theme parks
I visited Chester Zoo recently. It’s a great zoo with loads of really well designed enclosures and lots of lovely animals. At the exit of the relatively-new Realm of the Red Ape enclosure (which houses the orangutangs), was this interesting badge vending-machine exhibit, titled ‘Home or Away?’ [...]
I’ve been thinking recently about visitor attractions – museums, theme parks, art galleries and so on – and the ways in which they can, either intentionally or not, create great photo opportunities which help to enhance the visitor experience. The link between photography and visitor attractions goes back almost as far as the invention of [...]
A couple of posts back, I mentioned, perhaps cryptically, that I’m interested in exploring the design of experiences within spaces. One of the ways that I’ve been doing that recently is through reading a wonderful selection of books, found of course through some diligent searching of Amazon. One of the books that’s given me the [...]
The Independent reports today that Sicily is paving the way for a £420m theme park project. The development is apparently ‘one signature away’ from getting the go-ahead, with the local authorities said to be putting up 20% of the investment. If all goes to plan, the park will open in 2009. No firm plans have [...]
Fiona and I encountered two interactive installations on Southbank on Monday, on the way back from having seen the Kandinsky exhibition at the Tate Modern. The first was play.orchestra, a sound installation from the Philharmonia Orchestra. Next to it, outside the Royal Festival Hall, was a fountain installation, which I find out in retrospect is [...]
I went to Paris for a few days about a fortnight ago, and as well as visiting the Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes, Fiona and I also went to Disneyland Paris (on her 21st birthday, no less). Regular readers of this blog will know that I like going to themeparks and suchlike, but Disneyland seems [...]
I had some holiday to use up, so I took Wednesday off this week to go and visit the theme park Thorpe Park. I’ve been there quite a few times before, but they’ve just recently opened a new rollercoaster for this year: Stealth. It’s a ‘launched’ rollercoaster, which sends you from 0 – 128kph in [...]
The famous London Planetarium (once an attraction in its own right, now just a minor addon to the Madame Tussaud’s ‘experience’), now renamed ‘Auditorium’, is to lose its space show and become a “voyage around the worlds of fame and celebrity”, according to an Independent article. Astronomers, including Sir Patrick Moore, have expressed outrage. I [...]
I’ve got a long-held ambition to build and run a theme park, so I was amused to discover Lauri Vartiainen in Finland, a real theme park enthusiast, is attempting to build his own ‘old time amusement park’ with vintage rides, on a budget. So far he’s built a ferris wheel. Great stuff.
Well, I’ve had an enjoyable weekend. On Saturday (5th November), it was my younger brother’s 20th birthday, and so to celebrate, I took him on a day out to Legoland Windsor. A theme park full of families with small children might not seem like an obvious way to celebrate leaving teenagerhood, but we both like [...]