Volume 3, No. 6. March 28, 2003
New Arrivals
It’s
a roller coaster!
Terra Mitica a Paramount Park in Benidorm, Alicante, Spain, announces the arrival
of Tizona, March 15, 2003. Measurements: 688.8 meters long (2,260 feet),
32 meters high (105 feet), 100 km/h (62 mph), 17,650-square-meter (189,983-square-foot)
footprint, 20-passenger trains. Delivered by Vekoma.
Terra Mitica’s marketing team found the perfect forum for promoting its
newest thrill: “Mortadelo y Filemón,” a popular Spanish cartoon.
In a recent episode the characters searched Terra Mitica for the park’s
new ride, a show that included footage supplied by the park of the looping inverted
coaster.
Among the “characters” on the ride was Miguel García, the park’s
international sales manager. “They knew when they needed people to ride
a coaster for a long time, they could ask me,” said the avowed coaster
enthusiast. He ended up riding six straight hours for still and video cameras;
on a coaster with seven inversions, that’s a hardy effort.
García knew from that experience, however, that Tizona, the park's
third coaster but the first steel one with inversions, would be a hit for Terra
Mitica’s guests. "Tizona" was the name of the sword used by Spain’s
legendary hero, El Cid Campeador, and the coaster got its name by replicating
the maneuvers that weapon would make in battle, swooping up, down, over and
around. “We’re not used to inverted coasters here, so it’s a
new type of coaster for this area,” García said. The coaster’s
first dive in fact swoops down toward the queue area.
Keeping true to Terra Mitica’s emphasis on authentic theming, Tizona’s
station house appears as an ancient Spanish fortress, historically replicated
down to the coat of arms. The coaster itself is royally presented with a yellow
track on purple supports and red trains.
The official first ride came at a media event on the day before the season’s
Saturday opening day. The park’s General Manager John Fitzgerald and Commercial
Director Elizabeth Williams christened the coaster along with members of the
media. Under sunny skies but breezy temperatures the next morning, guests sprinted
from the front gates all the way across the park to the Iberia section where
Tizona is located. “We had something like 50 people waiting before
the park opened, and they ran, ran, ran to the end of the park to be the first
to ride it,” García said. “There was huge expectation for the
first days, and everybody wanted to ride it.” Anticipating the long lines,
the park gave its season pass holders the privilege of moving to the front of
the queue for Tizona.
The coaster helped the park kick off its new identity as a Paramount Park, a
fact now promoted via the park’s name itself. With the coaster’s bright
colors and castle context—not to mention the facial expressions of riders
like García—images of Tizona have dominated the park’s
television and media advertising and adorn billboards in the region. “It’s
really working well for the start of the season,” García said.
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.
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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