Funworld November/December 2010

One Wild and Crazy RIDE Through NYC

Launched Sept. 16, 2010, from the Marriott Marquis in New York City’s Times Square as a high-energy, multimedia, multifaceted entertainment production, THE RIDE (www. experiencetheride.com) whips riders through the city on unique state-of-the- art vehicles while a constantly changing show featuring actors, performers, and everyday citizens plays out before them on the streets of midtown Manhattan.

“The idea was conceived by Michael Counts about six or seven years ago and was created because the cities of today are becoming the entertainment panorama that theme parks have been for years,” says THE RIDE’s president and CEO, Jonathan Danforth. “So the idea was to take the fabrics of the city and allow people to experience it through this vehicle we’ve created.” Counts is an entertainment director, designer, and entrepreneur based in Brooklyn, New York.

THE RIDE’s vehicles are a spectacle all their own. Its staff is careful not to call them buses, and one look at them explains why. At 13 feet high, 8 feet wide, and 45 feet long, each custombuilt vehicle features stadium-style seating oriented sideways to afford up to 49 riders a perfect view out its huge windows. A multimillion-dollar investment in custom-designed audio, video, and wireless technology, including surround- sound speakers and 3,000 LED lights, greatly enhances each “performance.”

“Each vehicle has 40 video screens, 800 watts of sound, and seats that can actually shake,” says Danforth. “We have a ride technician on board that no one can see who controls all the audio and video.”

The sound system was designed by Brett Jarvis of Jarvis Sound and Music Design, who says the challenge was to cram an Imax theater’s worth of equipment into a moving room the size of a studio apartment.

Each ride has two improv hosts, nicknamed Scott and Jackie, who initiate the entertainment and keep things edgy. Then, over the 4.5-mile journey, some 16 different performers appear along the street in different vignettes and interact with the vehicle and its riders, with the riders never knowing who is a performer and who isn’t, or what will happen next. “We intertwine videos, fake commercials, and info about the city,” Danforth says.

While THE RIDE will obviously attract tourists, Danforth believes it will also draw in New Yorkers who, rather than just watching a stage show, would rather spend Friday or Saturday night being entertained by top improv actors as THE RIDE rolls through Manhattan.

He says the ideal demographic for THE RIDE is 25- to 45-year-olds, but that the excitement and variety should attract everyone. As for its appropriateness for all ages, Danforth insists, “It will be very cool, very edgy, but not risqué or offensive—I absolutely will not allow that to happen.”

THE RIDE’s major strategic marketing partner is the Marriott Marquis. “They give us a huge supply of [guests] because they have so many conventions and a 96 percent occupancy,” says Danforth. “In addition, we’re in print in all of the trade pubs, we’re on taxi cab TVs, we’re on a half-page ad in USA Today, we’re doing radio interviews, and we’re using Goodman Media to get the word out.”

Owned by private equity shareholders, THE RIDE is currently operating four vehicles and doing about 16 shows a day. Danforth says in the first two quarters of 2011, four more vehicles will be added, conducting a total of 32 shows and entertaining some 1,700 riders daily. Tickets can be purchased online, from the concierge at New York hotels, or from THE RIDE’s Times Square box office.

TAA Quickly Building a Global Reputation

Theming and Animatronics Industries (TAA) of Madrid, Spain (www.taaindustries.com), is certainly building a long resume in a short amount of time. Since the founding of TAA in 2005 by Udo Weisenburger, currently the company’s president, the firm has distinguished itself and is now being retained by some of the attractions industry’s most respected companies.

Case in point: TAA was brought in for all of the theming (except for intank work) on Merlin Entertainments’ new Sea Life aquarium, which opened in Phoenix, Arizona, earlier this year. It was TAA’s eighth project for Merlin in just four years, and the Spanish company was the only non-U.S.-based firm involved.

“I think we were chosen based on Merlin’s good experiences with us and our work at the Sea Life center in Porto, Portugal,” Weisenburger says. “I believe two elements that make us unique are that we work with a lot of passion and we have our own manufacturing facility [in Romania], so we can deliver the top quality for very affordable prices.”

At Sea Life in Phoenix, TAA built a re-creation of an underwater shipwreck, complete with creaking wood floors. The company used cement to make lifelike color corals to create a reef ambiance, created an ocean cave complete with sculpted fossils of prehistoric sea creatures, and produced the “Temple of Seahorses.” The latter features stone-carved walls lined with images of the life of seahorses. In fact, TAA adorned the walls of the entire center with marine-themed graphics.

Other notable TAA projects include the attraction called “Nightmare” at Tusenfryds park in Norway, “Pirates Skull Bay” at Heide Park in Soltau, Germany, and the polar bear enclosure at Marineland in Antibes, France. TAA incorporated advanced animatronics on a couple of these projects, and Weisenburger says the company has done animatronic dragons, dinosaurs, and humans.

The company also does work for smaller venues like FECs. It created most of the theming for the 32,000- square-foot Lego Discovery Centre in Duisburg, Germany, which opened in 2008, including the cement and coated styropor works, wallpaper, paintings, artificial plants and trees, and woodworks, as well as the mechanics and pneumatics for various scenes and the lighting effects. One of these scenes is the “Lego Factory Tour,” where guests are shown how Lego bricks are made on a factory line featuring pneumatic and light effects created by TAA; it was asked to produce the same thing for the Lego Discovery Center in Chicago.

With widespread recognition in Europe and a firm foothold in the United States TAA is now looking to establish itself in Asian markets and participated in IAAPA’s Asian Attractions Expo this year for the first time, Weisenburger says..

The fact that TAA does extensive work with animatronics, pneumatics, and even story development seems to signal it is much more than just a theming company. “Definitely,” affirms Weisenburger. “We do the design, the storyboards, everything. We don’t want to be thought of as just a theming company.”

WonderWorks’ Success Is Anything But Upside Down

In the hotly competitive world of amusement attractions, extraordinary showmanship and creative theming are so widespread it’s sometimes difficult for attractions to distinguish themselves to the point that they’re instantly recognizable. But that’s not a problem for WonderWorks (www.wonderworksonline.com), whose upside-down buildings immediately become unmistakable landmarks wherever they appear; the newest location opening spring 2011 at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, should be no exception.

Calling itself “an amusement park for the mind,” WonderWorks features more than 100 exhibits designed to educate as well as entertain. Some of them teach through simulated experiences, like taking the controls to land a space shuttle or piloting a fighter jet; some challenge a visitor’s imagination and creativity, like designing and then riding a virtual roller coaster; while others dare one’s nerve, like challenging guests to lie on a bed of real nails.

“The bed of nails is a unique exhibit,” says Jackie Vasquez, director of sales and marketing for Wonder- Works. “There are 3,500 nails that distribute your weight across all of the heads of the nails, so the nails don’t stick into you.”

WonderWorks is not just for kids, and Vasquez stresses the attraction puts a lot of effort into making sure that among its 100-plus exhibits, there’s something for everyone. “Seniors really like the computer trivia that tests their knowledge and [the exhibit] where they experience natural disasters, like dealing with 74-mile-per-hour winds,” she says.

The company’s first and best-known location opened in March 1998 on International Drive in Orlando. There’s also one in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and another in Panama City Beach, Florida.

The Myrtle Beach location will be the company’s fourth, and though it will share some of the most popular exhibits of the other WonderWorks locations, it will have some unique attractions of its own. “Each Wonder- Works has different exhibits so you don’t see all of the same things when you go from one to the other,” Vasquez notes. “We also add something new each year and update the technology to keep it fresh.”

The Myrtle Beach WonderWorks will encompass 50,000 square feet and stand almost 10 stories tall. In addition to the attractions already mentioned, it will offer virtual sports, laser tag, a MaxFlight simulator, and a 4-D theater created by Triotech Amusement.

The company has been adding challenge courses at all of its locations, and the one at Myrtle Beach is unique in that it’s the only one situated outside. Having already opened on July 2 of this year, “Soar and Explore” features a 40- foot-tall pirate-themed ropes course with 33 different challenge elements using more than 3,000 cables and ropes, and a dual zipline soaring 50 feet above water over a course 1,000 feet long.

Though WonderWorks hasn’t announced admission pricing yet for the Myrtle Beach location, tickets are $24.99 for adults and $19.99 for kids at the Orlando attraction, with a variety of ticketing options and packages available.

As for WonderWorks’ future, it plans on opening a new location in the Meadowlands Mall in New Jersey in 2012 and three additional U.S. locations in the next three years. The company’s growth and success over the past 12 years is spurring international interest, according to WonderWorks coowner Robin Turner.

“We’re getting a lot of unsolicited interest in other places in the world, like the Middle East,” he tells FUNWORLD. “We’re probably not interested in operating anything internationally, but we would franchise. Probably within two years we’ll be opening up a couple of locations overseas.”

New Book Goes California Dreamin’

In summer 2008 two students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Alex Miller and Bryce Walker, set out with the daunting goal of visiting 20 California amusement parks and chronicling them for a book they wanted to publish. The goal was to capture the mesmerizing effect parks have on guests. Miller served as the author, as well as the organizer of the effort, and Walker contributed all of the photography.

Miller says it was his experiences visiting amusement parks while growing up that provided the inspiration for the book, entitled “California Theme Parks.”

“I’ve always had a love of amusement parks since I was about 6 years old,” he says. “My parents bought annual Disneyland passes, and visiting the park was one of my best memories from childhood. We also lived in Europe for three years, so I visited a lot of different parks all over Europe.”

After deciding which California parks to visit, Miller and Walker didn’t just haphazardly hit the road. “I contacted each park and made sure they knew what we were doing a couple of months before we visited,” Miller explains. “We sent them letters detailing what we wanted to do, interviewed the key park people, then went out and visited.”

Since it’s sometimes difficult to determine what qualifies as an amusement park, Miller settled on one hard and fast rule: “I decided a park had to include rides. It didn’t have to have a roller coaster, but it had to have rides.”

He says it was quite an adventure visiting so many parks in such a short time—on one trip they visited seven different facilities—and there were one or two pleasant surprises along the way. “I’m a huge traditionalist—I love the things that started [the industry],” he says, “and the Children’s Fairyland in Oakland was a big surprise. It’s a gorgeous gem as a theme park and they turned it into the first childthemed park. Walt Disney credited it for being one of his inspirations for Disneyland.”

Once the visits were complete and the book was written came the challenge of finding a publisher, a process that took about a year. The students selected Schiffer Publishing, and Miller says he’s pleased with the way it turned out: “The goal of this book is to give a snapshot of California theme parks as you see them today and pay homage to how they evolved. I give a brief history of the parks, what attractions they currently have, and what makes them special. I also wanted it to be a travel guide, so there are lots of pictures!”

“California Theme Parks” sells for $19.99 and can be purchased through the publisher at www.schifferbooks.com. Miller says it will also be available in the bookstore at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2010 in Orlando.

Having graduated from college, Miller continues to pursue his passion for amusement parks and now works in product development for the Walt Disney Company, following a stint in marketing and operations at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Walker lives in San Francisco and is working as an IT systems administrator.

Though he says he’ll always love the latest and greatest rides and attractions at parks, Miller notes, “I think it’s important that amusement parks embrace their history and nostalgia, because people always remember their experiences at amusement parks—they remember being happy.”

Ferrari World Opens in Abu Dhabi

At press time, Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (www. ferrariworldabudhabi.com), was set to soft open Oct. 27, with a grand opening in December culminating years of rumblings and anticipation for the large-scale attraction. The indoor theme park sits on the 2,500-hectare (9.6- square-mile) Yas Island and is a veritable potpourri of superlatives—the first Ferrari theme park, the largest of its kind, and featuring the world’s fastest roller coaster, the “Formula Rossa,” which reaches up to 240 kilometers per hour (149 miles per hour) in 4.19 seconds, a fitting characteristic for a brand with a speedy reputation.

“We call it a multisensory experience,” says Troy Lindquist, vice president of sales and marketing. “When you are in the theme park, you smell and feel the leather, you smell the Italian cuisine that’s embedded throughout the theme park, and you hear the sound of Ferrari.”

While there are more than 20 thrill rides and picturesque attractions at the park, Lindquist says his favorite is “Speed of Magic,” a moving simulator that travels through a 3-D film.

“You’re following Nelo, a mischievous little character, on a journey where Ferraris usually don’t travel— through the desert, ice, and underwater,” Lindquist says.

Another strength of Ferrari World, he says, is its broad appeal: “It’s a fabulous experience but a difficult concept to communicate. Seventy percent of Ferrari World can be enjoyed by a 10-year-old girl. As long as she likes fun and good food, she’ll have a great time. It’s not all about men and racing.”

—Marion Hixon