Themed Entertainment Association (TEA)
Mar 25, 2010 2:32 PM
Location: Burbank, Calif.
Website:www.themeit.com
Markets Served:Experience” environments including
theme parks, museums, zoos and aquariums,
visitors’ centers, malls, hotels, and schools
Demographic:Broad; from landscape architects,
to building trades and owners and operators.
AV Membership: Yes
Member Benefits:Member listings, job board,
events
Key networking opportunity:Meet designers,
architects, and service suppliers working on
a range of project sizes from lower-budget to
international projects
Key events: TEA Summit; THEA Awards, annual TEA SATE conference
Don’t miss: The monthly enewsletter with a roundup of outstanding requests for proposals
(RFPs) and bid tenders; Los Angeles-based program for Emerging Professionals
Many themed environments are large
project-based jobs that bring together smaller
vendors who are at a disadvantage in jobs
that take many years to complete, may be
overseas, and are often paid and negotiated
by big companies on terms that suit big companies.
In an effort to create equality, TEA
was born to give vendors some clout.
Initially, TEA sat on one side of the table
while clients sat on the other. But as mutual
trust and respect grew—and as themed environments
proliferated at all budget levels—
TEA began to accept client members. The
modern TEA was born as a networking and
support association that serves the entire industry
and brings people together to mutual
benefit, says director Gene Jeffers, formerly
VP of public affairs for NAB and head of
media relations for the Red Cross.
The current president is AV integrator
Steve Thorburn, and many past presidents
have come from AV. This month’s THEA
awards honored many AV-heavy projects of
all sizes, and integrators participated in the
TEA Summit, a conference for industry leaders
who meet annually in March.
