Challenge of Tutankhamon

by Eric Minton

www.gettheloop.com

703-567-0532
eric@gettheloop.com












©2003, Minton Enterprises LLC All rights reserved

Challenge of Tutankhamon
Six Flags Belgium
Wavre, Belgium

Brought to you by

www.sallycorp.com

Click on the logo for more information about Sally Corporation's services

In the eyes of the beholder
Nazeer has veins in his arm and wrinkles in his wrist and palm. This may not seem surprising, considering Nazeer is an old Egyptian warning you not to enter the tomb of Tutankhamon. But Nazeer isn’t human. He’s a moving mannequin. The veins and wrinkles make him seem more lifelike, but all he does is pop up from behind collapsed pillars, say a few warnings in Flemish and French, then lower back to his hiding place. He spends his public performance in the shadows, difficult to see for those who pass by him. And those who do pass by him usually don’t even look at Nazeer, instead intently aiming for little green targets they can hit with the red laser beams from their pistol-like Ankhinators. Nazeer’s veins and wrinkles are indicative of the lovingly detailed theming that went into Challenge of Tutankhamon, Sally Corporation’s new interactive dark ride at Six Flags Belgium in Wavre. Between the designers and animatronic-crafting artists at Sally and the fabrication artists at Best Constructors, Challenge of Tutankhamon transports the rider into the authentic world of a pharaoh’s tomb gone Buffyverse.
		You endure an earthquake as you pass through an archaeological dig, with falling crates and leaning lightposts. You watch one of the archaeologists, warning you away, suddenly turn into a skeleton, and then you see the skeletons of other previous tomb raiders at the foot of Seth, the evil god who has cursed the tomb. Hereafter you fight off his attackers: a three-headed jackal, giant coiled cobras, swarming scorpions, flying scarabs and warrior mummies. Seth threatens you with fire, even, but if your six-passenger car succeeds in scoring enough points, you pass into Tut’s treasure room. Each head of the jackal differs from the other two. Each of those warrior mummies, which seem to press in on your car from every direction in a strobe light attack, has a personality. The passageway leading to the final encounter with Seth is richly painted in many colors. The treasure room contains almost exact replicas of the real Tut’s booty. The hieroglyphics throughout the ride are exact, and a wall full of hieroglyphics in the queue area contains the cartouches of the several talents from Sally, Best, ETF Ride Systems and Six Flags Europe who built the Challenge of Tutankhamon.
When you hear riders exit Tutankhamon comparing scores more than Seth’s minions, it begs the question, how necessary is such detail? Who will ever know Nazeer has veins? “We know,” said Ray Dominey, Sally’s technical director (pictured below with project manager Donna Gentry). Grenville Redmond, managing director of Best Constructors, is not so sure that matters. “The most expensive part of our work you don’t see,” he said, referring to low-lit passageways. “But, if you had a lesser themed ride, would it be as good? I don’t know.” The seemingly unanimous opinion of the opening night guests was that Revenge of Tutankhamon is really, really good. What was marketing-prompted curiosity before Thursday had become big buzz by midnight. The reaction among the guests returning to the station after their ride was unusual: they seemed to have a more eager attitude at the end than they had at the beginning, as if their appetite was not sated but whetted, their just-completed ride only scratching the surface of the potential experience. They had to go again and, yes, score more points the next time. And for as many times as they go, they likely never will see Nazeer’s veins. But they will believe he has them.				Text and photos by Eric Minton/THE LOOP