Is it the theming? Quality of attractions? Something entirely different? I want to know.
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How do you make a good park?
- Thread starter MagicKingdom4Ever
- Start date
JokersWild
Well-Known Member
That’s a bit of a difficult question to answer because it involves all of the things you listed and more.
Personally, I like parks to be thematically consistent, with the exception of castle parks which all follow their own consistent formula. Every park needs a thesis. Animal Kingdom has a consistent animal theme, DisneySEA has consistent themes of both water and adventure, etc. The theming and attractions are really going to set a park over the edge, but I think that foundation of a consistent theme is what’s most important.
To be a bit harsher, I think general creativity plays a pretty big role as well. I don’t think I’ve seen this from you, but a lot of armchair imagineering parks focus too heavily on clones. While clones absolutely have their place, relying to heavily on them really just lessens the impact of your park. Personally, if I add a clone to a park, I try to make it at least marginally different from existing versions of the attraction. Not every original attraction has to be an E-Ticket, but put some time into all of your attractions. It’ll show and help make your park all the better.
To summarize, consistent theme and foundation are the most important aspects to a “good” theme park, existing or otherwise. Creative content and details past that initial theme is a very close second. And try not to minimize smaller parts of the park. Fully realize flat rides, write some restaurants, etc.
Personally, I like parks to be thematically consistent, with the exception of castle parks which all follow their own consistent formula. Every park needs a thesis. Animal Kingdom has a consistent animal theme, DisneySEA has consistent themes of both water and adventure, etc. The theming and attractions are really going to set a park over the edge, but I think that foundation of a consistent theme is what’s most important.
To be a bit harsher, I think general creativity plays a pretty big role as well. I don’t think I’ve seen this from you, but a lot of armchair imagineering parks focus too heavily on clones. While clones absolutely have their place, relying to heavily on them really just lessens the impact of your park. Personally, if I add a clone to a park, I try to make it at least marginally different from existing versions of the attraction. Not every original attraction has to be an E-Ticket, but put some time into all of your attractions. It’ll show and help make your park all the better.
To summarize, consistent theme and foundation are the most important aspects to a “good” theme park, existing or otherwise. Creative content and details past that initial theme is a very close second. And try not to minimize smaller parts of the park. Fully realize flat rides, write some restaurants, etc.
MickeyMouse10
Well-Known Member
I think you need to come up with a theming first for the park and it's lands. Then I'm sure everything else will eventually all come to you.
comics101
Well-Known Member
The answer is all of the above, although some elements you mentioned are more important than others.
The most important aspect of a theme park--indeed the very thing that separates a theme park from an amusement park, is "theme." This does not mean that the entire park needs an over-arching, coherent theme in order to be considered great. The lands of Disneyland, for example, do not follow a single theme or cohesive story, yet the park is perhaps the single greatest triumph of themed design ever built. Islands of Adventure is another great example of a good theme park that does not necessarily have a constant theme throughout.
So what makes these Disneyland-style parks so great? In my mind, it's believability. When walking through Frontierland, guests feel as though they are "in" Frontierland. More than just some area in a theme park, Frontierland is a living, breathing place full of its own style and appeal. It feels real.
Incidentally, while I have not had the opportunity to visit Shanghai Disneyland (yet), based on the images and videos I've seen, I think that the feeling of believability is what is missing from that park. In part, this may have to do with the park's size--SDL is so massive that the gaps which exist between areas is kind of jarring (again, solely based on images/video I've seen).
The bigger issue with Shanghai Disneyland however, is that next to none of the park is based in reality. The Tony Baxter-led 1983 redo of Fantasyland was steeped in Bavarian-style architecture rather than in the imagery of movies/storybooks. It was influenced by real-world design; by the places and peoples who created the stories that Disney's animated classics were based on, rather than by the stories themselves.
In contrast, Shanghai Disneyland's Fantasyland feels artificial. The architecture and design of the land appears to be based on assumptions of what storybook/European fairytale villages would look like, rather than on an actual European "fairytale" village. This issue might be best summarized by this sentence from the Wikipedia article on Shanghai's Enchanted Storybook Castle:
So Enchanted Storybook Castle was inspired by "Disney Castles," meaning fictionalized structures custom-built for a theme park. Meanwhile, the castles that inspired Enchanted Storybook Castle--Cinderella Castle and Sleeping Beauty Castle--were inspired by actual, real-world castles and palaces from old-Europe.
Imagineering Legend Herb Ryman, for example, based the design of Cinderella Castle on:
Sleeping Beauty Castle, meanwhile, was inspired at least in part by the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria and Chenonceau Castle in France. Incidentally, Sleeping Beauty Castle's basis in Bavaria's Neuschwanstein Castle is likely what led Tony Baxter and his team to select a Bavarian-design for their 1983 New Fantasyland project--again, because doing so would help both the castle and the Fantasyland "village" appear real. What appears more natural to the human eye than a Bavarian-inspired castle surrounded by a Bavarian-inspired village, after all?
Wow, this post got very long very quickly. I had intended to discuss some of the other elements that I felt made a theme park great, but that might have to wait until another day. Ultimately though, I believe theme--specifically, the believability that theme brings to an area/land--is the most important aspect of a theme park. Once a park's "theme" is set, the other elements (which are still important!) begin to fall into place.
WDWmazprty
Well-Known Member
Yeah, if the theme is popular or just a great theme, that's a good start. Once you have that, then the attractions that go with said theme will have to be popular as well.
i.e. Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Music, Movies, etc. etc. etc. are all popular themes....people like these things. Just make sure what you put in those parks as far as attractions are also what people like.
i.e. Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Music, Movies, etc. etc. etc. are all popular themes....people like these things. Just make sure what you put in those parks as far as attractions are also what people like.
Miru
Well-Known Member
There’s a few things:
1. Critiquing only the absolute worst examples, rather than mere mediocrity, will get you nowhere and ignores the deeper problems going on by focusing on the superficial, for the worst examples of park design have few to no decent qualities to appraise or contrast with the bad parts, unlike mediocre ones. In other words, please stop hooting at the chaff.
2. Mono-IP lands are a poison on creativity and eyesight, and lead to… monotony in the eyes of the guests. The examples of well-done mono-IP lands are a rarity (Cars Land, Pandora, some Universal examples as well), while mediocre (Galaxy’s Edge, most Universal examples, basically any Six Flags attempt whatsoever…) to horrendous (Pixar Pier, Paris!Avengers Campus) ones are legion. Themes around a broader brand/label/company are only marginally better, and still often provide failures. Broad, general themes are the way to go to allow for the maximum amount of atmosphere and worldbuilding the staff can pull off. However, themes that are too abstract result in a lot of un-themed attractions that degrade the thematic integrity of your park as a whole and make it seem like another amusement park instead (Knott’s is a good example), just as much as mono-IP lands do.
3. If the attraction is good enough, nobody (except the people on top of the operation, eventually) will care about the source material, if any. (Mr. Toad, Splash Mountain, Secret Life of Pets, Flight of Passage, etc on one end, with WEB SLINGERS, Ariel, and dozens of Six Flags examples on the other)
4. Rides are not the be-all-end-all of a park experience. Especially not E-Tickets. Shops, shows, walkthroughs, restaurants, meetables, streetmosphere, and even mere scenery are all also equally important to conveying something and giving depth. People from the film industry would really help with this matter. Even with rides, E-Tickets are not the be-all-end-all; simpler dark rides are much appreciated, simpler coasters can be fun in moderation, and flat rides add plenty of kinetic energy even if you stick to 1 or 2 types.
5. Balance all qualities of the park. Failing to heed this on one end leaves you with lands that have no rides whatsoever, on the other you get congestions of off-the-shelf rides that add nothing. This also applies to individual attractions. Not balancing things in attraction design leads to that Ariel ride, which is so monomaniacally fixated on musical numbers the most grandiose and ride-worthy sequences were unfairly left out.
C’mon, I need 5 more here…
1. Critiquing only the absolute worst examples, rather than mere mediocrity, will get you nowhere and ignores the deeper problems going on by focusing on the superficial, for the worst examples of park design have few to no decent qualities to appraise or contrast with the bad parts, unlike mediocre ones. In other words, please stop hooting at the chaff.
2. Mono-IP lands are a poison on creativity and eyesight, and lead to… monotony in the eyes of the guests. The examples of well-done mono-IP lands are a rarity (Cars Land, Pandora, some Universal examples as well), while mediocre (Galaxy’s Edge, most Universal examples, basically any Six Flags attempt whatsoever…) to horrendous (Pixar Pier, Paris!Avengers Campus) ones are legion. Themes around a broader brand/label/company are only marginally better, and still often provide failures. Broad, general themes are the way to go to allow for the maximum amount of atmosphere and worldbuilding the staff can pull off. However, themes that are too abstract result in a lot of un-themed attractions that degrade the thematic integrity of your park as a whole and make it seem like another amusement park instead (Knott’s is a good example), just as much as mono-IP lands do.
3. If the attraction is good enough, nobody (except the people on top of the operation, eventually) will care about the source material, if any. (Mr. Toad, Splash Mountain, Secret Life of Pets, Flight of Passage, etc on one end, with WEB SLINGERS, Ariel, and dozens of Six Flags examples on the other)
4. Rides are not the be-all-end-all of a park experience. Especially not E-Tickets. Shops, shows, walkthroughs, restaurants, meetables, streetmosphere, and even mere scenery are all also equally important to conveying something and giving depth. People from the film industry would really help with this matter. Even with rides, E-Tickets are not the be-all-end-all; simpler dark rides are much appreciated, simpler coasters can be fun in moderation, and flat rides add plenty of kinetic energy even if you stick to 1 or 2 types.
5. Balance all qualities of the park. Failing to heed this on one end leaves you with lands that have no rides whatsoever, on the other you get congestions of off-the-shelf rides that add nothing. This also applies to individual attractions. Not balancing things in attraction design leads to that Ariel ride, which is so monomaniacally fixated on musical numbers the most grandiose and ride-worthy sequences were unfairly left out.
C’mon, I need 5 more here…
Last edited:
Miru
Well-Known Member
That’s a good one! Added that to my “10 Commandments of Theme Park Design” up there.