#themed experiences

Your feet creep along the foreboding cobblestone floor of a mysterious temple. The last remains of sunlight dance across pictures etched into the temple’s stone walls. Judging by the scenes depicted on its walls, this forbidden temple isn’t a forgiving place. 

Seeing that dozens of other adventurers bravely board huge transport vehicles doesn’t ease your nerves. As your jeep spits and sputters out of the loading station, you see something from the corner of your eye. An ominous picture of a large statue with its eyes covered by a bandana. Folklore, or a warning sign? 

The thought is jerked from your head as your vehicle makes a swift turn into a passage way with three possible exits. You gulp as your vehicle is mysteriously drawn to the door that’s strangely illuminated by an unseen source. 

WOOSH... the massive doors fly open, and you find yourself surrounded by huge murals depicting scenes of tremendous wealth. Their awe-inspiring power distracts you from the ominous statue, the same one we just saw, watching us. This one doesn’t have covered eyes. Maybe you weren’t supposed to look at it. A thunderous supernatural rumble shakes your soul. Then, an otherworldly voice boasts - “Foolish infidels. You looked into my eyes. Now your path lead to the gates of doom.” 

No matter how many people try to safely navigate The Temple Of The Forbidden Eye, something goes wrong. It always does. 

                  A much, much younger Roby and the man with the hat. 

For a place that bills itself as The Happiest Place On Earth, Disneyland features a surprising amount of attractions that have danger, peril and death as a centerpiece of the storytelling. Indiana Jones, Haunted Mansion and Pirates are the first that comes to mind. Yet, look in Fantasyland where Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride goes as far as KILLING YOU AND SENDING YOU TO HELL. 

Peril for the sake of pleasure is an experience that plays out in theme parks all over the world. While each of these experiences uses different characters, technology and special effects, more often than not they all use the same storyline to drive our journey. 

Something goes wrong (we’ll use SGW in this post) is a narrative that acts as a way for guests/riders to experience a thrilling situation that they wouldn’t normally get themselves into. We don’t WANT to face perilous situations in our lives, yet when we visit them parks, we WANT to scream our lungs off as we drop 13 stories. 

Who among us would purposefully set foot in a run down elevator prone to being taken over by supernatural forces? Anyone? 

SGW lets attraction designers play off this reality by creating stories and settings that don’t invite us into danger, then use forces outside of our control to throw us into chaos. You see this narrative being played out in almost every thrill attraction past and present. 

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey - Starts as a casual visit to Hogwarts until SGW , allowing Dementors to pursue us during our journey. 

Expedition Everest - Your mining train zips through the Forbidden Mountain until SGW and the train plummets backwards and you eventually come face-to-face with the illusive Yeti. 

Earthquake - Starts as a normal everyday ride on the San Francisco BART until... well, you can probably figure it out. 

Attraction writers, producers and designers are constantly dreaming up new ways to thrill us. Technology allows us to hang people over IMAX screens and whip guests around on giant robotic arms. Theming, design and special effects help designers immerse us in realism. So, why do these thrills repeatedly use the SGW storyline? 

My guess is audience familiarity. 

Modern immersive attractions borrow their storytelling devices from movies. Remember, the first Imagineers were filmmakers. They created linear story through scripts and storyboards.

SGW mirrors the modern film structure. In film terminology, characters deal with an ‘Inciting Incident’, a major event that spins their life in a new and unexpected direction. 

In ‘Batman Begins’ - Bruce Wayne’s parents are murdered. In ‘WALL-E’ - EVE lands on Earth. SGW thrusts riders into a new and unexpected situation. Sure, we expect thrills on attractions with height restrictions and health warnings. SGW allows designers a way into thrills that’s familiar to today’s audiences. 

Also, SGW allows theme parks to create a cohesive theme that isn’t completely geared towards thrills. The exterior queues of thrill attractions barely hint at what awaits. This deliberate choice allows for harmony between lands, as well as storytelling. Could you have a gruesome alien-covered queue for Alien Encounter (R.I.P.) just steps away from serene Main Street U.S.A. ? 

SGW is the storytelling shift that lets attraction designers plant thrills alongside cute and cuddly. It’s how we can get people to voluntarily experience an encounter with a T-1000 killing machine moments after having our picture taken with a lovable Minion. 

You can’t argue with the success of the SGW storytelling angle. But, just like any other popular Hollywood story, repeating the same note invites redundancy and boredom.  

There is a purity to experiencing a film for the first time. The excitement of watching something unexpected unfold. Does a second, third or fourth viewing of your favorite offer the same kind of thrills? Probably not. You know the boulder is coming and you know when the shark jumps out of the water.

Theme park attractions are not built for the first experience, but for the 9th, 10th or 100th repeat ride. The SGW storyline can significantly wear down the freshness of the experience. The original Star Tours attraction faced this problem. From 1987 to 2010, millions of visitors made the trip to Endor. Yet, every single one of them was greeted by Captain Rex who was STILL making his first flight aboard the Starspeeder 3000. Experiencing this same scenario for over 15 years got to be tiresome. 

Repeatability is key to keeping an attraction running. If nobody finds the attraction compelling, its closed (See: Back To The Future). For attractions with SGW story lines, we’re telling stories that can become worn or ignored due to repeat performance. 

Now, we EXPECT things to go wrong in our thrill attractions. As attractions become more immersive, perhaps we should create equally engaging story lines. 

We can start to find alternatives to SGW by looking to older attractions. This particular one with 999 happy haunts comes to mind. 

                                Brotherly love meets the afterlife. 

The Haunted Mansion has a narrative template that can be used to great effect on any thrill ride. You could make a case for the stretching portraits room to be the SGW. Yet, can something go wrong in a place that wasn’t right to begin with? 

Part of the appeal of Haunted Mansion lies in that we know that things aren’t right going in. Even the name itself perfectly sets the expectations. Haunted Mansion. We’d never enter a haunted house, but enter this one willingly. We want spooks, and there’s a strange appeal of knowing what you’re getting into. From an overall visual appeal, every Haunted Mansion has an air of charm and decadence, completely tying into the rest of the park. It wouldn’t look that out of place when viewed from Main Street U.S.A., would it? 

Nothing goes wrong in the Haunted Mansion because nothing is ‘right’ to begin with. It works. Haunted Mansion has more of a suggested narrative than a beginning/middle/end storyline. It’s “nothing is right model” is something that can be replicated in almost any attraction. 

Instead of SGW, perhaps we need to set our attraction stories in places that aren’t right. Embrace the chaos instead of manufacturing it. Maybe it’s necessary for attraction design to step back from the film model of attraction storytelling and embrace non-linear narratives that still deliver thrills? 

As long as we’re embracing new technology, let’s embrace new storylines for immersive themed attractions. Put guests in the middle of the danger right away. Set up the thrills before people even enter the queue, then pay off what they’re expecting to happen. No need for a twist.