Inside TEAAS
An organization for themed entertainment academia interview by Judith Rubin
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he fourth annual Themed Experience and Attractions Academic Society (TEAAS) Academic Symposium will be held during the 2021 IAAPA Expo in Orlando. We spoke to three leading members and active educators in the field - Kathryn Woodcock (Professor, Ryerson University), Peter Weishar (Professor and Director of UCF Themed Experience Programs) and Lori Sipe (Associate Professor, San Diego State University) to learn more about the organization and its activities. Tell us about the TEAAS mission, leadership and accomplishments. Kathryn Woodcock: TEAAS exists to bring together academic scholars from any discipline interested in any aspect of themed entertainment, experiences and attractions, including everything from the design and technology components to the operation and management of entire attractions, and facilitate their exposure to themed entertainment end users. Peter Weishar: We formed the organization about five years ago. Our first meeting was at an IAAPA Expo in Orlando. We did not have a conference room or place to meet. Someone had a friend or associate at one of the show room floor booths that had a conference pod they let us use. We didn’t realize it was a demo unit built for two people without the air conditioning hooked up. In that humble beginning, we planned our first Symposium and laid out the groundwork for the Journal. We have since had a great deal of support from other institutions that have made our lofty goals a reality. Structurally, the TEAAS has four committees: Symposium, Journal Editorial Board, Communications, and Steering Committee. The membership is divided into full members who are academics and Associate Members who are graduate candidates and industry professionals. KW: The Society has held several Symposia to share members’ work and has established a Journal, the Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies, for publication of peerreviewed scholarly work. Lori Sipe: Academia is traditionally a place where people get deep into their own areas of expertise, so associations with multiple disciplines are rare. In some ways, I think our vision is to mirror what the attractions industry does really well – synergize creative storytelling, production management, and operations. The first step, however, is to create a space and invite those researchers and teachers who want to bring a new perspective to customer engagement and immersive experiences. 28
How does TEAAS serve its members and share information? PW: Academics need to disseminate and publish their work, learn about related work being done by others, and in many cases, connect with collaborators with shared interests and complementary expertise. Very few academics who are interested in themed experience and entertainment have colleagues in their institutions that share their interest. Some may even contend with universities that don’t have an understanding of the importance and cultural impact of the field. The TEAAS helps make vital connections for like-minded academics. Exposure also helps to build relationships that can lead to research funding, interdisciplinary collaboration, student field trips, industry guest speakers, sponsored course projects, and student internship and entry-level opportunities, all of which benefit the academic’s teaching effectiveness and satisfaction. KW: Industry exposure is more important than it seems. The first step of applied research is a literature search to establish a state of the art. Industry innovations in many cases would not show up in a conventional academic literature search. Industry invents and implements, but it is rare for someone in industry to publish a scholarly paper detailing their innovation. With the very nature of the industry, with illusion and artifice around every corner, it’s not so easy for an academic to easily know what is already being used or done without direct exposure behind the scenes. Accessing industry events and venues is critical. However, many academics cannot attend conferences unless they are presenting. Our Symposium held on the final day of IAAPA Expo makes it possible to attend the Expo as well as the academic Symposium, see the industry’s accomplishments, hear what is important to them, and meet manufacturers, suppliers, owners and operators. For me, I’m most excited about the value of the Society for research collaboration and dissemination. For promotion and tenure, as well as securing and sustaining research grants, academics need to disseminate their work in a peer-reviewed scholarly medium. Industry presentations and press are not given the same credit. The ultimate form that takes is our Journal. Conventional academic journals specialize in a specific field of scholarship, either in the abstract or with a wide range of industry applications. This makes it difficult for scholars in one field to find research from other fields and difficult for industry end users to locate potentially useful research that could be scattered
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