IAAPA’s Asian Attractions Expo is currently in Hong Kong this week, and since I’m on half days I was able to call in and have a bit of a look around and report on some stuff, seeing as I’m officially a qualified journalist.
See?
I’ll just throw in a bit of a disclaimer before anyone gets all nerded out, but this expo, while pretty big, is a lot more low-key than the American version. While all the major companies are represented, as well as hundreds that most of us won’t have heard of, it’s not used as a platform to make big announcements about new installations or product lines.
Most of the booths aren’t as well decked out either. The American show tends to have a lot of models and coaster cars, but not so much here, so for the most part I didn’t take a lot of pictures. You really don’t need to see people sitting around a desk in an small, empty booth, and I didn’t want to be some creepy guy taking pictures of that either.
There’s much more of an Asian, specifically Chinese, focus, which obviously makes sense. It’s very much a trade show for people in the industry to make connections, talk with potential clients/suppliers and, basically, sell s**t. With that in mind, and given that the booths for the major suppliers generally had a lot of people around, I decided against harassing people for coaster goon interviews, taking away time that could be used to talk to clients. While you might be disappointed that there’s no inside scoop – see I told you was a member of the press; I know all the jargon and everything - you can thank me when all the new coasters get announced, as by not taking up their time, I’ve single-handedly ensured that sales were allowed to happen. You’re welcome!
I did manage to pick up a few bits of interesting information though, but it’s unsurprisingly very much focussed on China. I apologise in advance to all you basic bitches who’ll never get further than Port Aventura, which, let’s face it, is most of you.
There were a few arcade game stalls scattered around, including a very big one from Namco which included some new Star Wars and Jurassic Park game machines.
I’m just going to throw in pictures of booths from some companies you’re probably familiar with.
This is the company that made Turtle Trek at Sea World as well as the film for Busch’s Curse of Darkastle. They’re currently working on a new ride at Dubai’s IMG Worlds of Adventure, Avengers: Battle of Ultron, a 3D dark ride featuring real sets which sounds very much in the same vein as Spiderman/Transformers etc.
Even more interestingly, they’re now working very closely with Lotte World on the master planning of an entirely new park, planned to open in Shenyang, China in around 3 years. Additionally, according to a magazine I picked up, Lotte are also planning a US$1 billion park in Chengdu China.
There were a lot of water slide companies around, including White Water, Proslide and around a dozen Chinese manufacturers. Proslide had the usual models they have at the American show, which I’ve just realised I don’t have pictures of. Here’s a couple from White Water though:
There were also a lot of 3D/4D theatres, shooters and simulators around, which could all be tried out.
I managed to have a bit of a chat with a woman from Fantawild.
Apparently, there are no current plans to build any new parks around the Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou area, which is unsurprising as it doesn’t suit their current areas of development, but she said that there will be more parks appearing in the North of China, though she wouldn’t say where.
They had models of their Sky Sailor ride, a Soarin’ “inspired” simulator. Actually, a lot of companies were offering a very similar ride system.
They also had models of their Dino Rampage ride, a Spiderman-style 3D dark ride which has been rolled out across many of their parks.
More interesting was their brand new ride type. There’s currently one operating somewhere near Ningbo, but not in one of their actual parks, with another one due to open soon in their new Jinan park – though not early enough for me to ride it when I get there this weekend.
It’s called a “simulated flight ride” which uses a multi-motion hanging car system to move passengers through a variety of live-action scenes and screens. I’m sure that doesn’t sound familiar at all, so here are some pictures of the ride model:
Some coaster manufacturers then. As I said before, I didn’t take pictures of everything since there wasn’t a lot to see at many of the smaller booths, but here are a few:
What you’ll see here that you won’t see in the USA are some of the Chinese knockoff companies. Golden Horse were kicked out of the US show because of copyright violations, but here they’re on of the main sponsors. Beijing Jihua and Beijing Shibaolai were also present.
One of the more impressive booths here belonged to Guangzhou Dongfang Landscape Design, or DFL, since it had a cred. Almost.
I’d never heard of them, but they’re the company who do the theming work for the bigger Chinese parks. They’ve done the theming for all the OCT parks and are responsible for the huge waterfall at Knight Valley and the Atlantis castle that surrounds Crystal Wings. They’re also the ones that did all the theming for Chimelong’s new Ocean Kingdom park, which is stunning.
That’s about it then. I did pick up another few bits and pieces, but I’ll put those as separate news topics as they may be something to keep an eye on and will need their own topics eventually anyway.
I'll just leave you to goon out over some of the dozens of brochures I picked up.
See?
I’ll just throw in a bit of a disclaimer before anyone gets all nerded out, but this expo, while pretty big, is a lot more low-key than the American version. While all the major companies are represented, as well as hundreds that most of us won’t have heard of, it’s not used as a platform to make big announcements about new installations or product lines.
Most of the booths aren’t as well decked out either. The American show tends to have a lot of models and coaster cars, but not so much here, so for the most part I didn’t take a lot of pictures. You really don’t need to see people sitting around a desk in an small, empty booth, and I didn’t want to be some creepy guy taking pictures of that either.
There’s much more of an Asian, specifically Chinese, focus, which obviously makes sense. It’s very much a trade show for people in the industry to make connections, talk with potential clients/suppliers and, basically, sell s**t. With that in mind, and given that the booths for the major suppliers generally had a lot of people around, I decided against harassing people for coaster goon interviews, taking away time that could be used to talk to clients. While you might be disappointed that there’s no inside scoop – see I told you was a member of the press; I know all the jargon and everything - you can thank me when all the new coasters get announced, as by not taking up their time, I’ve single-handedly ensured that sales were allowed to happen. You’re welcome!
I did manage to pick up a few bits of interesting information though, but it’s unsurprisingly very much focussed on China. I apologise in advance to all you basic bitches who’ll never get further than Port Aventura, which, let’s face it, is most of you.
There were a few arcade game stalls scattered around, including a very big one from Namco which included some new Star Wars and Jurassic Park game machines.
I’m just going to throw in pictures of booths from some companies you’re probably familiar with.
This is the company that made Turtle Trek at Sea World as well as the film for Busch’s Curse of Darkastle. They’re currently working on a new ride at Dubai’s IMG Worlds of Adventure, Avengers: Battle of Ultron, a 3D dark ride featuring real sets which sounds very much in the same vein as Spiderman/Transformers etc.
Even more interestingly, they’re now working very closely with Lotte World on the master planning of an entirely new park, planned to open in Shenyang, China in around 3 years. Additionally, according to a magazine I picked up, Lotte are also planning a US$1 billion park in Chengdu China.
There were a lot of water slide companies around, including White Water, Proslide and around a dozen Chinese manufacturers. Proslide had the usual models they have at the American show, which I’ve just realised I don’t have pictures of. Here’s a couple from White Water though:
There were also a lot of 3D/4D theatres, shooters and simulators around, which could all be tried out.
I managed to have a bit of a chat with a woman from Fantawild.
Apparently, there are no current plans to build any new parks around the Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou area, which is unsurprising as it doesn’t suit their current areas of development, but she said that there will be more parks appearing in the North of China, though she wouldn’t say where.
They had models of their Sky Sailor ride, a Soarin’ “inspired” simulator. Actually, a lot of companies were offering a very similar ride system.
They also had models of their Dino Rampage ride, a Spiderman-style 3D dark ride which has been rolled out across many of their parks.
More interesting was their brand new ride type. There’s currently one operating somewhere near Ningbo, but not in one of their actual parks, with another one due to open soon in their new Jinan park – though not early enough for me to ride it when I get there this weekend.
It’s called a “simulated flight ride” which uses a multi-motion hanging car system to move passengers through a variety of live-action scenes and screens. I’m sure that doesn’t sound familiar at all, so here are some pictures of the ride model:
Some coaster manufacturers then. As I said before, I didn’t take pictures of everything since there wasn’t a lot to see at many of the smaller booths, but here are a few:
What you’ll see here that you won’t see in the USA are some of the Chinese knockoff companies. Golden Horse were kicked out of the US show because of copyright violations, but here they’re on of the main sponsors. Beijing Jihua and Beijing Shibaolai were also present.
One of the more impressive booths here belonged to Guangzhou Dongfang Landscape Design, or DFL, since it had a cred. Almost.
I’d never heard of them, but they’re the company who do the theming work for the bigger Chinese parks. They’ve done the theming for all the OCT parks and are responsible for the huge waterfall at Knight Valley and the Atlantis castle that surrounds Crystal Wings. They’re also the ones that did all the theming for Chimelong’s new Ocean Kingdom park, which is stunning.
That’s about it then. I did pick up another few bits and pieces, but I’ll put those as separate news topics as they may be something to keep an eye on and will need their own topics eventually anyway.
I'll just leave you to goon out over some of the dozens of brochures I picked up.
