3/20/2023 0 Comments Planet coaster mr bones wild rideRather than rush right into the park to start riding rides, Enchanted Forest directs everyone (or, at least, about 90-95% of guests based on my casual observations) to begin with the Storybook Lane walk-through, the park’s original attraction. It’s quite clear from signage and the flow of the pathway which way to go… The first thing that makes Enchanted Forest quite unlike other theme parks hits you as soon as you walk in. I arrived a few minutes after opening and already there was a queue to buy tickets. Perhaps Enchanted Forest, a park that’s quite literally green everywhere, could be a better model for sustainable themed entertainment in the next century? These aren’t the elements that are typically prognosticated for the “future of theme parks”, but maybe they should be part of that conversation? Currently, what’s usually meant by “boundary pushing” seems inevitably linked to “more expensive” and thus “more exclusive”, which is clearly not sustainable in the long run. Or the fact the park has found a sustainable business model still charging just $13.50 for park admission in 2019, proving that a detailed and lovingly crafted theme park needn’t be a $100+ luxury reserved only for those who can afford to live near a major metropolitan area. There’s the business structure, being in the care of a single family since its opening, allowing for a close-knit owner-designer-operator model that virtually no other modern American theme park has been able to emulate much beyond the 1980’s. But perhaps more importantly, there’s the deep integration with the natural landscaping and topography, allowing the trees and hills to create some of the most fully-immersive themed environments ever experienced. There’s even innovations in attraction technology, be it the world’s first water-coaster hybrid, a trackless dark ride debuting eight years before a park in Florida or California would ever open one, or an enclosed capsule roller coaster that, 36 years later, is still a totally one-of-a-kind design. There’s the hidden interactives discovered throughout the park, many of which are novel to a theme park context. There’s the entry sequence, foregoing a typical “Main Street” setup with concentrated shops and amenities in favor of a 20+ minute semi-linear storybook walk-though experience. There’s the collection of themed lands based on popular tropes like European fantasy or the American west, several main rides and attractions modeled after successful predecessors from southern California, and the typical assortment of live entertainment, dining, and retail to round out the program.īut then there’s those boundary pushing aspects that it seems everyone outside of Oregon forgot to take notice of. Unlike many other amusement parks its size, Enchanted Forest is thoroughly rooted in the modern theme park tradition. Yes, a lot of the “theme park” fundamentals are all here in Enchanted Forest. Far more radical, I might argue, is a place like Enchanted Forest near Salem, Oregon, which has spent nearly 50 years quietly pushing on the boundaries of the theme park format in ways that nobody really expected, or, for that matter, was even paying attention to. While I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment, such big-budget types of themed experiences always seem to push at the boundaries in the direction that everyone expects them to be pushed. The same week I was in Oregon, Disneyland was getting ready to debut a new themed experience that was heralded for its potential to redefine what a theme park could be in terms of interactivity, “immersiveness”, and sheer scale.
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