Volume 3, No. 8. April 25, 2003
New Arrivals
It’s
a roller coaster!
Liseberg in Göthenburg, Sweden, announces the arrival of Balder,
April 12, 2003. Measurements: 36 meters high (118 feet), 1,080 meters long (3,543
feet) , 90 km/h (56 mph), two 30-passenger trains, 2:08-minute ride. Delivered
by Intamin.
Fifteen years is a lifetime for many amusement park patrons, and that is how
long Liseberg had been without a wood coaster. The park opened in 1923 with
Berganan, but the ride was demolished in 1987. “Ever since then
we have been longing and planning for a new one,” said Pelle Johannisson,
Liseberg’s marketing director. “We feel, and everybody in the business
feels, that a wooden coaster is a crucial thing to have in the park. We had
to wait about 15 years to get a new one.”
The desire for a wood coaster was so strong that for the official opening ceremony
instead of cutting a ribbon the park had Ulrika Messing, the Swedish Minister
of Communications and Regional Policy, saw through a piece of wood to open the
gates.
Liseberg picked its 80th anniversary as the appropriate moment to return a woodie
to its ranks, and the park cleared out work buildings in a backstage area to
make room for the wooden structure named for the Norse god of light. After two
years of construction the ride opened to a patronage both nostalgic and new.
“Young kids had never gone on a wooden coaster,” Johannisson said.
“Old people remember the old coaster, and this is a completely new experience
for them.”
Many of the journalists attracted from all over Scandinavia to a March 19 media
event likewise had never ridden a woodie, but members of the European Coaster
Club in attendance had, and they could tell the press Liseberg had a winner.
“They classified it as one of the top five in the world,” Johannisson
said of the ECC feedback. “I don’t know if they always say that, though.”
A couple weeks later the park invited delegates from a tourist trade show in
Göthenburg for a private preview of Balder, spreading the ride’s
name through the travel industry.
Finally, the ride’s public opening arrived on an “awful” day,
Johannisson said. “In this period of the year in Sweden, it can be really
awful, and it was on opening day.” Nevertheless, more than 15,000 people
visited the park that day, and eight out of 10 rode Balder, Johannisson
said. “The other attractions had quite a slow weekend.”
Balder heralded several other changes in the park. Gone is a the Vekoma
boomerang HangOver, removed from the middle of the park to allow for
more amenities like cafes and shops. “We wanted to smooth out the area
in the center of the park to make it more for families,” Johannisson said.
With a steel Schwarzkopf Lisebergbanan from 1987 and the Zierer family
coaster Cirkusexpressen, Liseberg officials now feel they have a suitable
offering of coasters among their 35 rides.
Despite its speed, a 70-degree first drop and enough camel humps to cause 10
moments of negative G’s, Balder is positioned by Liseberg as a family
coaster. “It’s much more a family attraction than a teen-age coaster,”
Johannisson said. “The feeling you get afterwards is not something scary
but something fun. You’re laughing all the time.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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