Volume 3, No. 9. May 9, 2003
New Arrivals
It’s
a swatter & water!
Six Flags AstroWorld in Houston, Texas, announces the arrival of Diablo Falls,
April 26, 2003, and Swat, April 11, 2003. Measurements for Diablo
Falls: 60 feet high (18 meters), 469-foot-long (143-meter-long) flume, six-passenger
rafts. Measurements for Swat: 65-foot tower (20 meters) with the ride
platform rising to 105 feet (32 meters), 30 feet wide (nine meters), 30 mph
(48 km/h). Delivered by S&S Power and WhiteWater West Industries.
Thank goodness both rides are hits because the media preview were misses. With
a media day originally scheduled for April 3 when both rides were supposed to
be ready, the park’s marketing team first learned that the WhiteWater raft
ride was still a few weeks from completion. Then, on the eve of the media day,
the park postponed opening S&S’s prototype Sky Swatter. The media day
was rescheduled for April 24, but Swat was ready to go the following
week, so Daryl Freedman, the park’s public relations manager, mounted a
quick media outing for that ride. “It is a world debut, so we didn’t
want to lose the impact,” she said.
Diablo Falls opened as re-planned April 26, but its media preview was
undermined by Swat already stealing the thunder, and by actual thunder.
“On the 24th the forecast was for a tornado watch, hail and thunderstorms,”
Freedman said. “A lot of people assumed we had canceled it again, and TV
news were covering the weather.” The media day went ahead as scheduled
under light sprinkles, but several news crews rescheduled live shots for the
following week.
Meantime, the rides—situated side by side in the park’s Mexicana Section—were
wowing crowds. Swat’s public debut coincided with AstroWorld’s
annual high school physics day, a perfect ride, with its thrust air technology
and forward and backward rotations, for a physics lesson. “(The students)
just came off going ‘Whoa’,” Freedman said. Diablo Falls’
opening coincided with the American Coaster Enthusiasts spring conference, whose
members immediately started generating buzz for that ride’s surprisingly
high thrill quotient.
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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