Will America Ever Get Another Major Amusement Park

[AirMBTB]

Major park? I dunno... personally, I hope for more smaller Mom & Pop type places. Coming back after a 10 day coaster trip has reminded me just how much more fun I can have at one of the small places vs. a Six Flags park. Cedar Fair is a step higher in terms of operation and quality (which enables more "fun"), but the little places are just too good.

[bugmonster1]

I've always thought Las Vegas would be a great place for a large-scale amusement park. There are millions of tourists each year, and the two waterparks are to far away for most tourists to travel to. Also the Adventuredome is very small. Even something like KK would be a good fit for Vegas.

[A.J.]

I think this sort of analysis is almost desired to be swept under the rug. But I digress.

Oh, believe me, I'm working on that.

 

By and large, most of the discussion of amusement and theme park operations/design is dominated by people interested first and foremost by the Disney parks and that which was influenced by them. Look: I would love to see more rides in the middle of big cities. I can think of several that have discussed the idea and abandoned it for whom I think it would be awesome to see. I recognize that those sorts of park are essentially the antithesis of what it is Walt was attempting to do with Disneyland, and I believe that a goodly number of those whom dominate this discussion loathe the idea of urban amusement parks of any kind in the US. I also sense that there is still a level of discomfort among the citizenry to be in many major cities after dark due to fear. And that until that issue is met and actually dealt with, I think the idea of something more like Prater or Tivoli being grown out of the fallout of postwar urban decay will stay an idea and not so much a reality. That doesn't mean that new urbanism is all a complete failure, but I'm reticent to call mixed use developments amusement parks of any kind.

Yep, it's all about taking people out of this world and putting them into another where nothing else matters. The issue that comes up nowadays is that while we could create the most immersive experience in human history, we're still not going to forget about the world outside - thank social media and smart devices for that. It's why I want to see a new amusement park basically become a part of the lives of its guests.

[grsupercity]

It seems like its easier and cheaper to just open waterparks and see a quicker roi.

[SoCalJasonland]

I heard that shortening summer school vacation breaks is making parks less feasible outside of year round resort areas. If your operating schedule is Memorial Day to Labor Day in norther states and kids don't get out until mid-June and go back at end of August leads to very short time to make money. You used to have an almost 100 days of summer to make money. That had been cut shorter.

[DirkFunk]

I heard that shortening summer school vacation breaks is making parks less feasible outside of year round resort areas. If your operating schedule is Memorial Day to Labor Day in norther states and kids don't get out until mid-June and go back at end of August leads to very short time to make money. You used to have an almost 100 days of summer to make money. That had been cut shorter.

 

That's absolutely true. Lots of people might notice that seasonal theme parks in Europe often run seven days a week or close to it starting in April and ending sometimes not until December. But people in Europe also have far more vacation time than Americans, which means they can afford to leave the house. Americans: not so much.

[RCjunkie]

I think it will but it won't happen all at once and will take a while. What I mean is that we won't see a $300-400 million plus investment in one shot to make it a major park from opening day. It will have to start off small to medium sized and be in the right market to grow naturally into a major park.

[DirkFunk]

Yep, it's all about taking people out of this world and putting them into another where nothing else matters. The issue that comes up nowadays is that while we could create the most immersive experience in human history, we're still not going to forget about the world outside - thank social media and smart devices for that. It's why I want to see a new amusement park basically become a part of the lives of its guests.

 

Theme parks are like professional wrestling. Pro wrestling is outrageously fake. People see real hand to hand combat in the UFC, kickboxing, boxing, etc., and they can't even pretend that they don't know what it looks like. It doesn't resemble pro wrestling. And yet, pro wrestling has an internal rule set ("ring psychology" is the preferred term) within the insular world of fake fights. The fake fights must adhere to this logic in order to get the audience as emotionally involved and disbelief tossed away as much as possible. Those rules still utterly ignore actual realities of hand-to-hand combat, but within the space of that artform, it is accepted and expected. Still, if you don't care about the art form and all you want to do is laugh about how ridiculous it all is, you can. Analyzed really at all, it is stupid.

 

Amusement and theme parks are the same way. "Thematic integrity" arguments are the same as hearing a couple weird dudes with enormous VHS and action figure collections discuss "selling the leg." People who don't like the artform have crapped on it for ages and there will always be people who do. Maybe they have a point? Truthfully, most people don't know why they necessarily like something, but primarily they like to go on rides, play games, and be entertained by singers/dancers/acrobats/whatever and that's what amusement/theme parks, carnivals, FECs, etc. provide. I guess what I'm saying here is that I don't think people are demanding thematic experiences at the local level: if they were, Six Flags and Cedar Fair attendance would have plummeted and we wouldn't be talking about indoor water parks and FECs in this thread. They just want to be entertained. The extension of communication only really makes it easier to share the experiences (positive and negative); I don't think that if people had cell phones in the 20s that they'd be like "oh man Dreamland's buildings are primarily plaster on wood frame?"

[fraroc]

I really do not believe that the lack of new parks in the US means that the amusement industry is dying...I personally think the focus has been 100% put on adding new attractions to already existing parks.