6-Month Pop, Rock Concert Series to Get Things Shaking at Sea World

The decision by Sea World brass to host a six-month series of up to 35 big-name pop and rock concerts this year in its newly expanded Nautilus Amphitheater is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

After all, two other collaborations between local zoological gardens and pop music in the last decade didn’t work out. The San Diego Wild Animal Park’s romance with rock ended in divorce after several years, while the San Diego Zoo had its marriage annulled after just one season.

In each case, park officials attributed the failure to incompatibility between the families who came to see animals in their cages and the rowdy concert-going youths who often came to imitate them.

Still, Ron Swallow, supervisor of Sea World’s Nautilus Amphitheater, remains undaunted.

“We had a great deal of success with a concert series at our park in Florida last year,” he said, “and now that the Florida park’s president, Bob Gault, has relocated to San Diego, we’re confident that what worked well for him out there will work well for us, too.”

As a result, Swallow added, Sea World is making “much more of a commitment” to its concert series than the zoo and the Wild Animal Park made to theirs.

Instead of relegating pop acts to bleacher-style facilities normally used for animal shows, the Nautilus Amphitheater--located on the eastern fringe of the 135-acre marine park on Mission Bay--is specifically designed as a concert hall.

Built last year at a cost of $2.5 million, the amphitheater boasts a permanent stage that can be custom-outfitted with sound and lighting systems to suit each performer’s needs. The initial seating capacity of 4,400 has been upped to 7,100 to accommodate crowds for such hot pop acts as ex-Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, who opens the Sea World concert series Saturday night.

“In some ways, this series is a lot like the ones held in the past at the zoo and the Wild Animal Park,” Swallow said. “But by making it bigger and better, we’re hopefully going to be much more successful.”

The only other big-name booking announced so far is a seven-night run by 1960s pop acts the Association and Gary Puckett, which begins Sunday.

Admission to the oldies shows is free to anyone inside the park, Swallow said, while ticket prices for the other concerts, including McDonald, will average $10.