Efteldingus
Mega Poster
Falcon's Flight clone on a concrete slab?
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Small News From The Theme Park Industry
- Thread starter Lofty
- Start date
Ever wonder what used rides go for when everything in a park is auctioned off? Here's what happened yesterday when Edaville in Massachusetts put every ride on the block.
CanobieFan
Strata Poster
There goes my childhood. Again
JoshC.
Strata Poster
I feel like this is deserving of its own thread even now. It is a bit of a throwaway statement for now, but will be built upon sooner or later.
Yes, FWAD isn't exactly a big hitter park, but they never shied away from big coasters. Formula Rossa, Flying Aces and Mission Ferrari is a huge trio. The "4 world records" could be very easily stretched - Flying Aces was marketed as the coaster with a biggest vertical loop (or similar wording) after all.
But with Formula Rossa's speed record going - and no natural re-wording they can tweak it to - I guess it's natural the park and company would like a big shiny new ride to draw attention again. Inversions might be the easiest 'proper' record to hit. But I wonder if they could look into length too? Failing that, "the world's longest/fastest/tallest invert/Flying coaster/whatever" would do the trick too.
Despite that UAE boom being in the past for theme parks, I'm sure they are still willing and able to put the money in for new investments when needed.
Rollercoaster David
Hyper Poster
Scotland is getting another alpine coaster!
www.cairngormmountain.co.uk
Strangely they plan on deconstructing it every winter which seems kind of odd.... The management at cairngorm has been questionable at best in recent years however.
Cairngorm Mountain Announces Plans For Summer Toboggan Ride - Cairngorm Mountain
Plans for a major new attraction are taking shape to complement the summer activities at Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Limited (CMSL), as the resort hopes to introduce a mountain toboggan experience. Aiming to launch in summer...
www.cairngormmountain.co.uk
Strangely they plan on deconstructing it every winter which seems kind of odd.... The management at cairngorm has been questionable at best in recent years however.
TPoseOnTantrum
Giga Poster
If it's SunKid (as shown in the stock photo) this isn't a huge deal. I've ridden one in Quebec that mostly sticks in the tree bank but has one wide turn that goes over the open hillside, which they take down during the winter ski reason. The ride is meant as a summer attraction alongside the adventure park. It also doesn't have a lift hill and instead sends up cars attached to the ski cable on an as-needed basis.
Granted this ride sounds like it'll just be one turn but SunKid's track is light, easy to put together, and doesn't have a support structure higher than 3 feet off the ground at any point. It'll be fine.
Fiender
Mega Poster
There's a new pass perks system that is only valid at certain legacy Six Flags parks. Does not include: Darien Lake, Great Escape, La Ronde, St Louis, Frontier City... or SF America.
Considering that one of those parks was just announced to be in its final year, I wonder how many of these others are at risk of being sold or having their leases cancelled.
Considering that one of those parks was just announced to be in its final year, I wonder how many of these others are at risk of being sold or having their leases cancelled.
TPoseOnTantrum
Giga Poster
Oddly enough most of them aren’t really in danger of being outright closed.Considering that one of those parks was just announced to be in its final year, I wonder how many of these others are at risk of being sold or having their leases cancelled.
Great Escape was one of the most profitable legacy Six Flags parks behind SFGAM given its tourism hotspot location, low operating/maintenance costs, and indoor waterpark/hotel that rakes in cash year round.
Darien Lake and La Ronde aren’t owned by Six Flags and can’t actually be outright closed. Both of those parks need a ton of work but there’s no recent corporate events among EPR Properties and Montreal that would trigger this.
There’s some word that Frontier City might end up being sold and St Louis also isn’t a key player, really. Both of those parks however have been seeing big capital and improvements lately, and really are in a far better shape than what SFA needed to work up to. The real estate value also isn’t as high as a huge property near DC.
The one in danger to my understanding is Hurricane Habour Splashtown in Houston, which has had pretty bad numbers for a few years now.
Matt N
CF Legend
Out of curiosity, why is it that Great Escape was invested in relatively minimally by legacy Six Flags if it was one of the more profitable parks? I don’t seem to remember an awful lot going there even in the years when Six Flags aimed to put “something new in every park every year”, with Bobcat being the first new coaster they built in years.
TPoseOnTantrum
Giga Poster
Two points. Parks like that with high profitability rates and flat attendance don't see capital investment as much because it wouldn't bump up numbers and overall just result in a loss to the bottom line. Similar reason why Legacy Cedar Fair wasn't doing terribly much for Michigan's Adventure and Valleyfair.
Great Escape was also consistently building attractions every year between 2012 and 2020/21 under the Jim-Reid Anderson strategy and their lineup has a pretty good mix between newer and older stuff. Most weren't huge or even coasters but everything was strategic and helped fill a need; new waterpark stuff to soak up demand, a colorful family ride to spruce up a drab midway spot, an eye catching compact thrill ride in an area that desperately needed something new. There's a few empty ride spots tucked away that can be filled but right now their lineup is where it needs to be.
Arguably Bobcat was a need that should have been filled sooner, as it's been clear for awhile that Alpine Bobsleds' expiry date had come and gone. I'd estimate because of the probability factors the Jim Reid regime was prioritizing the coaster contracts for bigger parks for years, then COVID and recovery hit while they were already working on another very big ride, then when Selim ousted Spanos he halted capital investment at all parks indefinitely for a year. Great Escape's big chance came when that disastrous earnings call happened in late 2022 and Selim suddenly flipped to green-lighting many new rides as possible for as soon as possible. Management knew the time was right and had no other preoccupations for capital investment, and so the story goes.
Hutch
Strata Poster
There isn't any notable competition within a few hours, so they've got that region locked down. No need to sink in millions every other year when people are going to show up anyway.
A Waterbury, Connecticut, woman filed a federal lawsuit last week against Lake Compounce that seeks to become a class action for everyone who has bought a ticket since Oct. 1, 2023. The complaint contends that the park's website violates provisions of the state's ticket pricing law by failing to disclose the $4 processing fee until several steps into the ticket-buying process. The law requires any advertisement for tickets to "any place of amusement" or other entertainment event to "conspicuously" disclose the total price for each ticket, and what part of it represents a service charge. Source
cookie
Giga Poster
After some delay, Efteling’s steam locomotives now run on electricity as of today.Plopsa Coo has announced that the park will be investing €280,000 in replacing all of their gas-powered go-kart vehicles with electric ones. The park didn’t state a timeframe for this change, but the current karts will only run until the end of the operating season.
Kartbaan in Plopsa-pretpark wordt elektrisch: geen benzinemotoren meer
De kartbaan in het Belgische pretpark Plopsa Coo Ardennes wordt vernieuwd. Op de Dag van de Aarde maakt de Plopsa Group bekend dat de huidige karts,...www.looopings.nl
Meanwhile, Efteling has also made green pledges on this day, including investing a hefty sum in converting their steam locomotives to electric-powered ones. The first of these converted trains will enter service this winter.
Stoomtrein Efteling wordt na 55 jaar elektrisch: locomotieven omgebouwd
De nostalgische Stoomtrein in de Efteling werkt over een tijdje niet meer op stoom, maar op elektriciteit. Om klimaatdoelen te halen wordt na ruim 55...www.looopings.nl
Efteldingus
Mega Poster
As someone with an interest in railway history and preservation (I'm also active as a volunteer at a local heritage railway here in the Netherlands), I must admit I'm quite pleased to see how they've done this.
When the park first announced their plans to convert the steam locomotives to run on electricity I was very much against it, as I expected them to have little regard for the historical value these machines have; 2 of the 3 running steam engines are well over 100 years old! So to see them add a motorised tender in place of the old ones used to carry coal and water is quite a relief! It seems like you could in theory reverse the changes made to the engine itself with relative ease, and fire it on coal again. It's much more complicated than that ofcourse, but it's far from impossible by the looks of things.
