Amusement park design

Amusement park design is the planning of a park of rides and attractions around a clear guest flow. Mast Parks designs and themes amusement parks, from new builds to the re-theming of existing parks.

Mast Parks offers amusement park design as part of Master Planning, its design service. The master plan is the blueprint of the park: architectural drawings, crowd movement, ride and attraction selection, theming placement and revisions until the client approves it.

This page explains what amusement park design involves, where Mast Parks has done this kind of work and what an owner should settle before starting. It stays at the level of what the work is for. The detailed method is part of Mast Parks' professional practice and is not published here.

See the park type hub: Amusement Parks. Before design, a feasibility study decides which park or concept suits the site. After the master plan, Architectural Designing produces the construction-level drawings.

An amusement park is judged by how its rides, zones and theme fit together. Rides take space, draw queues and have their own safety needs, and they suit different ages and tastes. A park with too many of one kind of ride leaves some guests waiting, and a park with no clear route leaves guests lost.

This is why Mast Parks begins with the guest flow: how guests enter, which zones they meet first, where they queue and where they rest. The feasibility study covers resource availability, similar offerings in the market and the local demand. On guest flow, Mast Parks checks the popularity of each ride, its capacity for throughput and, often, a thematic decision about how the story should unfold through the park.

Guest flow

The route through the park decides which zones a guest meets first, where they queue and where they rest. The master plan draws the entry and exit points, the circulation between zones and the places where families can pause, so that no part of the park becomes a dead end.

Attractions

Mast Parks selects rides together with the client, so that the mix reflects the park's real guests rather than a catalogue. A good amusement park offers rides for different ages and appetites for thrill, so that a visiting family finds something for everyone. Dark rides carry guests through a story, and they need content as well as engineering.

Theming

The master plan decides where the theme appears in each zone, including props and mascots, so that the park reads as one place. At Nicco Park the theme is carried by eight mascots, with a mascot for each zone.

Drawings and revisions

The master plan for an amusement park is drawn as architectural drawings and sketches with exact measurements. The client reviews the plan, asks for changes and sees it revised until it is approved. Nothing moves to the construction-level drawings until the plan is approved.

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. See the project. Dreamasia is an operating park re-themed around its name, with zones representing Asian countries and a dark ride with original content. See the project. Nicco Park has eight zones: seven continent-themed zones and the snow park, with a mascot for each. See the project.

See all amusement park projects.

An owner brings the site, with its survey and any documents about its boundaries and access, together with the budget and the concept agreed in earlier stages. The owner also brings their views on the plan as it develops, since the revisions depend on them.

The owner receives the approved master plan for the amusement park.

Amusement park design is used by private landowners, existing park owners, family businesses, government and tourism bodies, and temples and religious trusts. Some start from land. Some, like the owner of start from an existing business and add a park around it. Some own a park that already runs and want to re-theme it.

The master plan gives the owner a clear answer to these questions before any building starts:

• The mix of rides, and who each ride is for.
• The route from entry to exit, and where guests queue and rest.
• How the zones relate to each other and to the theme.
• Where dark rides sit, and what story they tell.
• Where family areas sit in relation to thrill areas.

An amusement park built ride by ride can become a set of attractions that do not relate to each other. Queues may block paths, family areas may sit next to thrill areas and the theme may appear in some zones and not others. A master plan avoids these problems by drawing the whole park at once.

Rides are chosen for the audience, the space and the theme, not from a catalogue. A park can mix thrill rides, family rides, dark rides and water attractions, and the master plan decides where each sits. Ride selection is its own service, Ride and Attraction Planning, which works from the master plan.

Many amusement parks in India are already open and already earning. For them the question is not how to build, but how to renew. Re-theming can give such a park a new story, new mascots and new merchandise while it keeps running. Mast Parks has done this at Fun World, Dreamasia and Nicco Park.

Owners get more from this service when they arrive with answers, or at least with a view, on the points below. None of them needs to be settled in advance, and Mast Parks can help to settle them.

• How much land is available, and is it one piece?
• What has the feasibility work recommended for the amusement park?
• What is the budget range for the first phase?
• Which attractions matter most to your audience?
• Are you building a new park, or renewing one that already runs?
• Are there features on the site, such as trees, water or slopes, that you want to keep?

• Master plan. The blueprint of the park: where everything goes.
• Guest circulation. How guests move through the park.
• Zoning. Dividing the park into areas for different kinds of attraction, theme or audience.
• Dark ride. A ride that carries guests through a story, usually indoors and in low light.
• Throughput. The number of guests a ride can carry in a given time.

Mast Parks organises its work as 13 services in four stages, listed here in the order a project usually follows. Amusement park design (Master Planning) is shown in bold. An owner can start at any stage, but each stage builds on the one before it.

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

Most owners use several of these services together, and some use the full set from idea to opening. See all 13 on the services page.

Mast Parks works with the owner at each step. The owner approves the work before it moves to the next stage, and revisions are part of the process. The owner knows the site, the region and the ambition. Mast Parks brings experience of designing and delivering parks across eight park types. For an amusement park, the best results come when the two work as one team, with decisions made quickly and in the open.

To start a conversation, use the contact page. Mast Parks will ask about the site, the park you have in mind and where you are in the project.