Full house at SeaWorld Orlando for TEA President's Forum

About 175 members of the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) gathered in Orlando on Nov 13, 2016 for the TEA President's Forum, a unique business-to-business forum with SeaWorld executives and exclusive opportunity for TEA members.

SeaWorld CCO Anthony Esparza, TEA Immediate Past President
Steve Birket of Birket Engineering, and TEA COO Jennie Nevin

Top: ‎Brian Morrow, VP Theme Park Experience Design at SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, fields a question. Photos for TEA by Martin Palicki. See many more photos at this link.

SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment recently became a TEA Global Partner (See "Partnership with TEA is Partnership with the Industry"), reflecting a new level of participation that comes from the top - the new corporate management team headed by President & CEO Joel Manby and Chief Creative Officer Anthony Esparza.

One of SeaWorld's initiatives is to share opportunities with the TEA member talent pool. The event began with a presentation and discussion where TEA members heard directly from Esparza and other SeaWorld executives about the new direction being taken at the company, and were invited to ask questions. This was followed by the opportunity to pitch their services and products directly to leaders within the newly established Deep Blue Creative, for an extensive slate of new projects at SeaWorld parks and resorts. 

The TEA President's Forum took place just prior to the annual IAAPA Attractions Expo in Orlando. A few days later, during a press conference, Manby

was quoted saying to a crowd of journalists and bloggers, “We are one year into a three-year plan of accomplishing our new mission - creating experiences that matter. We not only want to have a lot of fun in our parks – and we want our guests to have a lot of fun – but we also want them to help make the world a better place. Our vision as a company is to inspire people to help animals and the natural wonders of the world.”

TEA members who couldn't attend the President's Forum will still be able to connect with SeaWorld - more on this soon.

TEA members meet SeaWorld executives. Clockwise from top left -
First photo: Steve Iandolo (Corp. VP, Resort Development), Nancy Hutson (Corp. VP, Events and Entertainment),
Chris Lau (Corp. Director, Entertainment Services), Anthony Esparza (Chief Creative Officer).
Second photo: Nancy Hutson shakes hands with TEA member Louis Alfieri of Raven Sun Creative.
Third photo: TEA member speaks with Josh Adcock (Corp. Director, Creative Development), 
Brian Morrow (Corp. VP, Theme Park Experience Design)
and Dawn Luttrell (Corp. Sr. Dir. Strategic Sourcing). 
Fourth photo: TEA members Nathan Jones of WhiteWater,
Eric Cantrell of Barco, Dan Schultz of JRA. Fifth photo: Same as third photo.