Here is a great article talking about the new technologies coming to the Orlando area theme parks.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-cover11x08feb11,0,6771195.story
Attraction designers are on a creative roll as they invent new thrills
Scott Powers
Sentinel Staff Reporter
February 11, 2008
Imagine the ride of the future, featuring the hottest theme-park trends and technologies: As a laser-guided, indoor-ride car moves forward, a robotic arm makes the seats rise and fall, swivel left and right, and spin, so that riders might feel as though they are flying with all the freedom of a butterfly.
The space they fly through is mostly dark but aglow with digital video images that appear three-dimensional and different to every rider, with high-definition theatrical sounds and other special effects making a storybook environment. The riders don't just fly through the story, they work devices that let them choose their experience, alter their movements, and interact with the images.
For the next round of attractions coming to Orlando --SeaWorld's new water park, Aquatica, due this spring; Walt Disney World's next big ride, Toy Story Mania, due this summer; and Universal Orlando's new attractions area, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, due next year -- theme park executives are not offering many details. But they are setting up high expectations.
"Aquatica is like no other water park in the world," said Joe Couceiro, marketing vice president for Busch Entertainment Corp., parent company of SeaWorld and Aquatica.
"Toy Story Mania is the next-generation interactive, ride-through experience," saidTom Fitzgerald, executive vice president and senior creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering.
"Wizarding World is probably going to bring to life the most stunning technologies across the gamut of ride-show experiences," said Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative.
The pressure is on to deliver on such boasts. Competition is heating up, with big, new tourist-destination parks springing up in the Middle East, China, Singapore and elsewhere.
Even some smaller, regional parks are now trying to develop high-tech attractions such as Universal Orlando's The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man -- the kind of rides that previously helped set Orlando's big destination parks apart from the rest of the pack.
"Spider-Man at Universal really opened a door. The Curse of DarKastle at Busch Gardens inVirginia is essentially the same ride -- and DarKastle reduced the costs," said Kenneth Eff, a partner in Orlando-based Attraction Design Services, which is developing rides for the new Hard Rock Park that opens in South Carolina this spring. "Since then, I think other parks are looking and saying, 'Well, we can get the same technologies as Disney and Universal, for a lot less money.' "
Audiences, too, are raising the bar. Theme parks must outdo the thrills, realism and control that people can now find at home in increasingly sophisticated video games and interactive Internet sites.
Consequently, hybrids of existing thrill rides and technology-driven indoor, or "dark," rides are being developed, said Bill Coan, president of Orlando-based ITEC Entertainment Corp., whose clients include Universal.
"You combine the best in theater effects with aggressive thrill rides, on top of which you're sitting on motion bases -- not only moving forward and backward, but rocking up and down and sideways," Coan said. "The dark-ride genre is still story-driven, but in large part it really needs good theatrical and cinematic effects to pull off the show because, doggone it, these kids growing up today are not going to want to see It's A Small World now."
Like his counterparts, Universal Creative President Woodbury declines to offer many details about future rides, includingThe Simpsons attraction that opens this summer and the Wizarding World rides to come later. He did say that Universal is pursuing technologies that let riders customize their experience -- choosing from among planned encounters and adjusting the intensity. Robotics that can adjust a rider's position will play "a very big role, and are enabling things to happen that have never happened before," he said.
Public records show that, in recent months, Universal has hired one of the world's top roller-coaster manufacturers and a large-structure construction company, as well as numerous show-technology and dark-ride specialists. But they would not talk about their projects, citing nondisclosure agreements.
"We want deeper levels of immersion, by using ride systems that are integrated to show systems that work seamlessly together," Woodbury said. "The Wizarding World is going to take that to a whole new level beyond Spider-Man."
Both Universal and Disney insist that the immersion of customers into a good story, not the latest technology, must remain the foundation of their attractions.
"Immersion is our stock in trade," said Scott Trowbridge, vice president for creative research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering.
"For us, the technology is always in service of the story," he said. "Say Midway [Toy Story] Mania: one of the coolest pieces of technology in that attraction is a really, really fast track switch that allows us to send vehicles into different scenes in a way we wouldn't have been able to do before. . . . We're all really excited about it. But we don't want our guests to think or care about it."
For Busch, the latest innovations stress immersing visitors into real-life habitats, not stories, said Couceiro. The company renamed its parks group "Worlds of Discovery" to emphasize what he calls Busch's specialty: educational attractions. Visitors might not want to be lectured, but they want more than thrills, he said; they want to leave feeling fulfilled.
"Jungala inTampa is a great example of that," he said, referring to the new attractions area that opens this spring in Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.
"It's the up-close encounters with the white tigers, or having an orangutan over your head, or doing a tug of war with a tiger with a rope pull. You have all kinds of different discovery caves that allow you to immerse yourself in this habitat," he said. "When you do that, you're being entertained, but you're also being educated whether you know it or not."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-cover11x08feb11,0,6771195.story
Attraction designers are on a creative roll as they invent new thrills
Scott Powers
Sentinel Staff Reporter
February 11, 2008
Imagine the ride of the future, featuring the hottest theme-park trends and technologies: As a laser-guided, indoor-ride car moves forward, a robotic arm makes the seats rise and fall, swivel left and right, and spin, so that riders might feel as though they are flying with all the freedom of a butterfly.
The space they fly through is mostly dark but aglow with digital video images that appear three-dimensional and different to every rider, with high-definition theatrical sounds and other special effects making a storybook environment. The riders don't just fly through the story, they work devices that let them choose their experience, alter their movements, and interact with the images.
For the next round of attractions coming to Orlando --SeaWorld's new water park, Aquatica, due this spring; Walt Disney World's next big ride, Toy Story Mania, due this summer; and Universal Orlando's new attractions area, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, due next year -- theme park executives are not offering many details. But they are setting up high expectations.
"Aquatica is like no other water park in the world," said Joe Couceiro, marketing vice president for Busch Entertainment Corp., parent company of SeaWorld and Aquatica.
"Toy Story Mania is the next-generation interactive, ride-through experience," saidTom Fitzgerald, executive vice president and senior creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering.
"Wizarding World is probably going to bring to life the most stunning technologies across the gamut of ride-show experiences," said Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative.
The pressure is on to deliver on such boasts. Competition is heating up, with big, new tourist-destination parks springing up in the Middle East, China, Singapore and elsewhere.
Even some smaller, regional parks are now trying to develop high-tech attractions such as Universal Orlando's The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man -- the kind of rides that previously helped set Orlando's big destination parks apart from the rest of the pack.
"Spider-Man at Universal really opened a door. The Curse of DarKastle at Busch Gardens inVirginia is essentially the same ride -- and DarKastle reduced the costs," said Kenneth Eff, a partner in Orlando-based Attraction Design Services, which is developing rides for the new Hard Rock Park that opens in South Carolina this spring. "Since then, I think other parks are looking and saying, 'Well, we can get the same technologies as Disney and Universal, for a lot less money.' "
Audiences, too, are raising the bar. Theme parks must outdo the thrills, realism and control that people can now find at home in increasingly sophisticated video games and interactive Internet sites.
Consequently, hybrids of existing thrill rides and technology-driven indoor, or "dark," rides are being developed, said Bill Coan, president of Orlando-based ITEC Entertainment Corp., whose clients include Universal.
"You combine the best in theater effects with aggressive thrill rides, on top of which you're sitting on motion bases -- not only moving forward and backward, but rocking up and down and sideways," Coan said. "The dark-ride genre is still story-driven, but in large part it really needs good theatrical and cinematic effects to pull off the show because, doggone it, these kids growing up today are not going to want to see It's A Small World now."
Like his counterparts, Universal Creative President Woodbury declines to offer many details about future rides, includingThe Simpsons attraction that opens this summer and the Wizarding World rides to come later. He did say that Universal is pursuing technologies that let riders customize their experience -- choosing from among planned encounters and adjusting the intensity. Robotics that can adjust a rider's position will play "a very big role, and are enabling things to happen that have never happened before," he said.
Public records show that, in recent months, Universal has hired one of the world's top roller-coaster manufacturers and a large-structure construction company, as well as numerous show-technology and dark-ride specialists. But they would not talk about their projects, citing nondisclosure agreements.
"We want deeper levels of immersion, by using ride systems that are integrated to show systems that work seamlessly together," Woodbury said. "The Wizarding World is going to take that to a whole new level beyond Spider-Man."
Both Universal and Disney insist that the immersion of customers into a good story, not the latest technology, must remain the foundation of their attractions.
"Immersion is our stock in trade," said Scott Trowbridge, vice president for creative research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering.
"For us, the technology is always in service of the story," he said. "Say Midway [Toy Story] Mania: one of the coolest pieces of technology in that attraction is a really, really fast track switch that allows us to send vehicles into different scenes in a way we wouldn't have been able to do before. . . . We're all really excited about it. But we don't want our guests to think or care about it."
For Busch, the latest innovations stress immersing visitors into real-life habitats, not stories, said Couceiro. The company renamed its parks group "Worlds of Discovery" to emphasize what he calls Busch's specialty: educational attractions. Visitors might not want to be lectured, but they want more than thrills, he said; they want to leave feeling fulfilled.
"Jungala inTampa is a great example of that," he said, referring to the new attractions area that opens this spring in Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.
"It's the up-close encounters with the white tigers, or having an orangutan over your head, or doing a tug of war with a tiger with a rope pull. You have all kinds of different discovery caves that allow you to immerse yourself in this habitat," he said. "When you do that, you're being entertained, but you're also being educated whether you know it or not."
