EAS 2010 - Interview with Benoît Cornet, CEO of Alterface

During his visit to the Euro Attractions Show 2010 in Rome, NewsParcs had the opportunity to meet the Alterface team, a Belgian company specializing in interactive multimedia systems that implement new communications and entertainment modes which allow users to delve into the information and to interact intuitively with it.

The Alterface's CEO Benoît Cornet, gave us a little time to answer our questions and we talk about the future. And future... Alterface has a lot because the company has big plans for 2011, 3 more precisely, and all located in Europe!
 

The first project will be located at the Futuroscope, France, in place of "La Citadelle du Vertige" experience. It was born of a long creative process that lasted almost 5 years! This will be the "Huitième Continent" (literally, the "Eighth Continent"), a large interactive theater called a "hybrid" because taking over the techniques of augmented reality, and the playful side of video games.

The attraction will be provided with a good projection technique, combined with a panoramic screen 13 meters wide. The film, which is not an animated film, has been developed specifically for this project, but is intended to be distributed in the future. The room will be divided into two parts, two screens will be face to face for 42 people each, totaling 84 people playing in the room at the same time.

Our friends from ParkOtheK have published a comprehensive article on the "Eighth Continent", with lots of details on the future attraction. (in French)

The other two projects will be a real revolution for Alterface that rely on them for its future. There will be two interactive dark rides, very innovative, and for which the company was involved differently.

The first interactive dark ride will be built in Rainbow Magicland, second park of the AlfaPark group, located in Valmonte, Italy, and which will open in spring 2011. For this one, Alterface is responsible for the integration of interactive animations into the set. AlfaPark has not yet revealed details about it, but we have no doubt this will soon be the case!

Benoit Cornet could not reveal the exact location of the second interactive dark ride, but he explained that Alterface will be responsible for all content of the latter, thus exceeding the "simple" integration Magicland!

The company relies heavily on this specific ride, and positions clearly itself in the field of Toy Story Mania (Walt Disney Imagineering), while asserting it will be even better! Despite the embargo about this future great European first, Alterface reveals however it will consist of 42 screens and it will be a pure concept of dark rides "media-based" in which interactivity will be very high among the players and their environment.

In the future, Alterface intends to develop a lot this concept of interactive dark ride "new generation" by incorporating the ability to customize and modify the content to create alternative scenarios! Benoit Cornet thinks there will be convergence between the attractiveness of a video game and the fact that is fun to play several times to learn all alternatives purposes. Briefly, it also states that its purpose is to make excellent quality, without making too "cerebral."

Benoît Cornet highlights the success of its product "TheHouse" (the haunted house that combines a spinning gondola, special effects, 3D animations and interactive displays). The formula has been found and the two copies that have opened in 2009 (at Castle of Chaos, USA) and 2010 (at Tussenfryd, Norway) received positive feedback from visitors. A third "TheHouse" will be built in Europe in 2011, no further details at the moment, but the machine is on!

 The House model (click to enlarge)
Cinema 5Di
 

Regarding his latest product, Cinema 5Di, Alterface currently developing distribution networks and considers itself in a year of transition. The biggest challenge this year was to create the new "Desperados" in 3D. The company now surrounds himself with new partners to expand its catalog of films, which will include 9 titles in 2011.

On the EAS booth, "Desperados 3D" drew crowds and has conquered them! We loved it! (Click to enlarge)

On its booth, Benoît Cornet also presented this beautiful interactive theater "Mission Ocean", a project conducted on behalf of Compagnie des Alpes at the Bioscope (France) in 2008.

Maquette de Mission Océan (cliquez pour agrandir)

Finally, he told us that the website of the company will be rebuilt soon, and that he is always looking for engineers specialized in programming, and content integration. This information should involve more than one, so the future looks bright for Alterface!

We will return soon on future developments, projects and news of this great company!

Alterface's team, with Benoît Cornet on the left, poses in front of the Cinema 5Di (click to enlarge)
Interview by François Mayné and Sébastien Ganzer. 
Thank you to Olivier Vincent, Alterface's Content & Communication Manager, for his help.

EAS 2010 - Maurer Söhne: innovations and new markets!

During our visit to the Euro Attractions Show, we have visited the booth of the German roller coasters manufacturer Maurer Söhne. This company has literally invested in the market since the early 2000s with original attractions and quality, especially with its products "S-Coaster Spinning Coaster" (Winja's at Phantasialand, Tarantula at Parque de Atracciones Madrid) and "X -Car Coaster" (G Force at Drayton Manor, Formule X at Drievliet Amusement Park).

Maurer Söhne at the EAS 2010 in Roma (click to enlarge)

 
We have talked to several persons in charge with whom we discussed existing and future achievements of the company, in Europe and worldwide.

2010, and opening up new markets 

Maurer Söhne is very active in new markets, these countries are beginning to develop a range of theme parks increasingly important, and that investors are now very attractive to manufacturers.The company is very proud of the double Launched Coaster (LSM) conducted on behalf of Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, UAE. Named Fiorano GT Challenge, the attraction will offer, from 27 October, to visitors to experience a ride on Ferrari cars, simulating accelerations (3 total) and braking over a distance of 1,000 meters. The X-Car trains (3x4 passengers) are lifelike replicas of Ferrari F430 Spider. And as they see it big there, each passenger will receive a pair of glasses before the ride!

Fiorano GT Challenge's train model  (with a different car design) (click to enlarge)

Besides this major project in the UAE, Maurer Söhne has announced this year having built a X-Car Coaster similar to G Force (Drayton Manor, UK) in Iraq, a country undergoing reconstruction!

Finally, this is on the side of the giant Chinese that the company is watching, as much as 3 projects are underway in this country. This year, a standard SkyLoop (model XT-150) will open at Knight Valley in the province of Shenzhen. This roller coaster ride, designed on the basis of X-Car Coaster has a run in a loop with a vertical lift, a reversal and an inversion (Sky Loop) to 46 meters in height.

SkyLoop (XT-150) model (click to enlarge)

 
In 2011, a "XL 100" X-Car Coaster (similar to Formula X at Drievliet) will also be open at Knight Valley, while another SkyLoop XT-150 (called Mystery of Clouds) will be built at World Joyland, a park located in the Wujin District.

2011 Innovations

Maurer Söhne has presented three new "product concepts" in its booth:

X-Car FlyingLaunch: the first GreenCoaster© concept 

The small German Bayern Park has created a surprise by announcing the purchase of an X-Car FlyingLaunch custom built, whose layout includes an inverted top hat, a figure never seen at Maurer Söhne.

The FlyingLaunch will use its linear synchronous motor as both drive and brakes. Its means the possibility of sending passengers into another run without slowdown or stopping. With common roller coasters, all of the energy not consumed by friction is finally lost in the brakes. But Maurer's new technology is able to recover 50% of the expended energy and store it in super capacitors, only to use it again in the next start. This ingenious system will be a world first, and will make the Flying launch probably the greenest launch coaster available on the market.

Model of the world first X-Car FlyingLaunch of Bayern Park, the GreenCoaster© concept (click to enlarge)
LEDs wheel

What caught the attention of all who passed on the booth, is this coaster wheel in which LEDs have been embedded. In keeping with the green spirit, the electric power needed to operate these LEDs is supplied by the wheel itself, which acts as a generator during friction with the rail. This innovation could make its appearance at Bayern Park ... but it's not confirmed yet!

LEDs are embedded on the right one (click to enlarge)

The X-Train

Until now, trains of X-Car Coaster consisted of one or two cars of 3 rows of 2 seats, not to mention the version to 3 cars with 2 rows of 2 seats on Fiorano GT Challenge.

Maurer Söhne now offers a large train consisting of rows of 4 seats, up to 9 total (for 36 people). The central seats are advanced compared with those at the extremities which are floorless, giving their passengers more thrills!

Of course, this train still proposes a beautifully executed design and an incredible comfort thanks to lapbars specifically designed by Maurer.



A X-train model (with 6 rows, for 24 passengers) (click ton enlarge)

Rainbow MagicLand

Maurer Söhne is also very pleased to have been chosen by the Italian group AlfaPark to build two roller coaster at Rainbow Magicland, their second theme park which will open next spring in Valmonte, Italy.

The first coaster is undoubtedly the future symbol of the park. It is an X-Car Launch Coaster, custom built, which is themed on "energy", trains symbolizing a sudden discharge of energy. This will once again a magnetic launch that will reach 95 km / h in 2.5 seconds.

The coaster will be composed, over a length of 750 meters, of a huge camelback, the "Not Inverted Loop", several curves, helix, and an Heartline Roll. The run lasts about 80 seconds to a maximum flow of 1,000 people per hour.




  Pictures from EAS tour, last 8th of October (click to enlarge) 

The second is a custom built indoor Spinning Coaster (model Xtended SC-3000) that Maurer Söhne qualifies as its "most aggressive spinning" The reasons, although the interior theme is not yet defined, are that AlfaPark wants to do something very dark, chaotic and disorienting. The boarding station is in hight, the track has two lifts (a little above the station, and a bigger one at the end), a horseshoe inclined at 80°, a 50° first drop, is 17 meters high and a have a very short passage to the outside, to enable future visitors to see what lurks inside the building.

Like all of the Maurer Spinning Coasters, each car includes a brake within the structure to limit rotation so they do not become too intense. There will be a total of 7 vehicles, 4 on the track and 3 at the station for a theoretical flow of 850 persons per hour.

Pictures from EAS tour, last 8th of October (click to enlarge)
During the construction site tour held on October 8, NewsParcs had the opportunity to see the ride in action, what we have immortalized on video.

Two other projects in Europe for 2011

Furthermore Bayern Park and Rainbow MagicLand, the orders book of Maurer Söhne has grown from two other European projects for next year.

The first will be a custom built Spinning Coaster for Bobbejaanland in Belgium, property of Parque Reunidos.

The second, a standard Sky Loop XT-150, will be built at Linnanmäki in Finland, and named Ukko

According to what we see, we are sure that Maurer Söhne will still impress us in the future!