Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008

Sand sculptures carve image for Myrtle Beach events

Sand castles do not usually include giant heads of presidential candidates. Or have company logos on them. Or Web addresses.

But when the sand castle is doubling as an ad for Myrtle Beach, it better be attention-grabbing and get the message across.

Elaborate and nontraditional sand castles, like the two built here for the presidential debates this month, have fast become the most popular form of publicity stunt in Myrtle Beach.

"It's a perfect fit for our destination," said Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. "People are drawn to them and simply amazed at the intricate designs, which is certainly part of the appeal."

Professional sand sculptures are being built around the country, on the beach or off, in malls, at construction sites and even at trade shows, featuring elaborate castles, corporate logos, detailed figures or underwater scenes - anything the client or artist can imagine. There are about a dozen companies that specialize in the sculpting, traveling the world with carving tools in hand and charging anywhere from $1,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars for their sand creations, depending on the size, how many days it takes to create and how many people are involved.

In Myrtle Beach, the Mount Rushmore-style Republican and Democrat sand castles are just the latest use of the gimmick.

The Sun Fun Festival, Myrtle Beach's annual summer celebration, keeps breaking and defending the world record for biggest sand castle. The IMAX 3D theater and Hard Rock Park, a theme park set to open in April, have also commissioned sand sculptures to help draw attention.

"What a great icon to take your picture standing in front of," said Kerry Graves, sales and marketing director at Hard Rock Park, where a Mount Rushmore-style sand castle featuring the likeness of rock legends John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and others stood for the park's groundbreaking party in 2006.

The park plans to build another sculpture - possibly a guitar, Graves said.

The craft has even spawned a reality-style show on The Travel Channel.

While there is no organization that represents the sand castle industry, sculptors say it's a small subculture that gossips and competes with various levels of talent, like any other industry.

"We all know each other," said Meredith Corson, 51, co-owner of Sanding Ovations, which she said was one of four professional companies in Florida. "It's a pretty unique industry. ... You don't grow up saying, 'Ooh, I want to be a sand sculptor for a living.'"

Mark Mason, 44, runs Team Sandtastic, which built many of the recent sand castles in Myrtle Beach, including the presidential sculptures. His business grew after people saw him having fun with a hobby and said they needed his services, he said.

"I stroked my chin and said, 'Need me to come? What's in it for me?'" he said. "It snowballed from there."

Several sculptors said jobs come from recommendations and word-of-mouth, similar to others in the business. That's how several clients in Myrtle Beach got Mason's name.

"If I make four marketing people happy in one month I get six jobs the next month," Mason said.

The most difficult part, perhaps, is knowing that even if the clients are thrilled, they might not hire you again.

"You can do a fantastic sculpture, get all the publicity that the client never would have dreamed of, but they'll never hire you again because they hire you strictly for the novelty," said Ted Siebert, owner of The Sand Sculpture Co. of Illinois.

In 1989 and 1990, Myrtle Beach competed with Siebert's client in Long Beach, Wash., for a world record for the longest sand castle - with castles stretching 5 and 6 miles long. Sure, there was a real sense of competition, but the real prize was all the media attention both cities got because of the quirky craft, Siebert said.

Even the destruction of sand sculpting has become a hit. The Travel Channel has for the past two years run a program called Sand Blasters, which blows up sand castles after they are finished.

"Everybody loves to watch things blow up," said David E. Gerber, executive producer of Sand Blasters, which will air its third installment based in San Diego on March 8.

For a while, workers in the micro industry questioned whether it had enough steam to keep churning.

"We used to have debates about this decades ago how long is this sand castle thing going to go for," Siebert said. "There's a whole generation ahead of me."

Corson said this is her best year ever, and business has picked up in the past three or four.

As long as the sand castles keep drawing crowds and cameras, Myrtle Beach businesses will continue to build them.

The Myrtle Beach chamber, which is largely responsible for tourism promotion, knew it wanted to do something to put the beach's stamp on the presidential debates - something that would make the ones here stand out in a packed year with so many candidates and so many debates across the country. The sand sculpture was a way to work the city into the political story, Dean said.

It worked so well, the crowds created traffic jams along Oak Street in Myrtle Beach. Drivers would pull over or stop in the middle of the street to marvel at the sculpture or take pictures.

The commotion prompted the chamber to pick a different location, in the middle of a parking lot far off from the public road, for the Democratic version for the debate Monday.

William Clyburn, of Charleston, who was here for the Republican debate Jan. 10, said he thought the sand castle was a nice gesture to greet all the visitors - and the presidential candidates.

"I don't think they'll ever forget what they saw when they came there," said Clyburn, who owns development and trucking companies, including one in Conway. "I think that will always stick out in their mind about Myrtle Beach."

Journalists covering the debate remarked how it made this one stand out from the others they'd covered.

"For me, the biggest surprise of the last debate was how many people came to view the sculptures both during and after the debate," the chamber's Dean said. "You simply cannot purchase that kind of advertising."