It has been another momentous year in the attractions industry, and Attractions Management has been there reporting the big news, good and bad, all the way. After yesterday's look at the events of July 2019, today we move on to August 2019, considering some of the biggest stories that made the headlines that month.

It was a month marked by big news from the industry's theme park giants: Disney released details of its Avengers Campus park, set to open in 2020; Universal's fourth Florida property ‒ called Epic Universe ‒ was announced; and Lionsgate Entertainment World opened in China.

Lionsgate theme park opens

Lionsgate Entertainment World, Asia's first movie-themed vertical theme park, opened at Novotown, an integrated tourism and entertainment destination on the island of Hengqin in Zhuhai, China.

The 240,000 sq ft (22,296 sq m) park was designed by experience design and production agency Thinkwell Group, and plays host to more than 25 attractions based on several of Lionsgate Films most famous IPs, including The Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent, Gods of Egypt and Now You See Me.

The park partnered with CAVU Designwerks, Dreamcraft Attractions, Framestore and ETF to create the technology behind the new attractions, which include a virtual reality motorbike simulator, an indoor VR roller coaster and a state-of-the-art motion-based 3D cabin simulator experience.



Epic Universe theme park announced

In August 2019, Universal confirmed plans for its fourth gate in Orlando, officially announcing the Epic Universe theme park, which it said would be "an entirely new level of experience that forever changes theme park entertainment".

Comcast said the park would represent the single-largest investment that it had made in its theme park business.

No specific details have yet been revealed about what IPs will feature in the park, but Universal did confirm that the 3sq km (1.2sq m) site would feature an entertainment centre, hotels, shops, restaurants and more.

The development will nearly double Universal’s total available space in central Florida, and by adding Epic Universe to the Universal Studios Orlando, Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay properties, it will be better able to compete with Disney's four theme parks, two waterparks and the Disney Springs retail complex in the Orlando area.

Disney Avengers Campus to open in 2020

Disney fan event D23 in Anaheim was the setting for a raft of announcements by the theme park company, headlined by news that its new Avengers Campus will open at the California Adventure park in 2020.

Giving guests the opportunity to "suit up" alongside superheroes such as Spider-Man, Ant-Man and The Wasp, the campus will feature several attractions, including the Worldwide Engineering Brigade (or WEB), which is Disney's first ride-through experience featuring Spider-Man.

The Campus also features the Ant-Man and The Wasp-related Pym Test Kitchen eatery, as well as the Avengers Headquarters.

Further announcements were made by Disney concerning a new parade, called Magic Happens, due to debut in Q2 2020, and the 2022 opening of Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway, the first major Mickey Mouse-themed ride-through attraction.

Check back with Attractions Management tomorrow for a look back at the highlights from September