Are we at the end of the Silver Age of Roller Coasters?

^Just used the term since it is used in other concepts but, there have been two ages of unparrelled growth in the industry, that doesnt mean there wasnt any new inovation in the times inbetween also here my timeline:

1920s-Golden Age of Coasters
1930s/40s-Dark ages, mulitple parks close
1950s-1989-The industry experiences a rebirth with the theme park, one price admission, steel coaster concepts
1989-????-Silver Age of Coasters, Magnum XL ushers in the coaster wars, B&M takes off with the invert, GCI and CCI (and its successors) introduce some amazing wooden coasters.

Present Day-The start of a peroid of slow decline?

The Depression was responsible for a lot of this. Arson is very right in saying that if a chain wants to switch from the "minor" list to the "major" list, now is the time to do it.

I'm not seeing the decline either. If anything, I think CF will be a blessing to the Paramount Parks. Finally, King's Island will be run by someone who is in the amusement business as opposed to some movie company who wants to base rides off of crappy movies. I can see CF keeping Nickelodeon license while not renewing the license to keep the Paramount lackluster movie themes around.

Six Flags going down the tubes is nothing new either. Seems like they've been digging a financial grave since nearly the beginning.

Also, I see a lot of amusement parks focusing on water parks to complement their ride line-ups.

Touchdown, it's not quite that simple to break things down into all good and all bad periods as in your timeline above.

The Depression did result in the closing of many parks, but I wouldn't generalize and say that nobody was interested in going to parks during WWII. It's not like nobody was allowed to laugh, smile, or have fun because we were at war. On the contrary, many young people took the attitude of "let's live because we don't know how long we have."

Some nice little rides came about in those decades--off the top of my head, Idlewild's Rollo, Williams Grove's Cyclone, Hershey's Comet, and the Rocket, aka Phoenix were all built during the 30s and 40s. I'm sure there's a number of others.

What you call the rebirth period (1950-89) also marked the closing of many parks (Euclid Beach, Riverview, for example) and the loss of many coasters.

I'd say there was a decline there for several reasons-the birth and development of TV is a big one. Actually, it seems anytime there's a "new big thing" in entertainment such as movies, radio, or TV, the park industry suffers.

Migration from the cities to the suburbs and the advancement of the automobile and highways killed many trolley and urban parks since people no longer used public transportation, and the city parks had no place to park thousands of cars. Of course, most cities in the NE and midwest had their own problems with blight, race riots, and loss of population and business during the 60s. Many of the coasters built in the 20s were demolished during the 60s, 70s and 80s. But on the bright side, all those highways and cars led to the development of the regional parks we have today.

Maybe it's just a thinning of the ranks, or survival of the fittest. Parks must either compete or find their own niche. That's why some big parks are struggling, and other small parks are going along just fine. The ones that found ways to adapt and just be what they are-- large or small-- find ways to survive. It's sad to hear of any park closing. That's why it's important to support how ever many we can with our business and also to turn other people on to them as well.

Actually parks like Kennywood and Coney Island Cincy did very well in the WW2 Era.

The Sixties is more what killed it with vietnam, peace/love and drugs. Who needs a coaster when your on acid?

I said before that woodies would make a strong comeback.

Guess I was right.
Chuck

I can tell you this, General Electric has any individual company they own, up for sale at anytime. GE owns NBC which owns Vivendi and Universal.

However, it's not going to be sold at a loss if they even sell it.
IMHO Universal FL is in danger of going nowhere.

Disney could buy Universal. ;)

So ABC would buy NBC? :)

^^Sweet, I bet they announce it they will also announce an expansion of the monorail not only to AK and MGM but to Universal as well :).

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Charles Nungester said:
Who needs a coaster when your on acid?

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That's the best time. ;)

Alot of people who shouldn't have been in the "theme park" business in the first place, and honestly could care less about them, are getting out and trying to unload their parks.

The larger parks are just tired of shelling out $20 million-plus a ride when a ride at half that cost can just as easliy thrill families and coaster fans alike. Thus, a wooden coaster/flatride/dark ride boom is upon us.

Coasters remain an important part of the amusement business. Just look at a park like Beech Bend, and how proud they are of their new GCI. And they should be, it's awesome, and more satisfying than KK and TTD put together IMO.

Definitely. Rumbler rules! Here's to the small parks like BB, Rye, IB and Lake Winnie.

I'm looking forward to Ravine Flyer II. See you at Waldameer in 2008.

Rumbler is cool, but I wouldn't go as far to say it's more satisfying than KK. I wasn't scared of Rumbler like I was with KK, and Rumbler obviously doesn't hit 128mph in less than four seconds. Rumbler just reminded me of an updated Roar (nothing wrong with that). Both my riding partner and I agreed though that KR could lead to bigger things for Beech Bend the way Raven did for Holiday World.

Hopefully, they'll bring in enough money to make a better sign and logo one year, because I think it'll improve their image. I showed it to a non-enthusiast and she thought is was something a third grader (or less) could've designed. On the positive note, the map they hand out is singlehandedly one of the best I've seen. At first I thought it was busy, but then on second look you see that they have a picture of every ride in the exact place it is in the park.

One of the things you have to remember about World War II is that materials weren't available because it was all going towards the war effort. Imagine a world if you can before 84 Lumber, Home Depot, and Lowes, and cheap imported wood and steel (and other parts). In "The American Rollercoaster" by Scott Rutherford, there are several pictures of servicemen riding coasters and walking the midways.

YMMV, but I was too busy bracing myself from the rough shuffling of KK to be scared. Rumbler oftered something KK just couldn't. A smooth ride with great pops of air, unresticting lab bars and most importantly, *reliability*.

All at a seashell of the cost.

^Unrestricting lap bars? Apparently you haven't read my other thread where I talk about how I despise a good majority of lapbars due to them falling down on me during rides. I like GCI's (I've ridden four--two w/PTCs and now two w/MFs), but I absolutely can't stand the Millennium Flyer Trains lapbars since they have a tendancy to lower and then they dig into my stomach the rest of the ride. If I weighed more--lets say 20 pounds over what is considered overweight, I think I would get more enjoyment out of them. But, I'm not to going to get fat to enjoy a roller coster train.

Eringobraugh said- I don't buy in to the concept of there even being a Silver Age, or Gold, Platinum, Bronze, or Pewter.

Where have you been? If you haven’t seen a huge transformation for roller coasters or the thrill park industry in general, then you haven’t been paying attention.

The number of tracked attractions built in this country has nearly doubled over the past 15 years. Ten years years ago the tallest roller coaster was 200 something feet. Now they are 450 feet reaching speeds over 100 mph! Now wooden coasters are over 200 feet. Hypers, stand-ups and inverted coasters were just introduced to the scene some 15 years ago. Ten years ago there were no flying coasters, no Intanim launchers, no drop coasters, no floorless coasters, no B&M hypers, no modern day woodies, no dueling coasters, no crazy X ride at Magic Mountain, no Everest at Animal Kingdom, no Islands of Adventure. Lift-hills have even been shown to be unnecessary. I tell people if they have not been to a thrill park in ten years, then they have not been to a thrill park.

A booming economy at the end of the 90’s touched it off. The advent of new technologies took coaster engineering to unimaginable extremes. Then every park in the country built a new coaster for them selves near the turn of the century. The coaster wars between parks has never been hotter then it was in the past decade. Six Flag’s crazy expansion sent coaster construction through the roof, only building coaster to improve parks; probably the last time a company will carry that philosophy to such extremes. B&M met every the demand for new steel coasters, building several simultaneous coasters in a single season. Custom Coasters International was building low cost amazing coasters at an insane pace, until they went bankrupt. A unique convergence of historic factors to say the least, and you don’t have to wait until 2020 to get that perspective.

I too feel we’ve reached the end of a roller coaster era. Six Flags has pretty much announced the end of their roller coaster pursuits marking the end of the coaster wars. We are in a economic slow down, and companies like Paramount and Six Flags are dumping their parks anticipating lower park attendance. Most of the big parks have their own hyper now, or signature coaster. Intanim Strata-launchers were ahead of their time, marking an over-reach of technology. Engineers and amusement parks are now taking a step back from risky new technologies. It has also been increasingly evident to parks that the high-octain thrill rides discourage families, so a refocusing on family attractions is seen as a better way to increase park attendance.

No, it’s not the end of coasters, just the end of the largest period of expansion for thrill rides in history. Six Flags put in their last coaster expansion for a while with Tatsu, Goliath, and Goliath. We'll continue to see the token two or three new cool coasters each summer, but nothing as significant as what we've seen the past ten years. Hopefully companies will not over-react to the slowdown by dumping their parks. Things will pick up again in a decade or so. Then coasters will start to look really crazy. *** Edited 6/26/2006 6:39:10 PM UTC by rc-madness***

You can only advance so much so fast before a recession. Look at everything that has happened in the past 20 years in coaster history. I'm pleased with that and content with the attractions we have now. *** Edited 6/26/2006 2:17:30 PM UTC by DorneyDante***

A recession? NO..How about a "Market Correction".

Simply put, in the last ten years, TOO MANY coasters were built. There I said it! Moreover, many of the WRONG coasters were built. Regardless whether *I* like it or not, all these coasters werent needed. Seriously, take SFA for example: Did the market here really *scream* for a coaster the caliber of S:ROS or the complexity of Batwing? On an average day, neither coaster has much more than a half hour wait. The park, IMO, could have done quite nicely for itself with much less high profile attractions. I think that the new SF management is noticing that.

As for coaster building, I *still* think that coasters are being built at a faster than needed pace. I think that most parks need not be on anything quicker than a 3yr plan..and many could get away with 5yrs...adding other attractions in the meanwhile.

Honestly, I think some parks are oversaturated with coasters. Take CP for example. Do they really *need* another coaster so soon? I mean 7 years 4 coasters (only one for the youngsters/faint of heart) and another on the way. SFGAm, 5 years, four coasters. It's been too much especially when you consider that PKI hasnt put in but one coaster six years...and that's a "family" ride. Tells me that you dont need to have 15 coasters to have a good park.

Now the smaller places perhaps, like HW, need to add coasters sheerly for capcity reasons. Their attendance is expolding so they just need stuff to dilute the crowds. But SFGAm and CP likely arent ever going to attract significantly more people than they do now (unless there is a sudden midwest migration in the works ;)) so they dont really need the coasters for capacityu purposes. Yes, they need to entice people back to the parks, but that necessarily mean a coaster? Methinks not.

I've ranted enough, jeremy

Your dead on once again Jeremy. ;)