At a presentation from Lawrence Mancey (Marketing and Technology Director) and Gary Johnson (Head of Park Operations) at this weekend’s ‘Theme Park Super Fan Day’, Paultons Park have announced details for their upcoming projects across the next two years.
Solar Car Ports
At the beginning of 2025, the park plan to cover two of their car parks, both the staff and disabled car parks, with solar-panelled car ports. As part of the development, a battery storage system is also set to be installed. This will allow any excess energy generated during the day to be utilized overnight, a period that currently accounts for 30% of the park’s energy usage.
The solar panels across these two car parks are set to generate sufficient power to allow the park to power the entirety of Tornado Springs from in-house renewable energy, with an expected annual energy generation of 455MWh, resulting in total annual carbon savings of 65 Tonnes CO2e/year.
The installation of the car ports is planned to have no impact on the layout, or capacity, of the car parks.
Telecommunications Mast
Elsewhere in the car parks, a 30m tall telecommunications mast will seek to combat the park’s current weak mobile phone signal. The mast is set to supply both 5g and 4g signal to the local area, including the park itself. Being built by FreshWave, the mast is set to begin operating sometime in 2025, initially with Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone.
Ghostly Manor
At the beginning of the 2024 season, mysterious signs appeared around the site of the former 4D cinema at the park. Warning guests not to enter, the signage features images of ghosts as well as a blaster, warning that ‘spectre apprehension is in operation’, seemingly hinting towards the addition of a shooting attraction. Also at the beginning of the year, a trade mark was filed for Ghostly Manor, with it seeming likely to be the name of the new attraction.
Initial details have now been revealed, confirming that Ghostly Manor is indeed an interactive dark ride coming to the site of the former 4D cinema. Billed as an immersive indoor attraction, the ride is set to follow renowned ghost hunter Dr. Kinley. Whilst Dr. Kinley is away on a quest, we have been invited to explore his manor, inside which we can enjoy a unique exhibition of Apparitions and Haunted Artefacts. Of course, all does not go to plan. During our visit, many of the ghosts in Dr. Kinley’s exhibition escape, and our help is urgently required to recapture them. Armed with a Phantom Phaser, we must shoot the ghosts lurking throughout the manor in order to recapture them. However, we must also look out for Ohjee, the most fearsome ghost in the manor!
During the presentation, we were introduced to the character of Dr. Kinley, a grey-haired, moustached adventurer in a brown leather jacket. The graphics shown suggested that the media during the ride will be 3D computer animation.
Lawrence Mancey noted that this attraction is an extremely exciting project for the park, ‘something we haven’t done before, but something that we are going to try and do the best we can on’.
The ride system is a turntable with 5 sections and 5 ride carriages. Each ride carriage will sit 8 people back to back, with 4 on each side. The vehicles will spin and twist into a variety of different scenes, with the scenes themselves being a variety of physical sets and screens. In the presentation, two concepts for these scenes were shared with what appeared to be a physical set of a greenhouse, alongside a digital screen-based library scene. In the screen-based portions of the ride, the screens themselves are set to be 10 metres wide, with the ride vehicles bringing guests very close to them, allowing for a high level of immersion.
From the plans shown, the attraction appears to be a Mack Gameplay Theater, though further details are set to be revealed at IAAPA in September. Mack describe the Gameplay Theater as providing competitive gameplay with high capacity. The vehicles provide back-to-back seating but move along a sound-absorbing wall, allowing each side of the vehicle to be immersed in two different scenes. Each segment of the ride features a physical set on the inside of the vehicle and a screen-based scene on the outside, with each movement of the car spinning the vehicle into a different scene to provide varying gameplay. Each ride cycle features two rotations with a total of ten different sets experienced. The system allows for a long ride time, high capacity and the smallest possible footprint.
As is traditional in an interactive attraction, the aim of the ride is to accumulate the highest score, which will be viewable at the end of the ride.
Details were also released of the planned external appearance of the attraction, with the existing Show Street area of the park receiving a large-scale overhaul. The street is set to be partially closed in order to create a new themed area. The roadways in the area will change in order to allow guests to enter the attraction through a themed, landscaped, garden pathway. The building’s façade is set to resemble a grand manor inspired by the original Paultons Manor that occupied the site before burning down in 1963.
The project is currently aiming to install the ride system at the end of 2024, ready for testing and commissioning in time for a May 2025 opening date.
During the event, the stripped interior of the former 4D cinema was visible, as the site prepares for its transformation into Ghostly Manor. As we departed the park, very eerie music was being played from the site, suggesting that this attraction could be quite scary!
A website has been launched for updates, and a first listen to the attraction’s eerie audio, at www.ghostlymanor.co.uk.
Vikings 2026
The final reveal at the presentation was a teaser animation for what we can expect to see at the park in 2026. The video features Vikings working at a furnace in order to forge the Paultons Park logo out of metal and ends with an image of a Viking head and ‘2026’. It would appear safe to assume that we can expect to see a new Viking-themed area joining the park’s line-up in that year.
During a Q&A session following the presentation, Lawrence noted that as there were no plans to remove either Peppa Pig World, Tornado Springs or Lost Kingdom, it could likely be inferred where the new area was set to go. Given that we’ve also seen applications filed for the lawful development of the land currently housing Cobra and the Edge, and the land adjacent to it, it’s highly likely that this will be the area to receive this new land. Paultons Park also have a history of incorporating existing attractions into new themed areas whilst adding new attractions, with Critter Creek and Tornado Springs both re-theming adjacent attractions when new attractions were added to the area. With that in mind, we could see a re-theme of Cobra and The Edge alongside any new attractions in this area.
Although we do not yet have any indication of what new attractions could be coming to the area, it’s notable that the teaser clip does show the Paultons Park logo turning upside-down. A possible hint that this project could feature the first inversion at Paultons Park. Though it was stated that no further information regarding the 2026 project would be revealed during the Q&A session when asked if there were any plans for a thrill coaster, ‘maybe’ was the response. Meanwhile, when asked about the level of thrill the park was willing to incorporate the response was that ‘the park will change a lot in the next 5 to 10 years, we will have to wait and see’, suggesting that we could possibly see something thrilling coming to this new area.
