Kickoff Event Welcomes Attendees to IAAPA Expo
![Hal McEvoy onstage at IAAPA Expo](/sites/default/files/styles/default_embedded_media_900/public/images/20211116_Kick-Off-Event-1.png?itok=_t69A7TO)
Leading up to the official opening of the trade show floor, IAAPA Expo’s Kickoff Event on Tuesday morning featured presentations from IAAPA officers, as well as a special keynote, award recognitions, and musical performance.
IAAPA President and CEO Hal McEvoy opened the event with remarks acknowledging IAAPA members’ resilience in the past two years and expressing his gratitude that IAAPA Expo was finally able to reconvene in person for the first time since 2019.
“This year the global IAAPA team has focused on everything we could do to bring us back together again, and here we are in Orlando, ready to meet safely, reconnect, and move forward,” McEvoy said to the audience. “We know how important our Expos are to our members, and we have an exciting week planned for you.”
Michael Collins, chairman of the IAAPA Hall of Fame and Archives Committee, introduced and honored the two newest IAAPA Hall of Fame inductees, Madame Tussaud and Marcelo Gutglas. The IAAPA Hall of Fame was established in 1990 to honor industry legends for their lasting contributions to the global attractions industry.
Scott Maupin, divisional director for Merlin Entertainments, accepted the award on behalf of Marie Tussaud, the household name of wax figures whose legacy still lives on at attractions around the world, and his acceptance was accompanied by a previously recorded video from Tussaud’s great, great grandson, James Tussaud.
“Marie would have been 206 years old on the first of December this year,” he said. “She brought together in her attraction, when she was alive, some of the world’s most interesting and celebrated people, in a way creating a hall of fame. And so now, she’s coming home.”
Gutglas, an electronics engineer and pioneer, is known by many as the father of the Latin American attractions industry and has worked more than 50 years in the business. In his acceptance of the IAAPA Hall of Fame Award, Gutglas thanked his loving family.
“I am thrilled and proud to be here with so many legends and in front of so many IAAPA colleagues. We are not competitors; we are partners in the same industry,” Gutglas said. “I have dedicated my entire life to the entertainment industry, and I definitely do not plan to retire.”
IAAPA 2021 Chairman of the Board Amanda Thompson of Blackpool Pleasure Beach took the stage to officially pass the gavel to 2022 IAAPA Chairman Ken Whiting of Whiting’s Foods.
![Ken Whiting takes the gavel from Amanda Thompson](/sites/default/files/styles/default_embedded_media_900/public/images/20211116_Kick-Off-Event-30.png?itok=iqSGZe8w)
“I’d like to thank the IAAPA team for doing such a spectacular job throughout these two years because we still have an association,” Thompson said, before brandishing a jumbo blue gavel that was then tossed over to Whiting, a symbol of him taking up the mantle.
“It is my honor to be your 2022 IAAPA Chairman,” Whiting said, “but first, and most importantly, Amanda, I want to thank you. This entire room and association owes you an immense debt of gratitude for all that you have contributed and done over your last two years of volunteer service to IAAPA.”
![Amanda Thompson on stage at IAAPA Expo](/sites/default/files/styles/default_embedded_media_900/public/images/20211116_Kick-Off-Event-22.png?itok=dEzcDYC-)
Whiting also thanked his family for supporting him and expressed his gratitude to be given the opportunity to serve IAAPA himself. As the first chairperson for IAAPA whose core responsibilities represent food and beverage (F&B), Whiting said one of his primary areas of concentration is the growing significance of F&B. His second primary objective is to encourage young industry employees and foster their interest in lifelong industry careers.
![Ken Whiting on stage at IAAPA Expo](/sites/default/files/styles/default_embedded_media_900/public/images/20211116_Kick-Off-Event-41.png?itok=CfG-evrD)
“In conclusion, let me just say this, our industry is prepared to come back stronger, and IAAPA is positioned to boldly move forward,” Whiting said. “I look forward to being of service in any way I can, wherever I can, and I thank you in advance for your support because the best is yet to come.”
Whiting introduced the event’s keynote speaker, Dr. Sian Proctor, the first black woman to pilot a civilian spacecraft. Proctor—who is a geological scientist, community college professor, and artist—had the opportunity to pilot a dragon capsule into space with Inspiration 4, operated by SpaceX.
Born in Guam in 1970, Proctor grew up with dreams of the stars, as her father was a former NASA worker. After just barely missing an opportunity to work for NASA in 2009, Proctor thought her childhood hopes to go to outer space may be coming to an end. However, after winning a competition with a poem she wrote during the pandemic, she won the chance of a lifetime. She was launched into Earth’s orbit on Sept. 15, 2021, and her biggest dreams were finally realized.
![Sian Proctor on stage at IAAPA Expo](/sites/default/files/styles/default_embedded_media_900/public/images/20211116_Kick-Off-Event-48.png?itok=S-du2--4)
However, despite all of her background in math, science, and teaching, and even receiving her pilot’s license at age 35, the thing Proctor emphasized was that art was what had awarded her the opportunity.
She played her competition entry video for the audience, a poem about her dream for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) spaces. A point she emphasized as an important component for leadership.
“Where is leadership learned? It’s everywhere, all the time,” Proctor said. “When I think of myself as a leader, and all of those things I’ve labeled myself as, I think about how my leadership has evolved to be inclusive in the space I am inhabiting. When we talk about identity and how to create and cultivate leadership and the identity that we want to have, that stems from thinking about your space to inspire and how you can use your unique space to inspire those within your reach and beyond every single day.”
![Cristina Rae sings to a packed auditorium](/sites/default/files/styles/default_embedded_media_900/public/images/20211116_Kick-Off-Event-56.png?itok=9ND3n3Fo)
To close out the Kickoff Event, “America’s Got Talent” gold buzzer winner Cristina Rae performed Katy Perry’s song “Firework” with a backdrop of projected fireworks behind her. Then, she and the IAAPA officers led a ceremonial countdown to the opening of the trade show floor, concluding it with the symbolic push of a giant red button, and attendees were officially released into the trade show floor.
![IAAPA crew press the big red button](/sites/default/files/styles/default_embedded_media_900/public/images/20211116_Kick-Off-Event-64-%282%29.png?itok=DP0aG76H)