Theme Park Build, by Steve Alcorn, is a fun book for anyone interested in how a theme parks work and all the people involved.
The author was a engineer at Epcot during its construction, working on the American Adventure attraction and has his own theme park attraction design company so he knows what he's talking about.
The book does not get very technical at all so it does not require an engineering degree to read. He basically lists off all the people involved in designing and building an attraction and tells us what they do. We even get to follow along in the designing of a hypothetical attraction.
While I wish there was a little more detail into the design process, this book gives you a basic understanding of attraction design, all the people involved, an how their jobs are all intertwined.
All together a must read for anyone interested in learning some behind the scenes information about theme parks.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported news that Universal Studios will be adding the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to their Hollywood park. It is to be a replica of the Orlando park at Universal's Islands of Adventure. This is very exciting news for those of us who cannot make the trip to Florida to see the current Wizarding World but are Harry Potter fans! It's nice to see Universal Studios expanding and making changes to keep interest in their parks.
The question that comes with this news is....what does this mean for the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim? Will this be a gauntlet thrown at the feet of Team Anaheim to continue the improvement of the Disneyland Resort as we have already seen, maybe with our own expansion of Fantasyland, refurbishement of Toontown, addition of E-ticket rides to Frontierland and/or Tomorrowland. Or maybe Team Anaheim will imagine bigger things for those of us that have supported the park where it all began and give us a third gate. Something that has been long rumored with Disney slowly acquiring land around the current resort property. This could be the one thing needed to finally push this idea to fruition. We have seen a lot of investment in the Anaheim property in the last few years, and the improvements were sorely needed, but hopefully they won't stop there.
