Caricatures at Nickelodeon Universe

“The park formerly known as Camp Snoopy” and “until recently was known as the Park at MOA” officially changed to “Nickelodeon Universe” on Saturday with a grand opening gala. Ashley Simpson was lip syncing on the main stage at noon, several Nick TV stars were on hand to sign autographs, and the new rides and theming were fully unveiled.

Four roller coasters, a flume, Ferris wheel and a dozen
other major rides in “Nick U”. Yes, it’s all indoors…

Our caricature booth, having been previously designed for the “Northwoods Camp” theme of Camp Snoopy, got replaced with a kiosk style cart themed for the new Nick Universe look.

Artist Andy Blakeborough getting his gear set up
for the big Nickelodeon Universe Grand Opening

The view down the walkway from our booth just before the
gates open… that’s Spongebob’s pineapple house as a moon walk for kids.

Bring on the customers!

The entire park was made over from the afore mentioned “Northwoods Camp” theme. I have to say I am impressed with the design and the clever ways they managed to change familiar things and still make it seem like a new place. Images on circular banners surround the massive skylight supports, signage and other graphics are done on arced surfaces in 3-D relief and all the rides that were once Peanuts the are now Nick themed with fiberglass sculpted entrances and characters welcoming you to their ride.

The bad thing was that Nick U required us to set up in a standard designed kiosk rather than allow us to build our own unique booth/location as we had in Camp Snoopy. They have a mall specialty retain mentality there as opposed to a theme park mentality, so they require all lessees to be in their standard kiosk. That would have been a disaster but they recognized that our needs were unique and they actually brought me in to work with the park designers to design a kisok that would work for what we needed first and then make everyone else use our design. That sounded good but there were still a lot of compromises. Still, we have a sharp looking location now and hopefully they will ease up on the peripheral graphics and images to let us make things a little more dynamic in the future.

Some early customers…

Andy and artist James Hungaski are just getting warmed up…

Hopefully we will continue to have the success we’ve had there with what I consider a less impactful presentation than our previous location had. Time will tell.