It is all in the way parks choose new rides. The managers don't get round a table and say "Next Year lets build an Intamin Hyper" but will instead come up with requirements of there coaster, "A visually appealling, tall coaster consentrating on felling of flight and airtime." They will then get various manufactures to bid for the ride contract.
Let's look at Heide Park's Collossus. The park askes for the tallest wooden coaster in the World in 1999. They write a brief and give the location for the ride to go. They get variou companyies to make bids. RCCA bidded as did Intamin. Intamin got the contract because they offered the 197' coaster with the new track style at a price the park thought was reasonible.
In many cases when it comes to bidding Vekoma have undercut other manufactures in terms of priceand so many parks more strapped for cash will buy Dutch. That is why Disney have built many rides with Vekoma as they are cheap and will get the job done. In some cases it doesn't work like this and instead of the bids a park has the idea and goes to manufacturer with it (eg, Alton Towers with Air) or clones a ride from another park in the chain.
Wilko
-----------------
JawCoasters - Site for UK Coasters
www.jawcoasters.co.uk
-----------------
The below statement is true.
The above statement is false.
I would imagine so, but many rides of theirs despite getting painful later in life have been proven and are quick to install.
Wilko
-----------------
JawCoasters - Site for UK Coasters
www.jawcoasters.co.uk
If you look at Vekoma's history, for years they supplied reasonably reliable coasters to more or less standard designs. Prices were competitive, but not cheap. Standard designs allowed them to deliver a known product on a short time scale. Their products weren't enthusiast's fovorites, in part due to the cloning, but were reasonably popular with the public. Designs were compact which is an advantage for parks.
This combination made them the number one manufacturer of coasters in the world during the boom years. This was in part a function of high capacity for manufacturing coasters due to standardization which reduced the engineering hours required.
Vekoma has been hurting recently because their engineering hasn't been up to the challenge of some of their new ride designs, and the decrease in demand has left them with excess manufacturing capacity. Also, the head banging on many of their designs has caused them to not remain popular with the public in the long term.
You have no idea, Jubliee Oddessy is built in Linconshire the flatest county of England
''That's in the windy hills of England''
'On top of that, the ride has one train with 20 passengers which is obviously VERY low capacity''
Ya know I have NEVER had to queue for this coaster, I've NEVER seen the train go out even near to full even in the paek of the summer season. This is because it costs £4 a time and you cannot buy wristbands which means there are no repeat riders. The coaster is one of my favorites in England and in my opinion is better the Pepsi Max Big One, with much more noticable G-Forces. It is only beaten in thrilling terms by Nemesis and ion fun terms by Megafobia.
and a very plain and boring station with next to no theming at all.
This is not Vekomas fault but cheap poorly themed Fantasy Islands fault!
I'm sorry to be so nasty but nearly everything you said in regard to Jubliee Oddessy was false, their other ride at the park, the Millenium Rollercoaster is good also, some say its very boring but whatever you believe its totally smooth, has some high G-forces on the Helix and uses next to no space.
Sam Waldock said:
The coaster is one of my favorites in England and in my opinion is better the Pepsi Max Big One.
What isn't!
-----------------
JawCoasters - Site for UK Coasters
www.jawcoasters.co.uk
Vekoma's main problem right now is that they were too successful in the eighties and nineties. If you think about it, their bread-and-butter models have been the Boomerang, the SLC, and the roller skater, and right now, pretty much every park that needs one (or two or three) of those coasters already has one. This is probably the same reason why CCI slowed down in recent years (before they closed down)... they sold to basically every park that they could have sold to at the time.
Vekoma has never been about custom designs as much as they have been about production model coasters, and since the market is pretty much saturated with their production model rides, their isn't such a demand. Hence the fact that they aren't selling as many rides as they used to.
Is Vekoma a bad company? Hell no. While enthusiasts might not appreciate some of their rides for their headbanging tendancies, I don't think that there are many parks who are unhappy with their work (well, maybe Six Flags as of late). Many, MANY parks have two, three, four or more Vekoma COASTERS, and probably many more Vekoma RIDES. Ask Morey's Piers, Wild Adventures, or the former owners of Kentucky Kingdom about Vekoma, and I'm sure they will speak highly of their work.
And on a final note: To those who are under the impression that Vekoma has "lousy" designers, look at the Boomerang. After two DECADES, the ride is still being produced. How many steel coaster designs do you know of with that kind of staying power? Definitely not SFGAm's Shockwave, thats for sure!
You must be logged in to post