News
Busy bees at Nigloland L
The new bee themed ride at French family amusement park Nigloland is sure to delight young guests and set hearts and minds a-fluttering. Park World finds out what all the buzz is about…
Fun facts
This is the first time that Nigloland has worked with a specialist design firm. P&P Projects has created tailored decoration and theming Manufacturer Zierer also
created two other attractions at the Nigloland: La Tour des Petits Fantomes (2016) and l’Apple Flight (2010)
ocated in the heart of the ‘Village Mervillieux’, or ‘Marvellous Village’ area at Nigloland, new ride Zabeilles, a customised version of Zierer’s flying fish ride,
is themed around bees in tribute to the late beekeeper of Dolancourt, the village where the park is located. The area has been created to immerse visitors in the
extraordinary world of bees. “The main idea was to make our visitor fill like they have shrunk to the size of a bee,” explained park COO Rodolphe Gelis, director of operations at the park and the son of Philiippe Gelis, co-founder and co-owner of the the park. The area features a 5 metre tall entry arch tree and an operator booth themed as a wooden beehive. The area surrounding the ride is full of giant flowers, lanterns and grass. On board the attraction, two people take a seat in one of the bee-shaped vehicle cars and are launched through the air. They can control some of the movement of their vehicle via a joystick. Gelis said, “We wanted to create an experience where you jump on the back of a new character and fly over the land, but with an interactive touch: the joystick.” Designed to be a shared experience for the whole family, Nigloland worked with Zierer and TUV to change the seats, lapbars and vehicles to lower the height restriction to 95cm instead of 100cm. P&P Projects worked with Nigloland on the deisgn concept for
the ride and the area. “In the industry there are already quite a few rides based on Bee related IPs,” commented Roy ven der Heijen, “so it was a challenge to come up with new characters which met the Nigloland requirements in regards to look and feel. ”
The characters also had to fit in with the existing character Niglo so the bee charachers could be used in further expansions. “Our design process had the intent of designing a family of characters that young children could relate to,” said van der Heijen. “One of the requirements was that these bees should not have a sting to keep the kindness of the little creature. We started out making hand sketches and created a male, female, child and adult version. We also designed some facial expressions for the characters. When the digital character models were fine-tuned we turned them into physical models.” The Zabeilles attraction also aims to link learning with
entertainment: as they queue, visitors can learn about the world of bees and beekeeping via insect hotels and educational panels which explain the vital role that bees play in the environment. This new area sees the creation of a new universe in the
park, along with new mascots to join the existing mascot couple Niglo and Niglette and broaden their narrative. Altogether, the zone will be more than 20, 000 square metres. “Les Zabeilles is a project that we hold very dear to our
hearts. It is a thanks to our most loyal visitors: families!” said Gelis. “With this beautiful attraction and its enchanting universe, we hope to surprise them and offer them and extraordinary place to play.”
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