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Small News From The Theme Park Industry

First up I have some interesting France news (See below) but let me mention the 2 Boomerangs mentioned above. Duane added these to the DB earlier this week after a chat I had with someone at Transmart. While we have known both Boomerangs were going to Transmart for a while now we didnt know which way round they would go. However we learnt that the park in Bali would be getting a boomerang with new trains while the Jakarta one would not need new trains. While this isnt conclusive it leads us to believe the Bali Boomerang will be the one from Knotts as it has the older trains while the Jakarta one will be Pleasure Islands as it has newer model trains already. Not conclusive but its I reckon a pretty good certainty.

Now on to France.

News from a small park in France called Volcania which is currently a quasi educational park about Volcanos.
The park will build a new coaster for 2021 themed to earthquakes. While it wont be huge due to a 20m cap at the park it does sound like it will be well themed. And a unique element in France? On an Earthquake themed coaster I would take a punt at a drop track however Futuroscope may very well beat them to the punch there.

A couple of translated quotes from an interview about the park.

"The coaster is recorded. It will be outside. The idea is to integrate it as much as possible in order to distort neither our identity nor the volcanoes inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list in July. The theme will be that of earthquakes . The idea is that beyond the coaster, we want people to learn something about earthquakes. The complicated point is this: people will have fun on this sensational coaster, but earthquakes are dramatic natural phenomena. We will make sure to give the visitors a role to play, in a preshow where we will tell a story."
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"The coaster will not be too high, the current PLU being limited to 20 meters. The ride will rather be built on horizontality.

There should be a unique element in France ... we cross our fingers so that it is still the case in 2021! The idea is not to have a coaster that would only go very quickly ...

One thing is certain, globally: we will never go very high. On the other hand, we have 57ha in the middle of this field of volcanoes. In many parks, when you take a little height, you see ... the car parks. Not us, and it's a strength. When it comes to the outdoors, it's going to be a real challenge. The fact that we are one of the highest parks in Europe (1000 meters altitude!), Despite the good weather, also limits our investments because it is quickly cold at night and off-season. A water park, for example, you can forget! "
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Source (In French)
 
Intersting to see that they're going down the more 'theme park' route as opposed to edutainment that they've relied on to date. I wonder if the new addition of the dark ride at Puy de Lemptégy (literally next door) has made them buck up their ideas and try to get ahead of the game?

My small news is that Toverland has seen an enormous 19% increase in their visitor numbers, from 682,000 to 812,000. This increase is absolutely enormous for a park and can is the direct cause of the rebrand, Port Laguna and Avalon. Impressive stats.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6494308926694191104

For you graph geeks:
2r7m4ci.png
 
The best part about the Toverland stats is that they're, for lack of a better word, disappointed with that increase, as they were targeting 900k guests for 2018. They're still happy with the numbers they got, but the fact their ambition is to get higher numbers already is great.

It's definitely a park with ambition, and I'm really looking forward to its future.
 
I think with the introduction of their hotel in the coming years, they'll easily achieve their target. I'd quite happily spend more than one day at the park, it's just a really nice place to be?
 
The director of Bagatelle has shared this concept art for the new design of Gaz Express' train. Looks really cool!
image_416dd699-14e0-4535-84e9-bae15d51a3c320190125_184233-jpg.4391
 

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vaugc002 said:
I genuinely though this was a joke post :D.
From the looks of things you're belted in and it tilts? I usually kinda like how basic their contraptions are but this one is maybe a step too far.
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I thought it was a joke, too. It made me laugh so much.
 
CrashCoaster said:
Cheetah Hunt at BGT is closed indefinitely:-
https://twitter.com/x/status/1088890044637687814
Anybody have an idea as to why?
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It is probably as simple as they don't know how long something is going to take to fix or how long a part is going to take to arrive. The others are probably just scheduled maintenance where there are no specific issues to fix. Doubt we'll see it going anywhere.
 
Yeah, it sounds like it might just be an issue they're trying to get fixed and don't have a definite date on it. It's much easier to just not put a date on it reopening if there's a fault as opposed to annual maintenance. It'll cause less hassle not putting a date over putting one and it falling behind.
 
Looopings have reported Walibi Holland's visitor numbers for the past couple of years:

2018: 838,000
2017: 858,000
2016: 900,000

That puts them only 26,000 ahead of Toverland. The numbers are extremely close, and 4-5 years ago it felt perhaps almost unimaginable that Toverland could be that close to Walibi. No doubt Untamed will help extend Walibi's lead for now, but it'll be interesting to see the future of Dutch parks...
 
JoshC. said:
Looopings have reported Walibi Holland's visitor numbers for the past couple of years:

2018: 838,000
2017: 858,000
2016: 900,000

That puts them only 26,000 ahead of Toverland. The numbers are extremely close, and 4-5 years ago it felt perhaps almost unimaginable that Toverland could be that close to Walibi. No doubt Untamed will help extend Walibi's lead for now, but it'll be interesting to see the future of Dutch parks...
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I must say that I'm surprised that Walibi doesn't get higher visitor numbers considering the size of the park. But I'm sure Untamed will remedy that in 2019!
 
Lofty said:
I think with the introduction of their hotel in the coming years, they'll easily achieve their target. I'd quite happily spend more than one day at the park, it's just a really nice place to be?
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Totally agree. Wonderful park, such a surprise too, I was expecting it to be a little bit like Plopsa (fine but not worth going out of your way to go to...) but it was gorgeous. Very excited to see what happens next with Toverland.
 
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