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Jun 6, 2013
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When you look at the most popular parks in America you see they all feature many indoor attractions. That's partly because they can't afford to let weather dictate crowds. I know BGW will never equal these parks, but Virginia weather does throw many curve balls. We get oppressive summer heat, hurricanes, wet and windy springs, and now cold winters the park needs to contend with. I was interested to see what permanent or even part time indoor attractions make financial and realistic sense. DarKoaster is a great start, but I hope to see more of this.

A couple easy ones for me are close in tradewinds permanently. You could change the ride with new custom lighting even. Enclose the teacups and bumper cars for the winter season. Both structures lend themselves to doing this. These three rides and lines could provide a nice relief and be more comfortable for riding. Same goes for elephant run and maybe even lil clydes.

I really hope the park replaces BfE with a brand new simulator, from the ground up. That structure doesn't lend itself to much else aside from maybe a flat or two. Castle oSullivan is another location that could be used to house a good indoor attraction. I think the building even has room to expand if needed.

What else do you all think? Good investments, or waste of capital?
 
When you look at the most popular parks in America you see they all feature many indoor attractions. That's partly because they can't afford to let weather dictate crowds. I know BGW will never equal these parks, but Virginia weather does throw many curve balls. We get oppressive summer heat, hurricanes, wet and windy springs, and now cold winters the park needs to contend with. I was interested to see what permanent or even part time indoor attractions make financial and realistic sense. DarKoaster is a great start, but I hope to see more of this.

A couple easy ones for me are close in tradewinds permanently. You could change the ride with new custom lighting even. Enclose the teacups and bumper cars for the winter season. Both structures lend themselves to doing this. These three rides and lines could provide a nice relief and be more comfortable for riding. Same goes for elephant run and maybe even lil clydes.

I really hope the park replaces BfE with a brand new simulator, from the ground up. That structure doesn't lend itself to much else aside from maybe a flat or two. Castle oSullivan is another location that could be used to house a good indoor attraction. I think the building even has room to expand if needed.

What else do you all think? Good investments, or waste of capital?
I mean I’d take castle and put catapult back in it, they can put another flat where catapult is now, and that would bring back the glory of catapults opening days. Imo they could do with a sally or triotech darkride in England, keep darkoaster as is, do what you suggested, and provide more indoor seating for restaurants.
 
I love this thread @tursiops! It's a topic I've been thinking a ton about lately so excuse the idea dump here...

As Castle O'Sullivan has become less and less utilized over the last handful of years and the need for indoor attractions has continued to grow, I've been becoming more and more sold on the idea of moving BGW's scrambler to Killarney. We know it fits in the Castle O'Sullivan building, we know the park knows how to make it work, and it probably wouldn't be that horrendously expensive either.

Also in Killarney: The sim building. Though I'm not 100% opposed to BGW trying their hand at yet another 4D movie thing—a new Corkscrew Hill isn't an absurd idea for instance—I'd be pretty skeptical of such an investment. I think the cost to do it right—especially without an obvious, known IP to work with—is just too high of a thematic/storytelling investment for SEAS these days. I tend to believe that the most likely outcome for the space long-term involves a coaster to be honest. There's room for a fully indoor custom mouse if they wanted something like that—think Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster at Warner Bros. Movie World—but I honestly think a much larger, almost entirely outdoor coaster that uses the sim bays for its station (a la SWSD's Wild Arctic project) is more likely in the long-run. In the spirit of this thread though, I would honestly be completely onboard with a themed, custom, completely indoor Mack Mouse (probably with an elevator lift or two?) replacing the sims. I don't think it would be too duplicative with DarKastle and it would be on the opposite end of the park.

As for the Festa flats (Trade Wind, Turkish Delight, Elephant Run), I really like the idea of removable—or even just unrollable—canvas tent-style "walls" being designed for them. With the addition of some radiant heaters installed for cold days, these rides could be cold-weather staples for the park. Not only would this make them far more temperature resistant, but by providing light isolation, we could finally see the return of seasonal flat ride overlays in Festa with special lights/music/etc too for Howl-O-Scream, Christmas Town, and Mardi Gras—I can envision good solutions for all three of them from September to March.

Before we leave Festa, I think it's worth mentioning the Festa Coke Market. It's a large, enclosable structure designed to house a flat ride that it laughably underutilized right now. I don't know what I'd want there—maybe a new Mack SeaStorm for the return of the SeaDragon? Maybe flexible special event space for a Howl-O-Scream house or for Christmas Town/Winter Weekends meet-and-greets/photos? I'm not sure, but I'd like to see something new in that spot for sure.

Moving away from rides, I'd really like to see Il Teatro di San Marco fully enclosed. Having a second, sizable, indoor, climate-controlled restaurant seating area would be an absolute gamechanger year-round. Imagine the current setup largely remaining intact—but with the addition of solid walls around the perimeter and a new roof over the current open area. The new ceiling could simply be painted black with dim, faintly twinkling lights to imitate a night sky. Just imagine every meal at Il Teatro di San Marco taking place on a perfectly temperate night with shows under the stars. Starlight Orchestra anyone? Absolute perfection. It would be a huge dining upgrade, but it would be an enormous entertainment upgrade as well—making this a far more suitable venue for the likes of Unto Us. It would make both dining and entertainment far more weather resilient and likely far more popular too.

Screenshot_20220117-000302_Earth~2.jpg
 
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The tea cups, dodgem and Himalaya are covered. IMO they don’t need to be enclosed as they can still operate in rain, and these rides are still comfortable in low temps. Another ride that could be covered is a Huss Breakdance.

The Disney parks are the most popular not only because they guarantee a lot to do even in bad weather, but the majority of their rides are family friendly rides that anyone can ride regardless of height or age. A year round theme park should have at least 3 high quality family dark rides. Busch has none.

They should put a slow moving dark ride in Darkastle, not Verbolten jr. The castle in Ireland could be extended for another high quality dark ride as it borders the parking lot.

And finally the soaking chute the chutes rides have lost popularity. A massive multi level dark ride could go in the Pompeii building.

I personally liked Europe in the Air. Something family friendly should go in that theater.

Busch has 3 indoor live entertainment venues. They should utilize them year round with quality productions.

Along with the train, that would be a day full of activities even when the weather is bad. Plus the skyway when it’s cold and dry.
 
For the life of me I don’t know what they are called but there are these things that can mount on an open area, and they heat up and push out heat via a fan through a skinny opening effectively creating a heat wall. The area enclosed by this stays warm and the shooting air creates a barrier. I would look to install them on covered rides so in the summer enclosed rides don’t get absurdly stifling because they didn’t A/C them.

A ride in the BfE building would be nice. I think something like LaffTrak with a “magical Ireland” theme would be really cool. I’d leave Le Catapault where it is and just build a structure over it. Maybe do removable plexiglass walls. Put a brand new flat in CoS.

But I’ll give you the biggest of big they could do:
Build a structure over the “lower bowl” of RPT. Install either actual retractable vertical doors or do a very nice plastic/vinyl/cloth roll up. Yes, seating becomes reduced when enclosed but it still gives a big stage area to do shows at.
 
What about some sort of new, indoor, zoological facility for a more diverse collection of animals in the Wild Reserve? I know SEAS stripped us of almost all of our ambassador animals, but if BGW had a facility where they could actually be on display to guests year-round instead of hidden backstage, that could make VA-based ambassador animals far more financially justifiable. A VA-based ambassador animal collection could be used to sell tour and photograph products, provide an additional indoor activity during the colder months, and be utilized in special event zoological programming during Winter Weekends and maybe even Kids Weekends too (an event in need of offering diversification). Such a space could even be designed to accommodate visiting animals like penguins for Christmas Town too.

I don't know where exactly in the Wild Reserve I'd want it, but it feels like there's a lot of vacant land on both sides of Lorikeet Glen right now—especially since Pet Shenanigans is no more.
 
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If they can provide animals that aren't at the Norfolk zoo, or are crowd favorites in general...

You're right in that they've got tons of wild reserve space to do something with if they want.
 
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But when are we getting Busch's answer to Haunted Mansion??? Without DK where do guests get their spooky thrill fill?

I'm hoping DarKoaster fits that bill, but on the traditional darkride front, I struggle to imagine SEAS being willing to invest much in that direction.

A potentially huge exception to that in my mind though is if BGW had some popular/timeless intellectual property to work with. I've spoken before about how the recent and continuously building wave of popular European public domain works could be a goldmine for BGW and I still believe it's true.

Need a darkride in Banbury? Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood are both public domain now. Need something for a German hamlet? Grimm's Fairy Tales offers plenty of recognizable, free-to-use characters. Aquitaine? Madeline goes public domain in 2034 (PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN). Anyway there are tons of potential, thematically appropriate, options—those are just a couple off the top of my head.
 
Need a darkride in Banbury? Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood are both public domain now. Need something for a German hamlet? Grimm's Fairy Tales offers plenty of recognizable, free-to-use characters. Aquitaine? Madeline goes public domain in 2034 (PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN). Anyway there are tons of potential, thematically appropriate, options—those are just a couple off the top of my head.
What about Reynard the Fox in France? The 3 Musketeers? Fantomas?
 
The downside is that even if the overall character is public domain, didn't Disney and/or others retain the rights for their portrayal of such characters, especially if they ever made a movie?

So that means an incredible amount of creativity would be needed to retain the character but divest it of appearing to be from said movie if one exists.
 
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The downside is that even if the overall character is public domain, didn't Disney and/or others retain the rights for their portrayal of such characters, especially if they ever made a movie?

So that means an incredible amount of creativity would be needed to retain the character but divest it of appearing to be from said movie if one exists.

There's a concern with some of the Grimm's Fairy Tales for sure, but for many works, it doesn't seem difficult to stick to the public domain portions if the stories without stepping on Disney's (or other's) depictions.
 
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I'm hoping DarKoaster fits that bill, but on the traditional darkride front, I struggle to imagine SEAS being willing to invest much in that direction.

A potentially huge exception to that in my mind though is if BGW had some popular/timeless intellectual property to work with. I've spoken before about how the recent and continuously building wave of popular European public domain works could be a goldmine for BGW and I still believe it's true.

Need a darkride in Banbury? Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood are both public domain now. Need something for a German hamlet? Grimm's Fairy Tales offer plenty of recognizable, free-to-use characters. Aquitaine? Madeline goes public domain in 2034 (PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN). Anyway there are tons of potential, thematically appropriate, options—those are just a couple off the top of my head.
They need to hire you!!!
 
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What about some sort of new, indoor, zoological facility for a more diverse collection of animals in the Wild Reserve? I know SEAS stripped us of almost all of our ambassador animals, but if BGW had a facility where they could actually be on display to guests year-round instead of hidden backstage, that could make VA-based ambassador animals far more financially justifiable. A VA-based ambassador animal collection could be used to sell tour and photograph products, provide an additional indoor activity during the colder months, and be utilized in special event zoological programming during Winter Weekends and maybe even Kids Weekends too (an event in need of offering diversification). Such a space could even be designed to accommodate visiting animals like penguins for Christmas Town too.

I don't know where exactly in the Wild Reserve I'd want it, but it feels like there's a lot of vacant land on both sides of Lorikeet Glen right now—especially since Pet Shenanigans is no more.
This idea would also benefit Winter Weekends TREMENDOUSLY.
 
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I love the idea from @Zachary to enclose the theater in San Marco. If you also closed off the entrance it would really help to prevent your meals from getting cold before you pay. I like the idea of moving le catapult back into Castle O'Sullivan. If not turn that into a real sit down restaurant, preferably with table service.

If you moved le catapult, you might be able to put a ride entrance there for an enclosed ride in the area adjacent to the outdoor theater by the train. Possibly themed to the three musketeers. Screenshot_20220117-100110_Maps.jpg

Another location I'd love to see used is where Circo has been. Retheme Festa to Greece, including pantheon, then add an indoor attraction themed to the Greek myth of the labyrinth. A dark ride based on that could be amazing. Screenshot_20220117-100351_Maps.jpg
 
They should at least put a full roof over Teatro so shows don’t get rained out and all seats are covered. Seating is limited the way it is.

I do however like the outdoor feeling of the theater. Miracles and Onto Us wouldn’t have felt quite the same totally indoors.
 
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