Amusement park

An amusement park is a location that typically features rides, games, food, and various forms of entertain for guests, such as shows, interactive displays, and character meet-and-greets. Common features of amusement parks include roller coasters, water rides, bumper cars, Ferris wheels, drop towers, and games that test players’ aiming or throwing abilities. Many amusement park attractions are also common in carnivals or fairs. While carnivals or fairs change locations and only operate in one place for short periods of time, amusement parks are built in fixed locations. They can operate year-round or seasonally.

Some amusement parks are based on entertainment franchises or existing concepts, such as space travel or the old American west. These are called theme parks. Some amusement parks are focused on educating guests about a particular topic. Other amusement parks try to provide the largest, fastest, most intense rides possible, and they are often in direct competition with other parks to break records.

History

Predecessors of amusement parks included carnivals, fairs, and pleasure gardens. Carnivals and fairs often featured games that visitors could play. Pleasure gardens focused more on providing visitors with appealing and entertaining displays. They typically included performances, animals, and fireworks.

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were noted as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Technology took great strides during this time period, opening up new possibilities for industry and entertainment. The first world’s fair was held in the mid-nineteenth century to showcase new technological developments. Additional world’s fairs followed in subsequent years. Since they were designed both to show off impressive creations and entertain the public, many inventions took the form of rides. The original Ferris wheel debuted in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The popularity of these fairs and expositions led to the development of amusement parks that used similar attractions.

The end of the nineteenth century saw the debut of Steeplechase Park at New York’s Coney Island. Ohio’s Cedar Point, which had been a tourist destination since the mid-nineteenth century, unveiled its first roller coaster during the same time period. These developments paved the way for the first modern amusement parks to spread across the United States in the early twentieth century. Amusement parks enjoyed popularity and growth until the Great Depression struck in the late 1920s.

The parks did not begin to recover until World War II concluded in 1945. After the war, theme parks became a popular variant of amusement parks. Santa Claus Land is often credited as the first theme park. It opened in 1946 in the town of Santa Claus, Indiana.

Famous animator and film producer Walt Disney forever changed the theme park industry in 1955. Disney was already a household name due to the many films and animated shorts his studio had been producing for decades. In 1955, Disney unveiled Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The park was based on many of the worlds, characters, and creations seen in Disney films, appealing to guests’ fondness for those films. A second park, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, was opened in 1965.

Busch Gardens opened in Tampa, Florida, in 1959, emphasizing animals and nature, with several live exhibits combined with rides that used animal imagery. Its developers would go on to open SeaWorld in 1964. SeaWorld’s primary focus was displaying aquatic animals, featuring them in shows full of tricks and stunts. Six Flags opened its first theme park in 1961. It was located in Arlington, Texas, and featured rides, attractions, and imagery based on Texas. Over the years, Six Flags opened more parks across the United States, each featuring a different theme.

Overview

Amusement parks contain a variety of rides and attractions. One of the most prominent is the roller coaster. Roller coasters have been included in amusement parks since the late nineteenth century. They are often some of the largest, most intense attractions at their respective parks. Early roller coasters ran on wooden tracks. Though many wooden roller coasters remain in operation—such as Michigan’s Adventure’s Shivering Timbers—steel roller coasters have become far more popular. Common features of roller coasters include drops, loops, and tunnels. Cedar Point and Six Flags Magic Mountain in California are two of the world’s most roller coaster-heavy parks. Both feature a wide variety of roller coasters that hold or have held world records for speed, height, and other categories.

Circular rides are also called flat rides. They often involve spinning, and may combine that with raising, lowering, or inverting the rider. Common examples such as the Tilt-a-Whirl, Matterhorn, and Scrambler, can be found at most amusement parks.

Transportation rides are typically slower and less thrilling than other types of rides. The primary purpose of these attractions is to allow riders to easily move across the park. However, they may be intended to provide a more interesting experience than typical public transportation. These rides include trains, chair lifts, or sky rides.

Dark rides take place at indoor sites. They are most common at theme parks and seek to thrill riders with special effects and atmosphere rather than movement alone. Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean are examples of dark rides.

Simulator rides use screens or projected images in conjunction with moving seats. This can create the illusion that the rider is moving through a variety of settings without needing to use extensive space or set design. Examples include Disney’s Star Tours, Universal’s Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, and Universal’s Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts.

Other common amusement park attractions include shooting galleries, fireworks displays, stage shows, trained animal performances, parades, and light shows. Most amusement parks charge a single fee for admission, at which point a guest has access to most attractions inside. Some amusement parks charge extra for particular attractions, and others charge extra for shorter wait times or "fast passes," where customers can buy specific passes or badges so they can avoid overly long wait times.

Water-based amusement parks, or water parks, provide patrons with pools, lazy rivers, water slides, and water-based attractions. Often, areas have age or ability restrictions, depending on the customer's swimming capabilities, and lifeguards patrol the park to ensure patron safety. Many of these parks are seasonal, opening around the end of May and closing at the end of August in the United States. The first water park was Wet 'n Wild in Orlando, Florida, but many soon followed. The United States has around one thousand water parks, the most of any country in the world. Many water parks, like other amusement parks, are also themed, like Disney's River Country, which is themed as a rustic swimming hole.

Some amusement parks use captive animals for entertainment or education, and this has resulted in controversy. Many animal rights activists argue that amusement parks do not provide adequate facilities for their animals, and that their use of animals is exploitative. Supporters of live animal exhibits in amusement parks argue that they raise awareness and educate the general public about the creatures, which helps increase public support for their protection. SeaWorld in particular came under fire for its treatment of captive killer whales after the release of the documentary film Blackfish (2013). According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Blackfish caused SeaWorld to thoroughly reevaluate their practices and put new policies into place in order to promote the protection and betterment of animals as well as the education of its patrons.

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