Are newer rides maintaining greater appeal over time compared to older rides?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. The new year is upon us (happy 2022, everybody!), and as the new year is ushered in, rides around the world are getting another year older. And to be truthful, the ages certain rides are hitting… scares me a little. The Smiler, a ride I remember riding in its opening year? 9 years old! The Swarm, a ride I remember feeling incredibly cutting edge and modern when I first rode it? Hitting double digits this year, at 10 years old!

But that’s besides the point. The new year being upon us got me thinking; when I first got into theme parks, rides of certain ages seemed old, yet rides that are the same age now still seem pretty new to me. For instance, I remember that one of the first projects I discovered was the RMC conversion of Medusa at Six Flags Mexico, which was midway through construction when I first found out about it. Medusa was 13 years old when it closed, and at the time, I thought of 13 years old as pretty old, and it seemed as though many 13 year old rides simply weren’t living up to what’s popular today.

But now? The rides that are currently 13 years old are rides that opened in 2009; I always think of 2009 rides as being fairly new! There are many rides of that sort of age range that are still ranking pretty highly, and even through the sphere of woodies, I can’t think of a single 2009 woodie that I would think of as being ripe for removal in the way Medusa was in 2013. As a wooden coaster case study, Troy at Toverland is turning 15 this year (2 years older than Medusa was when it shut) and is still one of the most highly regarded woodies in Europe; no one’s getting their chainsaws out to remove or RMC that one any time soon!

I could think of tons of case studies to fit this argument. Gwazi was 16 years old when it was removed, and many thought its removal was a long time coming. But the wooden rides that are 16 years old now are things like Voyage and El Toro, which both still rank comfortably among the top woodies in the world in polls! Corkscrew at Alton Towers was 28 years old when it closed, and at the time, I gather that it was thought of as pretty terrible; rough and generally not very exciting. But now? The Alton Towers coaster hitting 28 in 2022 is the almighty Nemesis, a ride that most still love and consider among their favourite UK coasters, if not their favourite; I can sense that no one will be thrusting the bulldozer upon Nemesis any time soon, in spite of the fact that Corkscrew, which was in many ways equally iconic, met its end at the same age. And while I know Nemesis is a pretty unique case, I can think of similarly aged rides that are still really, really well liked in a similar way.

Before I ramble too much, my point is; is innovation in quality slowing in the industry? Are rides seeming to age less quickly, and are they maintaining greater longevity? Or do you think that’s just my own perception?

From my perspective, I do think innovation in quality seems to be slowing, as it seems like newer rides are staying highly rated and relevant for longer than the rides that came before them, and more rides that are now getting on a bit age-wise are still ranking really highly compared to a few years ago, but what are your thoughts?

 

[Matt N]

Sorry to double post, but I’ve altered the topic title to something that is (hopefully) less confusing…

 

[Sandman]

Tough one to answer to be honest.

is innovation in quality slowing in the industry? Are rides seeming to age less quickly, and are they maintaining greater longevity? Or do you think that’s just my own perception?

It all depends. I guess some of this does some down to perception.

For example, a hell of a lot of rides still exist from 50-60+ years ago. Many have inevitably met their end too.

There are then rides like The Big One that are now undergoing further re-track work despite being less than 30 years old.

I'd say due to improvements in coaster design / layouts etc, there should be an increase in longevity providing said coasters are properly maintained.

Also, it depends on the park too. If a park cannot afford to replace an ageing ride, the ride may operate for longer whereas in a newer park it would likely be replaced quicker.

 

[Pokemaniac]

It is an interesting question, to be sure!

I think there are many things to consider. Primarily, I think coaster design went through a bit of a revolution in the 2000s. Computer-aided design really took off, and manufacturers began experimenting a lot more with elements and layouts. When you look at many older coasters, you can pick out a sequence of distinctly defined and separate elements, RCT-style: turn, drop, loop, corkscrew, helix, and so forth. Then in the 2000s or so, manufacturers started experimenting with more unconventional elements. In recent years coasters have become more "jazzy", flowing free without adhering as much to the concept of elements at all. This is perhaps the most visible with wooden coasters, considering GCI's flowy layouts vs. the more straight-hills-and-flat-turns type of layouts by PTC et al. This all means that not-that-old woodies can feel quite out of date.

However, this is only a concern if you know enough coasters to get a feeling for what is outdated or not. I would guess that most park-goers would not care whether a woodie is 2 or 100 years old when deciding whether to visit a park. Which makes me think we're looking at things backwards.

RMCs conversions of wooden coasters was a Big New Thing when it first hit the amusement park scene and parks were eager to jump onto the idea. For that to happen, they needed to have a woodie past its prime to convert, however, and it made sense to use the oldest woodies in the park that had not yet achieved a "classic" status. It's not that these coasters were old and required a conversion, but they were necessary sacrifices for conversion to happen, so to speak. Six Flags Mexico could probably have kept Medusa in operation for many more decades, but chose to rebuild it into a coaster with even more staying power.

All that being said, though, I feel like using woodies as case studies is a bit iffy. They have really fallen out of fashion compared to a few decades ago, and not many have been built at all in the past couple of decades. It's hard to determine a trend for coasters in general based only on woodies. Steel coasters from the same era tend to be up and running unless they've been plagued by expensive maintenance issues, after all.

 

[Howie]

Mate, analysing the age of coasters is one sure fire way of making yourself feel old. Coaster years move faster than life years. Kinda like dogs. Can't explain it, they just do. You mentioned The Swarm hitting 10 years this season, well... that must mean Colossus is 20. Twenty! Where did that go? Its older than you are, Matt! I still remember the opening week like it was yesterday.
It gets worse - Nemesis will be 30 in a couple of years. Like, how the hell did that happen? It makes you wonder how long some of these coasters have left. Yeah, when coasters you watched being constructed start getting removed, that's when things really start to hit home.
One ride removal that I found particularly jarring was the Duelling Dragons. State of the art, they were. They weighed the trains on the lift hill so the timings could be adjusted to make the near misses as close as possible. I mean, that was next-level sh*t, man, and yet there they were, unceremoniously torn apart and scrapped before 2 decades had passed.
Scary stuff.
I realise I've not really answered your question there Matt, sorry about that. But yeah. Getting old. It comes to us all I'm afraid.

Ps. And a happy new year to you too!