Ah, Everland, South Korea. I saw the park mentioned in a recent thread and remembered: "Oh, right, they're the park that has T Express! And formely Eagle's Fortress! Ostensibly two of the greatest coasters in history, or so somebody said once way back when, maybe. I can't remember having heard from them for a while, let's look it up and see what new awesome additions they've made!"
And so I went to RCDB. I was pretty shocked to see that not only had Eagle Fortress not been replaced, but the park hasn't got a single new coaster since T Express, a whole decade ago this year. "Aha," I thought, a little sad. Perhaps the hugely expensive T Express hadn't brought in the crowds they had been expecting. That the park economy hadn't been good enough to allow for more additions. Curious to read more about the sad fate of Everland, I went to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia could inform me that Everland's visitor numbers had gone up by a solid million between 2008 and 2015. Apparently, the park wasn't only not struggling, it was virtually booming. It was the largest park in South Korea, and 14th largest in the world by attendance. They even have one of the world's largest waterparks. And yet I couldn't find a single mention of a new ride of any kind since T Express, even the waterpark wasn't stated to have gotten anything new since 2008. The visitor numbers imply they could certainly afford it, and the increase in visitor numbers suggest people have found a reason to return there, yet what they return for, I have no idea.
The Wikipedia page was a little outdated, though, so I decided to look for data post 2015. And then the story got even weirder. Apparently, attendance has plummeted since 2015, they're back below the 2008 numbers and still dropping. Lotte World has overtaken Everland as the largest park in South Korea, and Everland has fallen to 17th on the list of the world's most visited parks. Still, it gets more visitors every year than Nagashima Spaland, Europa Park or Efteling, so they're not doing badly per se. Yet I still wonder exactly why, since there doesn't seem to have been a single high-profile addition to the park for the past decade.
So I guess what I wonder about is:
And so I went to RCDB. I was pretty shocked to see that not only had Eagle Fortress not been replaced, but the park hasn't got a single new coaster since T Express, a whole decade ago this year. "Aha," I thought, a little sad. Perhaps the hugely expensive T Express hadn't brought in the crowds they had been expecting. That the park economy hadn't been good enough to allow for more additions. Curious to read more about the sad fate of Everland, I went to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia could inform me that Everland's visitor numbers had gone up by a solid million between 2008 and 2015. Apparently, the park wasn't only not struggling, it was virtually booming. It was the largest park in South Korea, and 14th largest in the world by attendance. They even have one of the world's largest waterparks. And yet I couldn't find a single mention of a new ride of any kind since T Express, even the waterpark wasn't stated to have gotten anything new since 2008. The visitor numbers imply they could certainly afford it, and the increase in visitor numbers suggest people have found a reason to return there, yet what they return for, I have no idea.
The Wikipedia page was a little outdated, though, so I decided to look for data post 2015. And then the story got even weirder. Apparently, attendance has plummeted since 2015, they're back below the 2008 numbers and still dropping. Lotte World has overtaken Everland as the largest park in South Korea, and Everland has fallen to 17th on the list of the world's most visited parks. Still, it gets more visitors every year than Nagashima Spaland, Europa Park or Efteling, so they're not doing badly per se. Yet I still wonder exactly why, since there doesn't seem to have been a single high-profile addition to the park for the past decade.
So I guess what I wonder about is:
- Why wasn't T Express followed up? Why hasn't the park built any new coasters since 2008?
- Have they added anything of note at all this past decade?
- Why did visitor numbers rise so high, without any noteworthy additions?
- And likewise, why did they plummet back down?
- Are they doing anything to address the drop in attendance?