Special Features: ThrillNetwork interviews Dollywood's Pete Owens

Posted at 3:02 PM EDT (1902 GMT)

Sep. 11th, 2006 -- ThrillNetwork editor Wes recently interviewed Pete Owens from Dollywood and got some great insight into what goes on in the Public Relations and planning departments of Dollywood.

Let's start the interview.

Pete what position do you hold at Dollywood?

Public Relations Manager for the Dollywood Companies.

How many years have you worked for Dollywood?

Six

What would you say is your most challenging part of your job?

Time management is always interesting when Dollywood has five festivals and five openings a year, plus coordinating public relations for Dollywood's Splash Country,The Dixie Stampedes and our non-profits.

How far in advance are you normally working on the next year’s attraction or new addition?

Dollywood, like many other parks, has five and ten year projections for future growth. Many times those plans are simply place holders or "ideas" that are shuffled or may never come to fruition. For a project like Mystery Mine, I think I first saw a concept several years ago. We signed a deal with Gerstlauer about a year ago and now construction has begun. We like to try to have deals in place 12-18 months out so my team and the whole marketing team can put together a package to introduce the ride, much like we did with Mystery Mine.

How much does your department get involved with a new attraction?

We have a New Product Marketing Manager who works full time on software and hardware additions. There is an open dialogue between our Creative Studio and our Marketing Team as a whole. They want to know what we think since we speak to our customer every day. We then ask our customers what they think about proposed concepts. Some of your readers may have seen a survey in the past. We are test marketing some ideas now as well.

Now switching gears a bit…

What is your favorite coaster at the Dollywood?

Thunderhead is my favorite, although The Tennessee Tornado is a great Arrow ride. You may not know this but it was the last ride Arrow built before S&S took over. It is still a sweet ride.

What is your favorite non-coaster ride at Dollywood?

That is easy, the Mountain Slidewinder. It is a classic.

What is your favorite non-Dollywood coaster or ride?

That is a hard question. As far as wood, I'd say Phoenix at Knoebels. As far as steel, I am a Dueling Dragons fan. B&M's are great rides and that is a great B&M creation. As I kid, however, I always liked the Zambezi Zinger (a Schwarzkopf Jumbo Jet model that operated until 1997) at Worlds of Fun.

Have you worked at any parks besides Dollywood?

No, I worked in television for 15 years before coming to Dollywood. I always liked theme parks, but never thought I would work in one. It is nice being in the "joy" business rather than the misery business that News can be.

Also please share any comments you would like to share with the ThrillNetwork readers.

I love the boards and the forums. You provide some great insight to parks around the country and a real service with your news headlines. I am glad the site is back up after your outage.

ThrillNetwork would like to thank Pete Owens for taking time out of his hectic schedule to talk with us about Dollywood and what Public Relations really entails.