CAVU Designwerks, an attractions provider that specialises in delivering media-based attractions to the themed entertainment industry, announced the opening of ‘Beautiful Hunan’, a Flying Theatre in Changsha, China in October 2018. The Flying Theatre is a ‘turn-key’ attraction delivered to the Macrolink Group as part of the Tongguan Kiln International Cultural and Tourism Centre. It is its leading attraction.
During the 6-minute journey, “Beautiful Hunan” allows guests to visit the most important historical sites in China’s Hunan province including the Wulingyuan (Avatar) mountains, historic Yueyang Tower and Mao Zedong’s house, among others.
“The combination of a smooth, silent and responsive ride system syncing with media that weaves spectacular live action flying imagery with very active visual effects sequences, and an immersive state of the art projection and audio system, creates a new level of audience engagement and suspension of disbelief” says Arish Fyzee, Creative Director at PRANA Studios.
“After being involved in many Flying Theatre Projects all over the Globe I am happy to say that this CAVU Flying Theatre Attraction is the most incredible we have been involved with as the High End AV and Screen Supplier” Said Manfred Meier, CEO Kraftwerk Living Technologies. “Highest Quality executed in the shortest period of time – many thanks to the entire Project Team”.
The attraction was completed on budget and opened ahead of schedule, in time for China’s National Day Golden Week. Over 20,000 people came and rode the “Beautiful Hunan” during the 7-day national holiday. The media, created by Prana Studios, is nominated for a VES Award in “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project” category.
In addition to the classic “fly-over” experience, we have seen an increasing demand to create adventure-based experiences or IP-based experiences. A 6 Degrees of Freedom flying theatre system, such as CAVU’s, has the versatility to create a wide range of experiences from a family-friendly flying excursion to a fast-paced action-packed adventure.
A versatile flying theatre system also makes the attraction highly marketable and provides owners and operators with a high return on investment. Owners and operators have the opportunity to provide a fresh, brand-new experience to their guests, simply by investing in a new movie and ride re-programming, at a fraction of the cost of building an entire new attraction.
The modular system used in “Beautiful Hunan” provides a building block system where the client can choose the number of modules offering flexibility to meet budget and building constraints.
As technology advances, increases in media resolution, better contrast and brightness, and a much wider, richer palette of colours creates an even more immersive and powerful storytelling machine.
Article first appeared in Park World.