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What happened to the demand for thrilling inverted coasters?

Christian

Hyper Poster
Every roller coaster is a sit down, except for whatever you call this thing. Cage coaster?

SuperFlightPlaylandPark-1.jpg
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
The around 100 feet tall wooden coasters still seem pretty popular.
Allow me to disagree. If we once again look at coasters built after the financial crisis, there haven't been built many of those either. Using RCDB's list of the 100 tallest wooden coasters (manually excluding the RMC ones), these are the ones that were built in 2009 or later (ones in China marked in italics):
  • Apocalype - SFMM - 29 m (2009)
  • Texas Stingray - SeaWorld San Antonio - 29.3 m (2020)
  • Great Desert Rally - Happy Valley - 30.5 m (2017)
  • Prowler - Worlds of Fun - 31.2 m (2009)
  • Time Travel - Hot Go Park - 31.5 m (2014)
  • Leviathan - Sea World (Australia) - 32 m (2021)
  • Cú Chulainn - Tayto Park - 32 m (2015)
  • Dauling Dragon - Happy Valley - 32 m (2012)
  • Jungle Trailblazer (3x) - Oriental Heritage - 32.6 m (2015 & 2016 & 2017)
  • Gold Striker - California's Great America - 33 m (2013)
  • Jungle Trailblazer - Fantawild Dreamland - 33 m (2015)
  • Jungle Trailblazer - Fantawild Asian Legend - 33 m (2018)
  • Wooden Coaster Fireball - Happy Valley - 33 m (2009)
  • Mystic Timbers - Kings Island - 33.3 m (2017)
  • Jungle Trailblazer - Fantawild Dreamland - 34 m (2016)
  • Fjord Flying Dragon - Happy Valley - 34 m (2013)
  • Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park - 40 m (2012)
I'm counting 11 in China and 8 in the rest of the world in that segment over the 12-year period, which isn't that great compared to the coasters from 1995 to 2005 on the same list (24, and this was before China started building woodies). It seems like big woodies in general are about as rare nowadays as thrilling Inverts, although you could make a case that RMC belongs in this category too.

Still, I think we've come a long way since the days there were, roughly speaking, two types of coasters: Steel and wood. Nowadays, the wooden coaster is very much a niche coaster. You might as well divide it into "spinning cars" and "not spinning cars" instead. SBF Visa alone has built 77 MX608 coasters only since 2014.
 

Christian

Hyper Poster
Great list @Pokemaniac! Maybe less large coasters are build overall nowadays outside of China? In the early 2000s Six Flags was going nuts with coasters. Even Cedar Fair was adding more than they do today. It might also be about niches. Maybe the GP cant see differences between woodies. I have friends who compare Wildfire with Balder and think they are similar. Usually it's that Wildfire is a version of Balder that does loops. If the GP cant discern the differences then why would parks get multiple woodies? They could get a dive instead of a second woodie and everyone will see the difference but if they got a Gravity Group to complement their old Dinn/CCI then nobody would see the difference.
 
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