Zamperla has unveiled its masterplan for an ‘all-access’ disabled theme park, catering specifically to the disabled, also donating a ride from its masterplan to US-based Give Kids the World Village.
Give Kids the World Village – a cost-free resort for children with life-threatening illnesses – has been donated a spinning ride from Zamperla, after Give Kids president Pamela Landwirth met Antonio Zamperla at IAAPA 2013.
“Mr Zamperla came to me in 2013 and said ‘I’d like to do something special for the families, I’d like to donate a ride’,” Landwirth told
AM2. “I thought it was going to be one of those small coin-operated types he’s done in the past and he said ‘no I’m thinking bigger, I really want to create something that every child will be able to enjoy.
“He took one of the rides Zamperla does and retrofitted it so children with disabilities can use it. We have a special car that can hold a wheelchair and then there are children with no mobility in their legs and it's been specially designed so children can operate it with their hands.
“I would hope we would be able to bring in more disabled rides and what a great addition it would be to the industry as a whole.”
The ride is just the start of plans for Zamperla, which showed
AM2 its ambitions for a masterplanned disability theme park.
“The idea is to allow the biggest number of people to enjoy the park,” said Zamperla’s Marco Mazzucchi. “We created a special team to work on the issue formed of our engineers and some other consultants for safety, as well as doctors used to working with handicapped people. We discussed all the aspects related to the park and to accessibility, then created an idea of a park with a selection of rides ready to be all-accessible.”
The theme park concept covers 24,000sq m (258,000sq ft) and is themed mainly towards people in wheelchairs but caters to all varieties of disability, with Mazzucchi using the blind as a primary example of what is included in the concept.
“For blind people there would be the possibility to read in braille how the ride is going to perform so they understand,” he said. “We would like to introduce special notes to allow people to understand when the ride starts and ends and on so many small aspects we are taking these things into account so everyone can access the park.
“There are parks with a sensibility to this kind of problem. We are confident that the markets, little by little will be sensible to this kind of problem. We have done rides like this previously but this is the first of this programme and it's something that we want to show to let people know that everybody needs to go in this direction.”
Finally, Mazzucchi revealed that many aspects of the all-access masterplan created by Zamperla would be first applied in
Alberto Zamperla’s proposed new €86m (US$107m, £68m) attraction in Venice, Italy.
The current issue of Attractions Management includes a talking point asking 'Does the attractions industry need separate attractions for disabled people, or can all attractions effectively cater for those with disabilities?' To read more click here.
