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Small News From The Theme Park Industry

An 'off the beaten track' type of story, but members of the Taliban can no longer carry their weapons into Afghanistan's theme parks.
nypost.com

Afghanistan’s Taliban told they can’t take their guns to the funfair

Taliban fighters will no longer be allowed to carry their weapons in amusement parks in Afghanistan, the group’s spokesman said on Wednesday.
nypost.com nypost.com

I'll avoid any political commentary, but it was a little bit of a culture shock - for lack of a better term - to realise that they were allowed to carry them into parks at all.
 
^
Not quite the same, but if we could get rid of armed security outside a few parks a bit closer to home, that would be great...
 
Viktor's Race at Plopsaland, the oldest operating coaster in Belgium, is getting another makeover. The station and queue line has already been stripped down with the decor being placed in the parking lot, waiting to be scrapped. It's not known when the coaster will re-open.

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Source:
www.looopings.nl

Foto's: Plopsaland sluit twee attracties voor metamorfose

Plopsaland De Panne is onaangekondigd gestart met het verbouwen van het themadeel De Wereld van Kaatje. Looopings kon vorige maand al melden dat het Vlaamse pretpark werkt aan een nieuw thema voor het gebied. Inmiddels zijn de werkzaamheden in volle...
www.looopings.nl www.looopings.nl
 
Anyone heading to Bayern Park in Germany this summer may want to hold out for a bit, as their Maurer launch coaster, Freischütz, will be closed until July to allow for refurbishing and replacement of the coaster's launch and control systems, with the goal of significantly reducing downtime. The park also hopes to bring back the "double launch" feature with this refurb, which I assume hasn't been working for a long time.

Freischütz - Bayern-Park

Rasante AchterbahnfahrtIn nur 2,3 Sekunden beschleunigt die Katapultachterbahn Freischütz von 0 auf 80 km/h. In der 40 Sekunden langen Fahrt des Launch Coasters gibt es, bis auf den Start, keinen geraden Streckenabschnitt. Vollgepackt mit 4 Inversionen, bestehend aus Inside Top Hat, Looping und...
www.bayern-park.com www.bayern-park.com

Here's a video of the double launch:

 
Last edited:
cookie said:
Viktor's Race at Plopsaland, the oldest operating coaster in Belgium, is getting another makeover. The station and queue line has already been stripped down with the decor being placed in the parking lot, waiting to be scrapped. It's not known when the coaster will re-open.
Click to expand...
I read "Viktor's Race" and "scrapped" and immediately drew the wrong conclusion.
 
Have to admit, I didn't really get the point of Mardi Gras last year (the Alton event - didn't see Thorpe's) - but I do like that second poster :)
 
Wazzupnerds said:
I have to ask, why is a UK park having a Mardi Gras event? I get the French origins, but it's more of a Southern US thing.
Click to expand...
Mardi Gras is now a worldwide celebration, technically of shrovetide.
It celebrates the coming of lent, and is meant to be the eating up of "naughty" foods before the lenten fasting.
Originated in France, hopped over to the French colonies in the Americas, and to have it at any time other than before Easter is bloody stupid, a bit like Christmas in June.
Highlighting their own ignorance, Merlin needs to get it's facts straight, and just call it a carnival.
Grumpy old man semantic pedantic rant over, thank you.
 
rob666 said:
Mardi Gras is now a worldwide celebration, technically of shrovetide.
It celebrates the coming of lent, and is meant to be the eating up of "naughty" foods before the lenten fasting.
Originated in France, hopped over to the French colonies in the Americas, and to have it at any time other than before Easter is bloody stupid, a bit like Christmas in June.
Highlighting their own ignorance, Merlin needs to get it's facts straight, and just call it a carnival.
Grumpy old man semantic pedantic rant over, thank you.
Click to expand...
Wait….

*pieces fall into place*

…. Mardi Gras is pancake day?!

My world has been rocked this morning.
 
Niles said:
A little while back Thorpe park did a survey asking which of the two styles you prefer for their next event. Looks like they just went for both in the end as Mardi Gras and Carnival will be the two new events coming to Thorpe for the 2022 season.
https://twitter.com/x/status/1491849865516789765
Click to expand...

Posters look nice.

I'm going to be a bit of a downer and say I have many reservations about the events. The food options at the Oktoberfest event, for example, have been pretty generic (and pricey), with many of the stalls rolling over into Fright Nights. Even Park Vibes had similar stalls.

Looking at, my fear is that you have two events which are going to be exactly the same (Mardi Gras and Oktoberfest), just with different colours splurged around the park, at which point they may as well just keep the generic food stalls for Carnival...meaning you have 3 events which are effectively the same, just with different colours, and actors putting on different silly voices. Plus more annoying-voiced overlays on the rides - I stand in (I think) a minority of people who detested the Park Vibes overlays and most of the Oktoberfest overlays...

It's good to see Thorpe getting a bigger events budget, and spreading more events out over the year. But if they end up being NFT-like copies of each other (basically the same just with different colours), then it's a bit of a sigh from me.
One could argue if you have near-carbon copies of events, then it at least means they can pump some quality into them though. Hopefully that's the case.
 
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