Project 2022: Pantheon
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There have been utility markers in the area for like a year+ at this point.
I think land clearing for the pasture expansion first. I don't think we'll see any work on the Coaster until the pasture expansion is finished
Well yeah obviously they need to do some land work and terraforming first. But don’t be surprised if footers show up on site in the near future too.
I would.
Like @BGWnut said, first and foremost is going to be the moving of the pastures. Granted that should be fast. But it’s the first thing that needs to be done. They need to clear that land, plant it with anything new, make sure the fencing is good, access roads are good, shelters are good; move all the animals; then they can start work on where the coaster is going.
Could take a week, would take a month.
Based on other projects, I’m going to guess a early/mid June start to footers.
Early-mid June is what I consider the near future (I had in mind most of the spring for land clearing and stuff).
A lot of people replied so I felt a (late) reply was warranted.
I don’t mean to say that verboten was a failure. I mean that it was a financial failure. The park spent a massive amount of money to build it and it saw no return in year over year attendance, revenue etc. It was an important replacement for bbw, but on the books, it seemed to do little to pay itself off.
The price quote is a guess based on other projects at about the same size from intamin. They also need to build that bridge for this project. By scaled back, I meant to say that seas is not spending money on things that they don’t think they need. Why would they spend millions of dollars to them a ride that will be advertised the same way even if they don’t theme it?
We could see some alpengeist level theming, with a cohesive setting and lots of little and inexpensive flourishes, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Tldr: verbolten cost lots of extra money that I think the park would rather spend on additional attractions.
Twisted Timbers problem is that it normally has horrible operations, BGW is much better than KD in terms of that so we should be good. It will have not so great capacity, but hopefully BGW gets the operations straight here.
You still won't find many who consider it a financial failure. It didn't do as well as they hoped but it still brought in money.
I do agree that I think the return was low enough that the park might not feel it worthwhile to theme a ride that extensively.
As far as not spending money on things they don't think they need I think that's true for every company and not just SEAS. If they don't think they need to spend money on something then they won't. Disney doesn't spend money on things they don't need just because they have money.
That's the thing, it really didn't. Attendance sat around 2.7-2.8 million for the years preceding and following it's installation. This for a ride that cost $54 million . Griffon cost $16 mill and saw a massive bump in attendance numbers. Tempesto even saw a better yoy increase.
Why add one or 2 coasters when you can add 5 smaller or more inexpensive coasters instead? The common ground amoong all of the rides added to SEAS parks is that they are all seem fairly affordable vs some huge ground up project. A short dive coaster, an RMC rebuild, a wooden coaster, and a family launch coaster.
I'm glad they are going the route they are, because at the very least you're still getting new stuff, and some of it is amazing. I just don't think that BGW has been interested in theming all that much since the massive headache that was the oktoberfest renovation.
The thing to remember with bolt is that it hit during time where the economy was not in good shape and travel was on a general decline so it's impact on attendance is harder to measure. it's entirely possible that the par could have seen a decline in attendance if it wasn't built. If memory serves me right I think that the park had had dropping YOY for a few years before hand.
This is getting off topic but:
I was taking classes at the time of this, and one of the classes was on census analyzation. And one of the things we talked about with it was studying the tourism industry. In this time the key was loss mitigation. It was extremely rare to see upticks in tourism. Even UO and WDW were cutting projects left and right because of it. For BGW to have a project that kept attendance year to year level was a major victory at that time.
Side note, every time the price of Bolt comes up it increases. I swear when I joined it's quoted price was $30mil, now it's $54mil. I feel like it's one of those legends that's going to keep going up and up.
Relating this to MMXX, judging the 'success' of this ride on 1 year attendance increase is not going to do it justice. Over the last 5 years, parks have not seen huge impacts from big coaster investments in year one. But get to year 2-3-4 and you start to see the impact of that ride installation.
We could talk Verbolten until we're blue in the face, but I think it's an unfair comparison to what we might/will see with MMXX. In regards to theming, an Alpengeist, Copperhead Strike, Twisted Timbers level makes more viable sense.
Face it, Verbolten was so far over budget it's amazing those involved were still employed. A very similar ride (Alton Towers "Thirteen") opened a few years previous at a cost of less than a third of BGW's effort. (@warfelg I've heard $54m more often). And they didn't reuse many of the same footers. You have to wonder, in the design/build timeline, when was Blackstone's budget point of no return..."we gotta build it now, we've spent too much already".
As I've expressed previously, MMXX's theming doesn't necessarily have to "tell a story" which might translate into more expensive decor, etc. If it's a Roman God name, a Roman ruins presentation might be well suited and cost a lot less. Just do something to take it a few levels above a "parking lot coaster".
Face it, Verbolten was so far over budget it's amazing those involved were still employed. A very similar ride (Alton Towers "Thirteen") opened a few years previous at a cost of less than a third of BGW's effort. (@warfelg I've heard $54m more often). And they didn't reuse many of the same footers. You have to wonder, in the design/build timeline, when was Blackstone's budget point of no return..."we gotta build it now, we've spent too much already".
As I've expressed previously, MMXX's theming doesn't necessarily have to "tell a story" which might translate into more expensive decor, etc. If it's a Roman God name, a Roman ruins presentation might be well suited and cost a lot less. Just do something to take it a few levels above a "parking lot coaster".
First, at the time the rest of the SEAS parks and theme parks in general saw declining attendance, so the fact that Bolt kept attendance largely the same makes the ride a success. Like I've said originally I worked at the park during this time and for a few years after. This ride is not considered a failure by the park.
Second you do realize that these 5 coasters we know are not cheap rides. RMC gwazi will not be cheap as they are basically tearing down the entire ride and rebuilding from the ground up. MMXX will also not be a cheap ride. If I had to guess both of those are in the 20-25 million range. And the other 3 coasters are not going to be cheap rides either. The one at San Diego is supposed to be heavily themed like Mako at Orlando. I'm really not seeing how any of these rides can be classified as cheap additions.
Tempesto was also built during a time when the industry was beginning to see upticks in attendance. So increases are not all due to Tempesto.
I don't think that Bolt and your perception of it being a failure will change what is done with MMXX. Busch hasnt opened a ride post Verbolten with no theming. The problem with Invadr was that the story the ride is supposed to have wasn't conveyed well but you can't deny that Busch didn't attempt to theme the ride entrance plaza and queue house. And Tempesto is themed but the theme just doesn't make sense with the rest of the area. So MMXX will have theming the question is will it be effective?
Emphasizing the key words.
Please, with MMXX, don't give us another ”duel", "battle", "poke in the eye with a stick” storyline.
Okay, I think I have the perfect solution.
Indications are that Islands of Adventure is unfortunately going to be removing The Lost Continent in the near future in favor of something based on an IP.
Busch Gardens buys all the Poseidon's Fury theming from them, moves it to Williamsburg for the new coaster, and BAM:
Neptune's Fury
Indications are that Islands of Adventure is unfortunately going to be removing The Lost Continent in the near future in favor of something based on an IP.
Busch Gardens buys all the Poseidon's Fury theming from them, moves it to Williamsburg for the new coaster, and BAM:
Neptune's Fury
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