The new state-straddling, Disneyland-lite park dedicated to the Carolinas was scheduled to open in 1972 after breaking ground in 1970. The weather had something to say about that, though, and so things were pushed back a year. Finally on Saturday, March 31, 1973, Carowinds proudly braved a dismal, rainy day and swung open the gates…
Life Lessons from Anthony Esparza’s keynote address The 6th Annual Prayer and Networking breakfast was held on November 17th, 2022 during the IAAPA convention. Former Sea World and Herschend executive Anthony Esparza gave the keynote address to the delight of a packed audience. Anthony Esparza told the story of his career along with key life…
We just released the latest episode of the Themed Attraction Podcast featuring Danusia Rogacki, Creative Services Manager at Canada’s Wonderland. It’s a fascinating interview that clearly reveals Danusia’s total love and dedication to the park. Go listen to that first…I’ll wait right here… …Ok, it was amazing, right? Such joy for going the extra mile…
We’ll wrap up our trip down memory lane with a short post-Marriott summary. You can find the first two parts here and here, and more regional park history can be found at www.rivershorecreative.com (along with an abundant supply of tissues). Thanks for reading. Unfortunately for the Marriott company, attendance figures didn’t meet their expectations and…
This series is taken from a chapter in my regional park history book, Imagineering an American Dreamscape. Let’s look at the design of these magnificent parks and take a tour from that first year. If you missed the first part, here it is. The Santa Clara property had originally been conceived of by Fess Parker,…
As we digest the tragic news of yet another beloved playground closing for good, I thought I’d share the story behind the Marriott parks. Excerpting from my regional park history book, Imagineering an American Dreamscape, I’m going to post the Marriott chapter in a series of three articles here on the site. Tissues will be…
The winner of HGTV’s newest reality show is theme park designer Brian Morrow. Known for his many years at SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment overseeing key multimillion-dollar, award-winning projects including the opening of TurtleTrek, roller coasters Manta and Mako, and the first-of-its-kind, fully-themed land, Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin, Brian took his creative chops to a national stage, and blew the competition away.
Finalists and the eventual winner of the Theme Park Designer Competition, have collaborated with international themed attraction designers, Katapult, to create a brand new theme park design.
Aroma Prime has created a fear-inducing range of smells for Thorpe Park Resort’s FRIGHT NIGHTS 2021! Celebrating 20 years of fear, this year’s pongs have demanded extra attention in the lab to get them just right. Particular care was put into the storytelling aspects of the scents in the new scare maze Trailers, which give…
How Alterea Inc., a live experience design company, pivoted with a digital project during the pandemic. It isn’t common for video games to be featured on Themed Attraction. To be fair, it wasn’t common for live event companies to create them, either, but that was exactly the position we found ourselves in this year as…
Hi Guys, I’m thrilled to have joined the amazing Themed Attraction community! My name is Luke and I’m the Editor over at Theme Park Portal. We’re big admirers of Theme Parks and the work you all do, so a big thanks from us for sharing so much creativity and insight with the World. It’s a…
We’ve all longed for a close look behind the scenes in a creative studio to see how theme park projects are conceived, planned and built. Here’s such an opportunity.
A Case for Wholesome There was a time when we had a plethora of things presented before us that contained the ingredient of wholesomeness – anything from television shows to movies to theme parks — all had a wholesome spirit to them. As Christmas approached and then swiftly left us (as all things in life…
Coney Island sends guests to hell During my recent interview on coasterradio.com, the show host asked about some classic Coney Island attractions that didn’t get much detail in my Imagineering an American Dreamscape book. One of these was Creation, a thematic, immersive experience that was moved to Dreamland park in 1905 after the St. Louis…
Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood Jr. is the singular definition of an enigma. Few Disney fans have ever heard the name. The ones who have, have read anything from genius, showman, shuckster, to con man. The self-confident kid who got into college on a rope twirling scholarship was pure Texas and a born leader. His friends were…
Well, they finally made it. After several weeks of wondering if they’d be able to open at all, Hershey unveiled the brand new expansion we’ve been anticipating for so long. And who was worried? It was only the largest expansion project in park history, adding twenty-three acres and clocking in at $150 million. It’s a…
In the early years, regional theme parks offered souvenir maps for sale. These were beautifully illustrated works of art with lots of fun details to discover. One of the ideas for the park history book was to include excerpts from these opening/early season maps to help visualize the walk-through descriptions. That would have made the…
Two of the four Busch Gardens properties live on to this day. The first, in Tampa, started out in 1959 as a free, fun thing to do while touring the brewery; it was intended to promote the brand. But it became so popular the company decided it was worth more as a gated park, and…
Themed entertainment industry professionals from all backgrounds gathered May 29th on a public ZOOM call to listen as entrepreneurs, industry veterans and newcomers pitched their new concepts and ideas for potential investment. Organized by Cary Jardin and Lexington Blood, the event’s goal was to offer creatives and innovators an opportunity to present their ideas before…
One of the chapters in the upcoming park history book focuses on entrepreneurs who took Walt’s concept and found a way to make it happen in their own part of the country. These individuals had the drive, determination, resources, and sheer guts to jump head-first into waters they knew little about. Storms loomed ahead, threatening…
The regional theme park history book keeps pushing right along toward completion (hint…it’s close). To hold you over in the meantime, I’ll be sharing bits and pieces from the book and my research while tossing in other interesting items along the way. Three of them, in fact. I’m extremely pleased to have some wonderful folks…
Everybody knows pretty much everything about Disneyland—how it got started, how the Imagineers do their thing, and so on. But nobody ever talks about the parks that most of us across the country enjoy far more often. The regional theme parks, different from amusement parks, owe their existence to the magical land Walt built in…
Creative sculpture that crosses borders At Themed Attraction we have access to a growing network of artists from across the world. Recently, were were lucky enough to find a sculptor and painter named Manolo Rubio, based in Valencia, Spain. It was a fantastic discovery. We think you will be impressed by the quality of his…
One of the springtime traditions I look forward to all year long is the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) Thea Awards. “The Theas,” and the TEA Summit that they cap off, bring together many of our cherished friends, colleagues, clients, and co-creatives to celebrate the great achievements of the themed entertainment industry worldwide. But just like…
One major chapter of my upcoming regional park history book deals with how these parks lost their original design intent along the way. Decades of ownership turnover, corporate management, current trends for IP overlays, and so on rendered most of these parks nearly unrecognizable from when they were first built. Carowinds opened in 1973 as…
Hershey Park in 1907 was a local recreation area developed by Milton Hershey for his employees. The entire little town of Hershey was built around the chocolate factory, with many of the magnificent structures erected during the Great Depression. Before long, trolley service brought in other folks from around the area, and Mr. Hershey began…
Everyone’s focused on the $150 million dirt pile out front, but Hersheypark didn’t keep us waiting in the meantime. They brought back Sally Corporation and their go-to design partners Raven Sun Creative to reimagine the park’s Reese’s Xtreme Cup Challenge, a fun shooter dark ride that was based on a fairly luke-warm storyline. The new…
One of my colleagues who recently retired from the college was a featured soloist in the United States Marine Band for over two decades. He was the youngest-ever member of the group, second only to John Philip Sousa, and he played for five presidents, from Eisenhower to Ford. And what stories he has! But one…
Perhaps it’s largely personal bias. I’ve loved the mountains my whole life, and I’d give pretty much anything to move back someday. But Dollywood absolutely has to be one of the most authentically situated parks anywhere. Whereas many parks try to cater to a variety of interests, featuring wide-ranging themed lands and attractions, Dollywood is…
A Milestone Year: The 2018 Global Attractions Attendance Report According to the 2018 TEA/AECOM Theme Index and Museum Index released by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) and AECOM, theme park attendance has topped half a billion for the first time in history. Additionally, 2018 attendance at the top 10 theme park groups grew 5.4% over…
When reports first started circulating in offices and classrooms that Notre-Dame de Paris was in flames, people around the world seemed to recognize together the sad significance of this calamity. A lot of tragic news passes through the culture these days. Perhaps the overarching tragedy is that the disasters, death, and mayhem that make…
As developers and designers of themed entertainment, it is our responsibility to author backstories so rich and believable that our guests never question the worlds we create for them to enjoy. back·story \ˈbak-ˌstȯr-ē noun, plural back·sto·ries. a narrative providing a history or background context, especially for a character or situation in a literary work, film,…
The world suffers no shortage of theme parks, but few really live up to the name. Simply staging a few old tools in the queue and carving a clever name on the sign doesn’t cut it. A truly thematic experience is designed to immerse guests in a story or place so they believe they are…
The Trolley Park may have been America’s first amusement park. These parks started in the 19th century and rose in popularity when Charles J. Van Depoele created an electric trolley pole which could power a trolley car. This new invention replaced horse-drawn streetcars in the United States around the beginning of the 20th century. Trolley…
Contagious Business Philosophy the “Disney” Way! Once every other decade a company comes around that dares to defy the odds and do things differently. We saw this with Henry Ford in the 1900’s-1920’s, with Walt Disney in the 1930-1960’s, and with Saturn and Netscape in the 1990’s. Here’s a friendly Q & A about how…
A Short History of Roller Coasters Today, they are high-tech marvels rising more than one hundred feet in the air with tubular steel tracks, loops, corkscrews and boomerangs. Their riders are hurled through space at 60 miles per hour — while sitting, standing or suspended from an overhead track. Their roots are still with us…
Universal Studios Florida Art & Design is the most experienced design house for haunted attraction design in the world. Unlike Universal Creative, charged with producing all of the permanent theme park rides; Art & Design is responsible for designing all of the new entertainment oriented shows and attractions for Univeral Studios. These are the yearly…