What's new

Small News From The Theme Park Industry

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Overall, this concept seems more terrible the longer you think about it. Every time it floats to the top of my mind, a new drawback seems to be apparent.

Given that the 'end' of the track (where the turntable is) also has numbers 1-4 marked on the ground in the animation, is it possible this is like a two station thing as well? As in you only ride from one side to the other, then get off and exit, and another group rides back to the original side?
This seems to be the case indeed. At least it helps alleviate the terrible capacity somewhat. Except it also means a horrendously short ride time - it's literally just a helix and an airtime hill. At 0:47 in the video, there's a clip showing both vehicles exit their stations. At 0:55, they have stopped at the other end. That's an eight-second ride time if we assume the clip isn't sped up. The ride will also spend the vast majority of its time loading/unloading passengers. Just because it only spends 8 seconds in motion doesn't mean it won't take more than a minute to offload and load more guests. With that in mind, it wouldn't have mattered much for capacity if the track was twice as long. If we're being optimistic and assuming they can dispatch once every minute, the ride will have a theoretical hourly throughput of ... 240. That's ... not good.

Then there's the concept of a station at both ends. For one, it means you need to have twice as many ride ops. On very quiet days, when the coaster has no lines, they would have to administer the queue somehow too, to ensure there are guests at both stations so the trains can be sent back and forth. If a large group of people goes to one of the stations, they would have to wait for somebody else to show up at the other station to send the trains back.

The usual "exit through the gift shop" concept is impractical for this coaster, as the two exits are spaced so far apart. Unless you want two gift shops, of course ... The same goes for on-ride photos. The idea is to funnel all the riders past the photo kiosk to entice them to buy photos. If they have to seek out a separate kiosk, most won't give ORPs a thought.

So yeah, this coaster doesn't come across as a very good idea. At all. Had it not been for their experiences at Mirabilandia, I'd be expecting Parques Reunidos to build a few of them.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
I think Oktoberfest events must be the flavour of the month at the moment in UK theme parks, because now Blackpool Pleasure Beach is getting in on some of the German-inspired action! The park is holding an Oktoberfest event on every Saturday in September. Here’s the park’s press release:
Blackpool Pleasure Beach said:
OKTOBERFEST COMES TO BLACKPOOL

Enjoy an amazing day out with all the rides and our Oktoberfest event every Saturday in September.

Join us at Blackpool Pleasure Beach for our Oktoberfest event every Saturday in September!

Included in your admission to the park, our Oktoberfest will be in our new event space “The Hub” and will include everything you would expect; from traditional Bavarian Sausages, Pretzels, and Bavarian Beer on draft - to our resident German Oompah Band - The Amazing Bavarian Stompers!

Here’s some more info: https://www.thrillnation.net/oktoberfest-event-at-blackpool-pleasure-beach/

I think this should be really good for the Pleasure Beach! Are you excited for the park’s new event?
 
I think Oktoberfest events must be the flavour of the month at the moment in UK theme parks, because now Blackpool Pleasure Beach is getting in on some of the German-inspired action! The park is holding an Oktoberfest event on every Saturday in September. Here’s the park’s press release:


Here’s some more info: https://www.thrillnation.net/oktoberfest-event-at-blackpool-pleasure-beach/

I think this should be really good for the Pleasure Beach! Are you excited for the park’s new event?

Am I the only one to think it odd that Oktoberfest is not in October?
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Am I the only one to think it odd that Oktoberfest is not in October?
My mum asked the same question!

Apparently the final night of it is usually on the first Sunday in October or something like that in order to commemorate some wedding that happened many years ago that resulted in all the locals celebrating. Well, something like that, anyway; don’t quote me on exact details!
 

JoshC.

Strata Poster
Oktoberfest originated in 1810, when a Prince of Germany (Ludwig) got married, on October 12th. People of Munich were invited to celebrate for a week. The event was repeated the next year, and continued to happen yearly, and by the end of the decade, was considered to be an annual tradition.

The event expanded to include more stuff such as a fairground, along with drinking tents, etc. With all those added festivities, the event was slowly pushed forward, since the weather was warmer and generally better, and it made much more sense. This leads to the Oktoberfest starting in mid-September.

These days, the event runs for 16 days, ending on the first Sunday in October (or on October 3rd, which is German Unity Day - when East and West Germany were reunited). So whilst it's rich with tradition, there's also plenty of room for tweaking, which brings us the event we see today.

So yeah, if anywhere else does do an Oktoberfest style event, it will always be in September!
 

roomraider

Best Topic Starter
There's been a small herd of small openings and closings this week.

Gagarin Park in the very very Eastern Russian city of Sakhalin has opened Cyclone.
6ef7f5ac6914b887b246d8d57b.jpg
f5f37134e33796.jpg

Komsomol Anniversary Park in Omsk also in Russia hasnt had its lease renewed so it seems the park and its fairly rare Top Fun Wild Mouse are now closed. The wild mouse appears to be being dismantled so may well see that appear somewhere else.

ca84d29bec2293c479ca4a088e90b0f7.jpg
b1d32e39_resizedScaled_1020to678.jpg

While in China both Qiaotou Park in Meijiang and Fantawild Chongqing have announced they will close on September 1st.

While I know little about Qiaotou Park and it seems home only home to a small junior coaster, I did visit the Chongqing Park last year and it doesn't surprise me it's closing down. The tiny park was situated at the back of a shopping mall and was one of the early small FW parks with just a GH wild mouse to really speak about. The place was pretty run down and has obviously been left behind by FW's excellent newer more modern parks.
 

SilverArrow

Certified Ride Geek
A Schwarzkopf Katapult is being built up in a yard in Germany! I had thought these had all been scrapped (well one is sbno apparently but has been for years)!

 
Last edited:

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
A Schwarzkopf Katapult is being built up in a yard in Germany! I had thought these had all been scrapped (well one is sbno apparently but has been for years)!

I rode Death Train in Muscat shortly before it went SBNO and it was equal parts terrifying and a delight. So, yes, glad to see one is being saved.

Any word on where this one has been all these years (assuming it's not the one from Oman...)?
 

SilverArrow

Certified Ride Geek
I rode Death Train in Muscat shortly before it went SBNO and it was equal parts terrifying and a delight. So, yes, glad to see one is being saved.

Any word on where this one has been all these years (assuming it's not the one from Oman...)?

It's supposedly the one from Skyline park. The OK corral one is said to possibly still be in storage somewhere too.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
What do the Schwarzkopf Katapults actually ride like? To me, they look a little bit like the Skywarp Eclipse (Tidal Twister at SeaWorld San Diego), but larger. Or maybe like a supersized, inverting Musik Express-style attraction.

Regardless, I’ve always been intrigued by them!
 

Matt N

CF Legend
It would appear that reliability issues unfortunately still haven’t subsided for Wicker Man at Alton Towers, even 2 years on from its opening. The ride has been shut for 3 days running, and a tent has now been erected around the stretch of track between the s-bend drop and the first wicker man pass through. This follows an earlier multi-day bout of downtime in August:
The tent would seem to indicate that it’s some kind of track issue or possibly retracking going on in that section (a lot of people have been finding that section pretty rough lately, although I didn’t personally notice anything untoward in that section), but there are all sorts of rumours flying around. GCI have apparently been called out, so it must be a reasonably major issue. I’ve even heard others suggesting that the park is trying to slow the ride down and is experimenting with various different means of doing this (I hope not, because I and many others have enjoyed it a lot more this season!), but the tent would seem to imply that it’s a track issue as opposed to a ride speed issue.

What are your thoughts? It would seem the ride’s saga of unreliability has sadly still not ended, what with the problems in 2018, the closure in 2019 due to the lift chain issues, and the 2 multi-day closures so far in 2020...
EDIT: Sorry for double posting!
 
It would appear that reliability issues unfortunately still haven’t subsided for Wicker Man at Alton Towers, even 2 years on from its opening. The ride has been shut for 3 days running, and a tent has now been erected around the stretch of track between the s-bend drop and the first wicker man pass through. This follows an earlier multi-day bout of downtime in August:
The tent would seem to indicate that it’s some kind of track issue or possibly retracking going on in that section (a lot of people have been finding that section pretty rough lately, although I didn’t personally notice anything untoward in that section), but there are all sorts of rumours flying around. GCI have apparently been called out, so it must be a reasonably major issue. I’ve even heard others suggesting that the park is trying to slow the ride down and is experimenting with various different means of doing this (I hope not, because I and many others have enjoyed it a lot more this season!), but the tent would seem to imply that it’s a track issue as opposed to a ride speed issue.

What are your thoughts? It would seem the ride’s saga of unreliability has sadly still not ended, what with the problems in 2018, the closure in 2019 due to the lift chain issues, and the 2 multi-day closures so far in 2020...
EDIT: Sorry for double posting!
Hope it is fixed before the end of the season, but maybe it is a 2021 reopening. The unreliability is a sad one because this is the woodie we've been waiting for, so I hope this ride dosen't go down the drain in 10 years time. But, this'll get sorted I'm sure
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Hope it is fixed before the end of the season, but maybe it is a 2021 reopening. The unreliability is a sad one because this is the woodie we've been waiting for, so I hope this ride dosen't go down the drain in 10 years time. But, this'll get sorted I'm sure
I’d certainly expect (or at least hope) for it to be open again before the end of the season; there’s still over 2 months before the season ends!

I must admit, given that Wicker Man is one of GCI’s smallest, least complex coasters in terms of scale, its low reliability is somewhat baffling. It really is an enigma of a coaster!
 
Top