Loop 030 printable

Volume 2, No. 7. April 12, 2002

New Arrivals

It’s a Madhouse and ice show!
Gardaland in Castelnuovo del Garda, Italy, announces the arrival of Prezzemolo’s House March 23, 2002, and Cinderella, March 26, 2002. Prezzemolo’s House measurements: 27-meter-high tree (90n feet), 11 meters (36 feet) in diameter with three rooms in the tree and one 72-seat Madhouse under the roots. Cinderella measurements: 450-square-meter rink (1,485 square feet), 2000 seats and 15 skaters. Madhouse delivered by Vekoma.

What if you celebrated an opening and nobody from the media showed up? Gardaland expected as much; when the park opens a new venue or ride upon its season opener Easter week, it figures much of the media is on vacation, too. So, rather than stage a major gala opening event, the park will bring the media out this weekend. “Easter time is a peak time for us, so we don’t need the advertising,” said Roberta Brentarolli, sales manager at Gardaland. “After it slows down a bit, it’s not so crowded and is a much nicer park for the journalists to see.”

What they will see is the final elements of Fantasy Kingdom, a cartoon-like themed family area opened last year. The area’s centerpiece is a giant tree where Prezzemolo the Dragon, Gardaland’s mascot, makes his home. Guests will walk through his kitchen, playroom and bedroom and stand out on a veranda overlooking the Fantasy Kingdom. Thirty feet below ground is yet another room under the spell of a power magician who still lives there and will spin the room around when guests come to visit.

While the tree and Madhouse puts the cap on one expansion at Gardaland, the Cinderella ice show represents a new direction for the Italian theme park industry. The park learned that guests wanted some respite between rides and looked for a 30-minute show to give them. Management settled on an ice show because Italy so rarely sees such presentations. “The big companies like Holiday On Ice and Disney On Ice never stop in Italy, probably because we don’t have enough big venues,” Brentarolli said. “For many of our visitors, this is the first time they’ve seen an ice skating show.”

Gardaland built its own new ice rink and decided that rather than produce a show of merely acrobatic skating, it would do so with a storyline, settling on the fairy tale of Cinderella, complete with magical coach. “That’s very much in the Gardaland style, to tell stories with our rides,” Brentarolli said. And the combination of athleticism, costuming and romance makes for a 30-minute show that’s “enough to give you big emotions,” she said.