Question about the Cost of Building a New Attraction
Student needs help with figuring out cost of building a ride.
I am a student working on a mock proposal of an attraction. Does anyone out there have any basic info on a general budget for building an attraction. I am looking for set costs construction etc. Thanks in advance for any help.
For most theme park attractions there are many different costs. First, there is the cost of research and development. This cost is usually hard to determine, because at the upper echelon parks like Disney and Universal, many more rides and attractions go through a research and development process than actually get constructed. Disney has WDI, whose sole purpose is to brainstorm ideas for attractions, and they visuallize and propose many attractions every year that never get off of the drawing board. However, at some other parks, the park comes up with one idea and runs with it from beginning to end. The costs for research and development can be high, but often hidden when discussing bottom line financials. Then there is the basic cost of the ride system. Whether it is a roller coaster, dark ride, or flat ride, a park usually needs to pay a manufacturer for a ride system. That cost is usually the largest cost of the attraction, and very few parks are able to avoid this cost by creating in-house ride systems. Disney has created a few of their own ride systems, but as they become more complex, Disney has begun out-sourcing ride system development and construction. Mission: Space at EPCOT, which is one of the most unique ride systems in the world was created in a joint venture between Disney and an engineering firm. Your average roller coaster can cost anywhere from $1 million to $25 million for just the coaster. Many of the more complicated dark ride systems can cost up to $20-$30 million, or even more. The next cost would be for themeing. Some parks skimp on this cost, while other parks go overboard, so this cost can also vary greatly depending on how intricate the themeing is for a given attraction. In some cases, the themeing of an attraction can be as expensive as the ride system, and sometimes is actually a part of the ride system. Finally, you have the cost of maintenance and operation of the attraction, which is a cost that is very difficult to determine. Parks usually have a maintenance and operational budget for the entire park, and to determine what it would cost to just operate and maintain a single attraction could be very difficult to determine. Obiously, the more technologically advanced the attraction is, the more it's going to cost to operate and maintain.
When talking about the costs of an attraction, theme parks are typically very vague as to how expensive they really are. RCDB.com is a database of just about every roller coaster in the world, and sometimes you can stumble upon the construction costs of a coaster. Also, parks will sometimes throw out general numbers in a press release either before construction begins, or soon after the attraction is completed. The costs of an attraction can also be offset by sponsorships. It has been rumored that Mission: Space cost almost $200 million to devlop and construct, but because of the sponsorship with HP, the bottom line cost to Disney was probably half that. There's also the term e-ticket which is thrown around by the people who remember the days when Disney used to sell ticket books for attractions, and the e-tickets were the biggest, best attractions in the park. Today, you can usually count on a Disney e-ticket attraction costing at least $100 million. Recent e-ticket additions, Tower of Terror, Mission: Space, TestTrack, Indiana Jones, Soarin', etc... Even a non-Disney attraction like Spiderman at Islands of Adventure was reported to cost between $50 and $100 million. To say exactly how much it would cost to build a specific attraction, though, can be tough because of all of the varriable involved in the process.
in other words, alot more than is in my piggy bank.
You might want to get a hold of the folks at www.Universalexcitement.com or even the editor at screamscape.com they usually have a good idea of what goes on with parks like ush or usf, i think i heard a projection that the mummy at usf was about 150 mill...might be a an oversight, but i think that was the figure floating around.
Steel costs have been nuts in recent years, which has done more than anything else to pump up attraction prices. Remember, you're dealing with large buildings here. Intellectual property and licensing rights can also inflate a project's costs. That's why so many amusement parks build unthemed or generically themed attractions.
That said, a beloved theme can guarantee at least initial revenue for an attraction project. Much like an established star "opening" a Hollywood film, a familiar theme draws people into the park. But, ultimately, it is attraction quality that brings them back.
Most top-shelf new roller coasters are built in the $15 million range, with extra if there is a licensed character theme, such as the Italian Job or Star Trek. (Less if you already own those rights, of course.) Dark rides, since they require large buildings as well as detailed animation and audio, can run from $40 million to over $100 million, depending upon the sophistication of the ride system. The cheapest attractions to build tend to be water slides, those though do bring with them hefty insurance costs.
I am a student at Harrison High School in Evansville Indiana and also working on a mock proposal of an attraction. Our proposed attraction we chose was a SeaWorld type park for our city. We are running into problems finding figures for the park including: maintenance and operation, building cost, cost of tanks and animal exhibits, and the animals themselves. We are not looking for exact figures, but if you could help us with any ball park figures, we would greatly appreciate it.
This discussion has been archived, and is not accepting additional responses.
