ATTRACTIONS MANAGEMENT
BALPPA NEWS Martin Barratt The pier was destroyed by fi re in 2008 Weston Pier rides nearing completion
The design and build of the eight rides that will be installed at the redeveloped Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare are nearing com- pletion. The bespoke rides, supplied by Stroud-based ride manufacturer Gravitron, are part of a £3m (US$4.5m, €3.7m) con- tract secured two years ago when the 106-year-old pier was destroyed in a fi re. The fl agship ride will be a 300m (984 ft)- long go-kart track on two levels – one of the biggest of its type in the world – with 22
Merlin signs Animalive deal
Interactive theatre and animation com- pany Digital Interactive Booth Systems (DIBS) has secured a deal to deliver its Animalive concept at four Sea Life centres across the UK. Merlin Entertainments, which
operates the Sea Life portfolio of attractions, will install Animalive’s Chatterbox Minis at Sea Life centres in Brighton, Birmingham, Weymouth and Scarborough. The Animalive booths provide a live interactive animation system which combines motion capture with real time anima- tion rendering. Animalive won the best product for show production and entertainment at the IAAPA Expo in 2009. A special character called Kiah the Turtle has been created for the Sea Life centres, which will host an interactive quiz.
12 Peppa Pig World will open in Easter 2011
Peppa Pig attraction for Paultons Park
An attraction based on the children’s TV show Peppa Pig is being built at Paultons Family Theme Park in Hampshire, UK. Peppa Pig World, scheduled to open by
Easter 2011, was created in partnership with Paultons, E1 Entertainment and the show’s creators, Astley Baker Davies. The park will feature seven rides inspired
by the show including Peppa Pig’s family car and Miss Rabbit’s helicopter.
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electric karts, two of which are twin-seat- ers, travelling at speeds of up to 70 mph. Also being installed are a 12.5m (41 ft)- high twin slide helter-skelter as well as dodgems, a ghost train, a ‘crazy house’ with 36 fun obstacles, a mirror maze and a ‘groovy house’ containing a psychedelic, three-dimensional light show. There will also be two electric trains,
each able to carry up to 32 passengers along the 400m (1,300 ft) pier.
Let’s show them how it’s done
E
very year in the UK, a group of business people decide to build a visitor attraction. Their usual starting point
is to develop a great idea that one of them had at the end of last weeks din- ner party. Well, why not build a Robin Hood theme park on that brownfi eld site just off the M42...? Why do people outside our indus-
try think they’re qualifi ed to develop and operate a visitor attraction just because they visited Orlando once? Is it because we make what we do look so easy? No – it’s because we haven’t helped our customers to understand the expertise and hard work that’s needed to make a success of running a visitor attraction. The papers run stories about how
much it costs to take a family to a theme park, implying that it’s a rip off. They don’t consider how much it costs to run a park professionally and safely, or how many families are supported by each attraction business. This is partly our fault – our indus-
try is still too fragmented. We must improve the way we communicate the value of what we do. We like to form little groups that represent small parts of the attractions sector, but our customers and our legislators don’t understand such distinctions. Unless we present a unifi ed view of our industry, we’ll never be valued as we deserve. That has to be an objec- tive worth pursuing.
Martin Barratt, CE, BALPPA AM 3 2010 ©cybertrek 2010
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