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Six Flags Quiddiya

The only way this gets beaten is if the UAE decide to engage in a coaster war with their neighbours.

Dont see Six Flags (the real one) going anywhere near the scale of this thing given their financial state in America. Disney? Not a chance. Universal? Slightly more chance than Disney but still incredibly doubtful.

I think this is the concorde moment personally. Nobody is taking that height / length record any time soon. The only record that could be topped is the speed.
 
Benjsh said:
The only way this gets beaten is if the UAE decide to engage in a coaster war with their neighbours.

Dont see Six Flags (the real one) going anywhere near the scale of this thing given their financial state in America. Disney? Not a chance. Universal? Slightly more chance than Disney but still incredibly doubtful.

I think this is the concorde moment personally. Nobody is taking that height / length record any time soon. The only record that could be topped is the speed.
Click to expand...

Or they could go for the inversion record? Not that hard when you have unlimited space, no planning laws and unlimited money.
 
Benjsh said:
The only way this gets beaten is if the UAE decide to engage in a coaster war with their neighbours.

Dont see Six Flags (the real one) going anywhere near the scale of this thing given their financial state in America. Disney? Not a chance. Universal? Slightly more chance than Disney but still incredibly doubtful.

I think this is the concorde moment personally. Nobody is taking that height / length record any time soon. The only record that could be topped is the speed.
Click to expand...
Only park I can see taking the height record is Cedar Point, and that's only because Top Thrill 2 would take back the record if Falcons Flight became SBNO.

Been a strange year of so with Kingda Ka closing Red Force became the worlds tallest operating coaster, then with it reopening in May TT2 became the worlds tallest, and now its Falcons Flight.
 
I wonder if we’ll ever see a 200mph coaster.

Cars comfortably exceed 200mph now, so on paper, I don’t see why a coaster launch couldn’t reach 200mph. But in terms of practicality, the only way I can see a 200mph coaster being feasible is if you did an obscenely tall, drawn out equivalent of the Kingda Ka/Red Force layout. Anything else would require a huge amount of length that likely isn’t feasible.

I could potentially see height and speed being beaten, but I think length is a record that Falcon’s Flight is very unlikely to ever lose. Obscene length is a record that has a surprising amount of longevity compared to height and speed (Steel Dragon 2000 is 25 years old, and it’s worth noting that the current 2nd longest coaster in the absence of The Ultimate is The Beast at Kings Island, which opened way back in 1979), likely because it costs a lot more to achieve than height or speed (with height and speed, you can just build a Kingda Ka-style ride and be done with it, whereas length actually requires a substantial ride), and Falcon’s Flight broke the record by such a decisive margin (almost 6,000ft when the existing holder is only 8,133ft long!) that I’m not sure I ever see it being beaten.
 
Also you get fast enough and it's just......fast unless it's immense acceleration. Bit like most of the time going above about 250ft doesn't feel that much higher even when you go much more over. TT2 doesn't feel all of its height higher than Orion.
 
And it's open!!


From: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oDVzL4m7JNg


G88qBY3XIAAzFhf



Live video opening broadcast tomorrow:


From: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSvCxdogrFn/
 
I find it strange that even with the park running rehearsals for the past few weeks, the lack of footage that has appeared online. I even did a search of Falcons Flight in Arabic and it only brought up the same couple of videos. Guess there’s not many coaster enthusiasts over there 😂
 
IDB said:
I find it strange that even with the park running rehearsals for the past few weeks, the lack of footage that has appeared online. I even did a search of Falcons Flight in Arabic and it only brought up the same couple of videos. Guess there’s not many coaster enthusiasts over there 😂
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I imagine the dearth of footage has less to do with a lack of passion for rollercoasters, and more to do with a keen sense of self preservation.

The rest of the post, and my explanation, are hidden behind a spoiler tag. Whilst my post does discuss some of the politics behind being able to film in Qiddiya, making it relevant to the discussion, I appreciate that some people would like to enjoy the hype of the project and not have to think about serious things. I hope that this compromise, given the relevancy of the discussion, is permitted.

Filming a state backed giga project without the express written permission of the Ministry of Media is generally considered a career limiting move in the Kingdom. It is not like wandering down Monks Walk to film Hyperia testing. There are no public footpaths, and the security guards are unlikely to just ask you to delete the footage and move along.

In a country where tweeting the wrong opinion can land you a decades long prison sentence, pointing a telephoto lens at a construction site plagued by reports of poor labour conditions is a risk most locals are smart enough not to take. I must qualify that these reports are for the Qiddiya project as a whole, and not limited to the park.

We must also be precise about what we mean by "visitor" in this context. If you are a local family taking a selfie in front of the Falcon's Flight station? You are probably fine. The Kingdom has relaxed its stance on public photography significantly to encourage tourism.

However, if you are walking around with a GoPro strapped to your chest and a fluffy microphone, narrating your experience for a YouTube channel? You are entering a very different legal territory.

Filming for anything resembling "commercial" use (which a monetised YouTube channel absolutely is) requires a permit from the General Commission for Audiovisual Media. Qiddiya is also not a public area. It is a construction site for a giga project owned by the Public Investment Fund. Under Saudi law, photographing "sensitive locations" or critical infrastructure without explicit authorisation is strictly prohibited. The definition of "sensitive" is famously broad and often applied at the discretion of the security services.

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Then there is the Anti Cyber Crime Law, where producing material that "impinges on public order" is a criminal offence. That sounds vague because it is designed to be.

The vloggers you are seeing posting content right now fall into the category of "The Invited". They are there on press trips, with handlers, knowing exactly what they are allowed to show. The critical distinction is the content itself. Film the coaster working perfectly? Mashallah, wonderful promotion. Film the coaster valleying, a safety restraint failing, or a pile of rubble where a plaza should be? You are now "harming the reputation of the state".

You are seeing footage because the footage is positive. That is survivorship bias. Unless our intrepid enthusiasts have secured a media license, they are quite rightly keeping their cameras in their pockets. Information coming out of Qiddiya is tightly curated because it is designed to be; nothing leaves that site unless the PIF wants it to.
 
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IDB said:
I find it strange that even with the park running rehearsals for the past few weeks, the lack of footage that has appeared online. I even did a search of Falcons Flight in Arabic and it only brought up the same couple of videos. Guess there’s not many coaster enthusiasts over there 😂
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Possible that they have metal detectors etc so no recording on the ride. There’s plenty of people recording on the other coasters.
 
Bowser said:
Possible that they have metal detectors etc so no recording on the ride. There’s plenty of people recording on the other coasters.
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Under the "Rules" section for Falcon's Flight on the Six Flag's Qiddiya website:

"No mobile phones, cameras or video recording equipment"

This appears to be the case for every attraction in the park, unless you have express permission. The people who are visiting now have been "Invited", so they will have been vetted and trusted to film.

In addition to the strict legal bits and bobs I mentioned in my earlier post, the following features on the "Photography & Video" section of the website:
You are welcome to take photos and videos for personal, non-commercial use during your visit, provided such activities do not interfere with the experience of others, disrupt theme operations, or compromise the safety, privacy, and respect for others.

• You are not permitted to take photographs or video footage of others as the main subject of the image without the subject’s consent. Where the proposed subject of such photographs or video footage is a minor or a child, consent must be sought from the relevant adult who is responsible. You shall not proceed with taking any such photographs or video footage where no consent is provided. If an individual is suspected of being in breach of this term, if requested by any member of Six Flags Qiddiya City staff or any other Six Flags Qiddiya City representative (including any security staff), the individual taking the photographs or video footage shall make the relevant image or footage available immediately for inspection in order to verify compliance or non-compliance with these provisions. Any non-compliant images or video footage shall be deleted from the relevant device at the request of the relevant member of Six Flags Qiddiya City's staff.
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It's safe to presume that any vlogger who doesn't have the express permission of Six Flags Qiddiya City is going to be pretty hard hit by the culture shock.

We are used to seeing similar Terms and Conditions on the websites of Merlin, Disney, and Universal. We are also used to seeing them continuously ignored. In the UK or the US, if a vlogger is caught filming for their monetised channel without permission, the worst that usually happens is a polite request to stop, or perhaps an ejection from the park. Security guards in the UK do not have the legal power to confiscate your equipment or force you to unlock your device to inspect your footage.

Note the specific wording in the Qiddiya terms: "the individual taking the photographs or video footage shall make the relevant image or footage available immediately for inspection".

In Saudi Arabia, this isn't a request you can argue with. Security personnel often work with, for and on behalf of the state authorities. If they ask to see your camera roll to verify compliance, you show them your camera roll. Refusal isn't an option unless you fancy a very long, very uncomfortable conversation with the local police, where you could, ultimately, face a penalty including imprisonment for up to one year and a fine. In the UK, if a security guard demands to see your footage, you can quote the law, refuse and likely walk away with a ban but your SD card intact.

The definition of "Non-Commercial" is likely to be applied strictly too. If your YouTube channel has AdSense, or if you have a Patreon, or if you are "building your brand", that is commercial use. The blind eye that Western parks turn to personal vlogs that happen to make money is likely not to be turned here.

The Kingdom is actively courting tourism, so they aren't going to be dragging every family with an iPhone off to a black site. However, the culture of "audit" style vlogging or entitled filming that pervades UK and US parks simply will not fly there.

As I mentioned earlier, Saudi Arabia's Anti-Cyber Crime Law is extremely broad. Article 3, Paragraph 4 explicitly criminalises "invasion of privacy through the misuse of camera-equipped mobile phones and the like".

If a member of the public complains that you filmed them without consent (which vloggers do constantly), or if security decides your filming of a breakdown constitutes "harming public order", the legal framework exists to come down on you like a tonne of bricks.

Western vloggers are used to operating in a grey area where parks tolerate them for free marketing. In Qiddiya, the marketing is state controlled. If you aren't on the approved script, you are a liability.

I suspect the first time a UK vlogger tries to argue "It's a public place, I have a right to film" with a member of the Saudi National Guard, they are going to experience a very sharp, very sudden culture shock.
 
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