The BigBear training program
The leadership program in Kongeparken is called “Storebjørn” (or “BigBear”), and was awarded the Spirit Award in 2006 for being the best management training program among all the amusement parks in the world.
The King and Queen of Bears have a clear goal of Kongeparken becoming the best theme park in Scandinavia. In the process of reaching this goal, all new managers are sent to take part in a 10 day long, intense management training program at the IAAPA-expo (International Assosiation of Amusement Parks and Attractions), Florida, USA.
As well as being schooled in front line supervising by the world’s brightest people within this field, we get to experience theme parks such as Disney World, Universal Studios and Island of Adventures - behind the scenes. By doing this we are given an invaluable chance to learn how the best of the best manage to create magic for all their guest every single day.
At the end of the expo, the BigBears write a report from the training program. Mine was 70 pages long, and contained information obtained from over 15 courses as well as learning points and pictures from our behind the scenes visits to Disney World and the Universal-parks. The process of finishing the report took 2 months.
In addition of being a summer seasonal theme park, Kongeparken is also open for one month during the Christmas season. During this one month period, Kongeparken is transformed to “Julenissens Hemmelige” Verden (“Santa’s Secret World”), a pre sold special event lasting three hours. The number of guests attending each show is five hundred. Both the time bound and the number of guests attending offers the BigBears an uniqe opportunity to test their new management and leader skills in action, giving them a smooth transition to the everyday management challenges they will experience in the summer season.
The BigBears have all worked as front-line cast members in the park for at least one year before casted as BigBears. The age of the BigBears? Normally between 18 and 21.
To obtain new ideas, the park cast new BigBears each year. The cost of the BigBear program is estimated to 60.000 NOK ($11.200) per person attending (normally three).
