InPark Magazine: In the world of themed entertainment, there’s nothing quite like a dark ride. Over the decades, the format has gone through several revivals, each time propelled by new technologies and creative ambition. Today, a new era is unfolding, one marked by better tools, greater affordability, the increased ability to work within smaller footprints, and strong demand from parks and attractions of all sizes from around the world.
7 comments:
Dark rides are my absolute favorite. I tend to get motion sick very easily and for some reason not being able to see where I am in space helps me not get motion sick. I enjoy the ride so much better when I am purely experiencing the sensation of the ride and not the repercussions of that sensation. I think there are also so many cool things that are only possible in dark rides. You can control the lighting and point the riders eye to exactly what you want them to see. I have never thought about a ride as being an immersive experience although it definitely is. It is almost a chicken and the egg situation, deciding whether the new interest in immersive experiences is changing the world of amusement rides, or whether the new amusement park openings in the past years have influenced people’s interest in immersive experiences.
Dark rides are awesome snd from a young age drew me to storytelling. Seeing a 3 minute ride compress a 2 hour long movie in an immersive world was mesmerizing from a child’s point of view. As an older person I still find them great and have gotten to witness them go from carts on bus bars to chairs on robot arms that fly you around huge indoor sets. It’s cool to see the technology has become reliable and affordable enough that they are not exclusive to the large theme parks. I agree with the article that screens are fine and can enhance the experience, but they should not be the whole experience. Part of the appeal of dark rides is the sets and the things you’ve already seen on a screen in the physical world. They’re a compelling ride because theoretically it’s going to show you a side of a familiar franchise in a new way. Putting it all on screens kills that interest.
As someone who is very into dark rides and the innovation it makes, I think it would be very interesting seeing where they are headed. Take Monsters Unchained for example, that ride is genuinely one of the best rides. Of course it’s a Tait ride, that's probably why it's so good but I digress. I could go on it 500 times and see a new detail every time I ride that damn thing, it’s so good and I love it so much. You see so many cool animatronics, including a whole ass frankenstine, they have video mapping all over the ride, and they have this awesome ride vehicle that can twist you in any direction in order to force you to see some. And Kevin if you’re reading this, Monsters Unchained did have pyro in it, it came out of an organ (the instrument) and was super cool as hell, they ride vehicle did move you very close to it to where you could feel the heat, so that was fun!
The dark ride has always been so central to the theme park experience for me, and I couldn’t really imagine parks without them. The way in which they often tell stories through incredible engineering and design has always been stunning. I really liked the point the article makes about blurring the lines between what is VMD and what is reality. The most effective uses I have seen of this have been on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry at Universal’s Epic Universe. Both of these rides perfectly blend physical sets with modern media technology to the point where I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t when I was on Battle at the Ministry. It was disorienting in the best way possible. I do think we are seeing demand for these grand scale dark rides really surge now, as for the past few years both Disney and Universal have been focusing on themed coasters, which are excellent in their own right, but have left a gap in the modern dark ride line up, which Disney seems to be filling with Villains Land.
Get me in there tbh. I love roller coasters, I love slow-moving scary rides, so when they’re put together that is WONDERFUL tbh. Rides are already about thrill-seeking. And the creation of a themed ride already shows more care that a consumer is bound to enjoy. In the media-vs-the world debate, I think this article shows a good nuance in the idea that the consumer should barely be able to tell the difference between the two when they are on the ride. I’ve always thought of scenery from a theatre-TV standpoint where safety typically works around the creative vision, which IMO makes both things harder because the creatives end up having to sacrifice elements later on and the technical direction people of the world sometimes have to bend over backwards for creatives. I think that creating the safety first is a much smarter and more practical way of doing things (which makes sense for an element where safety is first, last, in the middle, and always, and creation barely factors in to functionality.
This article is fascinating to me as I have never really thought too much about the difference between a dark ride and a coaster and just generally I don’t know very much about theme park stuff. It is so interesting how big the improvements to technology have been in influencing more parks to include more dark rides. I think that the emphasis on guest experience is really cool because it's not just about seeing how far the technology can take you but about balancing the physical set with digital enhancements to make the guest feel grounded and amazed. I think that maybe seeing what pushing the technology would be like is worth exploring as long as it doesn’t take away from the guest experience. I am definitely curious and worried about the ways in which gamifying the experience or making it interactive might shift over time if AI is included in the mix.
I should preface by stating that I haven’t been on many dark rides that I liked all too much. Maybe I happen to land on all the bad ones, or maybe I’m just salty, but I don’t see the appeal. I feel like every time I’m on this kind of ride I just sit and think about how it’s all animatronic stuff and the only real wows aren’t even real people. If I want to go on a ride at a theme park I want to be on a roller coaster or some kind of drop or in some way a thrilling ride. I hate when I’m experiencing something that should be incredible entertainment but something about it, maybe even just working in the industry, ruins it. I always prefer something that either consists of live performance in some way or is made for me to interact with. I have a very clear memory of going to Super Mario at Universal and looking up at where fake sky met real sky and made shadows on the fake world, and I felt so removed from it all, then immideately after, went to some kind of harry potter world dark room ride and I was so focused on everything else outside of the theme park. Maybe I’m just not a huge theme park enjoyer, but when I hear dark rides I’m so surprised at their popularity because personally, I’m not a huge fan.
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