Tim Stowe is his own best critic.
He’s married, with sons 12 and 7 years old. He grew up in the Midwest - about 25 miles northwest of Silver Dollar City. And he’s been visiting the 1880s theme park his entire life.
“I am the typical family that shows up at Silver Dollar City,” says Stowe, coordinator of the 2012 edition of KidsFest. To book entertainment for the event, “I look seriously at stuff that interests me. And it does help to be able to ask your kids, ‘Hey, what would you guys like to see?’”
The answer, he says, is “most kids don’t get a chance to see a lot of live entertainment, and when they do, they really enjoy it.”
This year, Stowe has booked a combination of classic entertainment - including “The Fabulous Wallendas! Famous Family Circus,” returning for the second year with Guinness World Record high-wire walker and international newsmaker Nik Wallenda; and high tech - Luma, a light show; along with Gazillion Bubbles, which is basically the best of both worlds.
“It’s a show you cannot adequately describe,” Stowe says of Gazillion Bubbles. “It’s amazing, truly spectacular.
Everyone walks out wide-eyed.
It’s got bubbles, lasers, music, lights, video - and it’s amazing what they’re capable of doing.”
The show, a version of which has played in New York for years, was created by bubble master Fan Yang, a 16-time Guinness Book of WorldRecords record holder, most recently for putting an 8,800-pound elephant in a bubble. His shows have been featured at science and discovery museums across North America, and he’s appeared on television in nearly a dozen countries.
However, Stowe says the best endorsement for Gazillion Bubbles happened on opening day, when a grandmother was encouraging her grandchild to sit down so she could see.
“Clearly, it appeals to all ages,” he says with a chuckle.
Luma - described as “like watching fireworks” - “uses the dark as a canvas and light as the brush” to create a “technocircus,” its web site explains. Stowe admits the company had made a pitch to appear at Silver Dollar City, but it was the idea of a show specific to the theme park that sold him on the idea. The show introduces “colorful, magical creatures” that live in Marvel Cave, again combining the traditional - the cave was the impetus for the theme park six decades ago - and cuttingedge technology.
And then, of course, there’s Nik Wallenda, whose show harkens back to the “greatest show on earth” days of the circus. Wallenda grabbed national headlines June 15 with his walk across Niagara Falls on a high wire.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Stowe says of the event, but audiences can see Wallenda at the theme park through July 22.
Also part of the KidsFest fun is an all-new Independence Day celebration on Wednesday, with an old-fashioned ice cream social and a fireworks show finale.
Whats Up, Pages 17 on 06/29/2012