More than 120 Nominees Vie for Coveted Thea Awards, The Experience Industry’s Highest Honors

BURBANK, Calif. USA – More than 120 projects are now under consideration for the 14th Annual Thea Awards, coveted honors of the Experience Industry, conferred by TEA, global trade alliance of creators of compelling places and experiences. The current nominees encompass projects in North America, Europe and Asia and include educational exhibits, museums, heritage centers, theme park attractions and live shows.
TEA’s prestigious Thea Awards Nominating Committee reviews the candidates and
presents a slate of awards to the TEA International Board of Directors for final approval; results will be announced in mid-November 2007, with the awards presented to project owners at a lavish black-tie dinner event March 8, 2008 at the Disneyland Hotel, in Anaheim. The Thea Awards Gala is attended by a cross-section of the industry and is open to the public. Tickets are available through the TEA website, www.teaconnect.org.

“Motion pictures have the Academy Awards. The music industry has the Grammys. The experience industry has the Theas,” says TEA president Craig Hanna, Chief Creative Officer of Thinkwell Design & Production. “The Theas are our industry’s top awards, for the men and women who work tirelessly to bring these amazing experiences to life.”

TEA now announces the annual Thea recipients at the IAAPA Attractions Expo, a major trade event which this year will be held in Orlando, Nov 12-16.

The award categories themselves are flexible. Most are Awards for Outstanding Achievement, classified by type of project - i.e. children’s museum, aquarium, technology, live show, attraction, touring attraction, visitor center - and by budget category. TEA will also generally name one established, influential property that has stood the test of time for the Thea Classic Award (the most recent Thea Classic Award went to Madame Tussauds – London; other past recipients include Disneyland, Efteling Park - Netherlands, Silver Dollar City and Tivoli Gardens – Denmark). And, more often than not, TEA will name one individual each year to receive the Thea Lifetime Achievement Award.

Since its founding in 1991, TEA has striven to win credit and exposure for its members and their unique business niche – the Experience Industry. The Thea Awards have been material in meeting that goal, growing in scope and importance over the years, beginning with the first Theas in 1994 at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles,
where a single award was given – the very first Thea Lifetime Achievement Award – to Harrison “Buzz” Price. Today, a Thea trophy is a much-desired symbol of recognition and achievement.

The Thea Awards have also helped foster good relationships between project owners and project vendors by promoting a better understanding of the vision and teamwork that creates outstanding guest experiences. Each project owner who is presented with a Thea trophy has furnished a comprehensive, official vendor list for TEA to publish. Each vendor on that official list will also be entitled to acquire a Thea trophy acknowledging their contribution to the project. “The Thea Awards fulfill a primary goal of TEA, by specifying who worked on a project and in what role, while simultaneously honoring and acknowledging the vision and support of those who made it possible,” says Thea Awards Committee Chair John Wright, of John Wright Enterprises. “That not only recognizes excellence, it helps perpetuate it.”

Breakdown of nominees
for the 14th Annual Thea Awards
120 + nominees
40 + at an educational institution
25 + at a theme park
25+ outside North America
20 + heritage-related
10 + science-related

About TEA
The TEA (www.teaconnect.org) is an international nonprofit alliance founded in 1991 and based in Burbank, Calif. TEA (formerly Themed Entertainment Association) represents some 6,500 creative specialists, from architects to designers, technical specialists to master planners, scenic fabricators to artists, and builders to feasibility
analysts working in more than 500 firms in 39 different countries. TEA presents the annual Thea Awards and the TEA Summit, and this year will also host the first SATE conference (Story, Architecture, Technology, Experience) Oct. 9-10 in Orlando. TEA also produces a variety of print and electronic publications, including the TEA/ERA Global Theme Park Attendance Report, TEA Sourcebook, and TEA Annual & Directory, available free upon request.