Premier Rides had a prime spot at the east entrance of the north concourse and given the fact it is the closest to the main parking lots, many attendees passed by the booth throughout the show four days.  The main point of interest this year was Lake Compounce having on display the front car for Phobia Phear Coaster, their new Sky Rocket II roller coaster. It will have a beautiful location on top of the hill between the Ghost Hunt (Sally Corporation dark ride) and Ferris Wheel.  The Enterprise that occupied that location is going to Kennywood and is replacing the older Enterprise there.

The Lake Compounce Enterprise.

The Sky Rocket II is a next generation LSM (Linear Synchronous Motor) Launched Roller Coaster that is taking the world by storm and currently, installations are a great success in California, Germany, Virginia and Mexico.  Phobia will use two 6 seat cars and the ride will feature a triple launch, a barrel roll 150 feet in the air and a dramatic 90 degrees vertical drop.  That drop then goes into a non-inverting loop and the ride will then be slowed and stopped by the LSM. We will discuss that ride further when we talk about Premier Rides in a future serie.

The Phobia Phear Coaster car.

Mack Rides held a press conference with Seaworld Parks & Entertainment to unveil the scale model and details on Cobra’s Curse, a brand new spinning roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa.  Cobra’s Curse is a brand new style of the famed Mack spinning coaster that will use trains of two cars and each car will have four seats facing in the same direction.  The ride will start with a dramatic 70 feet tall elevator style lift hill inside an ancient Egyptian temple.  Once at the top, the train will roll down and do an incredible outside banked turn through the mouth of an 80 feet tall statue of the Snake King “Venymyss” before continuing the journey through an archeological dig.  The main factor behind this design is that the ride was to be as fun for the spectators as it is to ride.  There will be a lot of interaction with the pathways and it will provide a lot of kinetic activity in the park’s Egypt section.  A first for Busch Gardens Tampa is the waiting line:  the park’s existing King Tut Tomb walkthrough attraction will be repurposed for the waiting line and guests will finally have a queue line with air conditioning.

The large building to the right of the tower is the old King Tut Tomb.

Notice how guests can walk under the ride path and see nearly everything.

Tecway Mecpower returned to IAAPA this year with a much better location on the show floor and a larger booth.  This allowed them to showcase beautiful and durable bumper cars as well as all kind of games.  One prototype on display was an automated version of the familiar roll the ball into a hole midway game that was filled with amazing lights.

The Bumper car on display.  This model use floor pick-up to power it and Tecway Mecpower also offer ceiling pick-up as well.

Various kids games.

The floor board of the prototype game.

Emergency Rescue is the name of the game.

Maurer AG had another new product to display this year with an interesting flexible car concept.  The Wing Coaster/Bike Coaster seat is revolutionary as it perfectly secures riders with no lap bar or shoulder restraint.  The seat was studied so that a double locking seatbelt is all that is required to secure riders in order to provide the ultimate feeling of freedom.

The Wing Coaster has a small platform for rider’s feet and the cars sit on the side of the track in a 2×2 layout: each side has two riders sitting in a row and the Bike Coaster instead sit on top of the track.  The Single Range coasters use individual cars and are capable of height of 98 feet and speeds of 38 mph speeds. The Xtended Range allows track banking up to 90 degrees and up to 5 cars can be attached together for more capacity.  The Xtended can be coupled with either an efficient LSM launch or chain lift and heights of 164 feet are possible.  Speed wise, 62 mph is what the Xtended currently rated for.  This will allow parks to have incredible flexibility both in budget and space required.

The Wing Coaster connection to the wheel carrier.

Front view of the seat and notice the rubber covering of the belt buckle.  This is an additional safety device to prevent guest and staff pinched fingers.

Sideview of the car with the small metal platform.

Many Chinese companies were present on the show floor this year and among them, LS-Game Amusement Equipment had a booth with a nice location and various small rides on display. The small Ferris Wheel footprint make it an ideal attraction for smaller FEC’s and delivery times are competitive, so a facility can get their new ride quickly.

Overview of the booth.

Smaller carousel.

Sealife themed Ferris Wheel.

Golden Horse Technology Entertainment Co. made their return to the IAAPA show floor this year with a brand new image and product catalogue.  Golden Horse has always been a strong company in the Chinese market and they have recently started to expand their sales with new quality products.  For example, their Chute Ride currently provides the largest splash in the market and very high capacity. Major Chinese groups such as OCT are installing them in most of their parks and now, they have sold two to foreign parks.  One of them was installed at Gyeongju World in South Korea and is a 98 feet tall figure 8 Shoot the Chute attraction that is mixed use:  guests from both the theme park and California Beach (water park) can access it.

Great example of a Golden Horse 15 meters tall Chute ride at Chimelong Paradise (Guangzhou, China).