Thanks to a very patient mother, much of my childhood was spent at theme parks. I remember walking through a rather barren Magic Mountain during its premier season, young enough to be awed by the Gold Rusher mine train coaster; visiting Knott’s Berry Farm (for the umpteenth time) to ride the Corkscrew, the first modern coaster with inversions; dragging every out-of-town guest to Disneyland to ride the Matterhorn Bobsleds, and the Submarines, and the Mighty Microscope, and Mission to Mars, and Peter Pan’s Flight, and on and on.

When I wasn’t visiting the parks, I was eager to learn more about them. I bought every book on the topic I could find. I wrote to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions and asked to receive their monthly newsletter, a request they very kindly granted. I subscribed to Amusement Business. I interviewed Randal Duell and Ira West of R. Duell and Associates, the trend-setting theme park developers. After my family moved to New York in the mid-70s, I joined a small group of like-minded folks who had just started a club called the American Coaster Enthusiasts. For my high school senior year project, I designed a theme park called “Atlantis.” And for one glorious summer, between my freshman and sophomore year in college, I worked for WED Imagineering in the electrical engineering department as the company was feverishly prepping both Florida’s EPCOT Center, and Tokyo Disneyland.

Though my professional career as a graphic designer has taken me in different directions, I have indulged my passion for this world by writing about it, through my “ThrillRide!” website, and the book that it spawned, “Roller Coasters – A Thrill Seeker’s Guide to the Ultimate Scream Machines.” And I hope I’m able to offer some relevant and/or entertaining comments here as well.

On that note: I recently attended the media debut of Universal Studios Hollywood’s “The Simpsons Ride,” the simulator attraction that replaced the legendary “Back to the Future – The Ride” (at both the Hollywood and Florida parks). Without a doubt, it’s a winner. Anyone who enjoys the humor of the series is in for a great time, from the preshow all the way through the ride itself. It’s manic, silly, and loaded with some very disorienting thrills.

In hindsight, it’s clear that the visceral, immersive punch of  live-action footage - as was employed for “Back to the Future” - will always be greater than anything attainable with cartoonish animation, 3-D or otherwise.  So on that level, TSR doesn’t quite deliver the “Wow!” factor that BTTR-TR did. But that’s a minor quibble.

Before I sign off for now, I’d like to share something I discovered rereading an old book called “Fun Land U.S.A.” This paperback, written by Tim Onosko and published in 1978, offered a rundown of all the major amusement parks in the country. During Onosko’s description of what was then California’s “Marriott’s Great America,” there is this editorial remark: “Opened during Great America’s 1977 season… was the Intamin Shuttle Loop…It’s mentioned here because it may very well be the limit of thrill riding.”

It pleases me to no end that not too long ago, a roller coaster with a top speed under 60 MPH and a single vertical inversion (navigated both forward and backward, granted) could be considered near “the limit of thrill riding.”

Can’t wait to try out Six Flags Magic Mountain’s X2.

Katie Bruno mentioned in her blog last week that Northeast Ohio is generally a chilly, overcast place and the same can be said of Devon and indeed England. However, in early Summer there is nowhere more beautiful than this lush, verdant county. Our humble hawthorn, fairly nondescript for the rest of the year explodes into a mass of snow white and has to be seen to be believed; Proust wrote a whole chapter (i.e. 2 sentences) on this stunning annual display. I am looking forward to another stunning display – of Brush Boarding - next week as I head down to Cornwall’s Crealy Adventure Park.

Crealy Great Adventure Parks is in fact two amusement parks here in the south west. Devon's Crealy is based just outside Exeter and Cornwall's Crealy is based not far from Newquay. The creation of Angela Wright MBE, Devon’s Crealy was opened in1989, inspired by Angela’s own country, farm based childhood. It has grown year on year in terms of the number of its rides and attractions and also visitor numbers, and now attracts around half a million people a year, with a healthy split between locals and tourists.

This coming week sees the launch of an exciting new attraction, sport and product at both Crealys; Extreme Sports Zone's Brush Boarding. Invented by Australian Kyle Dent, the Brush Board ramp simulates surfing or snowboarding or indeed skateboarding and looks set to become a major hit in the leisure industry. Think Flowrider without the water.

Champion surfers love the ramp and reckon it presents a genuine test for even experienced athletes, but the product is also adaptable to such a degree that children, grannies and surf dudes alike can enjoy the waves/snow.

Wild Wadi’s Flowrider defeated me after 1 ungainly minute. An incredible experience but it takes some getting used to. It will be fascinating to compare Brush Boarding.  Will it, I wonder, in the words of “sk8ter girl” Avril Lavigne (pronounced to rhyme with “hinge” by my daughter - I haven’t the heart to tell her) be, “like, so whatever” or will it be “like, totally awesome man”?   Watch this space, dude.

See also:  2007 UK Windsurfing Champion John Hibbard to launch Brush Ramp at Devon's Crealy

                  
Devon the Home Of New Surfing And Snowboarding Sport Of Brush Boarding

The corporation formed in 2005 to organize and operate the event, and implement the post-use plan, is Expoagua Zaragoza 2008, headed by company president Roque Gistau. Another special entity formed is the Expo Zaragoza 2008 Consortium, with the purpose of coordinating the various governmental and public and private entities involved.

After closing day, the 25-hectare site, located west of the city on the banks of the Ebro river, will be converted to a business park, re-using many of the expo pavilions. Estudio Lamela and the Master de Ingeniería y Arquitectura studio have been commissioned with the design and engineering  aspect of the restructuring. Consultants Jones Lang and King Sturge are contracted for adapting the interior spaces for commercial use.

Expo organizers have made the most of the occasion by also developing a 120-hectare “Water Park” close to the expo site, a green space supporting a variety of leisure activities. This forms a substantial additional legacy component to the expo.

Official participants include 106 countries (the US is not on the list) and 19 regions of Spain.

Here's an interesting English-language blog that showcases many of the pavilions and discusses various treatments of the expo theme.

And here is a comprehensive overview of the event with details of the site, pavilions and more.

With all the unsettling evidence that Earth's water supply is seriously endangered, the “water” theme is timely and topical. It builds upon the “oceans” theme of Lisbon Expo 98 – and, for that matter, the “fresh water” theme of New Orleans Expo 84. Water isn't a subject that can be exhausted – it's a matter of great importance and urgency to all. In general, environmental themes are appropriate for world's fairs. These international events garner participation from the highest levels of government, and often  significant corporate participation as well. While the public is taking in the exhibits and entertainment, there are government and business interests mingling in the VIP lounges. Does something of the theme and its ideals find its way into their conversations? We hope so.

There are a lot of world expos coming up. Just two years after Zaragoza is Shanghai Expo 2010, set to run from 1 May to 31 October, with a theme of “Better City, Better Life.” Two years after that, the gates open for Yeosu 2012, scheduled for a three-month run 12 May – 12 August. The Yeosu expo theme is “The Living Ocean and Coast.” (Yeosu marks the second world expo hosted by Korea – the first was Taejon Expo 93.) Gastronomes everywhere are looking forward to Milan 2015 with its “Feeding the Planet” theme. It will run six months, 1 May – 31 October.

These events are all registered with the BIE, the Paris-based organization that regulates expos.

Related articles:     The Expo Book ,     The Eye, The Dome, and the Expo,    US Should Get Back in the Expo Game,    US Pavilion at Shanghai 2010?

Many in Northeastern Ohio are bemoaning the closing of Geauga Lake Amusement Park,  an over 100 year old local park with nostalgic memories for many local residents (I, myself, worked there in high school).  Despite all the love for the park that was expressed after Cedar Fair announced its closing of the park, continuous improvements over the last several years failed to increase attendance to a profitable level.

But all is not lost!  One of the major improvements was the construction of a modern, state-of-the-art water park.  Although the amusement park is closed, the water park is forging on as Wildwater Kingdom.   Because of the demise of the amusement side of the park, many folks wrongly assume the water park is gone too.  Not so!

Northeastern Ohio is generally a chilly, overcast place, but for a few months every summer it gets HOT here.  Frankly, the last couple of times we went to Geauga Lake, we spend the whole day in the water park anyway.   This place is a gem in June, July and August especially.   It is right in the heart of a small town southeast of Cleveland called Aurora, Ohio, which is also home to a beautiful premium outlet mall.  My personal favorite is the wave pool but they also have the highest waterslide complex in Ohio. 

So I say “Hurray” to Cedar Fair for keeping this summer oasis here for us stuck here in the sweltering Ohio summer heat.   Keep making it better, we need it!

It’s a funny old business TV production but I feel right at home within the theme park industry, as your projects are equally difficult to get off the ground and just as dependent on a million variables.

This week I have been reaching out to some of the potential rides to try to get more information of the technology involved. It’s often a catch22, “Can’t tell you, it’s top secret but we want to be in the show.” “Can’t include you if I don’t know anything about the ride.” Nothing a few non-disclosure agreements can’t solve, for now.

Our biggest challenge ahead is going to be how to film experiences that are, well, meant to be experienced. My instinct tells me to surrender. White flag. There is no way that we can make a show that delivers the WOW POW of riding no matter how virtual -- we can’t reach through the telly and shake the sofa under the viewers bum, dropping them backwards through black tunnels and then spin them 360 degrees.

Am writing right now from an outdoor café in the States, just having gotten off the phone about to get on the road to visit potential rides. This is what we call the recce period: research, research and more research. We get to meet with the engineers, compile information and see the rides for ourselves before we make a call on what to include.

Can’t wait for the challenges ahead and figuring out where we will place the camera to capture the experience and how we will visualize some of the physical principles behind the magic. Next time you see a solo passenger on a ride near you, she might just be researching.

And on their Holiblog last week Blooloop was blogged about. In fact it was a blog about a post HW's president Will Koch had added to these very pages (erm, screens?) the week before. So now I am blogging about a blog about a blog. My mind struggling with this in the way my eyes might struggle with a Bridget Riley painting. Maybe soon I'll be twittering about a twit, if that is indeed the noun here... all very confusing.

A headline we didn't add this morning concerned a man assaulting a camel, Camel punching at Vallejo theme park leads to arrests.   It's all in the headline you see. The headline writer had to get the camel in there somehow. We have a TV show here in the UK, which purports to be a profound and searching analysis of the growing problem of childhood obesity. Naturally the program had to have a few subjects and naturally the subjects were asked to perform various arduous tasks in the name of research.. The show is called "Can Fat Teens Hunt?"

On Friday... My mate John, was to take his chair (he is a furniture designer) to London for a high profile meeting with a group of Investors. Before getting on the train for the big smoke, he went for a session of acupuncture. The acupuncturist was, apparently, a bit out of sorts, distracted, as he was having trouble with his marriage. Session over, John gets on the train, arrives at Paddington, goes via tube to The City and then does a presentation (which goes down very well) to group of 20 or so investors, designers, buyers etc. After doing so he is approached by one who asks him if he had seen an acupunturist that morning. John replies that yes, as matter of fact he did but how on earth did the he know?  "Well" the guy said, "you have a needle sticking out of the top of your head!"

Still thinking about Dubai, that place is such an experience. Regretfully a number of potential attendees to the DEAL show didn't make it into the UAE as they were young unmarried women and denied entry.  IAAPI's Nidhi , Saikat's new assistant at Premier Fountains and Hytechnology's Joy didn't make the cut. No such policy is in place for middle-aged balding men so most of us got through OK.

My last day in the UAE Rachel and I went for a swim out to an island off the coast and snorkelled around on a glorious reef, marvelling at the myriad shapes and colours of the fish.  Then we saw a shark, drifting away into the gloom. Great we saw one, sure it was quite a lot bigger than we'd thought it might be but at least we saw one. Turned round to swim back home.. 3 sharks.  Sure they weren't  "you're gonna needa bigger boat" size but they were big enough for me, 2 metres long and fat and (thankfully) well fed looking.  The 500 metres back to shore seemed to take an age and with each stroke the sharks grew an inch. Back at the hotel the dive guy laughed: "Oh no need to worry," he told us they're just reef sharks. Perfectly safe he said.  As long as you a) don't swim at dusk, b) don't swim alone, c) don't have even the tiniest hint of a cut on your skin, d) don't move in a erratic manner, e) don't do any spearfishing and f) don't swim in murky water.  Perfectly safe you see.

Ed Lantz of Visual Bandwidth has issued a call for papers for the next international showcase of fulldome technology, which will be a part of the biennial meeting of the International Planetarium Society (IPS) in Chicago this summer. Even if you aren't thinking of submitting a paper, you may find the event worth looking into.

Call for Papers
Fulldome Summit at IPS 2008: The Future of Fulldome
July 3rd, 2008
Chicago, Illinois, USA

The International Planetarium Society's Fulldome Video Committee, DomeFest, and the Adler Planetarium are co-sponsoring the second Fulldome Summit as a special session of IPS 2008 on Thursday, July 3rd, at Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. The Summit includes a day of papers, panels and roundtable discussions including kickoff of IMERSA, a new trade organization exclusively focused on the immersive digital dome (fulldome) medium, and DomeFest's juried fulldome art presentation and production-related sessions.

With the spectrum of fulldome theaters now exceeding the number of IMAX branded theaters in number of installations worldwide, the medium is fast maturing and branching outside of traditional astronomy-related programming into the greater arts and sciences. The topic for this Fulldome Summit
focuses on The Future of Fulldome, with emphasis on the technologies, programming and business models that will drive the future of the fulldome medium.

Abstracts are now being accepted for two paper sessions:

1) Emerging Fulldome Technologies - Papers of a deep technical nature are solicited on emerging fulldome technologies covering topics such as automatic multi-projector alignment, digital hemispheric live- action cameras, 4k x 4k production workflow, cutting-edge real-time applications,
and stereoscopic fulldome systems.

2) Future of Fulldome - Papers focusing on broad-brush future directions for fulldome theaters are solicited covering topics such as networked domes, entertainment programming, business models, content development consortiums, large-format film/fulldome convergence, etc.

Abstracts are now due May 15th and acceptance will be announced by May 31st. Acceptance of abstracts is competitive (peer-review) and will be based on relevance to advancement of the medium and fulldome profession. Electronic versions of final accepted papers are due at the conference and will be subsequently published in an electronic Fulldome Summit proceedings and also considered for publication in the IPS Planetarian. Fulldome Summit paper presentations are 15 minutes with a 5 minute Q&A session, and are expected to be of specific interest to the fulldome community.

Papers on fulldome topics that are of general interest to the planetarium community should instead be submitted for presentation at the preceding IPS 2008 conference.

Please send all abstracts as Word or text documents to Ed Lantz  by the May 15th deadline.

Here are some links for more information:

Papers from the first Fulldome Summit (held in Valencia, Spain in 2004):
International Planetarium Society
IPS 2008 conference (held the week prior to the Fulldome Summit):
Fulldome email group on Yahoo!

General information on the fulldome medium