IAAPA 2014 Live Coverage!

[KingRCT3]

^^ Thank you so much for your interviews!

 

Oh, and there could be a few hidden Easter eggs in the games too. Its fun to be a programmer

Haha, I remember asking you on FB about that. Glad there is. (Is there the "RCT space shot special"? If you strike hard enough that the seat takes off of the tower? )

[robbalvey]

THANK YOU!!! Huge thank you to our fans for making this our BEST IAAPA coverage ever! We love you guys!

And that's JUST Facebook! That doesn't even count the views from YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram!

[gerstlaueringvar]

Congratulations! Thank you all for bringing another best IAAPA coverage in the world this year!

[Noporian]

^ hopefully for a new chaos type ride that doesn't try to kill people. Those ride were the best. Its prly for a new version of there whipeout sadly

 

I do beleive it's for this: http://www.chancerides.com/rides/freestyle.html

[lilkingjr1]

That SFX Coaster looks like a maintenance nightmare... I'm just hope buyers are not scared away by this, because if the company really puts a lot of thought into it and works out all the discrepancies, their rides could make for some really incredible attractions. I can't wait to see one built with all 4 elements, but I have major sympathy for the guy that has to wake up in the morning to make sure that complicated thing is working top notch. We don't want another Universal Studios Mummy Ride scenario where they cut out entire effects due to high maintenance.

[jray21]

Another massive update from IAAPA 2014! Some recaps of the past two days, and some new stuff as well!

Our last day here at IAAPA! Let's take a closer look at some of the show floor!

Walking through the @IAAPAHQ show floor looks a lot like this!

I'm still WTFing over "inverted, spinning, laser tag bumper cars!" lol

Here's another look at the Intamin booth! The "Dome Ride" display is out for anyone to check out! It's cool!

And let's not forget the cool Busch Gardens Cheetah Hunt Train!

Not quite sure if I've heard of "Sun Kid", but here is a roller coaster train from them!

Was cool to see Give Kids The World Village get donated a Zamperla ride on Tuesday! Here's another look at it!

Oh, yeah, another cool thing announced this week! World's tallest Starflyer coming to Orlando!

Here's another look at the Zamperla booth

Here's a flashback to Tuesday! A "before" pic of the Six Flags Magic Mountain Twisted Colossus unveiling!

Another look at the Fantawild model. Gonna have to get back to China sometime soon!

Close-up on a couple of the Fantawild parks proposed coasters.

One more look at the Fantawild model!

Here's an overall look at the Gerstlauer booth

Mack Rides had these cool roller coaster design contest winners on display!

Here's another one of the Mack Rides coaster design contest winners. Such a cool idea!

Here's a look at one of the dark ride models at the Sally Corp booth!

The detail on these Sally Corp dark ride models is just amazing!

Yes, even you too can have a robot dinosaur as a pet!

Seriously, this Sally Corp Joker animatronic was totally impressive! Look at the detail! WOW!

Here's when he blasted us during Tuesday's press conference! LOL! Awesome!

Pucker up! Everything theme park related you can imagine is here at IAAPA!

There was a huge crowd for Tuesday's Six Flags Fiesta Texas Batman 4D Coaster Train unveiling!

You can tell Shawn loved taking that jump! lol

And Elissa loved jumping off random platforms as well!

Getting real friendly with the force, are you Elissa?

[KBrylczyk]

I know I'm late to the party here, but I just need to say how pants-crappingly terrifying the Polercoaster is going to be. That's all.

[cfc]

I agree that the Joker stole the show at IAAPA yesterday.

[jray21]

Another update from the last day of IAAPA coverage!

 

Another look The Gravity Group's Switchback wooden shuttle coaster train for ZDT's Amusement Park!

For the coaster nerds! Wheel close-ups of Six Flags Fiesta Texas Batman train!

Here's another coaster dork photo of the Batman Train!

And one more look at that sexy Six Flags Fiesta Texas Batman train!

"Waffle on a stick? YES PLEASE!" You know you're at IAAPA when you find all kinds of "food on a stick!"

Edited November 20, 2014 by jray21

[cfc]

Time for a Kristin's eye view of IAAPA!

 

[vine]

[/vine]

 

There goes Kristen ziplining high above the @IAAPAHQ show floor!

 

[vine]

[/vine]

Subway Surfers caught Kristen's attention @IAAPAHQ!

Now that TPR has covered IAAPA, its time to see IAAPA from Kristen's perspective!

First up in Kristen's tour of IAAPA is Ropes Courses' giant display!

Bobs Space Racers was on Kristen's list of booths to stop by at IAAPA.

Kristen rode the Six Flags Fiesta Texas Batman prototype at S&S and now she's at IAAPA checking out the real thing!

[Jew]

^ hopefully for a new chaos type ride that doesn't try to kill people. Those ride were the best. Its prly for a new version of there whipeout sadly

 

I do beleive it's for this: http://www.chancerides.com/rides/freestyle.html

 

That's exactly what it is for. An updated Wipeout.

 

Chance is also selling their full catalog again (they sold a Zipper at IAAPA), so an updated Chaos might happen...

[RCF]

^ hopefully for a new chaos type ride that doesn't try to kill people. Those ride were the best. Its prly for a new version of there whipeout sadly

 

I do beleive it's for this: http://www.chancerides.com/rides/freestyle.html

 

That's exactly what it is for. An updated Wipeout.

 

Chance is also selling their full catalog again (they sold a Zipper at IAAPA), so an updated Chaos might happen...

So they also have an updated Zipper too?

[DonGeorge]

Oh, Waffle on a stick. Foods on a stick can make parks look very neat, like Animal Kingdom's Bird on a stick, or Tivoli Gardens' Plane on a stick.

 

Whoops, I can't eat those.

[Jew]

^ hopefully for a new chaos type ride that doesn't try to kill people. Those ride were the best. Its prly for a new version of there whipeout sadly

 

I do beleive it's for this: http://www.chancerides.com/rides/freestyle.html

 

That's exactly what it is for. An updated Wipeout.

 

Chance is also selling their full catalog again (they sold a Zipper at IAAPA), so an updated Chaos might happen...

So they also have an updated Zipper too?

 

Same ride, just minor technical improvements.

[619fan]

Thanks to all of you for the great pics and videos from the IAAPA!!!!

I really would like to see even more.

[jray21]

Another update from KidTums!

 

[vine]

[/vine]

Turns out Kristen is quite the dare devil!

Kristen loves the Sandy Creek panning for gold!

Kristen hanging out with the roller coaster celebrities at the Rocky Mountain booth

Kristen was pretty happy with her score from Sandy Creek Pan For Gold!

Edited November 20, 2014 by jray21

[KingRCT3]

As always, thanks for the awesome updates! (and BTW, thanks Elissa for your reply concerning Gringott's a few pages back!)

 

Not quite sure if I've heard of "Sun Kid", but here is a roller coaster train from them!

Sunkid is the compagny regrouping Heege (you know, the Butterfly coasters and awesome Nautic Jets!) and SAT Rides. The later does coaster trains and revamped Walibi Rhône-Alpes' boomerang last year with a train featuring lap-bars and audio.

[rollin_n_coastin]

Another year of nerd paradise, without a doubt

 

Loved the format this year and following along on Facebook.

[jray21]

The final update from another amazing 3 days at the 2014 IAAPA Expo!

Kristen is proving that, like her mom Elissa, she is also an American Ninja Warrior!

Kristen found her favorite plush IAAPA! Animal Crossing!

And the award for the "best dressed" at IAAPA goes to the guy in the suit jacket and Pac-Man pajamas!

Someone wanted a pic of the Moser rides at the show? Here ya go...

Kristen says "kids rule at IAAPA!"

The "monkey jumping" game at Bob's Space Racers was one of Kristen's favorite at the show!

Kristen totally approves of Rocky Mountain's Twisted Colossus train!

And this concludes our IAAPA 2014 coverage! RT if you loved following along! See you at IAAPA next year!

[Cyrbuzz]

Looks like it was another great convention. What I would give to attend one of these events, seems like such a blast. Great job to the TPR team for another great event coverage for us back home.

[robbalvey]

Loved the format this year and following along on Facebook.

Thanks Jason! It was a bit risky doing something totally different from what we've done in the years past, but I think we were ready for a change since we had been doing the same format for about 4 or 5 years now, and most other sites were just copying what we have been doing, so we decided to change things up a bit, and it really paid off for us!

 

Gone were the lengthy "industry folk" interviews, and this year we decided to focus on actual announcements, products, and other interesting items on the show floor. Our goal was to keep videos as short as possible, I think our average length was about 2 1/2 minutes, and we tried out some instantaneous social media publishing. Most of the "ride vehicle unveiling" videos were posted to our Facebook page within about ten minutes of them happening! And we had several parks and ride companies asking us "how the hell did you pull that off?"

 

We also had photos posted to a number of different social media outlets including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the TPR Forum. (Twitter was our platform of choice, though.) And then we re-posted the Facebook videos to YouTube that evening.

 

The result was a staggering volume of shares and comments over social media, the likes of which I'm not sure we've ever seen before! Take a look:

Over the course of IAAPA, our reach peaked this evening at over 24 million! Triple from the number I posted earlier today! (Facebook sometimes take a while to get numbers updated and posted) And this doesn't even take into consideration any numbers from Twitter or YouTube!

 

Our level of interaction was THROUGH THE ROOF! Literally!

 

We also treated each social network a bit differently. Twitter is where we posted photos and short video clips. Facebook is where we posted longer videos. And we did some smaller re-caps on Instagram. And then YouTube for the more passive video viewer who didn't require video content ASAP. IMO, you just can't cross-post the same content to all networks as each one is different on how they present information and you have to tailor your content accordingly.

 

In short, I felt this new format allowed our readers to follow along so closely to what was actually going on during the show that it made people feel like they were there. But the real winner is all our readers! We simply couldn't have done this without all of you and HUGE THANK YOUS goes to everyone who followed along, re-tweeted, shared FB posts, and commented on all our social media posts!

 

Again, THANK YOU! We had a great time covering the event this year!

 

--Robb

Edited November 21, 2014 by robbalvey

[HWFan]

In my talking to Sandor today he did take credit for Gringott's. He was also very happy to hear that KidTums rode Zumanjaro and loved it!

One of the things that brought me to TPR was the more fun, lighthearted, humorous type of attitude. A perfect example of this is Robb's response to the Maelstrom Frozen upgrade. While other sites were freaking out as if the entire world showcase was being torn down to add a 23 year old Boomerang (which makes no sense at all ), the common sense and reality based commentary, not to mention that dolls ride through video.

 

I was just wondering if you have found most of the manufacturers to really personable and enthusiastic when you talk to them, like the fact that Sandor was so happy to hear about KidTums loving Zumanjaro? Getting to test the S&S prototype, I'm sure S&S is like that too. The IAAPA from a kid's perspective was one of the best updates, because kids are a huge part of the market. I'm sure the different vendors were happy to see her.

 

When everything has to be almost instant today due to social media and our society's love for instant gratification, following the Twitter feed was my favorite thing this year rather than having to wait for pictures and videos to be edited and uploaded, which obviously is no small task. At first, I was disappointed without the long company interview videos, but my opinion quickly changed. While those videos were really good, having shorter videos up faster that are covering specific events was a great format. I know that with many websites, the more page views and exposure you get, the higher your ad revenue and other advancement is. (However, I don't have any idea how your site and everything works and am just making educated assumptions based on other similar website set ups. I apologize if I'm wrong.) Just the fact that you're constantly trying to improve your coverage instead of just doing the exact same thing for years, is highly appreciated.

 

Having the best theme park/coaster enthusiast website that's free to use and includes daily updated, trip reports, and much more seems to be even more than a full time job, so I try to support TPR as much as possible. You have even found the time and energy to support Give Kids the World. As an alum of the Make-A-Wish program, that just makes me so happy. I'm sorry that this is so long, but as many times as you spend thanking your fans and followers, we're really the ones that should be thanking you, as well as everyone who helps with TPR.

 

Getting to stamp KidTums' hand while Robb took a picture on their way out of SFSL last summer is still a high point of that summer. It was kind of like meeting someone famous and its almost weird seeing them in real life. Anyway, I'm sorry this was so long, but seriously, thank you, especially for all of the behind the scenes work/planning that makes the everything else possible. Congrats on your record IAAPA exposure, and I wish you the best growing that number in the future.

[HWFan]

If Six Flags is willing to do it right, more power to them. I think it's great that they're investing in new, high-tech dark rides (and that Cedar Fair is adding a new dark ride at Knott's).

I can't believe I am going to say this, bit I think the Justice League right will be better the Iron Reef. Iron reef is all screens with minimal physical set pieces.

I agree. I tend to prefer rides that emphasize physical effects more than projections (Spider-man at IOA has a good balance, though).

While I agree with the JLBM being better than the Iron Reef, I'm going to play devil's advocate with the screens to prop ratios at both parks. I don't know much about the Iron Reefs use of physical sets, but with JLBM, I would still say the emphasis of the ride is on the screens. If a ride can achieve a good balance, realistic 3D can really enhance a ride by taking you places that wouldn't be possible, especially in the given show building. I also believe that the ride vehicle is just as important. A regular Sally vehicle wouldn't work because it wouldn't feel real no matter how great the 3D movies are. Given the layout, interactivity, Joker, and other surprises, I think that this will be better than Transformers (which is one of my favorite rides) in terms of just being fun.

I got a question: Is the Justice League vehicule trackless?

It isn't, but that shouldn't really change the Guest's experience.

I like it that the most interesting news has to do with dark rides this year, whether it's some cool animatronics for Six Flags or the SFX coaster system.

I think that this is due to a kind of rebirth, if you will, of dark rides. It started with Universal really crushing Disney, which I usually prefer, with rides like the Forbidden Journey and Transformers. The technology has just exploded recently with a much larger emphasis on ride vehicles and 3D screens as a way to create more exciting and immersive experiences while surpassing the passive ride-through and maybe shoot some targets, which can still be awesome rides. With Cedar Fair and Six Flags both getting serious about dark rides mixed with the wider availability and affordability (still super expensive, but not $20 million expensive) of incredible ride technology that is more exciting and appealing to a larger group of the GP, more parks will be able to offer top notch attractions. It'll be interesting how/if this will push Disney to really increase their own ride technology. Can you imagine if a Guest rode JLBM and then got directly on the thawed or non-Frozen version of Maelstrom? I love the way this growing competition is helping to move things forward. Even Mack built an amazing, brand-new dark ride experience that could be applied in an infinite amount of ways.

I agree that the Joker stole the show at IAAPA yesterday.

Well, he is a super villain, so he is very good at stealing things.

 

The SFSL Park President, Director of Operations, and Director of Marketing were all lightheartedly discussing what the ride's nickname should be. They were stuck between Justice, Metropolis, and JL. I don't know why they didn't like my suggestion of just BM...

Edited November 21, 2014 by robbalvey

[robbalvey]

At first, I was disappointed without the long company interview videos, but my opinion quickly changed. While those videos were really good, having shorter videos up faster that are covering specific events was a great format.

The reality of those longer videos is that there really is only so much you can say. Ride companies cannot talk about anything unannounced and they are sometimes limited on things they can say that are announced, because parks often times want nuggets of information held back so they can use it for their own marketing purposes later. So then you're left with more uber-geeky tech questions, which are fine, but the audience is very limited. What has happened with TPR over the last year or two is that our audience has gone well outside of the "coaster nerd" and reaches a mass-market demographic. So we kind of have to cater to both. We DID do a couple of shorter interviews that dealt with some of the nerdier things, but we kept it to a minimum this year. The videos we did this year resonated much better with who our audience is.

 

 

I know that with many websites, the more page views and exposure you get, the higher your ad revenue and other advancement is. (However, I don't have any idea how your site and everything works and am just making educated assumptions based on other similar website set ups. I apologize if I'm wrong.) Just the fact that you're constantly trying to improve your coverage instead of just doing the exact same thing for years, is highly appreciated.

You're half right. There isn't any direct ad revenue generated from Facebook or Twitter and in fact, posting a video directly to Facebook probably cannibalizes some ad money than if we had posted it directly to YouTube and linked it to Facebook. But what we've learned is that links to YouTube videos on Facebook get shared much, much less than a video directly on the page. So while we lose some ad revenue doing it that way, what we gain is a HUGE volume of shares and social interaction, which in turn drives more people to our Facebook page, and then hopefully to our YouTube channel or maybe they'll find our Amazon store!

 

For the sake of this IAAPA update, it was much less about generating ad revenue and more about making sure that if you were reading about IAAPA, it was most likely from a TPR page! And I think we were very successful!

Edited November 21, 2014 by robbalvey

[SharkTums]

I was just wondering if you have found most of the manufacturers to really personable and enthusiastic when you talk to them, like the fact that Sandor was so happy to hear about KidTums loving Zumanjaro? Getting to test the S&S prototype, I'm sure S&S is like that too. The IAAPA from a kid's perspective was one of the best updates, because kids are a huge part of the market. I'm sure the different vendors were happy to see her.

 

It totally depends on the manufacturer. Some of them are super friendly and down to earth and some of them won't even talk to you. I had the idea to bring KT as more and more kids are invading the show and realistically she's the core demographic of most of those companies there!!! Many of the companies we visited today loved her and even filmed and photographed her doing the activities. From panning for gold to climbing the ninja wall! It was interesting seeing what she liked and didn't like and what she was willing to wait for and what she wasn't. If I was a market analyst I would totally hire this child!