Ride Profile
parkworld-online.com
frightened, but sometimes you’ve got young girls in particular who will scream just because they want to scream, so it was more about that than stopping people shouting and screaming altogether.
Media storm We opened the ride on Maundy Thursday, March 25. It was meant to be a soft launch, but it all went a bit ballistic! The local newspaper ran a story about our efforts to keep the noise down, and then the next day someone came to take a picture for the Daily Star. I don’t normally buy the Star, but I thought “I wonder if there’s an angle here?” I opened up the paper and there was this big story with the headline: “Theme Park bans screaming on new rollercoaster”. After that we received coverage from regional radio, local TV, The One Show, Fox News and even CNN Indonesia! At one point I think the story was trending at number two on BBC Online. All this publicity certainly acted as good publicity, and it actually got the message out about us being a caring park trying to look after our neighbours. It was never intended as an April Fool, but on April 1 we put out a statement saying because of all the concerns about the noise on the rollercoaster we would go with the flow and rename the ride The Screamer. It’s still The Big One for now, which was our original project name, but I’m aware that Blackpool has The Big One, so this summer we will be doing a competition for a new name and hopefully go with something sheep-related.
The whole thing has been quite a challenge, but the
reception to the ride has been absolutely fantastic from all ages and our numbers are already up by about 20-30% on last year. The Big Sheep is never going to be major theme park – the local population is not big enough and we’re too close to the sea – but I think we will look at adding other rides down the line. Maybe not another rollercoaster for a while yet though!
thebigsheep.co.uk Rick Turner was in conversation with Owen Ralph
“ The coaster in its days at Metroland
I opened
up the paper and there was this big story with the headline ‘Theme Park bans
screaming on new
rollercoaster’. After that we received
coverage from regional radio, The One Show, Fox News and even CNN Indonesia!
MAY 2016
37
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