Other parks and attractions
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The world’s biggest Smurfs indoor theme park welcomed its first visitors on Friday 29th May.



Source: https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2005299141/

After 2 years of intense design and construction, the 8.000 sqm park opened doors near Shanghai with a Smurftastic opening ceremony attended by both Chinese and Belgian government officials.

The Smurfs Indoor Theme Park is part of a mixed-use development containing the incredible Wonderland Intercontinental hotel, residential homes and great shopping opportunities and is a new state of the art leisure destination in the region of Shanghai..

The park contains 29 Smurf themed attractions (like the Smurfs Berry Factory roller coaster, Gargamel’s interactive ghost house and the Swamp Adventure 3D Dark ride) which provide kids and their family an unforgettable marvellous time.

Source: https://www.rli.uk.com/worlds-biggest-smurfs-indoor-theme-park-kcc-entertainment/

Amusement Today have released their May issue. The "what's new for 2020" section is interesting. We cover most of them but many are single rides or shows that we don't cover. Worth a read....

http://amusementtoday.com/issues/2020/202005/assets/downloads/AT-MAY-2020-lr.pdf

One of the longest and widest-ranging relationships in the themed entertainment industry is that between Legacy Entertainment and Lotte World. Since 2002, the two groups have collaborated on 8 new attractions for the flagship park in Seoul, Korea, as well as the upcoming Lotte's Magic Forest theme park in Busan Korea, slated to debut in 2021. Prior to all this, the first cooperation was the design of a boutique theme park which was never realized- Lotte DreamGate. Planned for the city of Buyeo, the park's design tapped into elements of local Baekje design, organizing the park into lands representing Korean and Western fairy tales. While the park was never to see the light of day, some elements were ultimately incorporated into the Seoul park.

From 2005 - 2010 Mark Shaprio served as the President and CEO of Six Flags, and under his leadership he aimed to steer the chain in a more family-friendly direction. One of the more unique products of this period was the Glow in the Park parade- a nighttime parade created by a team of world-renowned talent led by Legacy Entertainment. The parade was initially planned for two parks in 2008, Six Flags Mexico and Six Flags Great Adventure, and was an immediate hit at both properties. Following the immediate and dramatic audience reaction, a third parade was greenlit to debut the same season at Six Flags New England. In following seasons, 3 more parades were created for Six Flags St. Louis, Six Flags Over Texas, and Six Flags Great America. In the end, this parade is the most successful entertainment production in regional theme park history, both in terms of performances played and number of spectators.

For this unique parade design, Legacy Entertainment tapped famed designer of the Rose Parade, Raul Rodriguez, while former chief composer of Cirque du Soleil, Benoit Jutras, provided the memorable musical score.

Legacy Entertainment collaborated with Hershey's Chocolate World and On Track Themes on the 2006 re-imagining of the classic Factory Tour Ride at Hershey's Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania. This unique Omnimover dark ride was originally built in 1973, following the shuttering of tours through the actual chocolate factory. Over the years, it has had a number of major overhauls and upgrades, each one aiming to increase the entertainment factor. Legacy's dark ride design focused on the introduction of animatronic cow characters to frame and narrate the experience. Renowned character designer, Phil Mendez, best known in the theme park world for Monster Plantation (now Monster Mansion) provided the character design. Broadway designer Jerome Serlin collaborated on the 'Hershey Happiness' projection finale.

Dubai Hills Mall is due to have a roller coaster as one of its leisure attractions.

The Dubai Hills Indoor Coaster consists of an enclosed (approx.) 50m tall, 45m diameter tower facility connected to the Dubai Hills Mall. The facility includes a multi-vehicle coaster consisting of a 48m vertical launch and approximately 700m of track. The roller coaster cylindrical building is integrated with a two-story attraction fit out within the mall, comprising of additional amusement facilities, food and beverage, retail, ticketing and queueing.

Source: http://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/new-coaster-for-dubai-hills-mall.44219/

Suzhou Paradise Forest World is now open in China - it's what I would describe to be a mid-size park on the same level as the Sunac Lands (once it's fully complete). Rides include a couple of Chinese-manufactured coasters (Mack launch coaster coming in phase 2), river rapids, flat rides, drop ride, train, and most significantly a robotic arm dark ride manufactured by Jingang Technology. Concept art for the ride (which should be open now) can be seen at the bottom of this post.















Sources: https://www.sohu.com/a/395366871_349683 and https://dy.163.com/v2/article/detail/EDF8RSVA05249MVN.html and https://www.sohu.com/a/396668694_120054182 and http://www.kongking.net/daxinggaokejiyouleshebei/2018/04-02/4.html and http://news.2500sz.com/doc/2019/03/30/421207.shtml

During Mark Shapiro's reign at Six Flags, Legacy Entertainment was his go-to design company, tackling projects including Six Flags Dubailand, the Glow in the Park parades, and Monster Mansion dark ride. Like Six Flags Dubailand, another project which was not realized was a park for the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar. Taking into account the nation's small population as well as its superlative GDP, Legacy designed a 'boutique theme park' tailored to the local clientele. More akin to Tivoli Gardens than a traditional Six Flags park, Six Flags Qatar would have focused less-exclusively on roller coasters and thrill rides, and more on serene gardens programmed with shopping and dining experiences.

One of the most beloved and enduring non-Disney dark rides in the world is Monster Mansion at Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta. Originally built as 'Tales of the Okefenokee' and debuting as part of the park's original 1967 opening day program, it was then transformed into Monster Plantation in 1981.

In 2008, Legacy Entertainment had formed a relationship with Six Flags, then under the leadership of Mark Shapiro, developing such projects as the Glow in the Park Parade as well as Six Flags Dubailand. Upon learning that a plan was afoot to replace Monster Plantation with a Justice League boat ride, Legacy intervened, explaining that Monster Plantation had grown into much more than a simple dark ride- it was now a multi-generational Atlanta institution. Mark Shapiro immediately understood and agreed with this logic, and approved a complete overhaul and upgrade of the existing attraction.

For this unique dark ride design exercise, Legacy Entertainment brought back original character designer Phil Mendez to create new animatronic characters to join the 100+ already in the attraction. In addition to concept art from the attraction operating today, also seen here are images from an alternate storyline explored during Blue Sky Concept Design, in which the Mansion was up for sale and its residents being evicted by a diabolical deed holder.

The reimagined Monster Mansion debuted in May 2009. Keen-eyed riders will notice that Legacy Entertainment added a small tribute to the original 'Tales of the Okefenokee' dark ride in the attraction's first scene.

Ocean Park Hong Kong is putting their long term expansion plans on hold to instead focus on keeping the existing park alive due to the further financial losses that the park has faced due to the pandemic. Back in January when the major expansions plans were announced the park requested funding of HK$10.6 billion from the government. Today, the park is instead requesting HK$5.4 billion from the government. This lesser amount of money will fund three things:

1. Keep the park running for the next 12 months
2. Cover HK$3 billion worth of loans that are soon due to be repaid soon
3. Completing the new waterpark

The bill to fund the HK$5.4 is being submitted to the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council on May 15th for deliberation and will hopefully be passed soon.

Sources: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1525473-20200511.htm and https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/ocean-park-may-face-bankruptcy-as-its-cashflow-can-only-last-until-june-july/