Jon Sabo

Link: http://www.blooloop.com/news/whitewater-acquires-flowrider/26951#.Ux_bmoUk_5k WhiteWater acquires Flowrider WhiteWater Acquires FlowRider® 11 March 2014 In their third strategic acquisition in two years, WhiteWater has announced the acquisition of WaveLoch’s product line including FlowRider®, FlowBarrel®, FlowCurl®, Flow House, Wave-in-a Box, and WaveOz®. Geoff Chutter, WhiteWater President & CEO, said, “We are not only adding another ORIGINAL product to the WhiteWater portfolio but also adding the creative talents of another ORIGINAL waterpark pioneer to the family.” Heading up WhiteWater’s new FlowRider and Waves business unit is Marshall Myrman who said, “We are tremendously excited about the momentum this addition brings to WhiteWater’s innovative group of companies. Keep your eyes on the horizon because the best flowboarding is yet to come!”

how about a re-birth (Sorry Six Flags) of dueling LSM-launch coasters?

^cha-ching Andrew for the win! I hope the person is alright no matter if a mechanic or patron.

^I believe it was said it would resemble the one in Florida. But, we know things are bigger (and sometimes better) in Dubai. Perhaps they will put more into it design-wise.

Looks like Merlin gave the green light for Legoland Dubai. -Set to open in 2016. 03 Mar 2014 Legoland Dubai to open in 2016 BY Kath Hudson Merlin Entertainments has confirmed it will go ahead with developing a Legoland in Dubai, with the park slated to open in 2016. “Merlin first looked at opening a Legoland in Dubai about five years ago, but then the country went into economic freefall,” media spokesperson Sally-Ann Wilkinson told Attractions Management. “Merlin held the option open and has now decided that it will proceed with the park, but there are no further details yet.” At present, 60 per cent of Merlin's revenue comes from Britain and continental Europe, so the company is keen to broaden its global coverage. Part of this strategy involves attracting the growing middle classes in emerging markets. Six new attractions will open this year, including a Madame Tussauds in Beijing and its first North American Dungeon in San Francisco. It sees the North American market as having strong growth potential. Merlin is the second-biggest theme park operator in the world, counting among its brands SeaLife, Madame Tussauds and the soon-to-open Shrek’s Far Far Away Adventure. The Shrek attraction will be an interactive adventure featuring the characters and the first site will launch at London’s County Hall next summer. This is the first time Merlin has worked with a Hollywood studio to create a scaleable branded entertainment experience based on a globally-recognised entertainment franchise. Link - See more at: http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/detail.cfm?pagetype=detail&subject=news&codeID=308416#sthash.iTkoYHA2.dpuf

here is the latest on the $2 Billion Universal Studios-Beijing Park 8:23 PM PST 3/4/2014 by Clifford Coonan, Alex Ben Block Universal Studios Entrance Globe - P Getty Universal Studios looks to Beijing? Located in a suburb of China's capital city, Universal Studios Beijing will be the company’s third facility in Asia after Singapore and Tokyo. Universal Studios is planning to open a Hollywood movie theme park, Universal Studios Beijing, in the suburbs of the Chinese capital in collaboration with a local state tourism company. our editor recommends Universal Studios To Feature 'Insidious' Maze China Box Office: 'Hobbit 2' Dominates, 'RoboCop' Opens Strong The news was released on the website Sina's property pages, and spread quickly online, with much excited chatter on China's Twitter, Weibo. The facility will cover a 51-acre site and the total budget will be 12 billion yuan ($1.95 billion). Construction is due to start in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to the local media report. A report in Shanghai Securities News, cited by the Shanghai Landscape Architecture Design Institute website, said officials from the National Development and Reform Commission had filed an application to begin construction, and the demolition of existing buildings was ongoing, with the aim of opening the park in January 2018. The Universal Creative division of Universal Parks and Resorts has also been advertising for Mandarin Chinese-speaking staff. When contacted by The Hollywood Reporter, Universal declined to comment on the various reports. The Chinese partners, Beijing Tourism Group, which is part of the capital's municipal government, will provide the land and an unspecified part of the investment, while Universal Studios will be responsible for branding, intellectual property, technology and management of the park, Sina reported. In a separate report, the Global Times daily reported that municipal authorities are planning to build a monorail in Beijing, with the terminus in the new Universal Studios in the southeastern suburb of Tongzhou. The Beijing resort will bring the number of Universal Studios that the company operates in Asia to three, with Universal Studios in Singapore and Osaka. Both facilities are massively popular with Mainland Chinese tourists, as is the Los Angeles Universal Studios. There is considerable amount of activity in the theme park area in China right now. The Walt Disney Company has Hong Kong Disneyland and is building a $4.4 billion Disneyland Shanghai project that is due to open at the end of 2015, as mainland China's first Disney resort. DreamWorks Animation's China unit, Oriental DreamWorks, is developing a $3.1 billion cultural and "entertainment destination" in Shanghai with a trio of Chinese partners -- China Media Capital (CMC), the Shanghai Media Group and Shanghai Alliance Investment. The Chinese real estate group, Dalian Wanda, which owns AMC, is building a theme park project called Wuxi Wanda City, while Chinese production company Huayi Brothers has been building a resort on the holiday island of Hainan, which takes the films of top director Feng Xiaogang as the theme. Link: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/universal-studios-build-2-billion-686156

Still Alive?............Now projected at 570ft. Polercoaster will be tallest in world, officials say Announcement expected in next 30 days UPDATED 5:21 PM EST Mar 03, 2014 ORLANDO, Fla. —So far, it’s billed as the biggest attraction yet in central Florida: The Orlando Eye. You can see the supports for the massive, 425-foot tall observation wheel are in place, and plans are for the attraction to be open by New Year’s. But the Orlando Eye could soon be overshadowed. "This is fast smooth and very, very exciting," said Michael Kitchen, of U.S. Thrill Rides. "And terrifying." In November, Kitchen showed WESH 2 his plans to build the Polercoaster, a tower coaster that would be the tallest coaster in Florida. WESH 2 news has learned the buyer now wants to build the world's tallest roller coaster at 570 feet in Florida, which would be about 130 feet taller than the 35-story SunTrust Center in downtown Orlando. That would be nearly three times higher than Disney’s Expedition Everest and Universal’s Rip Ride Rockit coasters. Visit Orlando’s Mark Jaronski said Florida should be excited about a unique attraction being built in Florida, possibly in our region. "New attractions increase interest, increase excitement," Jaronski said. "All of the tourists who come here, who visit, who are attracted by iconic attractions like that, leave behind money that helps fund our schools, our local roads, even the arts here in central Florida." Visitors WESH 2 talked with said bring it. "I probably would come just to see, you know, what type of roller coaster it is," said Willie Parker. Theme park insiders tell WESH 2 they’re betting the Polercoaster will be in a big-name park because the expense of building it would make it a money-loser as a standalone attraction. Link and local news video: Read more: http://www.wesh.com/themeparks/other/polercoaster-will-be-tallest-in-world-officials-say/24780164#ixzz2v1RBBBaS

Dubai will get a Legoland theme park in 2016 under an international expansion drive by Britain's Merlin Entertainments, the Madame Tussauds and amusement parks operator. The world's second-biggest operator of visitor attractions behind Walt Disney, Merlin said Madame Tussauds waxworks currently makes over 60 per ent of its revenue in Britain and continental Europe. It wants to change that to a third for each of Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific over the longer term, by filling what it believes is a gap in the market in North America and tapping the growing middle-classes of emerging markets. In a strategic move, Merlin Entertainments plans to bring Madame Tussauds to Beijing, while Dubai will get the Legoland theme park, said the UK company which announced its maiden results as a listed company on Thursday. New Legoland theme park sites are also being planned in South Korea and Japan in the following three years. "The future will see us putting disproportionately more effort into Asia and North America because we see huge opportunity," Merlin chief executive Nick Varney said, pointing to global leisure spending growth of about 5 per cent a year. "In North America the market for our type of product is pretty unexploited - nobody else has Legoland and nobody else does midway (smaller-scale) attractions," Varney said. "In Asia, there is a fast emerging middle class who have leisure time and money and want to spend it on location-based entertainment." Merlin, which floated on the London Stock Exchange in November, posted a 12.8 per cent rise in core earnings for 2013 to 390 million pounds ($649 million), slightly ahead of analysts' average forecast of 386 million pounds. Group sales rose 10.9 per cent to 1.19 billion pounds and 6.7 percent on a like-for-like basis. Merlin, with 100 attractions across four continents, added it was confident of more growth in 2014, but warned the strength of sterling "may result in an adverse translational impact" as earnings in local currencies are converted into British pounds. The group will open six new attractions this year in Asia and the United States, including a Madame Tussauds next door to Beijing's Tiananmen Square and its first North American Dungeon in San Francisco. Eight more sites will open in 2015, including a trio of attractions in Orlando in the United States, and the first of six "Shrek" attractions, following Monday's announcement that Merlin had tied-up with Dreamworks Animation's to launch six sites based on the movie franchise. Merlin did not say how much it would invest in total in its expansion drive. A short stay attraction, such as Madame Tussauds or a Sea Life centre, costs between 5 and 8 million pounds to open, it said. Varney told reporters the firm was considering moves into Latin America and India in the longer term, and that it hoped to buy the Singapore Flyer, a huge observation wheel, out of administration in the next two months.-Reuters Link: http://www.tradearabia.com/news/MEDIA_253000.html

Here is a NL-2 Maurer-Sohne idea I've been playing with. It has 2 LSM launch areas and 4 inversions. I like the color scheme, but have been playing around with different colors as well. Still playing with terrain and scenery. Maurer-Sohne idea.

Slightly off-topic. Coke drinkers are in mourning today.. PepsiCo inks deal with Shanghai Disney. (Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc (PEP.N) has signed a deal to supply beverages to Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) first China resort, breaking The Coca-Cola Co's (KO.N) quarter century monopoly over beverage supply to the U.S. theme park operator. PepsiCo and its partner in China, Tingyi Cayman Islands Holding Corp (0322.HK), will exclusively provide beverages to the Shanghai Disney Resort, its first on mainland China which is set to open at the end of 2015, PepsiCo, Disney and Tingyi said in a joint statement on Thursday. Coca-Cola has had a long-standing tie-up with Disney, while it has been at least 25 years since PepsiCo last sold its beverages through the theme park chain, a Dubai-based PepsiCo spokesman said. The deal is only a tiny segment of China's 421 billion yuan ($68.74 billion) soft drink sector, but marks a blow for PepsiCo against Coke in the highly competitive market, where both brands are coming under increasing pressure from Chinese rivals and changing consumer tastes for local flavors. "I wonder what kind of message it sends to Coke globally. Even though the Disney park is only one small thing, China has massive room to grow for the Disney brand. Tying up this deal could mean good things going forward," said Ben Cavender, Shanghai-based principal at China Market Research Group. Disney said it currently has no plans to ink similar deals with PepsiCo to supply its other resorts, although it is "actively pursuing opportunities in a variety of different sectors," Murray King, vice president of public affairs for the Shanghai Disney Resort, said. The PepsiCo spokesman said he could not comment on whether PepsiCo and Disney planned other tie-ups. Disney has a further 11 theme parks and 44 resorts around the world, according to its official website. PEPSI VS COKE Coca-Cola edges the China market with a 15.7 percent share of China's soft drinks market in 2012, ahead of PepsiCo's 4.5 percent share by off-trade volume, according to data from Euromonitor. China's soft drinks sector is worth around 421 billion yuan ($69.12 billion). Chinese consumers are increasingly opting for healthier alternatives in food and drink, which has also hit growth for fast food chains such as McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) and KFC-parent Yum Brands Inc (YUM.N). Coca-Cola remains the soft drinks supplier for Disney resorts outside mainland China. It is the beverage provider for Disney's 11 parks in the United States, Hong Kong, France and Japan, a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Coca-Cola said. "The Coca-Cola Company and The Walt Disney Company share a long-standing partnership that dates to the first Disney television show in 1950 and the first Disneyland theme park in 1955. Today, our global partnership with Disney is as strong as ever," she added in emailed comments to Reuters. Though it retains the biggest market share in China, but local rivals are catching up. Pepsi's partner in the market, Taiwanese Tingyi, raised its market share from 9.9 percent in 2007 to 12.8 percent in 2012, according to Euromonitor. Tingyi and PepsiCo beverages will be the sole range of drinks sold at the Shanghai park, a Tingyi spokesman said. All three companies declined to put a value on the deal. The key question for Pepsi is if it can leverage its tie-up with Disney outside the limits of the resort, said Cavender. "If they can do more Disney-themed adverts elsewhere I can see this benefiting them a lot, and the fact Disney switched from Coke to Pepsi here could mean big things for the years ahead in other markets too," he said. ($1=6.1248 Chinese yuan) Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/27/us-pepsico-idUSBREA1Q13020140227

^Found the block brake error. I went back to each one and found the mistake. Thanks! It was a simple error, but forgot to change the original setting from previous version....duh-me!

I believe it is a block script. I get an error message that the next train is occupying the same block (and the 2nd train is not stopping in the mid-course block brake. I did not write a specific script for the ride (I still am trying to learn how to write custom scripts). It is running in default mode I believe. I changed some of the block brake and station parameters when I had the 2-car train and then I (thought) I changed the parameters back to original form when I went back to single car train. Also, I noticed that the 2nd train in the station would unload/load, then move up to the 1st part of the station and open the harnesses again.

When I retired from BGW, I knew I would miss the interaction with guests and the atmosphere. But now, I love going to the park as a guest and observe how people act and react to the coaster line up the park has. -Recently, during Christmas Town event, I overheard a large group of guests in the Verbolten que area talking about the drop inside the event building. The best line yet is that people are convinced that the park designed the event building (not the track) to actually move! Not the drop caused by the coaster itself, but that the ENTIRE building raises and lowers to create the effect. How's that for a discussion?

Hello all! I have a nagging issue on one of my NL2 designs. I am doing a design with a Maurer-Sohne concept/idea. I completed the track work and fine-tuning the track and now adding supports. Everything was working well (during test runs), until I had the idea of playing around with different train configurations. Recently, I have been going back and forth with idea of a single car and a double-car train. I decided to do a single car train (3 trains now) and everytime I play the ride the 1st train comes back to the station and stops in the final block brake before the station and does NOT move. I have dual-loading/unloading in the station. What am I missing? Anyone can assist would be helpful. -Thanks in advance!

^best post of the month! lol Looks like Target is the butt of all jokes Guess I will have to change my password now on K.S. site Thanks for the update!

A reacreation of defunct Big Bad Wolf. This time made out of wood.

^Turntable is a large disk that looks like a plate. It is used to rotate your Porsche and Ferrari into your designated garage space.

I just uploaded another update. It appears some issues I have encountered have been fixed. I love this thing! 2.0.1.4

Aww look... A baby Sheikra in the background

I think I am looking forward to this coaster the most for 2014! This beauty looks incredible!!!

Those photos are beautiful. I bet the GP is eating up the FOtR coaster. Nice looking park. Thanks for sharing

I found a link to the interview: http://www.today.com/sochi/workers-still-putting-final-touches-sochi-putin-world-amusement-park-2D12052708 That piece did not bode well for the park from a marketing stand point. Matt Lauer is a huge coaster fanatic, but for him to give 'away' his tickets to the park? That may be a bad sign. I hope the park does well and is safe when it finally does open.

Europa Park is in my top 3 of ALL my favorite parks. With the growth and expansion they are doing, it won't be long before they hit 5 million. The winter events seem to draw in large crowds as well! -here is a good article: Europa-Park finished its 2013 season with a new record number of visitors at almost five million people. Its winter opening has proven to be a strong visitor magnet. The owner of Europa-Park, Roland Mack, says, "Our extended service has paid off. Winter opening has become a stimulus for growth with close to 500,000 visitors in this year alone. On peak days, we had up to 25,000 visitors, the likes of which we had only ever seen in the summer season. The proportion of first time visitors is higher in winter than in summer." Europa-Park is becoming more and more attractive for older visitors. - See more at: http://www.traveldailynews.com/news/article/58692/europa-park-continues-to-grow#sthash.11qfqchk.dpuf

^ not really sure what you mean by "lock" straightaways, but if you are referring to block/station/service brake areas, I found a couple of things that may help. A couple of people noted that you have to play around with the NL2 a bit and I agree! I discovered several new things by making several small coasters and fiddle with the parameters and discovered a new tool here and there.....it's pretty neat! I may be giving you advice the hard-long route on how I have been doing it. Others on here may have an easier method. 1. go into the 'track' tab. 2. select 'add roll' at several points. (you can view 'perspective' to see if track is now straight). 3. click ON the add roll dot/circle and then be sure the angles are set on 'strict' then be sure the angle is set to 0'. (you can view 'perspective' to see if track is now straight). There is a couple of other things I do as well and my just went blank..lol Another idea (to keep track straight) is left click on the mouse and shade over the area/section of track you wish to be straight. Then click on the 'make straight' tab. I may be giving bad advice, but it has been fun discovering some of the features.

Hey!-you're welcome. Came out nice.