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COTALAND | Texas | Gerstlauer Infinity Shuttle (Palindrome) & Vekoma Tilt (Circuit Breaker) & Others

To be fair, @Bpolson75 shared this same news just a few posts up.

EDIT: Copying and pasting my post from the now [understandably] closed separate thread...

I'm not sure this should be written off yet. It's [not] a terribly great sign, but the circuit has also been operating in this manner for a while now. They also aren't hurting for money. They continue to capitalize from the incredible growth in F1 popularity. As a past ticket holder for the USGP at COTA, I can tell you that prices increased for this year's race by nearly 100% and they still sold the crap out of tickets. They aren't hurting for capital.

I'm not sure what the rationale is for the delay. Maybe they just want to make a more concerted effort with the big installations? I admit that it is strange that we haven't seen groundwork for the Gerstlauer, but I'm not ready to write it off yet, especially seeing how the entirety of the Gerstlauer seems to be sitting on property.
 
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Indy said:
To be fair, @Bpolson75 shared this same news just a few posts up.

EDIT: Copying and pasting my post from the now [understandably] closed separate thread...

I'm not sure this should be written off yet. It's [not] a terribly great sign, but the circuit has also been operating in this manner for a while now. They also aren't hurting for money. They continue to capitalize from the incredible growth in F1 popularity. As a past ticket holder for the USGP at COTA, I can tell you that prices increased for this year's race by nearly 100% and they still sold the crap out of tickets. They aren't hurting for capital.

I'm not sure what the rationale is for the delay. Maybe they just want to make a more concerted effort with the big installations? I admit that it is strange that we haven't seen groundwork for the Gerstlauer, but I'm not ready to write it off yet, especially seeing how the entirety of the Gerstlauer seems to be sitting on property.
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I mean why isn't Ring Racer fixed while the track it's a part of is still successful? I guess the park is starting to be viewed as a liability, which this could be a cut bait now move.

Also, I really think my N&R thread should still be up, this shouldn't be stuck in Construction.
 
Wazzupnerds said:
I mean why isn't Ring Racer fixed while the track it's a part of is still successful?
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Nurburgring isn't that successful though. The track is legendary, but it's not particularly successful at the moment. To complicate matters further, it is in the middle of nowhere. COTA is in a major metropolitan area. It is also doing quite well between it's NASCAR race, MotoGP race, and the cash cow F1 race.

Wazzupnerds said:
Also, I really think my N&R thread should still be up, this shouldn't be stuck in Construction.
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The downfall probably stemmed from posting the same news in two separate threads. I admittedly struggled with how to address the news in two separate threads.
 
Wazzupnerds said:
Also, I really think my N&R thread should still be up, this shouldn't be stuck in Construction.
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Disagree. We don't post any old park news (e.g. opening date announced, project pushed back another year, new flat ride confirmed) as a new thread, so this is no different. At the moment this isn't any more news than a park announcing their hours for 2023 - in other words only half a story if you remove your speculation.
 
TPoseOnTantrum said:
Nah they’re actively receiving shipments from Vekoma, SBF Visa, and Fabbri, this is a delay and honestly I’m fine with them taking their time. It’s annoying that they haven’t bothered with Palindrome but the park plans are not dead, at least not yet.
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Unless they have financial problems I dont see why they would wait. If they already have the rides, it's better to put them up and make cashflow, instead of owning rides that are kept in boxes and only cost money. This seems pretty fishy to me. Maybe they are redoing their project and want to build a bigger park from the get go? So that they start as a big park instead of starting like Energylandia, a small park that has expanded with massive additions but the small crappy park is still left in the middle of it.
 
I really doubt that they're in financial troubles. As everyone has already rightly said, the area makes an ungodly amount of money from the f1 and its only projected to increase. Cotaland has gone from a vision of a small park to pick up straggler families to entertain the kids for a while, to a major half-day theme park on the fly. It seems like fleshing out the park infradtructure is being done on the fly as the scope inflates, but has now gotten to the point where the final park would open half-baked by the time the GP (and the gp as a result 😜) would come along. Thereby neutering it's initial impact and requiring even more investment to make up the reputation deficit by next year. OR they could hold out, get everything in, working and prettified for next years race, have tens of thousands of guests in a weekend shelling out for rides, advertising them for free on social media, and getting more free advertising by showing a moving skyline of rides in the background of the main broadcast.

So, in my opinion, this is just a financial decision to maximise their long-term returns by getting their first impression right.
 
I think people get confused that circuits make alot of money from F1 - They make very very little from F1 itself with the large amounts they have to pay F1 to host the race. It is the knock on effects where they then make money for people wanting to come and do experiences or tours etc. So it is very possible that if they have had a poor year of other events/ activities that they could be struggling and therefore pushing this back slightly to allow more time for finances to come in.
 
TjChapperz said:
I think people get confused that circuits make alot of money from F1 - They make very very little from F1 itself with the large amounts they have to pay F1 to host the race. It is the knock on effects where they then make money for people wanting to come and do experiences or tours etc.
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That may be the case for a handful of races and was certainly more of the case ten years ago, but definitely isn't generally true these days in the wake of the popularity surge in the last 4 years due to the Netflix effect. COTA's sanctioning fee that they pay F1 to host the race is roughly $25 million. The facility holds 150,000 people and has sold out the last several years. The majority of the tickets are 3-day tickets with the cheapest being approximately $500. Let's assume the average ticket price is $750 and they are only selling 120,000 3-day tickets. They are bringing in $90,000,000 in revenue just from ticket sales and that's a pretty conservative figure. Sure, Ticketmaster gets a nice cut of that, but they will more than cover their sanctioning fee. Then, there is the revenue from merch, food/food vendors, parking, transportation, and concerts. COTA is absolutely making a ton of money from F1.
 
Circuit of The Americas filed a site plan for COTAland the other day, very few details are attached to this but see the article and filing below;
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https://abc.austintexas.gov/public-search-other

Site plan filed for long-awaited COTA Land amusement park in Southeast Austin​

A long-planned amusement park at Circuit of The Americas in Southeast Austin appears to be ready to ramp up construction.
An April 25 site plan filed with the city of Austin called "COTA Land" is currently under review — and while there are very few details, it notes that the project is located on 21 acres and could eventually include 1 million square feet of development at the 1,500-acre site that for the last decade has been home to the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix.

Bobby Epstein, COTA chairman and founder, issued a brief statement on May 4: "We're looking forward to bringing more family fun and adrenaline thrills to our Central Texas community! This park adds to our goal of helping grow Austin and COTA as a destination for sports and entertainment."

A spokeswoman said additional details would be released at a later date but did share some facts about the project: The site will be located near turns 19 and 20 of the race track and include 30 rides – a combination of kids rides, family rides and thrill rides.

There are at least three rollercoasters planned: Circuit Breaker, described as the "first tilt coaster of its kind in the United States"; Palindrome, described as the "first Gerstlauer infinity coaster of its kind in the United States"; and the Texas Wildcat, "the only Schwarzkopf coaster of its kind left operating in the world" that is currently operational in the track's grand plaza, alongside 10 kid rides and a few family rides during major events. Another planned ride is Sky Blazer, a pendulum swing ride.

Plans for COTA Land have been circulating for years. Back in 2020, Epstein told the Austin Business Journal that a children’s amusement park would complement the site's existing go-karting track called KOTA Karting. They announced the park and released renderings of some of the attractions back in 2021.

“The long-term plan is to create a recreation, entertainment and amusement destination for Central Texas,” Epstein said back in 2020. “Along with that comes sports fields, a hotel and water park ... and amusement related things."

Representatives for the city of Austin said there is no additional information they can share, while the applicant on the project – Austin-based engineering firm Carlson, Brigance, and Doering Inc. – did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.

COTA has for years aimed to build on the success of F1 and turn the track into more of a destination year-round. COTA last year hosted its 10th F1 race and its first under a new contract that runs through 2026. That event has drawn over 400,000 people for the whole weekend of races. Economic impact for the 2021 race was around $980 million, including $434 million in direct spending. For comparison, music festival Austin City Limits had an estimated economic impact of $369 million in 2021, including $28 million in direct spending. Another neat comparison: Super Bowls tend to yield about half of what F1 brings to Austin.

The company last year hired Mark Pannes — a University of Texas alumnus with past stints as CEO of Italian pro soccer team AS Roma and Major League Soccer's Vancouver Whitecaps, as well as chief marketing officer of the NBA's New York Knicks — as COTA's president for strategy and corporate growth. In addition to the go-kart race track and the pieces of the amusement park, there is an amphitheater and other space for concerts. The future could bring a hotel and condo complex, museum and more to the property.

Pannes told the Austin Business Journal in February 2022 that he was hired to bring that vision to life.

"Any time you're a major event property, the ability to add other complementary properties to your portfolio that smooth out the cash flow over the course of a year and also allow you to leverage the biggest properties you have, that should be the goal," Pannes said. "That's what everyone who has a marquee property should be trying to do, is to bring that ancillary property that is complementary. ... That's what we're working on now."
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Doesn't smell like a project in trouble to me.
 
Keeping an eye on the shipping documents has finally started to bear juicier fruit, as a Starflyer AND Skyfall have been shipped out of Hamburg and into Houston. No doubts about where these are headed;
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Normally you'd think that this'd be a bit soon for a new Funtime drop tower in the USA, butttt I guess we're just going to assume that whatever happened in Orlando will hopefully stay an isolated incident.
 
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