One advertising marketing campaign, tied to a renovation push that began in 2018, included posters of aliens with jokes concerning the facility’s “secrets and techniques” — suggesting that building crews have been constructing “gargoyle breeding grounds” or hiding Freemason conferences. The publicity generated by the marketing campaign, in line with the airport, was value greater than $8 million.
True believers hated it.
“Some received very upset by it as a result of they thought, ‘Oh, now they’re making enjoyable of us, they’re hiding in plain sight, they’re overlaying up the evil,’” Ms. Stegman mentioned. “Ninety-nine % of individuals see this for what it’s, however for the others, we attempt to be like, ‘Look, this isn’t imagined to be hurtful, know that we’re teasing, this isn’t critical.’”
Two gargoyles nonetheless stay within the baggage declare space to guard baggage, together with a extra muted animatronic Greg; the unique had “triggered” some individuals who considered it as overtly satanic, Ms. Stegman mentioned. Airport directors have additionally stopped making mild of conspiracy theories that turned out to have racist or in any other case offensive origins, such because the “lizard folks” narrative, which is rooted in anti-Semitic tropes.
“You study and also you develop — we’ve slowed down a bit on it,” Ms. Stegman mentioned. “Now we’re going again to just a little bit extra conventional promoting.”