Ride Profile www.parkworld-online.com VAN HELSING’S


FACTORY Movie Park in the dark


The exterior of the attraction, with Van Helsing’s Club to the left


There’s been an “elephant in the park” ever since Movie Park Germany closed its Gremlins animatronic dark ride in 2004, following the termination of its licence agreement with Warner Bros. Every day guests and park employees alike would pass the great big, abandoned building in the centre of the park, but dare not mention it was there. Now general manager Wouter


Dekkers (pictured right) no longer has to feel as embarrassed as the structure has been transformed into Van Helsing’s Factory. As the park in North Rhine-


Westphalia celebrates its 15th birthday, Wouter tells Park World readers about his unique rollercoaster in the dark, as well his relationship with the venue’s new owner, the Spanish group Parques Reunidos


One of the pre-show areas 28 Guests climb the second lift hill JULY 2011


of Movie Park. From the beginning in 1996 as Warner Bros Movie World, we have had several different owners, and with each change of ownership, it puts you back two years in planning new attractions.


V


That’s why we were extremely surprised when Parques Reunidos approved Van Helsing in June last year – just one month after taking over. They recognised that we had this negative area in the park and gave us a budget which I could never have dreamed of. The total investment was €5 million [$7.1m], but we had the building already. To


an Helsing’s Factory is exactly right for the 15-year anniversary


design, build and open an attraction like this in one year, together with a new restaurant and retail, I think is amazing.


I have not seen it yet, but I believe they did a great job at Phantasialand with Maus au Chocolat. We would have liked to do something like that, a nice interactive 3D dark ride, but we would have needed up to another year of development time. Plus there is the fact that our investments in the last few years have been focused on families and kids, so we needed to add a little more “spice” to the park. That‘s why we decided on a coaster, and we closed the contract with Gerstlauer in June/July. Halloween has become one of our biggest seasons and drivers of attendance so we wanted to draw a little on that too. We wanted to have storytelling, but I didn’t want to pay any more royalties because we are fully spent-up on IP


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