Särkänniemi: General Discussion

[Alastair]

Only jus realised that no thread exists for this park in Tampere, Finland!

Located on an outcrop of land next to one of the country's largest lakes - this park boasts a very eclectic range of rides - from an ultra rare Intamin suspended coaster (Tornado), a Zamperla Moto Coaster (MotoGee) and the most recently opened Premier Sky Rocket (Hype). It's also home to Näsinneula, Finland's largest freestanding structure which serves as both an observation tower as well as a rotating restaurant!

This year's addition was a strange Zamperla shot and drop tower called "Boom" which slotted in next to their Zamperla Volare rather nicely

My reason for posting this thread is that it has just been announced that the park is removing and selling its Intamin Half-Pipe coaster - apparently due to noise issues given it is located on one edge of the park. It also means that only 2 other models of this coaster remain operating worldwide. I've translated an article from Finland's Yle news below:

Särkänniemi is giving up the Half Pipe, one of the wildest attractions in the amusement park. The device was in use from 2003 to 2019 but is now being dismantled.

"Half Pipe's future has been open for a long time. It is a big and fairly loud device, and when the development plans for the Särkänniemi area are being made, it has become clear that there would be no room at least in the old location between the Superpark building and Koiramäki", says Ville Aarresuo, Särkänniemi Development Director.

The device has been separated from other devices and close to residential areas.It took a long time to move the device to another location within Särkänniemi, but eventually Särkänniemi decided to give up the device. "The utilization rate of the device is unnecessarily low in relation to high maintenance costs," says Aarresuo. "The device should have been serviced more than usual, so it was decided to give it up now. The maintenance would have been more regular maintenance than normal annual maintenance."

In recent years, Särkänniemi has introduced a number of new, ferocious devices. These include BOOM in 2019, Hype in 2017 and X in 2016. There will be no major hardware upgrades in Särkänniemi next summer. Half Pipe is expected to be sold abroad. Of course, the quality and ferocity of the track has been the favorite of many Särkänniemi visitors. In that sense, giving up the device is miserable.Half Pipe will be dismantled between November and December and transferred from Särkänniemi to a warehouse for sale. Sales are handled by an external partner. Half Pipe was used in Särkänniemi for 17 summers. The device is manufactured by Intamin, which also manufactures the Tornado roller coaster.

Will be interesting to see where they manage to sell it to!

No speculation as of yet but I'm assuming that this removal will be in lieu of a major coaster investment in the next couple of years - they are going to have to do something presumably to compete with Taiga and the rumoured Junker extension at PowerPark.