The DC Rivals Hypercoaster: The Suicide Squad Theory

This week WB Movie Worl have FINALLY announced the name and theme of the up coming Hypercoaster; the DC Rivals Hypercoaster! Now we've known about this coaster for a long time so we already knew this was going to be the biggest, longest, pinkest  coaster in the country. The big reveal however was not just the theme of DC Rivals but also the fact that the back row of the ride will be reversed, so you can ride it backwards. 

What do I think of the theme? It's weak. Generic and bland in a park that usually is at l But I've got my own crackpot theory for why this theme exists. What do I think of the backwards ride? It's great but it's odd. It is our first Hypercoaster, it's going to be insanely popular, why add this feature for opening? Surely this could have been added after popularity had dipped 2-3 years in. Particularly since it affects capacity (the back two rows have been replaced with a single backwards facing row). Well good news, my crackpot theory covers that too.

Tinfoil hats everyone! Here we go:

I believe this coaster was originally going to be themed to the Suicide Squad. When we first heard about this coaster there was a strong suggestion it would be announced last September/October. There was industry buzz around before that time about the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. Then two things happened, first the horrible tragedy at Dreamworld where 4 people lost their lives. Secondly the Suicide Squad movie tanked, and tanked hard. Obviously even if the theme wasn't Suicide Squad, Movie World would have delayed announcing their coaster out of reapect. But I expected a pause for two or three months, since we could see construction starting. There was nothing. Maybe they were waiting to see the Suicide Squad be enough of a hit they could get away with the obvious lack of sensitivity. Think about this, a fuscia tracked coaster with a giant Joker face launching from the middle of their "Heroes" precinct? (Remember the villains are now relegated to the back of the park.) Smells like Suicide Squad to me!

No one in their right mind could try to sell a coaster with the word Suicide in the title, themed to a failed movie in this climate. So they had to retheme. But what about the pink track, the joker face and the hero location. It's not like the could drop a Flash or Wonderwoman theme on it without a bucket of cash. I imagine somewhere a Movie World executive is crying himself to sleep over not choosing Wonderwoman from the start. So that is why we have this brand new concept,  the DC Rivals. 

But by now everyone who cared knew it was a Hypercoaster, so people would notice that lack of theme straight off the bat. How do you distract the hardcore theme park nerds from a lack of theme? You can ride it backwards! Now maybe I'm reading too much into it and they always planned for backwards on open, but you've got to admit the Suicide Squad theory has legs. 

Let me know in the comments below if you think the DC Rivals is just some makeup on top of the Suicide Squad Coaster, or if I am crazy? Bonus question, why wouldn't Movie World build a Wonderwoman coaster?

2016 Annual Attendance Data Review

So it is that time of year when the Annual TEA/AECOM Theme Index, is released! This report gives us a deep insight into the global theme park market, by listing out the attendance data for the top 25 Theme Parks. As in previous years, I've pulled out the data, and had a detailed study of it, and made my own conclusions.

If I was to summarize this years results very quickly, Universal maintains rapid growth, however Disney maintains it's mammoth lead. Paris is tanking badly, as is the Hong Kong market, but all points success for Shanghai. Let's take a look at a few pretty graphs.

If we look at the overall attendance graph, we see that the general trend for this year is very flat, if not slightly lower attendance. It's hard to pick out much out of this, so let's look at Disney and Universal separately and then some winners and losers.

It's a very flat year for Disney Parks, with two obvious exceptions. Disneyland Paris is really starting to nosedive, and Shanghai Disneyland had a strong debut. We'll come back to Paris in a second, but you should notice that Shanghai is just a fraction under Hong Kong Disneyland. That is despite Shanghai not being open for the full year. It opened on June 16, which means that it was only open for 54.25% of the year.  It this was extrapolated to a full year result, they would have just topped 10 Million (I calculated 10,323,232) would have put the park straight in between DCA and Animal Kingdom on this graph. I predict that next year we will see them around the DCA mark, which is pretty phenomenal for a new park. Let's take a look at the competition:

Universal is all about growth. Steady growth across the board, is great news for this chain. Only Singapore had a slight loss, but we must remember it is very different to the other Universal Parks. By that, I mean, no Harry Potter. I have left Magic Kingdom on this chart, only to show that while these parks keep growing, there is a long way to go. USJ, one of our biggest Big Winners, still needs to grow by a THIRD of it's current size, to catch up to Magic Kingdom.

The Biggest winners are really the 4 Universal Parks, but it is definitely worth mentioning Lotte World and Chimelong Ocean Kingdom who had incredible years. While parts of Asia flourished, other parts fizzled:

Hong Kong was a big loser this year. It's two big parks both had major losses in 2016, but this isn't surprising. Hong Kong had a large tourism problem last year as it's currency is pegged to the US Dollar which was rising, while the Chinese economy slowed, which mean that Hong Kong was very unattractive to local Chinese tourists.  As for Sea World Florida and Disneyland Paris, these are parks with well documented image problems at the moment, that don't seem to be going away any time soon.

If we look the the overall Growth graph, we can see the main pattern is almost a direct reversal of 2015. Most of the parks that were up in 2015 were down in 2016 and vice versa. If we look just at Disney:

It's a very flat year. The little improvements of 2015 are very much flattened out.

Universal's growth is certainly more positive. While there is slowing growth at the Florida parks, there is still an improvement going on here. The hardest thing about looking at these graphs is that individual years can have a lot of variation, even due to things like the weather. So it pays to look at a more long term growth chart. So here is how Disney is growing over 5 year averages:

You can see most of the parks are averaging between 0 and 5 percent attendance growth, which I think is a good achievement! Until you compare it to Universal:

Universal (if you discount Singapore) only have one in that 0-5% range, while the 3 main Studio parks are all averaging around 5-12% growth, which is extraordinary!


But I don't want Universal to get to far ahead of itself:

This graph shows the average attendance per park at the multi-park resorts. For me this just illustrates how far Universal have to come to pass Disney. The Tokyo, WDW and Disneyland Resort all average around 14-15 Million guests per park, while Universal Orlando is just started to crest 10 Million. This is a lot more quests over a lot of parks, which just goes to show that while Universal is making up ground at the moment, there is no foreseeable reason why Disney shouldn't be the leading theme park operator for many years to come.

News Update - End of May 2017

It's been pretty much the biggest month in the US theme park industry for the last few years, and to be perfectly honest for personal/professional reasons, I've been sitting on the sidelines. No excuses, time for a news update to round up all the thing that have happened over the last few weeks of May 2017.

Pandora: The World of Avatar
Over the last month we have seen the previews, soft opening and finally the dedication of Disney's single biggest investment on a single land at WDW resort: Pandora: The World of Avatar. The land is Disney's response to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter,  and their first real attempt to match that level of immersion. And it is spectatular. Anchored by two new rides, the Na'vi River Journey and Flight of Passage, the land sets a new standard for theming in a Disney park. The bulk of the criticism around this land is about the relvance of Avatar as an I.P., and how well it thematically fits into Animal Kingdom. It's always going to be hard to match perennial behemoth of Potter for relevance  (except if you are Star Wars). The real question is whether people will want to visit Pandora. For now the answer appears to be a resounding yes, but for an investment this large we will only know for sure in 5-10 years time.

Volcano Bay
I dont usually cover water parks on this blog, but when Universal Orlando claim it as a 3rd gate, I have to make an exception. Volcano Bay is described by Universal as a water theme park, and it certainly has pretty comprehensive theme with a standalone I.P.  This park has both started it's previews and opened in the last week. And it looks pretty cool! I'm taken with the layout, organization and theme more than the slides,  like I said I'm not one for water parks. This is much more than a replacement for Wet 'n' Wild, which Universal closed at the end of last year. However, with a sudden hard opening on a park full of innovations there are going to be some problems. The biggest for Volcano Bay have been issues with the TapuTapu virtual queuing system. But all in all it looks like another great success for Universal. Is it worthy being considered the 3rd gate of Universal Orlando? No. Will I keep covering it on this blog? About as much as I cover Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. For me a well themed water park, is still just a water park.

Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout!
Over on the west coast, Disney California Adventure opened it's latest attraction Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout. I would have called it a brand new attraction, but of course it isn't new at all. This ride is a complete re skin, inside and out, of the Tower of Terror. You can see a number of
reviews and POVs online now thwt show how th ride system has been repurposed quite successfully for the Marvel universe. Now doubt it'll popular short-term , but again it's the medium term which should be the test for this I.P.

In other news while all these openings have happened :
- Happily Ever After fireworks debuted at Magic Kingdom
- First attendance reports from Dubai Parks and Resorts are disappointing
- SeaWorld has expanded it's license for Sesame Street
- Halloween Horror Nights have announced a house based on Stephen King's The Shining

That's it for this month's News Update. For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!

News Update - 1st May 2017

As I said in my Pandora update, it's been a couple of weeks since my last update, and even though it hasn't been a super busy period, there is plenty to cover. So here is another Theme Park Nut News Update.

Earlier in the month Disneyland Paris celebrated its 25th anniversary. We detailed some of the additions to the park for the celebration last month, so you can check that our if you wish. Staying in Europe, Efteling has announced that there brand new dark ride Symbolica will be opening on the 1st of July. This highly anticipated dark ride looks like it will be an absolute gem, and a great addition to a park that is already known for it's dark rides.

Sea World Orlando has announced plans for a new River Rapids ride in 2018. This park continues its transformation towards a "thrill and animal" park, rather than purely an animal park, as it struggles to survive in a crowded Orlando market.

At Universal Orlando, it was announced a couple of weeks back that Island's of Adventure would hold a new night time seasonal show for Christmas projected onto Hogwarts Castle. This area of the park is already a site to behold at Christmas, and it's perfectly suited to Christmas celebrations, so this makes a lot of sense for Universal. On the other coast Universal Studios Hollywood reported a 60% jump in attendance compared to last year, due to the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (despite the Easter holiday period falling into the second quarter this year unusually).

For all the ultra-rich followers, Club 33, the exclusive members only club at Disneyland, is now coming to Walt Disney World in Orlando. There are no details as to where this Club will be based, but you can expect a pretty extravagant (and expensive!) restaurant to be opening sometime in the next 2-3 years. But most of us, will never see it.

Also at WDW (and much more relevant), is that we got a whole lot more details about Star Wars land as this year's Star Wars celebration kicked off in Orlando. Most particularly we heard that the land is going to be based around an outer-rim space port on the edge of the unknown region. The other major bit of information was that there will be some level of user control in the Millennium Falcon ride, and that guests will be treated different by the in-land characters on the basis of their performance on this ride. Disney is really betting on the kind of deep immersion that has been popular with the Potter franchise at Universal, so let's hope they can pull this off in Disney style.

Probably the most exciting for me this month was movement of one of the projects that has been rumored for a couple of months. Last week contractors were named to build a Gondola transportation system between Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios and two resort areas (the Caribbean Beach and Art of Animation resorts). While it's no monorail, this will add plenty of transport capacity between these resort locations, which is great for those planning future trips to one of those resorts (Go Art of Animation!!).

And 'tis the season to open the new Dining Plan Off-season offers for this year, which can be a major saving for people that can take advantage of this offer.

And don't forget that this month we also will start seeing the soft-opening and previews of Pandora: The World of Avatar at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

At Disneyland Resort in California, we got the first sneak peak inside the Collector's Fortress, as details of the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout ride come out. There is no question that it looks cool, but I want to see in 5 years time whether it is going to be as popular as the Tower of Terror was (it might well be, since the sequel to GotG looks like it's going to be a big hit).

Over the road as Disneyland itself, Pirates of the Caribbean celebrated the opening of the latest Pirates movie by have Johnny Depp doing a shift as Captain Jack Sparrow. This would have been a pretty unique treat for the park goers, as he was not only greeting guests outside the park, but also did a stint inside the attraction. Very interesting stunt, but still just a stunt.

Tokyo Disneyland is preparing for it's 35th anniversary. Highlights include the return of the It's a Small World ride, along with the normal anniversary stables, a new daytime parade, and a new nighttime projection show.

Tokyo DisneySea this week opened up their new ride re-theme, the Nemo and Friends Sea Rider, which replaces the Stormrider 4D attraction. This Pixar retheme shrinks guests down to Nemo size for an ocean adventure that looks like a lot of fun.

Over in Abu Dhabi, we got the first concept art of Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi park, which for Australians, this is Movie World on steriods. It features a similar set of IP's as the Australian park (DC Comics, Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo), but with (seemingly) a much larger canvas to paint upon.

That's it for this week's News Update. For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!

Special News Update - Pandora - 30th April 2017

It's been a couple of weeks since I've done a proper news update. I have been wrapped up with a new real life work project, and sadly haven't had time. However, I cannot ignore the media preview of Pandora - The World of Avatar that happened at Disney's Animal Kingdom today. So here is an update with a bunch of interesting stuff from this Orlando expansion.

Obviously, SPOILERS. If you don't want to see anything about this new land, look away now.

Firstly, the animatronics that have been added for this new land are amazing, but also a bit frightening:



And if you've got 15 minutes and want to see where she fits in, here is a POV from Inside the Magic:



The other major ride to open is the Flight of Passage, which I've seen today as a cross between Soarin' and the Tower of Terror, so it will be interesting to see more about this, but we have seen another incredibly detailed Queue, with a massive "Avatar" animatronic:




As of yet, we haven't seen a POV of Flight of Passage, I'm sure that will appear (even given the rough nature of the ride) over the next month as the previews and soft opens occur. But this land is as much about the place than these two rides, So if you want to just look at the immersive environment they have build, So it's worth taking a look around:



And if you haven't heard the word Bioluminescence enough yet...



... it looks even better at night (which is apparently not fully operational).

And of course, no new land is complete without food, so here is a preview of the Satu'li Canteen:


 For all your shopping needs, pop over to Windtraders:



If you want a summary from one of the lucky media people that was able to tour the site today, check out this article in the Orlando Sentinel from Sarah Pedicini. Pandora: The World of Avatar opens May 27th at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

News Update - 9th April 2017

Starting this week in Spain (something I rarely say), this week saw the opening of Ferrari Land at Port Aventura World! This second gate for the resort now contains Europe's fastest and tallest ride, Big Red. The ride has made viral news this week, not just for it's opening, but for the bizarre footage of a rider being struck by a bird.

In Orlando, Universal has officially opened the Race through New York starrring Jimmy Fallon. This ride had been soft opened for a few weeks, but this marked the opening ceremony. It also included a great moment where Jimmy Fallon and the Rock dressed up as themselves as mascots, and pranked fans around Universal Orlando.

For U.S. residents, Disney has announced a Twitter and Instagram competition for the opening of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, where winner will get win a trip on a Disney Cruise and a trip to Walt Disney World. Details on the Disney parks blog.

After "disappointing" attendance results in the last week, Tokyo Disney redirected attention this week with a groundbreaking ceremony for their 2020 Fantasyland expansion. The expansion will include a Beauty and the Beast sub-land with a brand new dark ride. 2020 is the year that Tokyo will host the Summer Olympics (and rival Universal will open their Super Nintendo land).

At home, Dreamworld opened the first Australian Jelly Belly store on Main Street yesterday. Check out Dreamworld on Instagram for a tonne of photos.

That's it for this week's News Update. For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!

News Update - 2nd April 2017

It's April! Can you believe it? Let's get into another Theme park news update for the first week of April 2017!

The biggest news stories this week, come out of Paris and Japan. Firstly in Paris, Disneyland Paris started it's 25th anniversary celebrations this week! They celebrated by adding a couple of new shows; the "Mickey Presents: Happy Anniversary, Disneyland Paris" and "The Starlit Princess Waltz". The also debuted a new parade, "Disney Stars On Parade" and new nighttime show "Disney Illuminations".

In Japan yesterday saw the opening of LEGOLAND JAPAN! If you jump onto Themeparx.com you can see an absolute TONNE of videos and photos from the opening day of this little park. Honestly, I'm totally jealous of this. Legoland Parks are super fun little parks, and I have a theory that one day they will be the first of the major chains to open in Australia, but until then we will have to survive by looking at the overseas parks (and perhaps visiting the Legoland Discovery Centre, that is opening in Melbourne later in the year).

Over in Orlando, Universal has some anger pointed towards it this week as it  announced the new 3-Park Annual Passes, and upgrade options for their upcoming water park Volcano Bay (I refuse to call this a Theme Park, even though it looks great!). Currently annual park holders are apparently outraged that they have to pay to get access to this park. Honestly, these people they were going to get to enter this water park for free? People baffle me. Often Annual Park holders are paying significantly less per day than day pass people, so I'm not sure why that should give you some kind of golden ticket to new things outside what you have paid for. Anyway!

Staying with Universal, it seems Halloween Horror Nights is now pretty much a year round news machine. This week we found out that American Horror Story was returning to Universal Orlando's HHN in September this year. This isn't really surprising, it's pretty much the perfect franchise for this event.

Controversial Sea World Orlando this week closed their long time Dolphin Show Blue Horizons, which was then followed the next day by opening their brand new Dolphin Show Dolphin Days. Apparently the new show is designed to be more educational less entertainment than the previous show, which is a pointer to the way that public opinion has changed in the last 10 years about animal based theme parks.

Over at Walt Disney World, security at Magic Kingdom is changing, in that the security check points are being back to the entrance of the ferry and Monorail terminals. This effectively puts the Monorail loop inside the secure zone, which mirrors a similar move at Disneyland Resort, which moved the security checks to the Car Park and hotel entrances, which effectively put all of Downtown Disney into the secure zone. It's unclear whether these changes are in response to a specific threat, however I must admit the more security at Disney Parks, the better, in my opinion. These parks are such obvious targets as symbols of wealth and decadence, as well as being highly populated, so I have no qualms with having to go through multiple security checks if that is what has to happen.

Also at WDW, we've seen a response from Disney's water parks over the upcoming Volcano Bay upcoming Tapu Tapu virtual queuing devices. Disney's response is essentially the old school FastPass, but now in temporary wrist band form. It's interesting that this hasn't incorporated Magic Band technology (perhaps it isn't water proof??). Regardless, anytime that Universal is putting pressure on Disney, I'm excited!

Finally at Disneyland Resort, the Main Street Electrical Parade has extended it's temporary run through to August 20, effectively finishing the American Summer. This will hopefully spread the crowd for this parade, particularly as the previous finishing date had limited time for the Annual Pass members that were not blocked out.

Over in Europe, we've seen the second biggest park on the continent Europa Park, has opened for it's summer season. Along with it is a number of new features, as can be seen in videos that have been added to Youtube this week (I say videos, just because they do multiple of these in different languages. Particularly of note for me is the brand new Voletarium flying theatre ride, which looks awesome (a Soarin' clone, but still awesome!). Voletarium is said to be "almost ready to open", with a massive 21 meter screen.

In the UK, we have had a review this week of the re-launch of Derren Brown's Ghost Train attraction at Thorpe Park by ThemeParks-UK.com. This attraction looks much improved over the previous version of the attraction, and looks like it's going to scare the pants off a lot of people.

At home in Australia, Dreamworld this week is about to open up (on the 8th of April) a new Jelly Belly Store. The store is inside the park, next to the in-park entrance for the Lego Store, on Main Street, just in time for the Easter School Holidays. This is a welcome bit of good news for the Gold Coast parks, as this week all 3 major parks (Dreamworld, Movie World and Sea World) all had to close on Thursday last week after low pressure system following Tropical Cyclone Debbie, came down the coast. Thankfully the parks themselves were spared any major damage, and were able to open on Friday. Unfortunately the surrounding areas of Logan and the Gold Coast were not so lucky, with large amounts of damage from the storms and the subsequent flooding. The flood waters peaked yesterday (Saturday), and further north in Rockhampton the flood waters are expect to peak on next Wednesday (a week after the storm hit that region) which gives you an idea about the massive amount of water that has been dumped on Queensland this week. Hopefully we get back to our clear skies soon, and can stay that way for a little while.


That's it for this week's News Update. For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!