On the season 5 finale of ‘Yes, We Are Open’ Al visits the PEI International Shellfish Festival in Charlottetown for some good eats, live music, and a great conversation with Matthew Jelly, President at Maritime Fun Group. As the leading operator of family attractions in Atlantic Canada, the name says it all. The business run by Matthew and his family is FUN! So how do you turn fun into a profitable business? And how does that business survive through a pandemic? Listen to Matthew’s story to find out.
You can learn more about Maritime Fun Group at maritimefun.com.
Credits:
Al Grego:
Hello everyone, I'm Al Grego and this is the season finale of Yes, We Are Open Podcast.
Back in Charlottetown, PEI. This story actually takes place the day before my visit to Striker's Den. As I had mentioned in that episode, today was a beautiful, warm, sunny day perfect for my drive from Nova Scotia. You never would've known that there was a once category five hurricane on its way. The interview I'm going to this evening was originally scheduled for tomorrow, but that's when the storm was supposed to hit the island. So I made arrangements to do it today, thinking I'll probably be spending tomorrow locked up in my hotel room waiting out the storm. That's not what happened as you may have heard from my episode two weeks ago.
It feels like Hurricane Lee, or at least the threat of it, has been chasing me all over Eastern Canada during this trip. Thankfully it never caught me and it never will. I was so concerned that my flight back to Toronto was going to be delayed, but it wasn't. It departed on time and even landed 20 minutes early in Toronto.
But back to this story, since I arrived in Charlottetown, the weather has begun to turn. The wind is picking up and it's beginning to drizzle. I've arrived at the Charlottetown Event Grounds, where they're holding the Prince Edward Island International Shellfish Festival, an annual showcase of PEI shellfish and agricultural products. I'm very excited to witness this. I was afraid they were going to cancel due to the impending storm, but I was assured the festival was still a go. When I arrived at the event grounds, I saw the massive tent under which the entire festival was taking place. Now the sight of the tent and in the news of the impending storm didn't make me feel any more optimistic, but once I was inside the tent, I actually felt quite sheltered. The din of activity was beginning to pick up. It's expected that 10,000 people will attend the festival over the four days. I walked into the massive tent. On one side there are bleachers set up around a kitchen stadium where world renowned chefs are currently whipping up their best seafood plates.
Speaker 2:
All right, so we'll head back and we'll check on Chef Michael who's frantically working at the back. Chef now is here. I'm going to get it put away.
Al Grego:
This is part of the Garland Canada International Chef Challenge. It's quite the production. On the opposite end of the tent is a huge stage where various bands will play throughout the day into the evening. They'll also hold a Caesar Making and Oyster Shucking Competition, PEI Potato Chowder Championship, and much, much more. Between the stage and the kitchen stadium are rows and rows of tables where thousands of visitors will sit, eat, drink, and enjoy the music. There's a raw oyster bar, a bar for alcohol, and a culinary pavilion. It's all so much to take in. I can't wait to get started, but first I need to buy shellfish bucks. No money is accepted at any of the various vendors, only shellfish bucks in the form of a card that you load when you first enter the tent at one of several kiosks. Those kiosks all have Moneris POSs connected to them. And that brings me to why I'm actually here, the business that's operating this payment system and the subject of this week's story, Maritime Fund Group.
After sampling some of the delicious food at the festival, I pry myself away from the tent back to the offices at the event grounds to meet up with Matthew and he and I settle in one of the offices for our interview.
Matthew Jelly:
Matthew Jelly, President Maritime Fund Group.
Al Grego:
When did Maritime Fund Group Open?
Matthew Jelly:
Started in 1999 when my brothers and I partnered with the owner of another amusement park to purchase the Magic Mountain Water Park in Moncton, New Brunswick. He had owned the Sandspit in Cavendish and the Sandspit Amusement Park in Parley Beach, New Brunswick. And we were looking as a way to describe the organization even though they were all separate companies, a bit of an umbrella, and the concept of Maritime Fund Group came about. And then by 2005 when I made this a full-time career, the Maritime Fund Group became more solidified as an organization.
Al Grego:
So one day you just wake up in the morning and say, "I'm going to buy an amusement park"? I mean, what's your background?
Matthew Jelly:
My paternal grandparents were actually a schoolteacher and a nurse or a principal and a nurse. And that education and learning aspect has always been a big part of who we were growing up. And our parents as schoolteachers really emphasized us learning and going after our education and that. And my oldest brother's in investment banking, my next brother's an engineer, I'm a lawyer and then my youngest brother has a business degree.
Al Grego:
All of you guys are underachievers.
Matthew Jelly:
We have multidisciplinary approach. Monopoly games were pretty competitive in our house...
Al Grego:
Oh, I bet.
Matthew Jelly:
To the point that it was hard to find people on the outside to play with us. But camping, amusement parks, all of that were big parts of our childhood and many of our best memories and even road trips to Disney World. And yes, road trip we drove, it was about three weeks. A week to drive down, a week in Florida, and a week home in the summer of 1988 or so, and then we went again in the winter for the Canada Games in 1991. But those memories as a family and that time together, my parents did a far better job than I'll ever do of the time we spent together. So started out with a small afternoon paper route in Summerside. My brothers all had that paper route as well. We took some of our paper route money and bought some trailers. Our parents were school teachers. We camped seasonally in Cavendish. We pooled our money together and purchased some used trailers, rented them out, and then that ultimately became the money that we used to buy a water park in 1999.
Al Grego:
How old were you?
Matthew Jelly:
I would've been 20 going on 21 at the time and just finished my third year of university. Two of my brothers are a little older, one a little younger. Took a number of presentations to the banks, but we got a deal done and ultimately by that time we each had a number of years of experience in the industry and we were well positioned to be the buyer for the business.
Al Grego:
I was going to ask you, did you have any previous experience working at a park?
Matthew Jelly:
Yeah. Well I started in 1990, a very simple role at the Sandspit Amusement Park handing out putters. And by my third day I had been operating a cash register. And so by 1999, I actually had nine seasons of experience doing that. And my brothers were all in a similar situation.
Al Grego:
That water park they bought was Magic Mountain in New Brunswick, but Matthew and his brothers weren't done. It was like they began that childhood game of Monopoly only now it was in real life and they were on the same team.
Your partnership with your three brothers, right?
Matthew Jelly:
Three brothers and then longtime business partner, Adam, who does a lot of our technology work. And then in our realm of companies, we have the original owner of the Sandspit is still a minority partner in our Shining Waters Family Fun Park. Otherwise, it's a first generation family business when we talk about it as a whole group. And really neat to have the chance to work with my three brothers. I became a member of the Law Society. I got called to the bar. I actually thought I was moving to Vancouver to join a tax law firm and Parks Canada purchased Rainbow Valley in the Center of Cavendish, announced they were closing it, and the chance presented itself with my brothers, with our business partner, Larry and Beverly, to build a brand new park, Shining Waters Family Fun Park. And so on October 17th, 2005, we broke ground.
And on July 1st, 2006, we opened a 37 acre family fund park, which was a crazy construction project and I wish I could get it as much done now in eight months as I did that year. But it was my sole focus and I had the support of my brothers and my partners and they took on different parts of it, but it was a huge undertaking and I guess ultimately defined my career. And that was the inflection point of it being a fun hobby and a seasonal thing to this is going to be year round and this is what I'm going to devote my life to.
Al Grego:
So take me behind the scenes a bit here. How does one procure rides for an amusement park?
Matthew Jelly:
Yeah, so it's just as easy as Google usedrides.com is actually an online marketplace. There's a number of other online and in-person brokers.
Al Grego:
Wow.
Matthew Jelly:
That's 18, 20 years that that's been a big part of the process in Atlantic Canada, and with the short season. Our operating season's about 80 days, so used rides and equipment that we can fix and maintain and carry on is really an important part of our business model. We do have some brand new attractions that we've purchased over the years, but we do operate in the used and some cases nearly new marketplace. But before the online marketplaces, it was in-person auctions and you would literally fly or drive to a destination, have to have trucks on standby in case you bought something because it could be 48, 72 hours that you have to get the items off of the auction site when a park was liquidated or whatever it might be. But now so much of it is online working with the online marketplaces and in some cases the manufacturers partner with brokers and rides that come in on trade. And so over the last 34 years, we've developed relationships with a number of those people and that's helped us to continue to add to our properties.
Al Grego:
So you mentioned you have three amusement parks.
Matthew Jelly:
Yeah, Sandspit Amusement Park in Cavendish, Shining Waters Family Fun Park in Cavendish, and then two of my brothers operate the Magic Mountain Complex now in New Brunswick, it has four different components. It has a water park, a ride park, four miniature golf courses, and an arcade and family entertainment center. So Magic Mountain is a major attraction and my brother John has done a great job there.
We operate a number of other attractions in the Cavendish area. So we have Cavendish Beach Adventure Zone, which is a laser tag, a haunted motel, an outdoor miniature golf course, an indoor blacklight miniature golf course, an escape room, and a family entertainment center. We have the Mariners Cove Boardwalk, which has a Ripley's Believe It or Not auditorium franchise. It has a wax museum, a outdoor mini golf course, a mining attraction, a giant maze. We have about 4,500 square foot arcade that we operate in Cavendish. And then we have a number of food outlets, Beaver Tales Pastry, the Dairy Bar, a couple of cafes that serve Starbucks products under a license agreement there. And our food service outlets in our amusement parks and at the National Park site as well, Green Gables Heritage Place.
Al Grego:
And you operate events such as this, the Shellfish Festival.
Matthew Jelly:
So during the pandemic, we had decided eight or nine years ago to bring our ticketing and our online in-house. My business partner Adam, had an interest and a software engineering background to take this on. And we built our own software during the early days of COVID. It allowed us to be nimble and to implement reservations and capacity limits and contact tracing and all those things. And people started coming to us and saying, who's doing your ticketing? How do we get in this?
Al Grego:
Right.
Matthew Jelly:
And so we made the decision to bootstrap a new business, the Tidal Event Management Systems. And so we do two main things, we do online ticketing and your on-site box office as a fully integrated solution, but we also do on-site spending through a digital token system. So today I think we have 13 Moneris terminals deployed on our kiosk and our box offices. And then that supports 34 points of sale inside the site. So it pushes the volume through fewer Moneris terminals, but then allows the whole site then to be under our management. And so it's a neat use of technology, but it also has that event organizer-centric design to give them control over what's happening and there's no disputes over who's selling what and what their commissions and that should be.
So growing up there was four different people running and building attractions in the Cavendish area.
Al Grego:
Okay, that's a lot... I haven't been there, but I feel like that's a small place to...
Matthew Jelly:
It's a town of 350 residents.
Al Grego:
And it's got two theme parks.
Matthew Jelly:
Two theme parks, and like eight to 12 other attractions.
Al Grego:
It sounds like the most fun place on earth.
Matthew Jelly:
Yeah. No, I think it's among the most fun places on earth. I think it is by far the greatest collection of family attractions in Atlantic Canada and in many ways... Okay, Canada's Wonderland is bigger, La Ronde is bigger, but you can't walk to 10 other attractions.
Al Grego:
Right.
Matthew Jelly:
Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls is similar but quite a bit different. Obviously, a bit more of an urban environment, whereas Cavendish, you have that rural aspect, you have these amusement parks and attractions, you have the natural beauty of Cavendish Beach and the uniqueness that is there. And then you have the cultural heritage of Lucy Maud Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables. And so Cavendish is a great place to live, even whether it's seasonally or year round. I love it there year round. You have a national park community to basically yourself for nine months and then it's a great place to invest and that's certainly a great place to visit.
Cavendish has been a big part of my life since my earliest memories and growing up in the campground and all of that has been a big part of who I was and when the decisions were about where to live and where to move and what career to take on the chance to stay in Prince Edward Island and to do something different and do something that maybe hadn't been done before. That seasonal tourism business as a year-round job certainly appealed to me and 18 years later of doing this full time, there's none of that that I would change.
Al Grego:
Up next, Matthew and his brothers have successfully grown their business over the past 20 plus years, but you know what's coming? Will they be able to survive empty theme parks or capacity restrictions? Let's find out.
You're listening to Yes We Are Open. Matthew Jelly and his brothers have built Atlantic Canada's leading operator of family attractions and Maritime Fun Group. Their list of properties and attractions is impressive, but just like one of the roller coasters in their theme parks, their business is about to take a sudden drop followed by many left turns may be a loop or two or a spiral and well, you know what I mean. Do they lose their lunch? Let's find that.
What has been your greatest struggle in the last 24 years?
Matthew Jelly:
24 years in ownership and then 1990 was when I started, so 34 years in hospitality, 34 seasons in hospitality. I think all the things that you would expect are there, weather's difficult, seasonality is difficult, construction, building things, doing things that are a little out there, roller coasters, whatever it might be, those are all things that are things that we worked through.
The one thing that we never expected to deal with and we were thrust into in this early spring of 2020 was the realization that our businesses could be closed and things that we took for granted could change. And I think you combine that with your family and the schooling and all the things that were going on and the seasonality of our business and the pressure that puts and just the timeline of everything shutting down in March 2020, trying to open in June 2020. Those three months as far as real sleepless nights and real stress, and that might be cliche to say, but I mean clearly that was the most difficult challenge of our career.
Al Grego:
Sure.
Matthew Jelly:
But then the other side of it was the relationships we had built, the team that we had built within our office and in our organization. You guys, you're working from home, we're rebuilding our entire ticketing system to manage what we think the world's going to look like.
Al Grego:
Right.
Matthew Jelly:
Marketing, you have to figure out how to pull back our investments that we are spending because we don't know what's coming tomorrow. But then you used to be trying to sell thousands of tickets a day and now you can only sell a couple hundred. HR wise, we don't know what these things are going to look like. We don't know who's going to be able to work, we don't know who's going to be willing to work, but we need a team to try to do this.
Al Grego:
Sure.
Pre-COVID, like maybe in your heyday, roughly, you don't have to give exact numbers, but how many staff would you have had compared to maybe 2021?
Matthew Jelly:
Yeah, so 2019 we would've had 350 staff on our PEI operations, but in the winter that's down to eight to 15 depending on the projects and stuff we have going on.
Al Grego:
So there's seasonal staff as well, right?
Matthew Jelly:
Seasonal staff and year-round staff. And then you have your permanent seasonal staff that might work six months. So you have a lot of staff who work three months, a lot of staff who work six months, and then we have a smaller core group that works year-round. Coming out of that, so 2019 we would've had 350, the summer of 2020 where we were opening under restrictions and different hours and procedures, we might've had 150 people type thing.
Al Grego:
Half.
Matthew Jelly:
Yeah, basically half.
Our seven-day-a-week amusement parks were opening four days a week and that was just trying to make sure we packed everything we could into the days that we were open and even with the reduced numbers you want to ensure a sell-out that you were getting most out of every day and trying to look ahead and say, maybe Tuesday's going to rain next week, maybe we'll sell tickets for Wednesday instead? And so all the adjustments that came with that. But our team, as I say, the big challenges during that time and there was a lot, was mostly then overcome with the gratitude of how our team came together and took on the task and that we did get together to serve our guests and we did stay open. There was a lot of challenges. There was a lot of sleepless nights, there was a lot of stress. My partner being in healthcare meant that she had a whole other group of concerns and some days I probably should have felt more guilty about being concerned about financing or hand-washing rules when she was dealing with a much different stress at the hospital.
But for my employees and for my community, we didn't know what was coming next. We didn't know if businesses could open. We didn't know if people would come. We didn't know what the winter was going to bring and how long the financial supports and that would be there. Looking back, how we made it through and a lot of it doesn't make sense right now when you look back at it and if you knew what you knew now what would you do different? But the whole idea that businesses could be shut for weeks, months just doesn't compute in anything that we had done for planning before then. Like normal financial planning for a tourism attraction might be up or down five, 10, 15 percent would be your sensitivity analysis. It would never be 80 percent down at what that looks like.
Al Grego:
And that's what you're looking at [inaudible 00:20:51]?
Matthew Jelly:
Yeah, when you can only sell a quarter as many tickets as you could, and you were only open for three or four days and you were only open for eight weeks instead of 12 weeks. That's what we dealt with. For 2020 we were down 80 percent for 2021 maybe we got half that back and then by 2022 we were back to "normal".
Al Grego:
Can you describe a little bit of the feeling when you were able to finally open the parks up full time again and have full staff and see full gates?
Matthew Jelly:
So I think there's two different scenarios to that. I think there's the when we first opened under the restrictions in that we were so proud of what we had come through and that we had done it and then it was complaints about, well, why do I have to book ahead, or why is that attraction closed, or why can't we do that, and why are you guys doing these things? And it's like without these we don't open. So we took a few lumps and by the second week it was, we're so glad you're open. It's so glad we can get out and do something normal as a family and then the wow, we like it there's no line-ups. So then we're going to explain that we hope that changes sometime.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Matthew Jelly:
But by 2022, that's actually when COVID hit Prince Edward Island. So PEI had been so isolated in a bubble and in the Atlantic bubble, and so our first experience with exposures and staff absences was our opening month, and school groups, particularly in June 2022 and scrambling and dealing with people and isolations and all that all through 2022. So business was back to normal, attendance was back to normal, but our operations were a mess at that point of... Sandspit's opening week seven of my eight top managers were off. And so me and this other manager were running the park for school days, which the fact I am still involved in operations and I can still figure most things out, and that's a week that's all hands on deck. There's graduations going on, there's staff coming and going, you're training new staff. It was a really hard time. And so 2022 was nothing near normal.
This year, 2023, there wasn't that uncertainty about what was going to happen. We had a relatively clear outlook and it felt normal. But whether it's 2020, 21, 22, 23, that first day that we go from 280 days of prep work to kids on a roller coaster never gets old. And I don't know that it felt any different in 23 than it did in 2020 or 21 or 22.
Al Grego:
Okay.
Matthew Jelly:
The reason why we work so hard all winter is for that day when we stop being set up and tear down organization and we become operations and you hear kids laugh and you see them running around with their friends and their school group and you realize why you do it and why our whole team does it. Where our office is, the whir of the roller coaster at Shining Waters is noticeable in the background. Our staff never know in the office when the first run of the roller coaster is going to go even for testing earlier in June and the first time you hear it make a full turn, the whole mood changes in the office.
We were actually in the process of getting verified on Moneris to have what we call tethered terminals to our in-house develop point of sales system that then later graduated to become our ticketing and event company. That was a crucial change for us and gave us a whole lot of flexibility and changed our internal processes and started our digital transformation. That certification process was really important to us. I think that they supported us, there was no new credit rules or anything that came in during the pandemic, so I think all that was very supportive. But for us, yeah, it's the convenience and reliability that they gave us of being our one-stop solution. The fact that we have a human account manager that we call that lives in our greater community here in the maritime provinces is crucial to us.
Al Grego:
Who's that?
Matthew Jelly:
Monica Chapman. So when we work with other people and other payment providers call us, it's do you have a human and does that human live in Atlantic Canada? And if the answer is no, we're not even going to have a conversation. For us, having a human, and a great human... Monica has been a great support to our business, has been a huge difference for us. And until there's changes in that, we wouldn't be looking anywhere else.
Al Grego:
Coming up after the break, we find out what the future holds for Maritime Fun Group.
Speaker 1:
Success in business doesn't come without moments of struggle moments when you had to face your challenges head-on. As the proud partner of Canadian business, Moneris plays a critical role in empowering businesses with the payment processing tools they need to succeed. Together we are building stronger businesses where business owners everywhere can stand up to their challenges without slowing down. Moneris, proud partner of Canadian business.
Al Grego:
Welcome back to Yes We Are Open. With Business finally returning to normal this year for Maritime Fun Group, Matthew and his brothers can once again start looking at the future of the business. What does that future look like? Let's find out.
It looks like things are back to normal, business as anyways back to normal. In terms of your employee count, are you back to the same level?
Matthew Jelly:
We're actually higher than ever. This year the labor market has changed the last number of years. We had more part-time staff this year, so the numbers higher. We also acquired a campground, so we took on 30, 35 new tourism professionals in that transaction. We are looking to expand and grow our campground. We have a huge renovation going on at the Sandspit Amusement Park. We're now planning one at Shining Waters. We added new rides at each of our three parks over the last two years. And so the outlook is good. We're looking to grow even with interest rates, a little higher commercial construction companies in that are starting to have a little more capacity, so some of the projects that we had put off between COVID and between material shortages are now being accelerated. Sandspit's entering its 40th year of operations. And so we're in the process of a three-year multiphase renovation to rebuild the core of the park. All the things that went in 40 years ago when it was a small bumper boat pond and go-kart track in Cavendish and now it's grown into a full attraction.
Our water pipes need to be bigger, our electrical connections need to be bigger. And our property was built in the bottom of a shale pit and it floods a little bit, so we got to build it up a little. So we've got a major project there. We actually poured cement around a new bumper boat pool today, and that's going to be a centerpiece project of this three-year renovation, but it's an exciting time there. And with some trepidation, you have an amusement park that's been beloved for 40 years. You need to continue to change and to improve and to make sure it's going to last the next 40 years. But that means making changes to things that people hold very close to their heart. And I've been the guiding force of Sandspit for the last twenty-five twenty-eight years. So I think I know what needs to be done and how it should be done, but it's a big responsibility to have and not one that I take lightly.
My nephew has taken a leadership role in the company and I think he's going to be well positioned to move things forward. We have a great senior group now of young operations managers and maintenance staff and that and, so I think the future's bright. I think my goal over the next couple of years and even starting this year is to be a manager and a leader and a little less of the guy who opens the doors and collects the cashes. And so I'm going to be trying to do more strategic development and leadership and lean on my operations team, but I can still make an ice cream faster than anybody else on the team. And I can count at cash pretty fast too. So I'll always be involved but my brother has taken on more in our food operations as well, and that's been a huge help. And so I think getting me the adage of working on the business not in the business is something that I have to change my approach and I think for us to grow and to potentially look at growing outside of our geographic centers now requires me to have a different focus.
We are the largest operator of attractions in Atlantic Canada. And so I think for us to continue to look for opportunities for growth is there. I think the move into camping with us has been a game changer. I think it's a great industry for families. I think it's a great industry for us and I think we have a lot to offer. And so I think we're going to be looking for ways to grow. And so that's geographically going to mean that we need to spread a little wider and it means we have to adapt a little that I have to build and develop local teams that can manage things while I move around.
Al Grego:
What about [inaudible 00:30:11] in Canada?
Matthew Jelly:
I got an email the other day with an opportunity somewhere else in Canada. We've played roles with national and North American wide groups. I'm on the Tourism Ministry Association of Canada Board now. But from a business point of view, Maritime's our home. And I think running our businesses better in the maritime provinces is a great goal for this generation. And if the next generation thinks they can go further afield, then that'll be for them. But I think for me, three or four hour drive is enough.
Al Grego:
Fair enough.
Matthew Jelly:
I am immensely proud of what we do and what we have done and what I think we can continue to do. I think our businesses are tremendously important to our community. I think they're great assets to the community, and I think it's important to me that they remain that way and that's why we reinvest, that we build an organization that sustains and that if I'm unable or not here to continue things that everybody wakes up the next day and the attractions are still open and families are still being entertained. And so a lot of what we've done has been because my brothers and I have been so hands-on, and so we need to make that transition and nobody more so than myself.
When you're in the attractions' industry, you can see it as a job, but you can also see it through the eyes of our customers where it's something they look forward to all year. They might only come to the park once every couple of years, and you get to be with them with their most memorable day of the summer, hopefully.
Al Grego:
And your main product is fun, isn't it?
Matthew Jelly:
In our case, our middle name is fun. Our main product is fun. In order to do that, you have to focus on safety, friendliness, cleanliness, and those are our founding principles. But at the end of the day, we have a chance to have people coming in in a good mood, deliver them a great day, leave happy, and we don't have to pull any rabbits out of the hat. It really is just about keeping that momentum going.
Al Grego:
Matt, is Maritime's Fun Group open?
Matthew Jelly:
Yes, we are open.
Al Grego:
Perfect.
That's the story of Maritime Fun Group. Now, I'm not much of a rides person. You couldn't pay me enough to get on a roller coaster, but I love this story. From contentious games of Monopoly between brothers to paper routes, to summers in Cavendish working at amusement parks and road trips down to Disney, to that paper route, paying for trailers to rent and those rentals leading to buying a water park, leading to... Well, the rest. The story of Matthew's childhood is such a wholesome one. You could swear it came straight from a Lucy Maud Montgomery novel. If she were around today, it's no wonder that the business he and his brothers ended up in was that of amusement and attractions and making people happy. I could feel how important family was to Matthew. My only regret during this trip east is that I didn't get a chance to visit Cavendish to see all the attractions. I have Hurricane Lee to thank for that. I hope to remedy that soon and you'd better believe the next time I'm out there, it won't be for work and I'll have my family in tow. Got to make those memories for my kids. And I'll be visiting more than a few of those Maritime Fun Group properties. I'm sure there's a lazy river in there somewhere. That's more my speed anyway.
Yes We Are Open is a Moneris podcast production. I'd like to thank Matthew for taking the time to share his story. You can learn more about Maritime Fun Group at maritimefun.com. Follow them on Facebook and YouTube at Maritime Fun Group. On Instagram and Twitter they're @MaritimeFunPEI. Please support this podcast by writing us a review on Apple Podcasts, or rate us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a Canadian small business owner or know of one with an interesting story of perseverance to tell, I'd love to help tell it. You can contact me at podcast.moneris.com.
And that does it for another season. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd like to thank everyone on the Moneris SmartCon team for their help and support in putting the season together. There are too many to name, so please check the show notes for their names. I'd like to also thank the amazing merchants who welcomed me to their place of business and allowed me to tell their stories this season. Ocean Quest Adventures, Lane Gallery, Bradford Academy of Music, Torpedo Rays, Anin, Strikers Den, Tech Fuel, and Maritime Fun Group. Please support them by supporting their business.
Production on season six will begin in the spring, so expect a whole new season of small Canadian businesses and their stories by April of 2024. Keep an eye on this feed. I'll post updates of season six approaches. And finally, I'd like to thank you, the listener, for listening, subscribing and spreading the word. Your support has once again helped this podcast earn nominations for Outstanding Branded Series and Outstanding Production For a Series by the Canadian Podcast Awards. Winners will be announced in December, but I already count it as a win to be named among the other nominees. So a huge thank you to all of our listeners, without you, this wouldn't be possible. On behalf of all of us at Moneris, sincerely, thank you for listening to the Yes We Are Open podcast. I'm Al Grego, see you in season six.