Launching the Titanic with Regis Philbin, Neal McCoy, The Liverpool Legends and 20,000 dear friends

As most of you know, one of my clients at Ackermann PR is the new Titanic Museum Attraction in East Tennessee.  Over the past nine months, I have spent a considerable amount of time working to create excitement and buzz about this project.  All of the blood, sweat and tears paid off a week ago with the weekend-long Grand Opening Celebration that featured a christening by Captain Edward J. Smith, a ceremony hosted by Regis Philbin and free outdoor concerts with Beatles cover band The Liverpool Legends (hand picked and managed by George Harrison’s sister Louise Harrison) and country music legend Neal McCoy.  Each night was capped off by a traffic-jam-causing fireworks display that Walt Disney World would have envied.

Through this time, I had the pleasure of working with Mary Kellogg-Joslyn (one of the brightest, most professional, hardest-working people I have ever met) and her husband John Joslyn (who has been to the Titanic two and a half miles beneath the surface of the ocean 32 times).  It was an awesome experience that culminated with a fantastic (and highly successful) grand opening.  More than 20,000 “passengers” boarded the Titanic Museum Attraction during our first days of operation.

The only way I can describe the museum is to ask you to picture yourself looking at the Titanic (half-size exact recreation on the outside) and walking in to get you boarding pass.  Each boarding pass has the name of an actual passenger or crew member who was on board the Titanic.  As you tour the museum, you are in galleries that were constructed from actual Titanic blueprints (to scale).  You are actually walking third class hallways that have the exact ceiling height, hallway width and room sizes that third class passengers stayed in while on board the Titanic.  When you go up the Grand Stair Case (you will immediately think of James Cameron’s Titanic movie) you are literally walking up stairs and looking at master woodcarvings that are exactly as they were on board the real Titanic — and it’s a 100-percent, full size recreation.  You will see the first class suites that are exact replicas of the suite occupied by the Straus family (co-owners of Macy’s Department Stores).

All the while, you will be met by crew members, maids and Titanic passengers in period clothing speaking their native languages.  They have been extensively trained (at “Titanic Academy”) about the history, the artifacts and the stories of the passengers and crew members on board the Titanic.  They are pros and they will likely leave you with some of your best memories of your “voyage” on the Titanic Museum Attraction.  As you wander through the hallways, rooms and galleries, you will see 400 priceless artifacts from the Titanic — including a master key to all of the first class cabins, the only life vest from the Titanic tied to a specific passenger (Madeline Astor), pieces of the actual ship that floated to the surface after she sank and countless personal items belonging to those on board.

This world-class museum– which is also completely interactive and just as appealing to young children and teenagers as it is to adults — is highly unexpected for those accustomed to the go-cart tracks, bungee jumping and t-shirt shops we see so often in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.  This is an attraction unlike anything you will find in Cincinnati, Atlanta, Nashville or Charlotte.  It is completely unexpected for East Tennessee — and we are all fortunate that the Joslyns decided to pull into port here in our part of the world.

The Grand Opening Celebration was covered locally by WBIR, WATE and WVLT television as well as television stations from Nashville, Tri-Cities and Chattanooga.  The Knoxville News Sentinel, The Daily Times and The Mountain Press all gave considerable coverage to the special event and radio stations from all over East Tennessee showed up to do live broadcasts.  Nationally, the event was covered by USA Today, The TODAY Show, Regis & Kelly, ABC News, The New York Post and a large number of travel magazines.

I will run the post-event release I wrote today here, but I am inserting my own photos throughout this post.

More Than 20,000 People Turn Out For Grand Opening Celebration at Titanic Museum Attraction

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee – The new Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. had a star-studded weekend-long Grand Opening hosted by Regis Philbin this weekend.  The event also featured numerous descendants and family members of those on board the Titanic and included a christening of the ship by Captain Edward J. Smith.

The weekend-long Grand Opening Celebration at the new Titanic Museum Attraction included the christening, a special Grand Opening ceremony hosted by Philbin, a free concert by country music legend Neal McCoy, a free concert by Beatles cover band Liverpool Legends (hand-picked and managed by George Harrison’s sister), amazing nightly fireworks displays and special events and performances over a three day period.

More than 20,000 guests from all parts of the nation visited the attraction during its opening weekend.  During the free evening concerts with Neal McCoy and , standing room only crowds overflowed onto the sidewalks and nearby properties.  Traffic on the well-traveled Parkway through Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains National Park came to a halt once the nightly 25-minute fireworks display lit the night sky for miles around.

Titanic Museum Attraction is a half-scale, permanent, three-deck recreation of the Titanic.  The museum houses 20 galleries to display nearly 400 authentic, priceless Titanic artifacts that were either carried from the ship and into lifeboats by passengers and crew, or were found afloat soon after the sinking and quickly salvaged by rescue boats.

Inside the Titanic Museum Attraction, visitors find full-size recreations (built to actual Titanic blueprints) of Third-Class quarters, a First-Class suite, dining rooms and – the museum’s centerpiece – a $1 million exact reproduction of the Titanic’s Grand Staircase.  The First-Class suite in the Titanic Museum Attraction, which is dedicated to Isidor and Ida Straus who co-owned Macy’s Department Stores, was also the cabin used in James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Titanic as Rose’s suite.

In addition to being a world class museum in the truest sense of the word, Titanic Museum Attraction is also highly interactive and offers a hands-on experience for children, teenagers and adults.  The ship is anchored in water to create the illusion of Titanic at sea, and a two-hour self-guided tour gives guests the sensation of sailing on the original ship’s 1912 maiden voyage. Upon entry, each guest receives a boarding pass bearing the name of an actual Titanic passenger or crew member whose fate is revealed on the Memorial Wall at tour end. Along the way, powerful emotions surface as guests:

•   Walk Titanic’s Grand Staircase
•   Touch the frozen surface of an “iceberg”
•   Feel the chill of that fateful “Starry Night”
•   Study some of the largest, most detailed Titanic models ever built
•   Grip the ship’s wheel and follow the Captain’s commands
•   Tour world-class galleries and the rare historical artifacts they hold
•   Sit in a Titanic lifeboat and listen to actual survivors tell their stories
•   Send an SOS from the Marconi Wireless Room
•   Test their balance while standing on mini-decks built to show the ever-steeper slope of Titanic as she sank
•   Watch children eight years and younger explore the special interactive Tot-Titanic Play-and-Learn Room
•   Dive to Titanic’s wreck site via spectacular underwater camera footage

The Titanic Museum Attraction – which is conveniently located to all areas of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville – is now open every day from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. ET.  Tickets are available online at www.TitanicPigeonForge.com or by calling 1-800-381-7670.

Cedar Bay Entertainment, which owns and operates Titanic Museum Attraction, is a privately owned entertainment and development company headquartered in Branson, Missouri, the site of Cedar Bay’s first Titanic Museum Attraction. Since its April 2006 grand opening, it has welcomed more than 2,000,000 guests.