Branded Attractions
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based attractions, the licensed brand or brands are a stronger marketing tool than any individual ride. They can also provide a great boost to a park’s merchandise sales.
B uilt at a cost of £10.3 million ($16.8m/
€11.8m), Nickelodeon Land at the Pleasure Beach in Blackpool brings a fresh new look to the children’s area formerly known as Beaver Creek. Spread across six acres (4.2-hectares) of this famous British park, this is only the second Nickelodeon theme park experience in Europe after the opening of Nick Land at Movie Park Germany in 2007. Featured in Blackpool are a selection of new and rethemed attractions based around characters and shows from the world’s leading entertainment network for kids, including the first ever Twist ‘n’ Splash by Mack. “We are delighted to welcome Nickelodeon Land to Pleasure Beach,” says the park’s managing director, Amanda Thompson. “Both our brands represent fantastic family fun.” “We were really taken by the history and prominence of Blackpool Pleasure Beach,” adds Kiaran Saunders, vice-president and commercial director for Nickelodeon UK. “Everything here is quite close together, and you get some really good atmosphere. I’ve seen a lot of designs over the past year or so, but it’s great to see it come to life. Amanda’s a stickler for quality, and I think that shows.”
Pleasure Beach deputy managing director Nick Thompson acknowledges the debt owed to Drayton Manor: “We watched with interest when Drayton opened Thomas Land and prior to that I’d seen Nickelodeon at Dreamworld in Australia and obviously grown up with the Disney parks and Universal. Thomas was a great success for Drayton Manor so we went about seeing how to get an intellectual property into our park. The question was, which one? Thomas has been around years and is always going to be around, and to be honest there aren’t many of those brands out there.”
Multiple Brands
Spanning several dedicated TV channels, Nickelodeon offered the promise of multiple intellectual properties that could be exploited inside the park. “Nickelodeon is a TV company and the brands and attractions we feature at Nickelodeon Land will evolve over time,” highlights Nick Thompson. “That was the reason for working with them, rather than any one character. We’ve got SpongeBob, Dora the Explorer and Backyardigans, but we’ve also got Rugrats, which was one of their most popular brands until it disappeared a few years ago. We’ve brought it back in our log flume, and now Nickelodeon are putting it back on TV because we’ve got the ride.” Tellingly, Pleasure Beach’s new television commercials do not feature any of Nickelodeon Land’s rides or attractions. They do, however, feature SpongeBob and other animated Nickelodeon characters – proof surely that when it comes to IP-
JUNE 2011
“If you look at the retail in any park, it’s not that huge until you start bringing in brands,” observes Thompson. “That wasn’t the only reason for doing Nicklelodeon Land but it helps a huge amount.” So, as well as 12 themed rides and attractions, Pleasure Beach guests will also encounter a large Nick Shop, featuring souvenirs from all their favourite Nickelodeon characters. It does not, alas, sell Nick Thompson merchandise.
There are several attractions that stand out at Nickelodeon Land. Thanks to its bright, newly painted orange wood structure, Nickelodeon Streak – Pleasure Beach’s original 1933 Charles Paige Roller Coaster – can be seen from many areas of the park. Running alongside it is Blue Flyer, formerly the Zipper Dipper mini wooden coaster constructed in 1934 by Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters, now sporting a vivid blue track.
“When choosing the mix of rides, we knew that we would want rollercoasters within it,” says Thompson, “and as we have got two famous coaster already in this area of the park it would have been be crazy to get rid of them, the same with the log flume. Everything else we had to get rid of; we couldn’t just rebrand what we already had.”
The centrepiece of the new land is SpongeBob’s Splash Bash, Mack’s first ever Twist ‘n’ Splash, or tea cups on water. “We were planning another Mack ride, a boat ride,” says Thompson, “but then when we saw the model of Twist ‘n’ Splash at the trade show and literally bought it off the stand there and then. We wanted to be the first.”
Nick Names
Like SpongeBob’s Splash Bash, which is also the title of a 3DBA Splash Battle at Movie Park in Germany, several other rides have similar names to those at various other Nickelodeon outlets. There’s Avatar Airbender, for instance, a Zamperla Mega Disk ‘O’ in Blackpool, but an Intamin Half Pipe at Nickelodoen Universe at the Mall of America in Minnesota. Positioned on the edge of Nickelodeon Land, the Zamperla version rocks from side to side in the shadow of the Pleasure Beach’s former Space Invader building, which now houses the Big Pizza Kitchen. Zamperla was also responsible for supplying Fairy
World Taxi Spin, a themed Telecombat that replaces Beaver Creek’s aging helicopter ride, Diego’s Rainforest Rescue (Samba Tower), Bikini Bottom Bus Tour (Flying Bus) and Big Circus Bounce (Jump Around).
Still to open at the time of writing, Dora’s World
Voyage is a sightseeing boat ride that promises a journey across four lands – France, Russia, Tanzania and China. Inspired just a little bit by It’s a Small World, the attraction takes the place of Magic Mountain, the children’s dark ride that operated at Pleasure Beach for many years. The aforementioned log flume, now Rugrats Lost River, is the smaller of what until quite recently were two flume rides at the park.
SpongeBob’s Splash Bash is a highlight of Nickelodeon Land
Diego’s Rainforest Rescue
Pleasure Beach managing director Amanada Thompson with Howard Smith, executive vice-president of Nickelodeon recreation
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