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Towards the beginning of the season, we launched our series of anniversary features, celebrating the tenth anniversaries of Nemesis (Alton Towers), Shockwave (Drayton Manor) and the Pepsi Max Big One (Pleasure Beach Blackpool), and also the centenary of Pleasure Beach Blackpool’s Captive Flying Machines.

Whilst we researched these features, Drayton Manor and Blackpool embraced in the spirit of celebration helping us do their wonderful rides justice, whilst unsurprisingly Alton Towers politely declined.

To their credit, though, Alton Towers organised Nemesis X that was a private event addressed by John Wardley where enthusiasts could learn more about the history of Nemesis, and indeed what the future might hold.

Nemesis has in terms of presentation fallen into a pitiful state. Effects are not working and the ride is looking worn with parts fenced off to make way for Fastrack and Air’s queue. Fortunately, the ride is running the best it ever has, although the presentation of the ride goes to show where the park’s interests lie.

Other birthday celebrations, meanwhile, were even less inspiring.

Thorpe Park celebrated its silver anniversary with a small flower border by the exit and a world record breaking naked ride on Nemesis Inferno where 28 plucky riders rode the B&M inverter dressed in nothing but their birthday suits and as god intended; nude.

Amazingly, this was as far-reaching as Thorpe’s birthday celebrations got. Planned events such as the season closing fireworks and the midnight opening throughout August were cancelled despite being heavily advertised even into the dates that the planned events were supposed to run.

Meanwhile, Drayton Manor’s celebration of Shockwave’s tenth was even more subdued. About half of the ride was painted with a new sky-blue colour scheme, bizarrely leaving the bottom of the lift blue and red, and the first half of the ride grey and brown. No mention of Shockwave’s milestone anniversary was made within park, and for a relatively quiet year for Drayton Manor, surely it would have been a good time to draw people’s attention to a wonderfully unique ride.

Also, very little pomp and circumstance was made of the centenary of the wonderful Captive Flying Machines at Pleasure Beach Blackpool. Considering this is the oldest ride in the Pleasure Beach, to see only a small event coinciding with a European Coaster Club event, it was a shame to see so little attention drawn to a ride which a century on still has an enigmatic drawing power.

2004 wasn’t only a season of upset and disappointment.

Thanks to Dæmonen, Tivoli Gardens in Denmark were happy to report attendance of over 3m and record profits at almost twice as much as last season. Suburban European parks are inherently popular (this small park’s attendance far exceeds Alton’s, for example), yet Dæmonen was a gamble as it was a previously much-unexplored genre in Denmark. Nevertheless, the ride, one of B&M’s smallest ever roller coasters, has paid the park dividends.

Meanwhile, Europa Park celebrated the opening of Colosseo, their lavish Roman-themed hotel built around a reconstruction of Rome’s Coliseum with 1200 beds, making the entire Europa Park resort the largest in Germany with 4500 in total.

Following this success, in a relatively surprise announcement, Europa Park announced the addition of Portugal, a new country with a more elaborate version of Tusenfryd’s Supersplash building on the success of their current water coaster, Poseidon.

And in another unexpected announcement, following on from the successful Intamin wooden coaster, Balder, Liseburg in Sweden announced Kanonen (Canon), a twice-looping Intamin hydraulically launched ‘Accelerator’ coaster, the first in Europe.

The coaster features a high-speed launch into a 75ft outside top hat featuring a 90-degree drop into a circuit featuring a vertical loop and one of Intamin’s trademark inline twists.

Less likely though was a coaster that was always considered a dead cert; Blackpool’s launched coaster. First planned for 2006, then called P2K7 (Project 2007 – geddit?), and then reportedly the park’s “contract” with Intamin was written off and new tenders for the coaster sought.

Reassuringly, though, Blackpool Today reported that an “Even Bigger One” was planned, and that the proposed course would take the coaster from the park, across Ocean Boulevard, across the tram lines, across the prom, the beach and – and I kid you not – into the sea on a specially constructed pier. Whatever happens with P2K7, Blackpool is most certainly looking outside the box.

Towards the end of the 2004 season, a welcome distraction from a generally disastrous year was the annual speculation on what Alton Towers would be installing. This year’s supposition was on a scale almost beyond that of Oblivion (SW4) with UK forums being veritably whipped up into a frenzy as a corrugated metal box with a supposed Intamin delivery note were spotted behind Cred Street.

Plans discovered by enthusiasts also formed a pivotal part of speculation with regards to ‘Jazz Land’ a redevelopment of what’s left of Cred Street, and a launched coaster, possibly a Vekoma Motorbike coaster, in the woods in front of Duel.

Unsurprisingly, the Intamin crate was never seen again and the exciting plans never came to fruition.

But, one rumour would just not go away – that Alton Towers were planning a launched coaster. And on queue, a scan of an in-park newsletter revealed construction on a new coaster would start in the middle of September. And what does that mean? Yet more ride closures. Incredibly, as construction walls went up, Ug Bugs and Ug Swinger closed for the rest of the season taking the total rides closed this year to eight.

By the end of the year, Ug Land closed as a building site, and Alton Towers proudly invited all who would listen to ‘Ride Rita’ next year – she’s the Queen of Speed, you know. Information was scant – the ride would be roughly the same height as the existing Corkscrew roller coaster, and the ride would be a launched Intamin of some shape or form.

The trend of removing rides to make way for new ones doesn’t end there, either. Drayton Manor announced the impending removal of the much-ridiculed Klondike Mine Train to make way for Barnstormer, an exquisitely twisted Maurer coaster with three inversions, and one glaring omission; over-head restraints. Barnstormer would be the second coaster in Europe (following Skywheel) to use Maurer’s much-lauded X-Car, using a U-shaped lap bar to do the work an overhead restraint would normally do.

The trend continues with the removal of Thorpe Park’s Flying Fish which closes to make way for 2006’s proposed Intamin hydraulically launched coaster. Thorpe Park also honoured at least the most exciting part of their 2005 chapter of the previously announced Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) by announcing Slammer (Sky Swat) and Rush (Screamin’ Swing), both rides from Utah manufacturer, S&S. Sky Swat is a large 105ft rotary ride, whilst Screaming Swing swings screaming swingers over 90-degrees in just a few swings using suitably minimal seating and S&S’s fandangled air technology.

If you thought Alton were fairly audacious with their ride closures, look no further than Flamingoland. In what can best be described as a cull, an August edition of World’s Fair advertised not only rides like Tri Star, Top Gun and the ‘enclosed’ coaster, Thunder Mountain, but also their flagship Schwarzkopf coasters The Bullet and Magnum Force.

The park is gambling on the success of major themed rides to form the fabric of the park’s future with rides like Cliffhanger and Lost River being very much the sign of things to come. Indeed, look no further than the Vekoma Booster Bike to see what the park is planning for next year. Is a family launched coaster a worthy replacement for Magnum Force and Bullet? You decide.

Novelty coasters form a strong backbone to the line-up of new rides for 2005. One of the most extreme has to be Garadland’s proposed S&S Screamin’ Squirrel coaster. The Screamin’ Squirrel is one of the more extreme inventions to come from the playground of Stan Checkets of S&S. Cars topple over the edge of a vertical zig-zag to run along the underside of track completely upside-down before curling around 180-degrees onto another straight of track and then repeating the process again and again until you’re at the bottom.

And, as the park announces plans to build a resort hotel and a second gate, news that Tussauds are interested in making more European acquisitions centres on their interest in buying Gardaland. Fortunately, it seems the plan has fallen by the wayside, although it does seem inevitable that Tussauds are intent on beefing up their portfolio abroad.

Coincidentally, one of Tussauds’ former assets, [Universal’s] Port Aventura changed ownership. NBC-owned Universal sold Tussauds’ former stake (37%) to Spanish bank, La Caixa, for a reported €40 million. This delays any forthcoming major investments, although a heavily-themed Intamin drop ride, Hurakan Condor, was announced towards the end of the season. Any major coasters will have to wait until a rumoured 2007, though.

The Walibi has moved back into native Europe.

And who can forget the biggest take-over of the year? Here’s a clue; it’s probably the biggest buy-out since Six Flags purchased the Walibi Group. Yes, that’s right, friends, Star Parks announced in the first half of this year that beleaguered Six Flags had sold their share in their European theme parks to a small consortium of businessmen who called themselves Star Parks.

Movie World in Germany was the first park to be rebranded and almost instantly became Movie Park Germany. Elsewhere, the cuddly orange Walibi would make a triumphant return as Six Flags Holland and Six Flags Belgium became Walibi World and Walibi Belgium respectively.

And whilst Six Flags were to maintain control of Movie World Madrid, after a particularly slow year at the Spanish park, the park opted out of a 99-year management contract with Six Flags and took control of the park themselves. The disappointing attendance at the park has been attributed to misplaced marketing, although it is worth remembering that not one of the major Spanish parks has had a particularly successful year in terms of profits.

And this has been very much the theme for 2004. Whilst British enthusiasts have been distracted by what will probably go down in history as the worst season in recent history, 2004 continentally has been a season of change. While the impact of the accident on Hydro, the deaths of the Thompsons and the fires at Pleasure Beach Blackpool cannot be overstated enough, much has gone on abroad that will have a massive impact in Europe, and 2005 is already showing promise with at least four major coasters already announced in the UK alone, and at least a further three on the continent

2004 serves as a lesson not to take anything for granted. Rides come and go. The people who own rides and parks come and go. And whilst it is easy to remember 2004 as being a disaster, it is also a time to remember how dynamic the amusement park industry actually is, and how no year is the same.

Author: MS Wednesday, November 30, 2005 | Post a Comment
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