Hard Rock Park - A Boutique Universal Coaster Park

[TheOriginalTiki]

Just going to vomit up some ideas here as I've rolling this around in my head for the last couple weeks. I've been recently fascinated by two things in theme park design...coaster parks and boutique parks. With the hype around the Velocicoaster and Hagrid's being so highly regarded, I'm really fascinated by the idea of Universal doing a park fully anchored by coasters. A Six Flags or Cedar Fair but with E-Ticket levels of budget and theme. With the idea of a boutique park I'm just really interested in the thought experiment of taking something as small scale as, say the Paris Studios park, and craft a DisneySea level of immersion within that setting. All that rolled into Hard Rock Park as one of my all time favorite "lost" theme parks and Universal having a pretty heavy Hard Rock presence with the hotel, I thought I'd take a stab at designing a music themed park.

The main difference between this and Hard Rock Park (besides...you know...budget and quality...) is this park will be focused on specific bands instead of genres. With that in mind the lands I have in mind are...

Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Enter the punk-pop world of a Green Day rock opera with this Berkley inspired Main Street featuring a themed American Idiot wild mouse, regular performances by St. Jimmy, and a Greek Theater which serves as the park's "castle" and also the home to a brand new version of Rock N' Rollercoaster.

The Gates of Dawn
An industrial district of the park drenched in the world of Pink Floyd. Featuring a visually striking reconstruction of the Animals album artwork with a vertical drop coaster literally dropping off the side of the smoke-stack. A giant "Wall" also adorns the skyline. Attractions are "Welcome to the Machine", a vertical drop coaster/dark ride hybrid themed around both Animals and Wish You Were Here and an E-Ticket dark ride themed to The Wall. Also experimenting around with the idea of a surreal family coaster themed to The Dark Side of Oz but that's probably breaching into tricky copyright territory.

Pepperland
The Fantasyland that exists beyond the "castle" of the Greek Theater. Attractions include a Yellow Submarine voyage (using a tech more similar to Tokyo's Journey to the Center of the Earth than the classic Subs) and a Magical Mystery Tour thrill ride. Also playing around with a Carousel of Progress style AA show tracking the evolution of the band's sound and style.

Plastic Beach
The most thematically ambitious of the lands and themed to both Gorillaz and Daft Punk...both of which are titans of modern music who are known for collaborations but have never collaborated with each other and both of which have pretty substantial "lore" behind them. Ideas are somewhat undeveloped but the main E-Ticket will definitely be a "Gorillaz x Daft Punk" coaster along with probably a couple Gorillaz themed flat rides and a Daft Punk indoor coaster.

 

[JokersWild]

If you want to go further with this at all, let me know. I've been toying with a similar park and would love to help out if you'd like.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

If you want to go further with this at all, let me know. I've been toying with a similar park and would love to help out if you'd like.

By all means. I know in the past you've had reservations about a music park having lands devoted to individual bands, but I truly think in these times of hyper-themed immersive IP-based lands like Pandora and Galaxy's Edge the idea of a land full on transporting you to the "world" of several different highly theatrical bands would work wonders. Essentially I want the skyline of this park to be one giant album collected of life-sized monuments to other iconic album covers (the Wall, the Animals smokestack, the Plastic Beach island, etc.)

What'd you have in mind in terms of expansion?

Right now the attraction I have the most clear vision of in my head if "Animals: Welcome to the Machine". It'd essentially be a Takabisha/TMNT Shellraiser clone but all done in a highly themed setting weaving both in and outside the factory and would also include a Tower of Terror style elevator drop as the finale. My idea is essentially the ride would be three acts...the dark ride section set to "Welcome to the Machine", the vertical lift hill and drop off the smokestack into the main coaster section set to "Dogs", and then an elaborate elevator lift to a derranged AA of a sleazy music producer in the style of the Wall surrealist characters singing "Have a Cigar" before the floor literally falls out from the "office" you're in and you experience the "freefall" that comes with fame. Maybe a small tribute to the Wish You Were Here album cover set to the titular song at the very end before the station.

 

[DashHaber]

Just going to vomit up some ideas here as I've rolling this around in my head for the last couple weeks. I've been recently fascinated by two things in theme park design...coaster parks and boutique parks. With the hype around the Velocicoaster and Hagrid's being so highly regarded, I'm really fascinated by the idea of Universal doing a park fully anchored by coasters. A Six Flags or Cedar Fair but with E-Ticket levels of budget and theme. With the idea of a boutique park I'm just really interested in the thought experiment of taking something as small scale as, say the Paris Studios park, and craft a DisneySea level of immersion within that setting. All that rolled into Hard Rock Park as one of my all time favorite "lost" theme parks and Universal having a pretty heavy Hard Rock presence with the hotel, I thought I'd take a stab at designing a music themed park.

The main difference between this and Hard Rock Park (besides...you know...budget and quality...) is this park will be focused on specific bands instead of genres. With that in mind the lands I have in mind are...

Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Enter the punk-pop world of a Green Day rock opera with this Berkley inspired Main Street featuring a themed American Idiot wild mouse, regular performances by St. Jimmy, and a Greek Theater which serves as the park's "castle" and also the home to a brand new version of Rock N' Rollercoaster.

The Gates of Dawn
An industrial district of the park drenched in the world of Pink Floyd. Featuring a visually striking reconstruction of the Animals album artwork with a vertical drop coaster literally dropping off the side of the smoke-stack. A giant "Wall" also adorns the skyline. Attractions are "Welcome to the Machine", a vertical drop coaster/dark ride hybrid themed around both Animals and Wish You Were Here and an E-Ticket dark ride themed to The Wall. Also experimenting around with the idea of a surreal family coaster themed to The Dark Side of Oz but that's probably breaching into tricky copyright territory.

Pepperland
The Fantasyland that exists beyond the "castle" of the Greek Theater. Attractions include a Yellow Submarine voyage (using a tech more similar to Tokyo's Journey to the Center of the Earth than the classic Subs) and a Magical Mystery Tour thrill ride. Also playing around with a Carousel of Progress style AA show tracking the evolution of the band's sound and style.

Plastic Beach
The most thematically ambitious of the lands and themed to both Gorillaz and Daft Punk...both of which are titans of modern music who are known for collaborations but have never collaborated with each other and both of which have pretty substantial "lore" behind them. Ideas are somewhat undeveloped but the main E-Ticket will definitely be a "Gorillaz x Daft Punk" coaster along with probably a couple Gorillaz themed flat rides and a Daft Punk indoor coaster.

I've got to say, this is actually a really cool idea. I think it helps to draw from the specific imagery of certain bands or musicians for these lands, giving a far more immersive feel to pull from (especially with Pepperland).

 

[JokersWild]

By all means. I know in the past you've had reservations about a music park having lands devoted to individual bands, but I truly think in these times of hyper-themed immersive IP-based lands like Pandora and Galaxy's Edge the idea of a land full on transporting you to the "world" of several different highly theatrical bands would work wonders. Essentially I want the skyline of this park to be one giant album collected of life-sized monuments to other iconic album covers (the Wall, the Animals smokestack, the Plastic Beach island, etc.)

What'd you have in mind in terms of expansion?

Right now the attraction I have the most clear vision of in my head if "Animals: Welcome to the Machine". It'd essentially be a Takabisha/TMNT Shellraiser clone but all done in a highly themed setting weaving both in and outside the factory and would also include a Tower of Terror style elevator drop as the finale. My idea is essentially the ride would be three acts...the dark ride section set to "Welcome to the Machine", the vertical lift hill and drop off the smokestack into the main coaster section set to "Dogs", and then an elaborate elevator lift to a derranged AA of a sleazy music producer in the style of the Wall surrealist characters singing "Have a Cigar" before the floor literally falls out from the "office" you're in and you experience the "freefall" that comes with fame. Maybe a small tribute to the Wish You Were Here album cover set to the titular song at the very end before the station.

I definitely still think that a music park should be presented in more broad strokes than theming entire lands around specific bands. That being said, I really love the idea of Pepperland specifically.

In terms of Pink Floyd, I think that you could absolutely venture further and deeper than just Animals/ Wish You Were Here. Utilizing Dark Side, The Wall, and especially Atom Heart Mother would be perfect for a ride like this. Frankly, a ride on that scale could be the headliner for the park as a whole. I still have Dark Ride of the Moon waiting in the wings to be produced. It already has a similar opening scene to yours .

Outside of that, I think that you could split Gorillaz and Daft Punk. Like you said, both have pretty sprawling backstories and I think that both could absolutely pull their own weight to have their own separate spaces. In terms of expansion plots, I still want to see jazz in a music park, but that might be a big far from what you seem to be going for. Let me do some soul searching and I’ll come back with some more stuff.

 

[JokersWild]

So I did a thing. It's definitely a departure from your initial idea, but I'd feel weird just going off and doing it without pitching it here. Whole park is obviously extremely rough. Anyway:

Untitled music park. Sitting at the center of the park is the Land of Symphony and the Isle of Jazz from Music Land. There are two entrances to the park, allowing guests to enter either through the Land of Symphony or the Isle of Jazz (I know that I didn't like it in 1986, but I'm justifying it by giving the park a circular layout. Land of Symphony/ Isle of Jazz would act in conjunction as the park's main street, featuring shops and restaurants as well as a water ride retelling the story of the short.

The Isle of Jazz side of the park is more industrial, and mostly comprised of cityscapes. I'd like for Tin Pan Alley to have an adaptation of the Great Broadway Ride. I was also toying with throwing in The Artist more to round out the park, and the way the attraction uses music fits the park like a glove.

The as-yet-unnamed city area is intended to be based more on rock. Pink Floyd Attraction (using Battersea Power Plant), as well as a Gorillaz attraction (using Plastic Beach) would headline the land. I'd also love to have a top spin themed after Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' cover art.

The abandoned industrial tone of the city would then fade into the desert/ beach area. Here I'd like to have a car ride based on Route 66; just a simple kids ride that features songs that aren't directly rock. There would also be a beach area partially to service Plastic Beach, partially to service some sort of Beach Boys/ Dick Dale...something, and partially to give me reason to add a seafood restaurant called The Mollusk.

Hyde Park/ Woodstock is very fluid. No real ideas; I'd just like the park to have some sort of permanent concert space because that makes sense. Maybe a flatride or two? Maybe something more psychedelic and British-inspired. I'm just now realizing that I forgot to put Pepperland on this map, so I'll just add it here. I'd like for it to act more as the family land of the park. Yellow Submarine dark ride, Magical Mystery Tour kiddie coaster, and the like. Probably a flatride or two. You know how it goes. Pepperland/ Hyde Park/ Woodstock would then flow into the more naturalistic settings and classical themes of the Land of Symphony-side of the park.

Fantasia Gardens is fairly obvious. Fantasia attractions. Who knows what. I'd like to make them unique from what's already been pitched ad nauseam here. Maybe a ballet-based attraction? I was also thinking of a Casey Junior send-up themed to Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals" to bridge between the garden and the Land of Symphony proper. Finally, The Forest. Again, I don't have too many ideas here, but I'd love to see an attraction based on Peter and the Wolf. Something like that would be really unique.

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So, those are my initial ideas after thinking about it properly for like an hour. There's definitely a ton that could be done with a park like this. Right now my big concern is this park having too many coasters, and the park being too based on rock when there are a million other genres out there that are just as viable for a theme park. Unfortunately, while my knowledge of obscure music is deep, it's pretty consistently stuck in rock so there is a ton of music that's out of my radar.

I'd love to get some feedback on this. This is something I've been meaning to try to do for a while, and I'd like to start properly developing it.