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Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW BGE) Discussion Thread

P. 467: Loch Ness Monster Update Tour
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Halloween Harvest, or “Howl-o-Scream Lite.” Busch Gardens is sticking with its “reservations only/limited attendance” events with Halloween Harvest during October. This is sort of “Howl-o-Scream

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Before this thread derails off course into a COVID discussion, I’ll just keep it simple:  everyone should follow their state and local guidelines.  This isn’t something up for debate on TPR. Now

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I was at the park today and caught the last test train of the day on the way to Apollo's Chariot.   Here's a short video and some stills.  The outward banked airtime hill looks amazing! Also in c

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Philrad71 Grand Master

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Sierra Sidewinder @ KBF is a hit with families so wouldn't be surprised or mind 1 bit if BGW got one.

 

Yes! I forgot how insanely fun I thought Sierra Sidewinder was...definitely my favorite spinner. I am also very excited to see the outcome of Cobra's Curse and the reaction from enthusiasts and the GP once it opens.

 

I would not be disappointed if BGW got something like one of these to fill a niche as I feel something like this would round out the coaster collection rather nicely.

 

 

 

 

 

Unless they build a terrain RMC over & around the river & swampland - then I would be even more elated!

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From the official park blog:

 

Sometimes, you just have to take a chance and try something new.

As we expected, our recent release of clues related to a 2017 expansion at Busch Gardens has drawn a lot of attention – both inside and outside of our organization.

We had a lot of discussion among our team about this before sticking our necks out to release this information. Some of my colleagues were pretty squeamish about this. After all, this is more than a year before anything could even be opened, and we never start sharing details this soon. Plans sometimes change, and we don’t want to look stupid down the road. I get it.

But those of us pushing to share what we have learned have been guided by one overriding concern: informing our loyal guests and fans. We talked a lot in our marketing planning about being genuine and transparent … less polished and more informative … and having a dialogue with our fans, not just pushing one-way communication. Now confronted with this opportunity, would we really act on these principles, or just stay silent and do business as usual?

I guess you know which side won the debate.

So we on the Marketing team have made it our mission to find out what’s going on and share it however we can, as soon as it’s feasible. We are not sure how far we can go before someone makes us pull the plug, but as long we have control of our social media and websites we are going to spread the news.

We are especially pleased that we were able to get the complete site plans and post them on our website the same day our engineers filed them with James City County. We have never been able to do that before. (And, yes, we have confirmed that these are in fact the actual plans filed with the county. No tricks.)

My counterpart, Vice President of Engineering Larry Giles, is not used to having to show his cards this early. As the cautious engineer that he is, he would prefer to wait until everything is built, tested and ready to go before we promise anything to our guests. Let’s just say he’s made it pretty clear he is not ready to announce anything for 2017 yet.

As Larry explained to me, approval of the site plan just gives us the permission to prepare a site as outlined. It doesn’t mean that we necessarily are going to build something in a certain timeframe. By labeling the plans “Project 2017” they kind of tipped their hand, though.

Even so, we have been known to change plans for various reasons, so I understand their reluctance to start talking too early. However, I’m arguing that our fans would rather know things early, and are willing to cut us a little slack if we have to make changes along the way.

For those who pay attention to such things, it’s a totally different approach than we took with the announcement (or non-announcement) of Tempesto last year. For better or worse, that was my idea. We had become so frustrated with all of the restrictions and internal timelines that we decided to stay silent and let our fans have fun figuring it out for themselves. After all, construction was happening in plain sight, and anyone riding Apollo’s Chariot could get a full view of the progress.

The strategy worked as planned. We were counting on the superfans to find all of the public filings, permits and trademarks, which they eventually did. Casual park guests saw the blatant construction wall and ride structure rising behind it, and knew something big was coming. And in the end, our research showed that public awareness of the ride at its opening was just as high for Tempesto as it was for Verbolten three years earlier.

But, at some point, it started feeling pretty silly to act like nothing was happening. We vowed that in the future we would be as transparent as we could, as early as we could, even if it made some folks uneasy.

Which brings us to the release of the latest site plans. They certainly give us some clues – notably the location in New France – but even in 30-some pages of drawings there are surprisingly few details. There are some interesting theories out there, and we will continue to sniff around to find out more. (Frankly, I’m getting a little obsessed with this and probably spending a little too much time on #BGProject2017.)

We have been checking the park and don’t see any visible signs of work going on yet, unless it is somehow being obscured with all of the refurbishment of the log flume. The site plans make it clear there is some linear path that needs to be cleared, but that could be for any number of attractions, from a roller coaster to a Howl-O-Scream maze.

As soon as we learn more – and assuming I don’t lose my job in the meantime – you’ll be the first to know.

-Dan, Marketing Vice President

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cfc

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I guess that explains this post in the Cedar Point thread:

 

RIP Escape from Pompeii.

 

Hmm--unless someone is privy to inside information, I'm detecting a flaw in their logic.

 

Cedar Point is removing an Intamin water ride.

Busch Gardens has an Intamin water ride.

Therefore, Busch Gardens is removing their Intamin water ride.

 

Hoo, boy.

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cfc Grand Master

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^Hmm--not sure I would label it a "fiasco." The park's silence did get a lot of people talking and generated a fair amount of buzz with very little effort. That being said, I'm not sure it was the best approach, and evidently the park doesn't, either.

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^Hmm--not sure I would label it a "fiasco." The park's silence did get a lot of people talking and generated a fair amount of buzz with very little effort. That being said, I'm not sure it was the best approach, and evidently the park doesn't, either.

 

If you feel the need to write something like that to explain why it is you deviated from industry SOP and are now returning to industry SOP, chances are the deviation probably didn't do you any good. The best they can argue is a half hearted "Our market research said..." Thank god someone with a clue is in charge now of the company.

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