The Producers Group (TPG) has unveiled a turnkey attraction that combines the dark ride with the dining room.

“It’s an absolutely immersive dining attraction, and what I mean by that is you’re on a ride eating dinner,” says Edward Marks, co-CEO at TPG.

The Extraordinary Voyages Adventure Dining (EVAD) experience is centred around a highly themed space where guests buy their tickets, have a drink at the bar, browse in the shop and explore and interact with their surroundings.

“We chose a Jules Verne steampunk theme for the base station. On the ride, guests are taken into space, or on a time travel expedition, or an underwater expedition,” says Marks.

The adventure itself takes place in a 80-seat dining vehicle, the Centurion, manufactured by coaster maker Premier Rides. Looking out of the “windows” passengers feel immersed in destination-inspired scenarios.

“It’s like travelling on an aeroplane or a train ride. It doesn’t exert high levels of movement apart from at very specific show moments which we control,” Marks says.

No efforts have been spared in the design and creation of the ride and its theming, with wooden floors and furniture, copper finishing, seamlessly integrated technology, ambient lighting and complete attention to detail. “If you look in any direction, you are there. There are no clues to say you are anywhere else.”

Scenes and themes can be customised. Passengers could be taken on a whistlestop tour of world cities, back in time or to any imagined – or branded – world. In this turnkey package, which was designed originally for mega-malls, everything is included except the kitchen.

attractions-kit keyword : TPG

Matt Barton, 7thSense Design’s managing director, runs a scout group for children with special needs. He says he’s taken the group to a number of theme parks and seen how inaccessible they can be.

“It’s important to me that we develop our technologies in a way that can help improve inclusivity in the industry,” says Barton. “At 7thSense, we were asked by a major client to develop a solution taking advantage of the latest AR technologies to provide closed captioning while maintaining the immersive nature of dark rides. In answer to this challenge, we have developed an Android application which could run on a tablet, phone or a pair of AR glasses, allowing us to display subtitles for content we’re serving from the 7thSense Delta Media Server. We can also play audio files through that device.”

This means someone with hearing difficulties can wear a pair of smart glasses and captions will be overlaid on the screen as they move through a dark ride, or a person with seeing difficulties can enjoy audiodescription as they enjoy the experience. This is simply managed through the STACK show control framework in Delta.

“It works well on rides because the smart device always knows where the rider is in the experience and what scene they are watching, so the captioning and audio is kept in sync with the media,” Barton says. “This could be extended in the future with location-based services that would know exactly where a guest is in a museum and display the right subtitles or audio track.”

“Choice of language is built in to this system so you can also have two people sitting beside each other enjoying an experience in two different languages.”

attractions-kit keyword : 7thSense

A recent art installation at a power plant in Leipzig, Germany, used 55 short-throw Optoma Proscene projectors to incorporate contemporary art with the industrial structure, creating a hugely immersive experience where guests feel like they’re moving through the artwork.

Devon Miles, who oversees immersive video art at Kunstkraftwerk, says the artist Gianfranco Ianuzzi warned him not to “lose a pixel”.

“I knew that we had to preserve as many pixels as possible,” Miles says. “Some parts of the video content are 17000 x 1920 pixels. We were heavily relying on the lens shift feature since the projectors were to be mounted at very steep angles to achieve the maximum projection area.”

"We chose the EH503 because it offered the most complete set of features in that price range. The network feature especially came in handy and enabled us to change various parameters on all projectors at once.”

attractions-kit keyword: Optoma

Wanda Xishuangbanna International Resort in China’s Yunnan Province worked with Vortex Aquatic Structures International to design an enormous 30,000sq ft (2,787sqm) Splashpad – the largest Vortex Splashpad to date.

“When you’re trying to make such a big space engaging, you need to work with a company that has a wide and varied product range to offer myriad experiences,” says Stephen Hamelin, CEO at Vortex. “You also need a company that understands play experiences, and what attracts and engages the different age groups and abilities who will be using the area.”

With 140 Vortex interactive features, the Splashpad boasts diverse waterplay environments and encourages a wide range of experiences to appeal to all ages, from toddlers to seniors. Gentle misting spray loops, tall leaves and ground sprays invite younger children and their families to play in a safe environment.

“Some areas have gentle water effecters with waterplay features that are lower to the ground for younger kids, while other areas have a more thrilling experience with cannons to shoot water and a Superwave which dumps water on the waiting kids below – usually something the older ones enjoy,” says Hamelin. “There are also some cause and effect products, like our Cascades products. These enable kids to turn buckets and pull dams up and down to alter the course of the water. A lot of kids find this engaging.”

attractions-kit keyword: VORTEX

There was an important starting point for Prism, says Steve Brown, Accesso CEO. Its predecessor, Qbot, was released back in 2007. How would they create a product that was relevant for 2017, an entire decade later?

“We realised we had a little bit of catching up to do in terms of our hardware, but we also realised some basic consumer factors to keep in mind,” Brown says. “Nobody wants to wait in line. No one wants to worry about wallets or deal with cash in their pocket. We want easy access, without keys or complicated codes. And we live in a real-time society.”

Accesso took its observations along with its clients’ needs and developed Prism, a touchscreen wearable with messaging, park photography and virtual queuing capabilities.

“This is truly the new standard in smart park technology. It’s a standalone device. It has extended battery life of up to 200 days. The device is brandable. It has a Gorilla Gl Glass lens – it’s not going to break. And it works with NFC, Bluetooth or RFID.”

Guests simply swipe the touchscreen to take a place in a virtual queue, buy food from a kiosk, receive updates or promotional offers from the operator and manage their ride and park photography. Prism collects data on guest behaviour in real time, which can be used for marketing strategies and to gather feedback to improve guest experience.