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Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Phil Higgins was at the Theme Park Excellence Awards 2023 as Katapult scooped an award at the prestigious awards ceremony.
Held in Vienna as part of IAAPA Europe Expo, the Theme Park Excellence Awards is a celebration of best-in-class entertainment destinations, projects, products and people. We scooped the title alongside project partners Simworx, for our work on the dark ride concept OVERDRIVE.
About OVERDRIVE
Working alongside leading dynamic media-based attractions specialist Simworx, we developed a new high-octane dark ride concept called OVERDRIVE: Ultimate Heist.
Drawing inspiration from popular driving franchises Need for Speed, Grand Theft Auto and Fast and Furious, Overdrive is an IP-free attraction offering a unique take on a fan-favourite narrative. The dark ride provides a roleplaying experience where guests have the option to be the police chase or getaway car. Once boarded, guests are briefed on their mission before they are naviagated through underground tunnels and construction sites in a breakneck race down the city’s main highway.
OVERDRIVE uses Simworx’s AGV (Automated Guidance Vehicle) dark ride technology. The scaleable dark ride experience can accommodate up to 1,100 riders per hour, using 10 different ride vehicles. The excitement of the ride builds across 10 unique scenes, with two possible ending scenes.
Awards night
Speaking on the award win, the Simworx team said, "We are thrilled to be recognized at the Park World Excellence Awards as we were awarded in the Best Marketing Initiative category for our OVERDRIVE campaign. A shout out to our partner’s in the collaboration, Katapult. We are over the moon that all of our hard work to increase the awareness of this new attraction has paid off! Thanks for an incredible evening and a massive congratulations to all the other award recipients last night, the calibre of work was phenomenal."