THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 30, 1994 TAG: 9412300474
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The three seasonal displays of scenic lights in Hampton Roads, all of which will continue through Sunday night, have been a dazzling success.
Together the three have drawn more than 450,000 spectators.
Each reaped a sizable profit, part of which will be used to improve next year's extravaganzas.
At the drive-through shows of the Norfolk Botanical Garden off Azalea Garden Road and Newport News Park off Jefferson Avenue, officials are pondering a possible arrangement through which visitors to one show would receive a discount on tickets to the other.
This season each show drew about 200,000 visitors.
Both shows might benefit financially from some such deal.
And, in the process, the crossing might help overcome some motorists' inertia at the thought of having to go through a tunnel to visit the other side of Hampton Roads, observed Peter Lawrence, the Botanical Garden's marketing and development director.
That would indeed be a breakthrough.
If Hannibal's army, which in 218 B.C. crossed the Pyrenees and Alps to attack Roman forces, had been forced to go through the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, it never would have reached Italy. It would have made an elephantine gridlock.
Figuring 42,000 cars at $7 a car with four or so visitors, the Botanical Garden stands to clear $70,000 after expenses. Lawrence hopes visitors return by day to enjoy the Garden's natural beauty.
At Newport News Park, Mike Nealer, superintendent of park operations, said that in this second season of the show, the count of autombiles along the route was down slightly, but visitors in buses had increased.
Admission at Newport News Park is $6 per car and $25 per bus. Nealer had not yet figured this season's profit. He, too, hopes visitors will be lured to come back by day to see the Park's intrinsic glories.
The light show at the Virginia Zoo off Granby Street, where admission was $3 per person, drew upwards of 50,000 visitors, development director Glenda Nelson reported.
A leisurely walk-through tour of the scenic lights also included a variety of entertainment. Along the way, children enjoyed petting llamas and pigs.
An unexpected attraction, even to the zoo keepers, was a newly born tapir that drew as much attention as the outline of a towering dinosaur blazing in red neon through the trees. It would have startled even a dino.
The mammal house, with hippos, rhinos and elephants Monica and Lisa, was open and lighted as was the birds exhibit.
When you come down to it, any day at the zoo is liable to be like Christmas.
There is time yet to see any or all three of the shows tonight, Saturday and Sunday night. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Lights adorn the Renaissance court at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.
by CNB