Located in Bottrop, Movie Park began life in 1996 as Warner Bros Movie World and was later bought by Six Flags. When Six Flags pulled out of Europe in 2004, selling this and its other parks to Palamon Capital Partners/StarParks, the Warner Bros licence disappeared.

Movie Park is the now the one remaining property owned by StarParks, having disposed of the various Walibi parks last year. “I guess StarPark would be a little more accurate,” jokes CEO Bill Muirhead, who came to Europe from the States with Six Flags and hasn’t returned yet. With no other parks in the group – for the time being – he’s been able to throw his full weight behind the Movie Park fight back alongside Andreas Stickel, the recently-departed general manager, and Wouter Dekkers, now acting general manager.

“This park had somewhat of a sordid reputation,” believes Muirhead. “Early on it was promised to be the Universal Studios of Europe and it didn’t become that, certainly not, and then Six Flags came in and just did what Six Flags does best, which is add wooden rollercoasters and drop rides and bring in a cheap season pass programme. That completely changed the image of the park, and we let the quality of the experience drop to a point where we lost our families and suffered an attendance decline.”

The two new areas added this season, Nickland and Santa Monica Pier, are deliberately and very obviously family-focused. Nickland replaces part of the park’s old Wonderland area and is the first Nickelodeon-themed area in Europe. StarParks has an exclusively dea with ‘Nick’ licence holder Viacom covering a 250km radius of Movie Park which, among other things, shields it from other large venues including Holiday Park, Europa-Park and closest rival Phantasialand.

As with existing Nickelodeon lands in Australia and the States, Nickland at Movie Park features a Suspended Family Coaster from Vekoma as one its key attractions, but this is the first to be supplied with new bucket-style seating.

Jimmy Neutron’s Atomic Flyer is 294-metres in length with a maximum height of 15-metres and was supplied by Vekoma on a base frame. A single 16-seater train is used, travelling at speeds of up to 47km/h and completing the very smooth ride experience in just under a minute.

Lap bars instead of shoulder restraints mean passengers as short as 95cm can ride – an important requirement in an area of the park that is pitched at the younger guest. “It’s kind of like ‘my first coaster’,” notes Dekkers, “it’s been very well received.”

But before guests reach the Atomic Flyer, they must first dodge the water cannons being fired from riders on SpongeBob Splash Bash, the latest Splash Battle from 3DBA/Preston & Barbieri, and arguably the best-themed yet.

Muirhead had a hand in realising the very first Splash Battle at Walibi World in Holland two years ago and was keen to bring the concept to Germany. “It was such a success with families in Holland,” he recalls. “Add to that the fact that we were also looking for water at this park, it made perfect sense.”

Marrying it with SpongeBob SquarePants and his undersea adventures seemed too good an opportunity to miss. “Almost anyone can imagine Splash Battle with the SpongeBob look, it was almost a no-brainer!”

Using eight 4-seater boats themed as New York taxi cabs, the ride accommodates 720 passengers an hour. A surfeit of theming throughout the 500 square metre pool means riders never quite know what’s around the corner, just that they are going to get wet.

Interaction between riders and spectators is at an all time high. There are a total of 28 water cannons in the ride – four per boat, seven around the outside, plus six interactive objects and 11 fountains or sprays.

Other attractions in Nickland, most of which have been rethemed and repatriated from other parts of the park, include Nick Racers, a set of Formula K go-karts; Teenage Robot Roundabout, a Zamperla Crazy Bus; Backyardigans Hip Hopper, a mini Zamperla tower ride; Dora’s Adventure Express, a train ride; and Danny Phantom Ghost Zone, a Mack tea cup ride now undercover and in the dark.

Fresh and fun

Muirhead likes Nickelodeon because its output is fresh and quirky. “It is a very good children’s brand and unlike Warner Bros is quite new. There’s nothing wrong with Looney Tunes, but they really haven’t kept up with the times. Nickelodeon is very strong in Holland, pretty good in Belgium, not so much yet in Germany, but they’ve just purchased two TV stations and are putting a lot of time and money into raising their profile here. The fact is that we are on the same mission; we are both trying to build our brand equity.”

As well as extending an olive branch to families, the new licence has also succeeded in bringing them back over the border from Holland, where the park shed over 80,000 guests in recent years.

“This past holiday, Queen’s Day, we did almost 8,000 people. More than half came from Holland. The weather’s been perfect but the early season attendance tracking is showing exactly what we want – we are getting a lot more families, and we are penetrating that Dutch market. So far, so good, but it’s real early in the game!”

Together the two new areas have upped overall park capacity. In Santa Monica Pier this has been achieved by replacing a single rollercoaster, Cop Car Chase, with five new attractions around a lake.

Chasing the cops out of town wasn’t a difficult decision to make: “We would spend on average €300,000 a year on repair and maintenance on that ride and this year [inspection body] TÜV came to us and said if you don’t replace the loop and about 300ft of track we are not going to let you open it,” explains Muirhead. “So I thought about the amount of money, I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t have to do the same again in the future, and said ‘screw it, tear the damn thing down’.”

The ride, an old dual track coaster by Intamin, has now been scrapped for steel. Removing it opens up a section of the park that was previously a dead end. Now guests can flow through freely and the lake has become something of a focal point, with many taking time out to dwell there.

“We found out from out from or research that people really wanted water in the park, particularly when it was hot, and we’ve had one or two hot summers now here in Germany,” highlights Muirhead. “The theme we didn’t actually do a lot of research on, it came from our internal discussions, we said ‘let’s do a boardwalk, a nice USA-style open area.’ If you saw the first day we opened it, everyone just kind of dispersed through there; so we’ve added that water element that people really enjoy and we filled it with a bunch of rides that the whole family can do together.”

One of the main attractions, spanning the full length of the pier, is Crazy Surf, a Disk ‘O’ Coaster from Zamperla, with Stormy Cruise, a Rockin’ Tug from the same manufacturer, positioned on the end. To the side of the pier, guests can get close to the water, and maybe even a little splashed, on Pier Patrol, a jet-ski ride from Zierer. There’s also a Zamperla fire engine ride and a wooden playground for the kids. The new area has even been extended to take in the park’s existing Wave Swinger.

“When you think of a boardwalk, it’s all about the classic rides,” notes Muirhead – although one rather obvious classic was missing at Movie Park until now. “It’s amazing that this park never had a Ferris Wheel; what park doesn’t have Ferris Wheel?”

The Santa Monica Wheel, a 20-metre 16-car construction finished in white, was ordered from the SBF/Visa Group in Italy, and offers panoramic views of the new surroundings.

There’s still scope to add to the area too. Something with a little more height may be added to the end of pier next season and the lake has potential to be used for a stunt show. Lighting packages have been added to many of the new rides and the pier is expected to come into its own this summer when the park stays open until 11 at night, as it did for the opening of Santa Monica on May 18.

Night-time offer

“Right now we are kicking people out at 6 ‘o’ clock, that’s the way the German guys have always done it,” says Muirhead. “Last Halloween we said we’d stay open and change to the parade until the last hour, and you know what? Everyone waited for that parade. I really think we’ve got something very different to Phantasialand or anyone else around here with that night-time offer.”

The speed and budget with which Santa Monica Pier was constructed (the decision was made only in November and the rides ordered December) meant there was no chance of incorporating any intellectual properties into this particular part of the park. Yet Muirhead is convinced an “IP-based experience” is what guests want, and after having come to terms with loosing the Warner Bros brand, he feels the park is now in a stronger position.

“First of all it was tough decision, what do we do? Marry ourselves to one brand? We decided not to do that. I wanted the opportunity to play around with different themes, and the risk there is that you do not get the support of the licence holders, but Fox was very supportive of us the with Ice Age attraction, Viacom were ok about coming in and working with us too, and now we are working on another attraction with MGM.”

The park has already leaked news of a planned Stargate-branded experience, but Muirhead refuses to be drawn on a timescale. The next big investment, he says, could yet turn out to be an overhaul of the Gremlins building that lies in the middle of the park but has stood redundant since that particular licence agreement ended. “Either way it will be a movie-based audiovisual dark ride kind of experience. We know that at the very least we are going to have something very special here in 2008.”

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