Angry Birds Land hoped to become Tampere amusement park’s new hit attraction
There is apparently no end to journalists' appetite for Angry Birds.
No less than 1,700 media outlets around the globe have already written about what can be seen from the Näsinneula observation tower in Tampere, Finland.
At the foot of the tower, in the Särkänniemi Amusement Park, there is a small area housing a gigantic wooden climbing frame surrounded by smaller familiar amusement park rides and attractions. What combines all of them is Finland’s latest export craze: green pigs and furious psychotic avians.
The launch of the world’s first official Angry Birds Land will take place on Saturday of next week, when the amusement park opens its doors for the summer season.
For now, Särkänniemi still wants to keep its avian wonderland as a secret, which means that the attraction must not be photographed up close before next week’s official launch.
There has been a lot of interest towards Angry Birds Land. In the coming weeks dozens of media folks from around the world are expected to visit Tampere.
The builders are already in a hurry. The area should be totally ready by June 8th.
“We are working in three shifts. Almost day and night”, says Särkänniemi managing director Miikka Seppälä.
“For example today (Wednesday) we were supposed to lay stamped concrete [dyed concrete cast in place and
stamped with different moulds to impress patterns on the surface] on some of the area, but the weather did not permit this”, Seppälä says.
They laying of such concrete would have required dry weather and a minimum temperature of +5 degrees Celsius around the clock.
In recent days there has been sleet coming down in Tampere and the night-time temperatures have dropped below freezing.
“Every morning and throughout each day we have had to change our minute-by-minute schedules because of the weather.”
The February announcement by Särkänniemi and the games developer Rovio of the coming Angry Birds Land attraction took many people by surprise.
Seppälä says that this is a million-euro investment, which will pay itself back to the Tampere taxpayers.
“Last summer we had 500,000 visitors. I believe that this will add another 100,000 to that figure. “
To give way to the suicidal avians, an old ghost-train ride had to be demolished, but this attraction was more or less past by its use-by-date anyway.
So what can we expect?
“It is not just one ride or adventure attraction, but an entire park inside of a park for the whole family. There will be physical, visual, and virtual attractions there”, Seppälä explains.
What distinguishes the Angry Birds Land from many traditional amusement park attractions is that the adventure course is not powered by electricity. One has to use his own muscles.
The park guest himself is the angry bird.
Seppälä also envisions that in the near future the Särkänniemi Angry Birds attraction would have totally unique features, unavailable anywhere else.