[dropcap type=”circle” color=”#ffffff” background=”#ef7f2c”]W[/dropcap]hen it comes to Theme Parks, most of the genres are pretty straightforward and if you know what you want out of your them park, you pretty much know where to go to get it.
Let’s check the score-card…
If you want princesses and fairytales then you are heading to a Disney park.
If you want traditions mixed with thrills then you are heading to Knott’s.
If you want year round holidays, you are off to Holiday World.
If you want thrills and spills, you are heading to magic mountain, Thorpe, Busch Gardens… well you get the idea.
In the past whenever someone said, “I want to ride the movies” the natural assumption was that they meant, “Hey! Let’s go to a Universal Park!” Recently however we are seeing a trend that may rival the current reign of “Movie IP theme Park.” The possible “Changing of the Guard” come with the proposal of a few new parks being developed in the UK and Spain.
The first are the possible build outs by Paramount Studios. One Paramount Park was proposed in the UK near Kent and after a few stepbacks (rare spiders and road issues) it looks like the project is back im gear and holds promise of a few very interesting rides and attractions. The other Paramount park may be built in Spain driving the tourist dollars on that end of Europe and taking key dollars away from smaller parks in that region. Both parks have the advantage of high end IPs and though they may not have “Universal Money”, the promise of a studio supported park gives them a bit more flexibility.
With no parks with major film IPs in the land to speak of, these parks will be competing with original IP rulers like Disneyland Paris and local UK parks like Thorp and Alton Towers. Will their IPs be enoug to draw the crowds, time will tell.
A new park in Asia seems poised to attempt to take away some of the tourist dollars from Disney and Universal with the opening of 20th Century Fox World in Malaysia. This concept park will host a series of new rides based on Fox IPs such as ice Age, etc. The concept art below shows this particular IP as a main attraction for the park open.
How will these two new kids on the block compete with the giants? We shall see. One thing is for certain, with the declining of Disneyland Paris, the aging of Uk attractions and the fears some have regarding Chin and Japan these newbies seems poised to jump on an ever increasing market of want by locals and tourists. We will keep you up to date as more infor and release dates come to light.
