I get it, with so much theme park news flooding our feeds daily it's extremely hard to filter through and keep on top of things - particularly the stuff that's going on in lesser known parks or parks not consistently or thoroughly covered by the bigger theme park news outlets. I do make a point of spending a bit of time every now and then really digging into the likes of RCDB and other theme park forums to uncover details of construction taking place around the world, and can guarantee that every single time I look I discover a piece of news about something that I'd consider to be pretty major and exciting that I had literally no clue about. And so I guess you could consider this a little service from me to you - a concise blog post rounding up some awesomeness that's opening in 2020 that chances are you haven't heard of, but definitely should have if you're into theme parks! Here we go then.
Honestly I'm a little ashamed that I haven't made it over to Futuroscope yet. It's been one of the leading theme parks in Europe for years now, displaying the latest in themed attraction technology to bring science to life in a thrilling and compelling way. Well FINALLY after what feels like a lifetime of waiting, the park are opening their first 'proper' coaster (they had a butterfly once but I don't really think that counts). Built by Intamin, the coaster looks like something that wouldn't be out of place at EPCOT and contains exciting elements such as spinning cars, launches and drop track, as well as highly themed indoor sections complete with special effects. The project has a price tag of €22million and you can watch a cool promo video for the coaster
here.
As with a lot of these Asian theme park projects, a name for the Vekoma Firestorm isn't know yet but the coaster is all but complete at this point so fingers crossed we start seeing some testing videos real soon. Interestingly the coaster was originally intended for another Vinpearl Land in Thủ Thiêm and despite purchasing rides, the park actually never came to fruition meaning the coaster was constructed here instead. The Firestorm contains some incredible looking elements such as an LSM launch, a pretty gnarly looking top hat alongside three inversions. The coaster will have a top speed of 71.5mph and is estimated to open in April of this year.
Hands up if you knew the UK was getting a new wooden coaster this year? Liar! Gullivers Valley Resort is the first new theme park to open in the UK in decades and will be the 4th UK park within the franchise. There's barely any information out there regarding specifics of the coaster itself, but rumour has it it will be an exact replica of the Allot and Lomax coaster Antelope at sister park Gullivers Warrington - the same company who designed the Vekoma woodie Thundercoaster at TusenFryd in Norway. Antelope is...fine I guess but a brand new woodie for the UK is definitely something I'd have expected to hear more about, especially given it opens this year!
Back in Spring of 2018, Vekoma announced yet another launched coaster concept dubbed "Top Gun". Looks like the Fantawild company were pretty sold on this idea as so far they've snapped up two coasters of this design, opening at Ganzhou and Ningbo this year! Unlike their launched Space Warp design, the Top Gun sees trains dispatch the station and turn a corner before propelling along a rolling launch track into the full layout. Speed and height specs are currently unavailable at this time but by the looks of this
video we can expect two inversions as well as a non-inverting loop style element.
Kings of absolute batshit crazy coaster designs are back at it again in 2020, this time with an as yet unnamed launched coaster concept coming to Window of the World, Changsha in 2020. Using their infamous compressed air launch approach, this launched coaster will shuttle riders to 100kph in speeds that S&S COO Jason Mons describes as 'incredible'. The coaster will then hurtle riders through ten elements including a top hat, zero g rolls and a reverse dive loop, all crammed into a tiny 830m. Essentially it sounds like this thing is going to be absolutely relentless, delivering that trademark S&S forcefulness from start to finish.
Because really, who is going to protest the idea of there being another Taron in the world? Opening at the brand new Chengdu Wanda City, this Intamin Blitz coaster appears from drawings and photography to have the exact same layout as Taron at Phantasialand. Crucially too, Chengdu Wanda City aren't scrimping on the theming either including extensive rockwork and skeleton theming. The track of this coaster was completed just last month so fingers crossed we'll get some testing footage and maybe a POV real soon so we can see how it compares to everybody's favourite European launch coaster!
So there we go, proof that there are exciting coaster developments taking place pretty much all over the world (but let's face it, a disproportionate amount of large scale projects going on in China!) to continue to drool over.
Talk later xoxo,
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