Are newer rides maintaining greater appeal over time compared to older rides?

Hi guys. The new year is upon us (happy 2022, everybody!), and as the new year is ushered in, rides around the world are getting another year older. And to be truthful, the ages certain rides are hitting… scares me a little. The Smiler, a ride I remember riding in its opening year? 9 years old! The Swarm, a ride I remember feeling incredibly cutting edge and modern when I first rode it? Hitting double digits this year, at 10 years old!


But that’s besides the point. The new year being upon us got me thinking; when I first got into theme parks, rides of certain ages seemed old, yet rides that are the same age now still seem pretty new to me. For instance, I remember that one of the first projects I discovered was the RMC conversion of Medusa at Six Flags Mexico, which was midway through construction when I first found out about it. Medusa was 13 years old when it closed, and at the time, I thought of 13 years old as pretty old, and it seemed as though many 13 year old rides simply weren’t living up to what’s popular today.


But now? The rides that are currently 13 years old are rides that opened in 2009; I always think of 2009 rides as being fairly new! There are many rides of that sort of age range that are still ranking pretty highly, and even through the sphere of woodies, I can’t think of a single 2009 woodie that I would think of as being ripe for removal in the way Medusa was in 2013. As a wooden coaster case study, Troy at Toverland is turning 15 this year (2 years older than Medusa was when it shut) and is still one of the most highly regarded woodies in Europe; no one’s getting their chainsaws out to remove or RMC that one any time soon!


I could think of tons of case studies to fit this argument. Gwazi was 16 years old when it was removed, and many thought its removal was a long time coming. But the wooden rides that are 16 years old now are things like Voyage and El Toro, which both still rank comfortably among the top woodies in the world in polls! Corkscrew at Alton Towers was 28 years old when it closed, and at the time, I gather that it was thought of as pretty terrible; rough and generally not very exciting. But now? The Alton Towers coaster hitting 28 in 2022 is the almighty Nemesis, a ride that most still love and consider among their favourite UK coasters, if not their favourite; I can sense that no one will be thrusting the bulldozer upon Nemesis any time soon, in spite of the fact that Corkscrew, which was in many ways equally iconic, met its end at the same age. And while I know Nemesis is a pretty unique case, I can think of similarly aged rides that are still really, really well liked in a similar way.


Before I ramble too much, my point is; is innovation in quality slowing in the industry? Are rides seeming to age less quickly, and are they maintaining greater longevity? Or do you think that’s just my own perception?


From my perspective, I do think innovation in quality seems to be slowing, as it seems like newer rides are staying highly rated and relevant for longer than the rides that came before them, and more rides that are now getting on a bit age-wise are still ranking really highly compared to a few years ago, but what are your thoughts?

Matt N said:

when I first got into theme parks, rides of certain ages seemed old, yet rides that are the same age now still seem pretty new to me.

But now? The rides that are currently 13 years old are rides that opened in 2009; I always think of 2009 rides as being fairly new!

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Welcome to aging Matt.

I turned 43 last week, trying to get my brain to agree with my body that I'm older than about 23 is am impossibility. Your perception of time and age only gets more broken. I can tell you the month a record was out of the mid 90s, I can't tell you the decade it was out after the mid 2000s.

Within the last few years we've had the first woodie in a couple of decades, a UK first ride type in Blackpool, a UK first flying theatre, and in planning a new hight record for the UK, I find it hard to agree that the UK industry lacks inovation or development. Modern rides undoubtably last longer as a whole, but there will always be the Slammers of this world.

pluk said:

Within the last few years we've had the first woodie in a couple of decades, a UK first ride type in Blackpool, a UK first flying theatre, and in planning a new hight record for the UK, I find it hard to agree that the UK industry lacks inovation or development. Modern rides undoubtably last longer as a whole, but there will always be the Slammers of this world.

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In hindsight, I’ll admit that “innovation” was perhaps a poor choice of word on my part, as that’s not quite what I meant.

I won’t deny that we’re still seeing a fair amount of innovation in the industry, because I agree with you in thinking that we are. The industry is far from stagnant for sure; even within the last few years, I feel like there’s been a fair amount of progression and change!

However, my point was more that in recent years, the quantum leap in quality between the rides being built at the start of the decade and rides being built at the end of the decade seems to have decreased a fair amount in recent years. The general paradigm arguably isn’t shifting at quite the same rate that it was a couple of decades ago.

If you look back a bit, many rides from the 1980s seemed tragically dated by the 1990s from what I can tell, and by the 2000s, some of those 1990s rides were beginning to seem dated and up for removal or change. But now, in the 2020s, the vast majority of 2010s rides, even those from the start of the decade, are still hitting pretty hard ratings-wise and staying relevant, and even rides that are 20 years old are still seeming incredibly relevant. Rides seem to be lasting longer, and I’d argue that there seems to be less rides that are “aging like sour milk”, and more rides that are “aging like a fine wine”.

While I won’t deny that every era will naturally have its outliers (for instance, a select few classic coasters from the older eras have stayed really highly rated and had long lifespans, and your aforementioned example of Slammer from the 2000s, as well as something like G Force at Drayton Manor, did not age especially well and got removed quickly), it does seem to me like rides are staying relevant for longer. Ride lifespans seem to be getting longer, and things such as like-for-like retracks have substantially grown in popularity in recent years as an alternative to ride removal. There seem to be far more highly rated and popular older rides now than there were a few years ago, so in that regard, the rate of paradigm shift in terms of what people enjoy seems to be slowing a fair amount, from my perspective.

I apologise for the slightly long-winded response to your post, but do you get where I’m coming from?

I was also completely confused by the topic of this thread. I guess what your asking is "why do rides built in the last 20 years seem to be far out-living older rides"?

I think it comes down to 2 major changes in the industry:
- Computer Aided Design
- Guest expectations of mid-size parks

If you look back to the 90s for Steel Coasters and the 00s for Wooden Coasters you'll notice a really major shift in how rides were designed. Before the 90s companies like Arror and Vekoma dominated the roller coaster market. They relied on a simple track design and pre-calculated elements. They were good rides for the time but didn't age well. By the 90s everything had changed, with B&M and Intamin introducing radically new ride designs, aided by computers and advanced track bending. These were rides built to last.
Similar with the Wooden Coasters. GCI and The Gravity Group gave us the modern wooden coaster. Before then a wooden coaster would be designed as a rough profile and it would be up to the skill of a local carpenter as to how good the ride would be. Now wooden Coasters are as precisely designed and repaired as their steel counterparts.
Computer Aided Design's also made custom or cloned rides more affordable which ties neatly into the second point...

What we expect of Theme Parks has changed. Up until the 90s most parks weren't Theme Parks, but Static Fairs. Most the rides were off-the-shelf traveling rides and not expected to remain in place for more than 10 years. The ride line-up actually benefited from staying fresh and switching rides between other parks.
But peoples expectations changed (I'd explain why but this post is long enough already) and well themed "headline" rides became the new goal. But to invest so much on one ride it had to be something that would last, which is probably why manufacturers like B&M and Intamin (whose new rides offered just that) became the market leaders.
It's worth noting that some of Disney's roller Coasters were built over 40 years ago and are still around because they were building rides to last right from the start. See also dedicated owners that have been piece-by-piece re-building old Wodden Coasters for 100 years.

I’ve altered the topic title to something that is (hopefully) less confusing…

In terms of your point about guest expectations of midsize parks @Tim; that’s an interesting point, and one I hadn’t thought of. I guess that would play a role in some cases, such as in the Corkscrew vs Nemesis case.