Rumor Project 2027: Indoor Gravity Group Family Coaster?

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Spoke with the Marketing Director this past weekend who found it hilarious so many people think KK is getting a Wild Moose. Especially given Herschend's commitment to not using AI art, he says they would never have sanctioned the teaser campaign that RMC is currently running.

Could have been an intentional misdirect, but maybe those who are certain on this should reconsider.
 
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I'm guessing the "You Can Bet on It" addition coming to the park is the Interactive Derby Dark Ride that was proposed for the Celebration Downs section in the Park Survey years back. I'm really curious what that would even be though. Maybe a screen based Toy Story Mania type shooter ride with games of virtual Horseshoe Toss, Carnival Horserace, and filling celebratory Mint Julep cups?

I am very curious about how this park is doing. It is interesting that we are at a point in time where Six Flags seems to be copying heavily from Herschend, with Six Flags Great America getting a new, non-IP wilderness kids land that is very much like Wildwood Grove and Discovery Meadow.
 
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Kentucky Flyer has definitely been a point of contention for Herschend's park masterplan.

It's a newer, popular, well-received ride with good hardware, but it's a remnant from a completely different vision that cared nothing about cohesion. It's just so far away from the areas of the dry park that have been coalesced together and now the secondary flight-themed coaster.

A couple years ago Herschend reportedly conducted a study as to whether it could be relocated within the park (namely closer to Woodland Run) and concluded that it just wasn't financially feasible. It's definitely been on their minds, there's no good solution though so my gut is it'll stick around until/unless they decide to dump money into a huge redo of the pavilion area.

Honestly if that time were to come though I think you could make a great case for plopping it at Wild Adventures. Their Vekoma junior coaster has the highest ridership in the park, they're very successful as-is without crazy capital dollars, and they could certainly find a way to make Flyer fit.
 
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I was really holding out hope that this 2027 ride would maybe help address the Circle of Champions Crosswalk situation. I remember reading that this road cutting through Kentucky Kingdom could be removed, but that always seemed highly unlikely to me. I was thinking maybe they could add more walkways over the road. But nicer than the one they have already. Busch Gardens Tampa does this in a way linking Lory Landing to the SheiKra area.
 
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TPoseOnTantrum said:
Honestly if that time were to come though I think you could make a great case for plopping it at Wild Adventures. Their Vekoma junior coaster has the highest ridership in the park, they're very successful as-is without crazy capital dollars, and they could certainly find a way to make Flyer fit.
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If I were Herschend, this would be my move too. There are a number of smaller parks in the portfolio that would love Kentucky Flyer and the debut of this coaster is the ideal cover for its quiet removal.

Hershend is normally really good about announcing closures with ample time so I doubt they're actually removing it next year, but I hope it's high on the priority list.
 
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my guess: Kentucky flyer could be removed after the 2027 season and the ride gets moved to wild adventures
 
Very weird choice in my eyes. Unless there's something ultra specific about this project that we don't know yet, doing a wood coaster indoors seems like an extra level of unneeded complexity. I guess we'll know more about it in a month.

As for Kentucky Flyer, I feel like if the park doesn't want to keep it we'd be more likely to see the mechanical elements repurposed on a new junior woodie elsewhere than simply relocating the ride as is. Several parks in Herschend's portfolio could definitely benefit from something like that (Adventureland, Lake Compounce, Silverwood, and Wild Adventures all come to mind).
 
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amperedragon said:
Several parks in Herschend's portfolio could definitely benefit from something like that (Adventureland, Lake Compounce, Silverwood, and Wild Adventures all come to mind).
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Most of those parks already have two wooden coasters apiece and space constraints that would make relocating an out & back wooden coaster very difficult. I initially brought up Wild Adventures because it's closer to their target demographic, not something they have currently (nobody remembers it but Cheetah allegedly was a POS), and can be really flexible with room.
 
TPoseOnTantrum said:
Most of those parks already have two wooden coasters apiece and space constraints that would make relocating an out & back wooden coaster very difficult. I initially brought up Wild Adventures because it's closer to their target demographic, not something they have currently (nobody remembers it but Cheetah allegedly was a POS), and can be really flexible with room.
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The space constraints are why I think it's possible we'd see more of a reimagining rather than a same layout relocation. Unlike a steel coaster, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to reconfigure the support structure to fit a new set of footers in a different layout while still reusing a majority of the material, and most of the other mechanical elements aren't layout dependent and could be adapted to something different fairly easily. Yes, you'd probably save a bit by not having to re-engineer the attraction if everything was kept identical, but for a junior woodie of 1,000-1,500 ft. in length and 40-50 ft. in height, it'd probably be a difference on the order of $2 million more for a redesign vs. a direct relocation. As for possible parks, I'd actually consider the existence of other wood coasters a bonus in this case as that likely means the park has an experienced carpentry team on staff who would know how to best maintain the ride, and given the very different target audience for the coaster I don't think that would harm the popularity of it. Wild Adventures is absolutely a strong fit for the ride, but so would somewhere like Lake Compounce or Silverwood that are currently lacking a quality junior coaster completely.
 
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