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Park People
domain of creatives and designers. This is where ideas need to have freedom and space, however it’s easy to get blown away by amazing concepts. Critical thought should be given to the Operational realities. The worlds largest indoor theme park, sounds incredible, until you see its planned on a tropical island, where all guest come to enjoy the outdoors and the sun.
• Review guest flow. Avoid dead spaces, ensure revenue generating locations are easily accessible, visible, and attractive. • Review locations and clusters of rides and attractions to ensure the guest journey is logical, easy to understand and easy to reach from the guest perspective.
Schematic Design Amusement Park design usually goes through gradual phases where the Concept Design transforms into a more detailed Schematic Design.
• Review total capacities of rides, queues, and suitability for different age / height ranges. Review the Total Design Day number, Hourly Capacities for the entire park and per slide, Peak in Park Attendance and Entertainment Units per hour. • Review locations of key buildings, like admissions, toilets and changing room locations, Back of House (BOH) buildings like staff entries, canteen, warehouse and tube repair rooms. vEnsure these are easily accessible and included in the design. Some parks even have underground tunnels to easily access park facilities for deliveries or emergencies. • Ensure that rides, attractions, and other passenger carrying devices undergo a “Design Review” by a competent third party against industry standards like EN13814 or ASTM F24, and local standards. vLook for missing elements like: space for queue line overflow on peak periods or a garbage room with easy BOH access. • For water parks: review pool design for positions of lifeguards, and easy of scanning. ▫ Check pool depths to see if they match
the local expectation and experience. (A 3m deep wavepool with the world highest wave, might look great on paper, but in a country where drowning is a number one cause of death because people can’t swim, is operationally a big challenge.)
Detailed Design: When the layout is set, the key details filled in, the design transforms into a detailed design. In this phase all elements should be checked carefully. Operator Responsibilities: • Check safety of key elements. I.e., fencing heights, possible entrapment, pool design, theming elements, flooring slipperiness, etc. ▫ Examples of what to look for are: missing fencing around areas with different height levels or pools, theming elements which are climbable (for example a fence with horizontal bars), or guest can walk into.
• Check Operational use, maintenance and cleaning access. ▫ Consider for each design element how it will be used and what potential issues may arise. (How are we going to clean the floor- to-ceiling windows of the observation deck at 11m height, or maintain the speaks in the corner of the roof?)
• Review signage and locations to ensure this is easily read and understood by guests.
Consider dual language and the use of icons if you have international or multilingual guests. ▫ Pay extra attention to ride safety and other safety signage. ▫ Consider viewing angles and heights of children or guests with disabilities.
• Work with experts to review designs for special or technical equipment like: kitchens, F&B, Retail, Pumping, filtration, engine rooms, and water quality equipment. • For Water parks: Review designs and blind spots with locations of lifeguard positions in mind ▫ Review locations of control panels, operator booths, traffic light reset buttons or slide clear acknowledgement buttons along with manufacturer. ▫ Review landscape, walkways (both guests and staff) and theming design around pools to ensure lifeguards can scan and reach all sections of the pools easily. ▫ Ensure landscaping in the park and around the pools are “operator friendly” so that you don’t have to have 10 lifeguard fish hundreds of leaves out of the pool every hour.
Planning and coordination is half the battle. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
Conclusion: Operators are often able to improve designs and make it more efficient with their end use and operational needs in mind. However as an Operator it is of great value to be involved in the thought process behind the design. Theme Park designs often span thousands of pages and can have years of work go into it. To have a sneak peak into this world helps to create understanding between Operators and Designers. A well known water designer once told me: If we left design of water parks to the operators, we’d all have perfectly square lazy rivers. Together we create world-class experiences by balancing beauty, functionality and safety.
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Small design changes can greatly improve safety, like relacing horizontal bars for vertical ones to prevent climbing.
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