Saturday, December 10, 2016

Worlds of Fun Busy Clearing Huge Space for New Entrance + Other Changes


In the fall World of Fun announced that a pair of classic flat rides, the new Winterfest event, and a brand new entrance were coming in 2017.  While we haven't seen much work shared on the rides yet, the park is clearing what looks like a gigantic space for their new entrance area.  Check out this video that was embedded on Facebook:


The video shows just how the park is clearing a massive space.  It's hard to tell exactly where this video is showing, but I think this can help:

© Bing Maps
The green box is the park's current (err, former) entrance area.  I believe the Facebook video above was taken from around where the orange dot is, looking out into the larger area in the orange lines.

What's interesting here is that this area is pretty far over from the current entrance, so it appears as though things will move quite a bit next year.  If the new entrance is further back, closer to some of the parking lots, that means more park space will be gained.  Me thinks this expansion isn't just about a new gate; instead I think this will set things up for future changes and additions as well.


This second video was shared by the park on Twitter shows even more open space being created, starting from the bridge out of the park's Orient themed area.  Check this out:

© Bing Maps
The video helps us piece together the total construction area - which is really significant.  The green dot is the video's starting point, the green line the path the person filming walked.  The green rectangle is one part of the old entrance that is still up.  Using the footage from both the entire orange area appears to be totally cleared out - huge!  This is approximate, of course, but even if just mostly correct it's rather enormous.

World of Fun still hasn't released any concept art for the new entrance area, which makes it fun to guess like this about their plans.  The park is doing great keeping us updated on social media, so we will continue to follow the story!


1 comments:

Jennifer said...

For now just main gate. Remember when you are comparing size you are comparing size to what was designed as a back gate, since prior to 1999 Scandinavia was the back gate, and really didn't change a lot when it became the "main" gate. When comparing size consider the area around Steelhawk, which is much larger. Also consider that in the removal of structures prior to land grading that happened, that included the removal of two picnic areas, it is my thoughts that those picnic areas will need to be replaced, possibly in this new area that we are seeing. It is also possible that they are making way for new additions in coming seasons, hopefully one of which is a new coaster as in 2018 it will be 10 years since the addition of Prowler (2009) which IF a new coaster comes in 2018 will match the longest span without a new coaster since the 9 year span between Orient Express and Timberwolf. It heartens me that they are attempting to do this right.