks.

It was agreed that our customers need to remove their masks to get drawn, so the artist sits at least six feet away and has a plexi screen between them and the customers. They are allowed to remove their masks when we are actively drawing them, and must replace them before then get up to pay for the caricature. We can only draw multiple people together if they are part of a single family, or they sit down individually.

I’ve totally left it up to the artists if they are comfortable working or not. Nick U has been great about allowing us to open only when we are able. It’s not ideal but one more step toward normalcy. It’s been a crazy year.