How to start a theme park in India

To start a theme park in India, answer the hardest questions first: what suits the site, whether the numbers work, how the park will stand out and who will run it. Each has a service that answers it, and the order matters.

This guide takes the four challenges in turn. It stays at the level of what each one is for. The detailed method is part of Mast Parks' professional practice and is not published here.

A site does not decide itself what it should become. A feasibility study studies the space, the location and the target audience, then determines the most suitable park or concept for the area.

This is the question owners most often skip, because the land is already theirs and the idea is already in their head. But the idea and the land may not fit each other, and the audience may want something else. A study that says so early is worth more than a design that says so late. See theme park design company in India for what follows.

A park is a large investment. Financial planning analyses pocket size, investment and potential returns, with the focus on return on investment (ROI), before design begins.

Owners are often told that a theme park pays back slowly. Whether that is true of a particular park depends on the park, the site and the market, and it cannot be answered in general. What an owner can do is test the plan before committing to it. Mast Parks treats financial planning as a gate: if the numbers do not work, the plan changes before a drawing is made.

A park with no clear idea is easy to forget. Concept creation and theme development give the park one story, one look and its mascots.

A story also gives the park something competitors cannot easily copy. A competitor can buy the same rides. It cannot have the same story. When the theme runs through the food, the merchandise and the staff, guests can describe the park in a sentence, and that is what they tell their friends.

A park is judged on the day it runs. Team hiring and training and operations planning set the staff, the procedures and the safety practices before the gates open.

New owners often put these last. The result is a park that is beautiful and poorly run. Planning operations alongside design means that the park is built to be run: the staff areas are where they are needed, the routes work for crowds and safety is part of the layout and not a late fix.

Owners get more from the first conversation when they bring a few things: where the land is and how much there is, whether it is owned, leased or still to be bought, a rough idea of the budget range and a first idea of the park they have in mind. None of these needs to be final. Mast Parks can help to settle them.

New clients most often face three challenges. First, understanding the right budget, one that gives a timely return on the investment. Second, deciding which offering will make the park attractive to guests across generations, with a safe product. Third, financial planning that answers questions about right-sizing, pricing and execution, to a quality that lasts over time.

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.

The early stages are the ones owners can control. A clear feasibility study and a clear plan make the later stages faster and cheaper, because fewer decisions are reopened.

Not every site suits every park. The site decides what can be built and how large, and the audience decides what is worth building. That is why the feasibility study looks at the space, the location and the target audience together.

Owners who come to Mast Parks arrive from different starting points. Some own land and want to use it. Some run a business and want to add a park. Some have seen a park abroad and want to bring the idea to India. The starting points differ, but the four challenges above are the same for all of them, because they are the questions every park has to answer before it is built.

Answering them in order protects the owner. The site answer shapes the numbers. The numbers shape the concept. The concept shapes the operations. If the order is reversed, the owner often finds that an expensive decision has to be undone.

India has parks of many kinds, and a new park enters a market where guests already have choices. A park that looks like the others competes on price and on novelty, and both fade. A park with a clear theme competes on identity, which lasts longer.

Identity is not decoration. It is a decision about who the park is for, what a guest should feel and what the park will never do. Once those decisions are made, they guide every later choice, from the rides to the food to the staff uniform. See theme park design company in India for how Mast Parks turns the decision into a plan.

Every owner has a budget, and every budget is tested. The places where a new park should protect its spending are the ones guests and regulators notice first: guest safety, the quality of the first impression and the training of the people who meet guests. A park can economise on a great deal else and recover. A park that fails on safety or on the first impression is slow to recover.

• Safety practices are planned with the layout, not added after it.
• The entrance and the first zone set the guest's opinion of the whole park.
• Staff training is finished before the opening, not during it.

Mast Parks organises its work as 13 services in four stages, in the order a project usually follows. For starting a theme park in India, they apply as follows.

• Concept and Planning. Feasibility Studies, Financial Planning, Concept Creation and Theme Development.
• Design and Execution. Master Planning, Architectural Designing and Project Management Consultancy.
• Rides, People and Operations. Ride and Attraction Planning, Team Hiring and Training and Operations Planning.
• Launch and Growth. Marketing and Branding, Merchandising and Content and Events.

An owner can start at any stage. See all 13 on the services page.

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.

FEC Ahmedabad. A themed FEC with go-karting. Mast Parks delivered all services from scratch. See the project.

To start with the feasibility question for your own site, see theme park design or use the contact page.