How to build a theme park

To build a theme park, move through four stages in order: concept and planning, design and execution, rides, people and operations, and launch and growth. Each stage depends on the one before it, which is why a park that skips the early stages tends to pay for it later.

This guide explains the four stages, what each one settles and where owners most often go wrong. It stays at the level of what each stage is for. The detailed method behind each stage is part of Mast Parks' professional practice and is not published here.

Stage 1: Concept and planning

Start with the question of what should be built on the site and for whom. A feasibility study looks at the space, the location and the target audience, and determines the most suitable park or concept. Financial planning then tests the return on investment. Concept creation shapes the idea, and theme development turns it into a story, a look and mascots.

Stage 2: Design and execution

Master planning is the blueprint: architectural drawings, crowd movement, ride and attraction selection and where the theming appears. Architectural designing turns the plan into construction-level drawings, and project management keeps the build on plan.

Stage 3: Rides, people and operations

Rides are chosen to fit the theme and the audience. Team hiring and training prepares the staff, and operations planning sets out how the park will run each day.

Stage 4: Launch and growth

Marketing and branding, merchandising and content and events bring guests in and give the park more than one source of income.

Most theme park ideas begin with land or with a wish. Neither is a plan. The land decides what can physically be built, and the audience decides what is worth building. A park that suits the land but not the audience stays empty, and a park the audience wants but the land cannot hold stays on paper.

This is why the feasibility study comes first. It studies the space, the location and the target audience together, and it answers a question that is easier to ask before money is spent than after: should this park be built here, and in what form? If the answer is a different kind of park, the owner has lost nothing but a few weeks. See theme park design for how the answer carries into the plan.

A theme park is a park whose zones, rides, food and merchandise follow one story. Without that story a park is a set of rides, and a guest cannot describe it in a sentence. With it, everything a guest sees, eats and buys says the same thing, and the park becomes memorable.

A theme is an option and not a rule. Mast Parks also builds parks without a theme if the client asks, and the feasibility study and financial planning test whether a theme adds enough to justify its cost. Where it does, the story can come from mythology, nature, a region, a culture or an original idea. See what makes a theme park unique and theme park ideas.

A master plan draws the whole park at once, so that zones, routes, queues, rest areas and the theme relate to each other. Parks built ride by ride tend to have crowded paths, family areas beside thrill areas and a theme that appears in some zones and not in others.

Once the client approves the master plan, architectural designing produces the detailed drawings a contractor builds from, and project management oversees the build so that the park that is built is the park that was drawn. For the logic behind a good layout, see theme park layout and zones and how a theme park is designed.

A park is judged on the day it runs. Rides are selected together with the client so that the mix suits the park's real guests rather than a catalogue. Staff are trained in the park, the theme and the guest, not only the job, and written procedures and safety practices are in place before the gates open.

These steps are often left to the end, when the build is nearly done and the budget is tight. Planning them early protects guests, and it protects the owner, because a park that opens with untrained staff or unwritten procedures can lose its reputation in a season.

Tickets are only one source of income. Food, merchandise, events and, where the master plan includes one, a stay all add to it. Marketing tells the story before the opening and keeps it alive after. Merchandise and events work best when they come from the park's own theme, so they are planned with the theme and not added later. See how theme parks make money and how to market a theme park.

The cost of a park depends on the project and the effort it needs: the park type, the size of the site and the services chosen. It is not a fixed number, and a figure quoted without knowing the site would mislead. Mast Parks scopes each project with the owner, so the owner pays for the work that project needs.

The useful question is not what a park costs in general but what the right park costs for a particular site and audience. The feasibility study and financial planning answer that, before design begins, and they show the owner whether the return justifies the investment.

How long a park takes depends on the project: the size of the site, the park type and the scope of the work. Mast Parks agrees a timeline with each owner at the start, so the owner can plan funding, approvals and the opening around it.

What every owner can do is to settle the early stages first. A decision made in the feasibility study is cheap to change. The same decision made after construction has begun is expensive.

A park needs permissions before it can be built and opened. Several authorities approve each area of safety and land development, including sustainability. The National Building Code of India sets the local laws and standards.

• Buying rides before the master plan is drawn.
• Adding a theme after the park is designed, so that it reads as decoration.
• Skipping the feasibility study because the land is already owned.
• Leaving operations, hiring and training to the last weeks.
• Treating marketing as something to start after the opening.

Each of these is avoidable, and each is avoided by doing the stages in order.

A Mast water park in Rajasthan. An indoor water park with an integrated amusement park, designed to give guests shelter from the heat. Mast Parks handled theming, naming, master planning, architectural design, project management, operations, hiring and training. See the project.

An amusement park project. Mast Parks proposed and designed the amusement park around an existing food park factory, including master planning, architectural drawings, thematic design and attraction design with dark rides, and provided project management consultancy with on-site personnel. One amusement park project.

Fun World. The park was re-themed so its amusement park, water park, aquarium and snow park sit under one theme, with new merchandising options and a dark ride. See the project.

To start from land and an idea, see theme park design or use the contact page.