Triotech will introduce a new "Hyper Ride" product in Niagara Falls, Canada next year. Designed for smaller facilities, Hyper Ride delivers a theme park-style interactive dark ride attraction on a family entertainment center's budget, Triotech CEO Ernest Yale said at the IAAPA Expo in Orlando.
"We want to bring everything that we've learned with major dark rides like Aladdin, Ghostbusters, or Knott's Bear-y Tales and bring it to the family entertainment center or location-based tourist attraction, with a library of content," Yale said. "We tried with this product, which we're launching today, to take all the best advantages and all the excitement of the larger dark ride and bring it to a smaller venue."
The Hyper Ride system features single-row, four-person, rotating ride vehicles with a motion base under each seat. The system is available in five-screen and seven-screen modular options, occupying a footprint between 4,000 to 6,000 square feet.
The initial installation and title, "Carnival Chaos," will open at Clifton Hill in Niagara Falls. It will feature the seven-screen configuration and five ride carts in an open setting designed to attract attention from passing visitors.
"If you have a Ferris wheel or roller coaster, obviously everybody's going to see it, and people are going to line up and want to try it," Yale said. "For a dark ride, what we wanted to avoid is to put the attraction in a dark box. Then it's very hard to sell the attraction."
"What we've learned that triangle by developing all the interactive theaters, is that we open the curtains. People see the seats, then kids or families are attracted and they ask mommy or daddy, can I go try the ride?"
Yale said that Triotech has two locations under construction for Hyper Ride and hopes to introduce additional titles for the ride, especially if a growing customer base allows Triotech to distribute the cost of developing new content for the rides.
"Very quickly in the next few years we hope to have 100 locations, which I think is very realistic," Yale said. "What it does is once you have 50-60-70 locations, it brings down the cost of developing the title. Typically a good interactive title for a dark ride would cost you a million dollars, two million dollars. So if you a major amusement park, let's say we did the Ghostbuster attraction. First you have to have the budget to do a custom title. But own an FEC or you have a smaller location, maybe you're paying $100,000 per year for a license, typically for 4D movie, [so] you cannot afford to do a custom content."
Here is the promotional video that Triotech released, showing the Hyper Ride system in action.
* * *
Want to keep the industry news coming throughout the year? Sign up for our free, three-times-a-week email newsletter and you can support Theme Park Insider without having to wade through the madness of all those social media feeds.
It’s rare when industry sources quote prices on the record, so I thought I would include that. And raising the standards at FECs helps put pressure on regional parks to improve, which eventually drives improvement at the big parks. Smaller projects such as this also help train and expand the talent pool for attraction design for all.
This kind of amusement is perfect for Niagara Falls. When I was young, Clifton Hill had become quite seedy, with adult novelty stores and awful gift shops along side their usual haunted houses. Since they legalized gambling in Ontario and Niagara Falls got a casino, the amusements and entertainment around the Falls has steadily improved in quality. A great go-kart track, fun mini-golf venues, fun arcades, etc; It will never get to be a world class amusement location, due to having to essentially shut down nearly six months out of the year due to winter, but things like this hyper ride adds nicely to the entertainment of Clifton Hill/Niagara Falls.
Now, if they could just find a way to create a cohesive cost system where you pay one price for all the amusements, it would be a wonderful little place for family outings.
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
I don't see this as a game-changer, even with seats that move on what is basically just another screen-based shooter attraction like Toy Story Mania, but I do think that making this tech more affordable for regional parks is a good thing.