Anyone who runs a skate facility will tell you: Marketing them is tough. It requires someone with the right mix of business background and youth-culture knowledge, and it's almost never a cheap proposition. But when skateparks do well, they really do well. We take a look at ways to help yours be one of the successful parks.

When it comes to safety, you've got to do more than just test the waters. You've got to dive right in, making sure your pool protects your patrons and staff from harm and your facility from lawsuits. We offer tips on how to make your aquatic facility as safe as possible.

There's nothing quite as scary as the unknown, and for facilities considering therapeutic recreation programming, fear of the unknown can hinder the process of getting a successful program off the ground. Demystifying that process is the answer. Find out how equipping your staff with the right education, partnering with professionals and selecting the right programming for your community's demographics will provide TR programming that works.

Science is not taught with slide rules anymore nor is computer technology taught on main frames. So why teach physical education in spaces with the same construction technology as 25 years ago?

Education has changed, and so should the buildings where education happens. At the St. Vrain Valley School District in Longmont, Colo., physical education has made the leap into the 21st century of "high-performance schools" with a new breed of gymnasium design.

Getting kids active never has been more challenging. Pastimes that keep kids sedentary seem to grow more numerous by the day, but ones that get them moving can't seem to keep up the pace.

Adding to the problem is that kids today are accustomed to lots of stimulation, the kind that can make throwing a ball through a hoop seem boring. (Throwing a ball through a hoop on a PlayStation video game is another story, though.) Kristin McEwen, executive director for the Cowart Family Ashford Dunwoody YMCA in Atlanta, discovered that firsthand.

A dynamic new band headlined and performed at the most recent SXSW Festivals in Austin, Texas—not a rock band, but a wristband.

For the first time in SXSW history, admission wristbands with embedded RFID (radio frequency identification) chips were used to prevent counterfeiting and over-crowding while increasing public safety and ticket sales.

As the interests and demands of guests change, the worldwide amusement industry is working overtime to develop new experiences, implement new technologies and generate unique thrills. It seems the hard work is paying off in terms of more visitors and higher profits.

It's easier and easier for facilities to bring entertainment to exercisers. Learn how providing entertainment solutions is a simple and convenient way to enhance the exercise experience and how these tools can help facilities differentiate themselves from competitors and retain members.

A new initiative is afoot in New York City to create financially sustainable public parks for the benefit of future generations. Recently, the idea of such a park has been fully embraced with the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City. Integral to this initiative is the concept of incorporating Integrated Maintenance Planning or IMP into the planning and design process.

Our special supplement is a complete guide for all things aquatic. We take a look at facility management (including case studies of successful centers), safety, equipment, staffing, maintenance and more. From risk management to programming, our aquatics guide has it all.

Wanting to add programming that exercises the mind and spirit as much as the body, some rec facilities are looking to challenge courses and climbing walls to build more than muscles. These "experiential learning" courses, along with their climbing wall cousins, help build cooperation, leadership, self-esteem and problem-solving skills, as well as add a new level of youth and adult programming. We take a look at the highs and lows of challenge courses and walls—design issues, along with safety, liability and training considerations.

When it comes to restroom structures in the great outdoors, offering a durable restroom setting with comfortable features and designing for convenience will communicate volumes about the quality and care patrons can expect from the rest of their recreation experience. Find out how to make the most of current materials and design ideas to make a facility's restrooms structures nice necessities patrons will appreciate.

Sports—only a game? That may be true for some people, but it's not a statement you're likely to hear at the Born 2 Run Sports Complex, a unique youth athletic facility that opened in southwestern Pennsylvania last April.

Sports—only a game? That may be true for some people, but it's not a statement you're likely to hear at the Born 2 Run Sports Complex, a unique youth athletic facility that opened in southwestern Pennsylvania last April.

To run a successful facility and retain clients, you need to offer programs that meet their needs. You can help your clients get healthy and fit—and make a profit for your business—by understanding what people want.

IDEA, one of the world's leading membership organizations of health and fitness professionals, conducts fitness programs and equipment surveys to help members pinpoint what clients like. Here are some of the statistics from the 2004 IDEA Fitness Programs & Equipment Survey, the ninth annual survey.

America is facing a startling setback in the new millennium, a crisis of obesity in our children. Childhood obesity knows no cultural, socioeconomic or age boundaries, and in fact it can be found in every city and town across America. The irony is that, despite the steady progress we are constantly making in health advancements and treatments for children, we continue to see our youth gaining weight at an alarming rate. Almost 9 million children are overweight, triple the number of just 20 years ago.

As our world's population continues to increase and our natural resources decrease, the need to change the way we do things becomes more imminent. But just how do we advance conservation efforts and enhance the quality of life for all people?

Incorporating green design is one solution to improve our built environment.

You can learn a lot from Powell, Ohio.

The community just 14 miles north of Ohio's capital city, Columbus, recently underwent an extensive park improvement program, involving nine simultaneous master plans. The advantage of this approach of developing multiple parks at once translated into at least $750,000 to $1 million in savings for the citizens of Powell.

Don't just settle for any scoreboard. We take a look at all the popular scoreboard and timing system options as well as all those extra bells, buzzers and whistles.

Looking to turn that field of dreams into a budget-friendly reality? We uncover the tips, tricks and cost-effective strategies from experienced pros to design high-performance playing fields or to transform existing fields on a limited budget.

In the fitness world, there's always something new on the horizon: new equipment, new workout regimens, new gadgetry. And all of it, according to their creators, is going to change the way people exercise. That always isn't the case, but new ideas do have an impact. We take a look at what's going on in fitness equipment and programming in 2005.

Often a unique partnership produces unique results. The Alberta municipalities of Parkland County, the Town of Stony Plain and the City of Spruce Grove joined forces to produce the $28 million TransAlta Tri Leisure Centre (TLC), which serves as a year-round family fitness center; a much-needed indoor venue for hockey, soccer and other organized sports programs; and a popular social hub for participating communities. The participating governments share in a magnificent resource and never could have independently financed the megaplex.

Looking to re-energize six downtown neighborhood parks, the Green Bay Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry embarked on a $750,000 program to add innovative splash play areas to each park. Using funding from the City of Green Bay Redevelopment Authority, the splash areas represented a creative, relatively low-cost way to bring water fun to many parts of the city while sprucing up parks that needed updating.

In this day and age of flat or declining budgets, it is a rare opportunity to basically start from scratch and rebuild a park from the ground up. This was the case for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Waco Lake in Texas. This 9,000-acre flood-control project recently went through a seven-foot rise to its conservation pool evaluation at the request of the city of Waco, which meant an additional 1,000 acres of park and wildlife habitat had to be flooded.

A facility operator's decision of whether to obtain one or more automated external defibrillators (AEDs) should be given careful consideration. Find out the facts before you make a plan.

The industry offers many choices for locker and restroom products. Installing the right ones requires analyzing the particular needs of a facility and matching them to products. Learn how to make this task an easy one.

Today's managers of recreational aquatic facilities have a lot to worry about. Not only are they responsible for maintenance, safety, supplies and other employees, but often they are responsible for managing more than one facility. Here are four important areas to focus on.

Whether outfitting an outdoor space for the first time or updating for a fresher style, look no further than our pullout primer on site furnishings and park components. From analysis and planning to selection guides and maintenance considerations, we furnish practical answers to questions about properly accessorizing a successful outdoor space.

Whether responding to the highly publicized growth in childhood obesity or creating programming that's attractive to older children, rise to the challenge and succeed with this fickle, marketing-savvy and highly essential kid crowd. We talk to the pros about what works, what keeps kids moving—and what they'll see right through.

Without the right programming, aquatic centers can become expensive liabilities, not revenue-generating assets. There always will be lap swimmers, but they're a tiny fraction of the rest of the population—and the rest of the world might not realize how much a pool has to offer. We look at ways to help get keep an aquatic center bustling with effective programming and scheduling.

Columbia, S.C., isn't terribly cold in winter, but it gets chilly and rainy, and it's certainly not conducive for outdoor soccer. As coach of the girls' varsity soccer team at the local Ben Lippen School, physician Mike Harris lamented the unproductive waiting season, so he decided to do something about it. Combining his desire for an indoor field with a longtime vision of creating a family-focused recreation facility, Harris aimed to score big with Plex Indoor Sports.

As schools around the country face budget cuts, physical-education programs often become casualties. For some kids, school can be the only place where they exercise, and once that is gone, little stands in the way to slow down the nationwide obesity epidemic.

Then there's Buffalo Grove, Ill. A suburb of Chicago, it's home to the 2,000-student Buffalo Grove High School, which exists in a sort of parallel universe to the rest of the world. Not only does the school have 26 different sports for students, it also has a weight-training and cardio room that's nicer than most health clubs, with 14 selectorized weight stations, 18 cardio machines, free weights and three televisions.

Spend a few minutes talking to the Grace brothers about the goals and philosophy behind Leadership Through Athletics, and it becomes clear just how passionately committed they are to their project. They have to be—after all, they broke ground on the 16,250 square-foot facility without a single cent of outside funding, financing it entirely on a personal line of credit. Though their full-time development director (one of only two paid staff members) has been soliciting and obtaining public- and private-sector donations ever since, the center's financial future is uncertain, to say the least.

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has declared April 2005 as National Landscape Architecture Month, and the theme, Design for Active Living, highlights ways community design and access to parks and recreational facilities affect residents' daily activity levels and, in turn, their overall health.

A successful concession area is important to your business on many levels. Patrons will stay at your location longer if they don't have to leave when they are hungry. Having a great selection of snack bar items available will keep customers happy and satisfied. Furthermore, your snack bar is fantastic source of revenue. With the right menu selections and planning, your concession stand can greatly enhance the profitability of your overall operation.

Talk about scene-stealing. The new feature film The Surfer King was shot on location last summer at Hyland Hills Water World in Federal Heights, Colo. The 64-acre waterpark became not only a movie set but one of the stars of the PG-13 flick, which includes actors Alan Thicke (Growing Pains), Cerina Vincent (Power Rangers Lost Galaxy), Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman) and Keri Lynn Pratt (Fat Albert). Get a sneak preview.

Our competition winners have been chosen

With the hopes of highlighting the best and most inspiring projects the recreation industry has to offer, our 2005 innovative facility picks are unveiled. We are proud to showcase these facilities—new or recently renovated, from community centers and universities to health clubs and aquatic complexes, and everything in between—that are helping to set standards of excellence in the recreation community.

Winner Profiles

Paul Derda Recreation Center
Grandview Community Center
Georgia Institute of Technology's Campus Recreation Center
Kern Center at the Milwaukee School of Engineering
Westfield State College's Woodward Athletic Center
Morgan Hill Aquatics Center
Laramie Community Recreation Center
The Keller Pointe Recreation Center
Starpointe Residents Club at Estrella Mountain Ranch
Fort Lupton Community Recreation Center
The Trails Recreation Center
West River Community Center
Sea Lion Aquatic Park
South Montgomery County YMCA at Branch Crossing

Highlight Profiles

South Summit Aquatic and Fitness Center
Rock River Rapids Aquatic Park
Dolphins Cove at Prairie Athletic Club
Milford High School
The University of Alabama Student Recreation Center

Although first impressions count, it is spaces like restrooms and locker rooms that make first impressions last. In today's culture, where concerns like privacy and aesthetics are more important than ever, these intimate areas are expected to do more than just provide a place to change. Find out how the essentials of good design still can be achieved even on a tight budget.

We give you the tools and information to determine if a facility is friendly to all users—and offer tips to make it better, including the latest ADA updates, new design ideas and service examples to improve universal accessibility, indoors and out.

Are you finding your programming stale, static, dull and unable to meet needs of your participants? Have you considered broadening your recreational programs except that your business lacks the necessary facilities? These questions can be answered by expanding your programming outdoors.

To stay vital, recreation and community centers, like any business, always must be on the lookout for fresh ways to serve new groups and specialized populations. Targeting and tailoring programming to an underserved population not only extends a facility's reach into the community but can bolster its bottom line as well.

The birth of a newfound market is always a good thing, and a prime example is new moms.

If you're part of an athletics, physical education, fitness or recreation department, there's a good chance you are affiliated with a facility being constructed or renovated during the course of this year. According to the 2005 Outlook for U.S. Construction Activity, presented by McGraw-Hill Construction, there will be an increase in educational building and continued building of other institutional facilities in 2005.

When it comes to sports and recreation surfaces, what's underfoot can make or break everything else in a facility. If it's the wrong flooring, it can all go downhill from there. But the right choices, made after careful research and assessment, can make all the difference. We look at factors to consider, profile facilities and provide information to help facility managers make the best surfacing decision.

An ice arena could be ailing, and you might not even realize it. We offer an easy checkup, complete with tips to make the facility healthier—financially, physically and recreationally.

Focusing on extended play: Treated to attractive, stimulating equipment since birth, today's playground consumers—kids—have become a tough sell. We look at the latest designs and trends that even will keep older kids coming back to playgrounds and fight the "too cool to play" syndrome.

Hastings, Neb., can be considered a small city capable of creating big noise, especially when it comes to game night in the Lynn Farrell Arena at Hastings College. The 79,000-square-foot arena is quite unique considering the facility not only meets the needs of a growing athletic program but also provides additional classroom space without constructing a stand-alone classroom building.

What does Australia have to do with Santa Clara, Calif.?

The desert-filled Down Under continent provides the theme for, ironically, a new waterpark at Paramount's Great America. While plenty of amusement parks around the country have waterparks within them, Paramount's Great America was California's first foray into combining the two under one admission price.

Aquatic venues are exceptional avenues for people to achieve healthy pursuits. Yet the water environment also brings unique hazards, including drowning, recreational water illness, diving injury, suction entrapment, electrocution, and slip-and-fall injuries.

What about long-term excitement when it comes to splash play areas? With most manufacturers offering a "pick your part" service, you're invited to mix and match components and assemble an attractive splash play area. This approach may result in short-term excitement for the community. However, unless the products have been carefully selected with users in mind, the novelty may be short-lived.

Composting toilet systems are an environmentally sound, practical alternative to flush, vault and portable facilities. There's no water wasted for flushing, pollution caused by sewers and septic systems is reduced, and composting toilet systems allow you to put nutrients back where they belong, in the soil, not in the water.

Skateboard—the word alone may send chills up your spine if you have been impacted by this sports trend. The increased popularity of skateboarding has created new challenges and issues for our society to address.

Since the advent of the modern waterpark in the late 1970s, technology has grown by leaps and bounds to create attractions that go way beyond a wave pool or tube water slide. Even local aquatic centers have reaped big rewards from installing innovative yet reasonably priced waterpark-like features. Take a look at ways your facility can attract business by getting creative.

Outfitting your athletic space with the right components can seem a daunting task. Get a handle on the basic options and bonus extras that will keep your facility shooting and scoring for years to come.

Food can make or break a facility. With so much focus on healthy food choices these days, we offer some hearty tips for adding nutritious—and appealing—options to your menu.

Sometimes keeping patrons happy can feel like trying to wrestle a hungry tiger. Instead of letting them devour you and your staff, learn how to have them eating out of your hand with some good observations and diplomacy.

It's a budgeting problem more cities probably wish they had: how best to spend the approximately $10 million donated to the city by a recreation-minded benefactor looking to provide indoor and outdoor facilities for residents' play and exercise. The city of Moscow, Idaho, is lucky enough to have this problem and is proceeding as most small towns with limited tax bases would: carefully and prudently, making every dollar stretch.

It used to be a Playboy, but the Grand Geneva has turned into a real family guy. With the addition of Timber Ridge Lodge and its indoor waterpark, Moose Mountain Falls, a resort that began its life as the Playboy Club added a new spark by creating a separate segment catering to a family audience year-round with a wide range of programs and opportunities.

The IPRA launched a Web log—known as The Blog Spot—earlier this year. The site, which is being billed as the nation's first blog aimed at recreation professionals, features up-to-the minute news, chat rooms, pictures and polls.

As parks and recreation professionals, let us not forget that play is incredibly important to the development of a child's social, emotional, cognitive and physical development as well as to their creativity and imagination. Conversely, a growing body of research shows that a lack of free, spontaneous play can be harmful to the developing child.

If you're responsible for maintaining water quality in a regulated pool or spa, then you're familiar with the color-matching tests used to monitor parameters such as pH, chlorine, bromine, copper and iron. However, it's important to perform these tests under the right lighting conditions because the light source can affect your color perception. Learn how understanding this concept can help you to maximize the accuracy of your test results.

In today's world, it's all about convenience. Every time you turn around there's something new to make your life "better"—just about everything has a quick fix, except fitness.

You've probably heard the phrase "Champagne taste on a beer budget." Superior finishes are plentiful when your budget is plenty big. But when recreation facilities are designed within a strict budget, how do you jazz it up without breaking the bank?

It takes more than just a hammer and some nails to build the perfect shelter or gazebo. These days the process requires creativity, forethought and lots of information. We give you the tools for selecting the ideal outdoor structure, from prefab to custom-made—and how to protect it from vandals and the elements.

When lighting is done incorrectly, it's really done incorrectly. It can make it difficult or impossible for athletes to play their sports. Illuminating a venue may be no easy task, but it's a manageable one. We show you the steps you can take to make sure you do it effectively and efficiently.

Step classes and water aerobics are fine, but to keep women interested in their fitness regimens, recreation facilities are offering a lot more. The hottest trend in women's fitness is programming that celebrates femininity, classes that engage female patrons physically and indulge their imagination.

From lights and latches to HVAC and pool systems, the devil, as they say, is in the details. Keeping a complex facility humming year after year starts with asking the right questions. Find out from experts in the field how to achieve a cost-effective and sanity-saving maintenance approach with results you, your staff and your patrons will definitely notice.

While one of the most common complaints of swimmers entering a pool is "cold" water, summertime swimmers at Rahway Branch YMCA in Rahway, N.J., regularly voiced criticism that the 200,000-gallon indoor pool was too hot.

When Chuck Haines left sunny California to return home and take over operations of Shady Creek RV Park & Campground, he knew that the facility would consume all of his time. With aspirations of improving the campground, Haines realized he would have to find a new way of doing things if he planned to fit in more than just day-to-day upkeep.

This mother-daughter duo was the catalyst for a new playground at McCosh Park—perhaps one of few fully accessible play systems in the state of Washington.

Participation in fitness and wellness activities and in recreational team sports contributes to the health, well-being and education of the whole student, helping to render his or her academic life more productive—and successful, which is the ideal held dear by all educators.

For decades pool operators have used chemicals to neutralize the effects of chloramines and bacteria. A costly battle in time and material, but there is a solution.

Sure, you've heard the term batted around, but what exactly is a green building anyway?

Packed with scores of ideas, this reference tool was designed to help recreation facilities tackle their most persistent and universal challenges, covering all the big basic questions. Consider it an industry guidebook of sorts; chock full of straightforward, problem-solving tips on everything from aquatic attractions, food service and guest amenities to site furnishings, outdoor restrooms and playground surfacing, and many major recreation challenges in between.

Landscape architecture, often the ho-hum wallflower of facility focus, is growing beyond its dutiful splashes of color and regimented, predictable patterns. Gardens are becoming the star attraction. Find out how many cutting-edge parks and recreational facilities are using interactive and stunning landscape features to bring in record-breaking numbers of visitors and revenues alike.

It takes more than nice equipment to make health facilities successful. The ones that do well mix the right ingredients—equipment, amenities, staffing and programming—to build a sustainable, satisfied customer base. Take a look at some clubs that have used this model and what other facilities can learn from them.

While Mark Twain once described golf as a good walk spoiled, almost nothing can spoil a good round of golf faster than a foul restroom out on the course. Such remote restrooms often are handicapped by their own isolation, sometimes situated without any access to sewer, water or electricity. Very much, well, in the rough.

This summer the kids of Laredo, Texas, were busy making movies and building robots, thanks to Tech Rec, otherwise known as the Lamar Bruni Vergara Technological Recreation Center. Only the second such facility in the country, this inner-city recreation center is devoted almost entirely to tech programs, from filmmaking and robotics to computer graphic design, Web-site development, and getting the most out of the Internet.

Thought to be a fad in the late 1970s and early 1980s, dance exercise (later to be known as aerobics) has become a mainstay of fitness programming, even as some industry experts question the value of it. Since its inception, when disco was king, aerobics has transformed the industry. Now under the category title of group exercise, aerobics and other forms of group activity continue to evolve, addressing the needs of a more diverse membership and older population.

Many times, so much energy is put into the funding, design and build of a skatepark that frequently key players in the game forget about planning for the day-to-day operation.

The "art" of creating special human places has been around a few thousand years, but the practice has never been more important than now in the quest for the ultimate guest experience. Believe it or not, your facility is being judged by every ticket-holder, vendor, maintenance worker and employee in the building. The "facility experience" has become such an important part of our culture that future consumer and financial success depends on it.