"Nightscape" belongs at Busch Gardens

[halfabee]

The other day I found myself at Longwood Gardens, the 1,000 acre botanical gardens located near Philadelphia.  I was fortunate to behold an experience called "Nightscape" that completely blew me away.

"Nightscape" is a series of breathtaking, vividly colored, moving light displays projected directly onto the gardens' trees and large flora, accompanied by perfectly atmospheric music. Some of them have repeating 5-7 minute narrative "show" elements, with others just continuously running from dusk to close.  One display covers a stand of trees 100+ feet wide by 50 feet tall at the edge of a lake.  It is absolutely amazing.  Stunning.  Glorious.

In other words, it would be a truly fitting after-dark event at Busch Gardens.

Let me just tell you, THAT is what a nightly event at Busch Gardens should be like.  Ethereal, breathtaking, seemingly alive, playful, haunting, musical, artistic, memorable, mystical, disembodied in a sense.  The Gardens themselves serving as both the canvas and the final work, painted with nothing but light.

Imagine the wooded bridge and walkway from Pompeii to the Garden of Invention... the bridge from Italy to Germany... the space between Lorikeet Glen and France... the view from the Ireland drawbridge... the list goes on.  And as a centerpiece, a narrative work projected onto the gigantic screen formed by the trees on both sides of the floating walkway over the Rhine.

A partnership with Klip Collective to make this happen would be unbelievable.

 

[Nicole]

RE: WOW. "Nightscape" belongs at Busch Gardens.

Oh my goodness. That looks fantastic. And I totally agree with you: I would love it if BGW did something like that. Just fantastic.

 

[Jrbgwfan06]

RE: WOW. "Nightscape" belongs at Busch Gardens.

BGW has been built into its natural environment, and has amazing horticultural feats of landscape design that make it stand out from any other theme park. It only seems right that they would build on that to make their summer time event be unlike what any other theme park has. This is a fantastic idea, and it seems like the perfect way to make the worlds most beautiful theme park just as fantastically beautiful at night, which is something the past two concepts for summer events have royally failed to achieve. It would be amazing if the park did this.

 

[MAZ]

RE: WOW. "Nightscape" belongs at Busch Gardens.

After the initial cost of equipment, it would have to be much cheaper than blowing up fireworks all summer. Oh...and this would be on a different level of awesome compared to the same ol' fireworks every year.

Edit...And this seems cool enough to bring back year after year, and still get enjoyment out of.

 

[Mushroom]

RE: WOW. "Nightscape" belongs at Busch Gardens.

Looks like a much larger-scale, more "mystified" version of Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular at KD- and I'm all for it. I've actually thought of something like this before; as you said, it belongs at Busch Gardens.

Each hamlet (or a few designated hamlets, anyway) could have a different "styles" of this light projection, making different areas of the park have a different feel.

Honestly this would be the perfect summer event for BGW, and perhaps something that could replace the (costly) fireworks.

 

[MAZ]

RE: WOW. "Nightscape" belongs at Busch Gardens.

This may even work with enhancing Christmastown. I'm not sure how easy it would be to re-program images for two different events, but it sure seems realistic.

 

[Zachary]

RE: WOW. "Nightscape" belongs at Busch Gardens.

Once upon a time something sorta similar to this was in the plans for Howl-O-Scream and Christmas Town. I beleive it was in planning in 2012 or 2013-ish? Anyway it ended up being scrapped in a round of budget cuts. I'd love to see the plans dusted off and implemented one day though.

 

[CastleOSullivan]

^I heard that Demon Street was supposed to have full-blown projection mapping.

This idea reminds me of a quote along the lines of "Unlike ordinary theme parks, Busch Gardens was sculpted out of God's own canvas." I think the park is a wonderful canvas, and it would be great to see the park embrace what is already there. I think this is a big possibility, since that is the way that Phil Raybourn initially described Illuminights. His description was completely different from Scott and his team's depiction. In the end, Phil ended up being the main supporter of Giardino Magico, which was very close to that concept.

 

[Zachary]

^I heard that Demon Street was supposed to have full-blown projection mapping.

Yep. There were talks of it being used on Das Festhaus as well. Imagine the vines with the eyeball roses growing all over DFH occasionally blinking, looking around, etc back when "Fear Had a Way of Spreading." There are a ton of lost Howl-O-Scream concepts and plans that I'd love to see come to fruition eventually one way or another.

 

[Shane]

I love Longwood Gardens. The place is stunningly beautiful and absolutely amazing. I want to check this out. It's also right around the corner from Sesame Place.

 

[halfabee]

In the end, Phil ended up being the main supporter of Giardino Magico, which was very close to that concept.

Giardino Magico was my favorite part of Illuminights. It had the atmosphere I wished the entire event had.

 

[Peej1212]

This is something id love to see! Using the nature and beauty that BGW has to enhance events would be awesome :aww:

 

[Wings]

A concept like this is great because it's technology that really needs to only be invested in once, and besides some maintenance, could be used year round for various purposes.

BGW destroys all but Disney when it comes to atmosphere in the parks, and this would be a great enhancement. So many different companies are using projection mapping technology, in fact it already has been started with the use in London Rocks. Adding some outdoor night time usage could be cool.

 

[Mushroom]

Have you ever been to Universal?

 

[Wings]

Have you ever been to Universal?

Universal does great when it comes to The Wizarding World of HP - but in my opinion, the rest of the park really falls short in immersion. This is really no fault to those who designed the park, but moreso the concept behind the park. The themes of Islands of Adventure don't really fit together, and Universal Studios is primarily just a many blocky backlot buildings with facades.

 

[Nicole]

I actually disagree. Each Island is a very specific and immersive themed area. Everything in Seuss Landing, for example, looks like the drawings from Dr. Seuss's book, not just the individual rides.

I honestly think Universal does a better job in some places (especially Diagon Alley) than Disney.

 

[Peej1212]

I have only been to universal once and it was many years ago so things might have changed but like nicole stated dr.Suess's world was amazing. I loved seeing all the different comic book sets. It was great. But then im a comic book nerd :aww: I think disney does well but some of their areas still feel like youre in a theme park.

 

[Jacques]

Universal has, in the past 5 years, taken huge strides in their Theme Park quality. Going from the guys who aren't disney, to the guys who may have just surpassed disney. The reason being, Universal manages to do what Busch is TRYING to do. manage to modernize and adapt while keeping it's regular customers happy. When they announced they we're removing the JAWS ride very last minute, fans were outraged. But I don't hear many complaining after they saw Diagon Alley. Busch tried to do this with Darkastle, with pretty good success. But then Verbolten did so-so. And then, there was LR... yikes! The problem is, Busch is trying to stand still while moving forward but the very unique and tied together theming prevents this. Universal's theming is ride the movies, so they can go from Point A, then skip points B-G and straight to H, and then back to point B very easily. Either all of busch needs to change or it needs to find that fine line and ride it (like they did with darkastle).

In case you guys we're wondering, that was me trying to segway back to Busch Gardens convo

 

[Zimmy]

I am not a HP fan, (don't dislike it, the books and movies were fine), and the rides at IoI and Uni are, not my cup of tea. Granted my fat ass can not get on many of them, but they are really a dark ride place and I am not a fan of sims and most dark rides in general. Despite all of this, I still go because it is jaw dropping beautiful. BGW is not on the same planet, forget league with Uni when it comes to immersion.