IAAPA 2017 Round Up - Part 1
We're half way through what is arguably one of the most exciting events of the amusement industry calendar year - IAAPA! For those of you who don't know, the IAAPA expo is essentially a huge expo hall where theme park companies the world over gather together to show off their latest and greatest innovations. Everything from theme park food, to arcade games, to water parks and, you guess it, theme park rides!
So, here's a run down of my favourite bits so far. There's just an absolute TON of stuff going on at these expos that if I were to go through every announcement we'd probably be here forever, and let's face it it'd probably get super boring anyway. So let's just look at the fun stuff.
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Probably my favourite reveal of IAAPA 2017 is the trains for Time Traveller at Silver Dollar City. This coaster had the whole enthusiast community collectively asking WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN IT SPINS AND LAUNCHES? Yep, Mack rides have delivered a spinning launch coaster through the woods at the fantastic Silver Dollar City. And what's more, it's only bloody steampunk themed. *Collective enthusiast squeal* Love me a bit of steampunk so I was gagged to see what the trains looked like.
And yh, they're pretty fucking cool. They've got that gorgeous brown/gold/bronze colour palette that one would associate with this kind of theme, complete with the Victoriana style cogs and embellishments. And then to top it all off it actually has a time travel light up panel with numbers and dates flashing across it. It's absolutely stunning!
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The new S&S design also includes other flavours such as raptor, motorbike and DRAGON. Hell yeah.
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Sesame Place in Pennsylvania has been without a coaster for 20 years, so the time is more than ripe for the family Gravity Group coaster coming to the park in 2018. The trend of increasingly elaborate coaster trains just gets weirder and weirder, but this Oscar the Grouch number takes the cake. It obviously scream Sesame Street with its lurid colour palette and wacky design, but somehow it's also beautifully sleek and modern too. And I feel like it's going to be bloody hilarious to watch this slithering around the track.
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The design is sleek and modern, which isn't my favourite in terms of personal taste but it definitely fits perfectly with Sea World's style and colour palette. I'm surprised at the 8 person capacity though - I'm used to the bigger rapids boats in Orlando so strange to me that they'd go for something smaller like this.
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Dynamic Attractions claim that no other ride in the world can do what this model can, with the model on display showing terrains including a rickety bridge, steps, sand and rockwork. As of yet it doesn't appear that any parks have snapped one of these up but I'm gagging for somebody to buy one as I'm so excited by this technology.
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At the 2016 expo, Skyline Attractions caused a buzz with their SkyWarp model - a kind of perpetual motion inspired powered coaster-but-not kind of a thing. This year the company are introducing two new models to their line-up: the Eclipse, which is a larger, vertical looping style track and the Horizon, a flatter figure-8 style track featuring and inversion. I feel like this are a modern day cross between a Larson Loop and a Bayern Curve. They're weird, and different, but most importantly I think they definitely count as a cred so I need somebody to invest in one immediately.
That's what's gotten me excited so far - there's still a couple of days of the expo to go so hopefully more exciting announcements to be made! I'll get to the expo myself one day but until then scrolling through Twitter will have to do.
Talk later xoxo,
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