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We've spent nearly 25 years honing our theme park design expertise, working globally on some of the most exciting projects. What started as small design projects for on-ride guest photography, has morphed into the complete design of new theme parks.
While most of our project work is kept a secret, the following article pulls inspiration from projects we can talk about - such as LEGOLAND® Resorts. Continue reading to find out our theme park design blueprint for success in four stages.
#1 Insights & strategy
Knowledge is the essential first step in a theme park design project. Many will start with a feasibility report that judges the economics and market potential of a new theme park investment.
The reports provide sound commercial understanding for theme park owners to make a decision on their next steps and level of investment they wish to carry out.
As well as understanding the financial aspect of a new theme park design, it is just as important to analyse the potential guests that will enter once the doors are open.
How old are they? Where do they live? How much do they have to spend? Will they drive to the park? Beyond these demographic and geographic questions, good theme park designs consider the psychographic information of guests - what are their attitudes, interests and values? What is their wish fulfilment from visiting a new theme park?
Once this information has been reviewed, all key stakeholders should come together to create the creative strategy. This stage provides a basis for all to consider the insights and turn these into real activations in the theme park design - ensuring continued, long-term growth and an aligned design approach.
#2 Story design and masterplanning
Ensuring the theme park is authentic and engaging requires story design. In many cases, theme park operators will typically take the world of an IP (intellectual property) to create this story, for example, Disney Parks creating a Frozen land.
While an abundance of inspiration can be taken from the film, book or TV series that the theme park design will be based upon, there is still a requirement to adapt the story for a physical setting.
Typically, a theme park is created at this stage to showcase this adaptation, while providing subsequent design briefs and vendor specifications, required further in the blueprint. Of course, for those theme parks requiring an original story, more creative exploration is required. Characters, their names, their world, how they communicate, their personalities... all need detailed consideration before implementing into a theme park design.
Next is masterplanning - used to ensure from the start that creative concepts and operational flow work seamlessly together. A masterplan can take several forms, but typically a basic layout is created showing zonal areas, rides, queue lines, food and beverage outlets, ammenities and other public spaces.
A masterplan should also include a shortlist of rides and attractions for the theme park, ensuring they meet the insights criteria from phase 1 - the commercials and the guests' favourite experiences. Some masterplans also include throughput analysis. This calculation ensures the park has enough rides and physical space to entertain the required numbers of guests as highlighted in the feasibility report.
At masterplanning stage, some projects also include top-level visualisations to tell the visual story of what the project is attempting to achieve.
#3 Theme park design
This is where the pencil makes contact with paper. Concept visuals are typically sketched designs that fire the imagination of key areas of the park - such as queue line entrances and rides.
To flesh out these designs further, theme park designers underake design development. This technical design process guarantees the initial concept design idea can be brought to reality during the build process. In some cases, 3D and VR is utilised to build a virtual theme park design.
While 3D design provides build and construction vendors with clarity on the project requirements, VR can be used to even showcase simulations of potential rides. This should be an iterative, collaborative and pivotal stage of design.
It is the final chance to check design ideas against budget, the guest requirements and the typical behaviours you expect to see when your theme park opens. But, theme park design does not end there.
#4 Production
After studying the insights, carefully masterplanning and tweaking designs, the last phase is to ensure successful implementation of your ideas. Typically, theme park design companies have equipped project managers whose responsibility is to check every detail, challenge and decision.
Project managers may take responsibility for initially undertaking vendor management and ensuring technical specifications, before a brick, theming, or ride track is laid.
From here, project oversight is crucial. On site art direction ensures challenges around construction are answered in-line with the insights and masterplanning stages. Supervising build and install to ensure exact quality is also of paramount importance.
This production phase is even more important when theme parks decide to license an IP. IPs, with typically third-party owners and stakeholders, require scrupilous attention to detail to assure it meets the brand's and guest's expectations. This phase can continue beyond opening, as iterative design and responding to guests' feedback creates an even better theme park.
World-first theme park design company
As the world's first theme park design company to be awarded B-Corp status, we are striving to use our business and projects as forces for good. B-Corp is a measure of a company's entire social and environmental impact - a certification held by 9,000 global businesses.
All our theme park projects start by ensuring we are putting people first - our clients, our staff and just as important, the guests that walk through the door of the new attraction.
If you'd like to see how we can create a people-first theme park design for you, send our team a message today and we will arrange a chat.
