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Villa Volta
Villa Volta is an attraction in the amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands. It is a rare type of ride known as a madhouse, a variation of a haunted house, where the visitors get the illusion that either the building, the visitors themselves or both are turned upside down. It has been designed by Ton van de Ven and was built by Vekoma in 1996. At the time it was the first of its sort; nowadays the concept has been taken over by a number of other amusement parks. Characteristics When entering the house, there are two small waiting areas where a story is told about the house getting cursed, turning it upside down ever since. The story of Villa Volta is based on the legend of the buckriders, a fierce and merciless gang of robbers that was active in the Kempen in the Dutch provinces of North Brabant (where The Efteling is located) and Limburg and the bordering Belgian provinces of Brabant and Limburg. It was told that they had made a pact with the devil and flew through t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madhouse (ride)
A Madhouse is a flat ride usually manufactured by Vekoma. A similar attraction under the name Mystery Swing is created by Mack Rides. The ride is designed to be an optical and physical illusion, consisting of several rows of seats attached to a swaying gondola within a rotating drum. The ride creates the impression that the rider is turning upside down, whereas it is actually the room that is moving around them. The ride is a modern implementation of a haunted swing illusion. Ride experience Madhouses are often extensively themed during the ride sequence, and usually in the queue line. Several madhouses feature pre-shows explaining a story behind the ride. Once in the ride, lapbars are lowered onto the riders, before they gradually experience an odd sense of movement. This is achieved through two mechanisms: the separate floor can move in a controlled swing from side-to-side by up to 7.5/15 degrees in each direction, but the surroundings of the room can rotate through a full 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of the devil can be summed up as 1) a principle of evil independent from God, 2) an aspect of God, 3) a created being turning evil (a ''fallen angel''), and 4) a symbol of human evil. Each tradition, culture, and religion with a devil in its mythos offers a different lens on manifestations of evil.Jeffrey Burton Russell, ''The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity'', Cornell University Press 1987 , pp. 41–75 The history of these perspectives intertwines with theology, mythology, psychiatry, art, and literature developing independently within each of the traditions. It occurs historically in many contexts and cultures, and is given many different names—Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Iblis—and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amusement Rides Manufactured By Vekoma
Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or animal actively maintains the experience, and is associated with enjoyment, happiness, laughter and pleasure. It is an emotion with positive valence and high physiological arousal. Amusement is considered an "epistemological" emotion because humor occurs when one experiences a cognitive shift from one knowledge structure about a target to another, such as hearing the punchline of a joke. The pleasant surprise that happens from learning this new information leads to a state of amusement which people often express through smiling, laughter or chuckling. Current studies have not yet reached consensus on the exact purpose of amusement, though theories have been advanced in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology. In addition, the precise mechanism that causes a given element (image, sound, behavior, etc.) to be perceived as more or less 'amusing' than another simi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark Rides
A dark ride or ghost train is an indoor amusement ride on which passengers aboard guided vehicles travel through specially lit scenes that typically contain animation, sound, music and special effects. Appearing as early as the 19th century, such exhibits include tunnels of love, scary themes and interactive stories. Terminology In its most traditional form, the term ''dark ride'' refers to ride-through attractions with scenes that use black lights, whereby visible light is prevented from entering the space, and only show elements that fluoresce under ultraviolet radiation are seen by the riders. The size of each room containing a scene or scenes is thus concealed, and the set designer can use forced perspective, Pepper's ghost and other visual tricks to create the illusion of distance. Typically, these experiences also use a series of opaque doors between scenes to further control riders' views within a space-constrained building. Prominent examples include Disneyland's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Themed Entertainment Association
The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) is an international non-profit association that represents creators, developers, designers and producers of themed entertainment. It is also noted for its THEA Awards, which were founded in 1995 and are distributed annually in a range of themed entertainment categories. Founding The TEA was founded in 1991 by Monty Lunde, a former special effects designer for Disney who had gone on to start the special effects company Technifex with his business partner Rock Hall. The TEA mission, as stated in its bylaws, is to facilitate dialogue and communication among its members, to stimulate knowledge and professional growth, and to expand the size, diversity and awareness of the themed entertainment industry. Every year since 2007, the TEA has hosted a two-day TEA Summit, 2 days prior to the Thea Awards banquet, showcasing the teams that worked on these award winning projects. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parc Astérix
Parc Astérix is a theme park in France based on the comic book series ''Asterix'' by Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny. With around 2.3 million visitors yearly, Parc Astérix is France's second largest theme park, behind only Disneyland Paris with its 14 million annual visitors. It is especially renowned in France for its large variety of roller coasters; it has begun incorporating rides and themes from historic cultures like the Gauls, the Romans, Ancient Greece and recently Ancient Egypt, but always in the visual style of the societies. It is situated approximately north of Paris, from Disneyland Paris and from the historic Château de Chantilly, in the commune of Plailly, in the department of Oise. Opened in 1989, the park is operated by Compagnie des Alpes. History Conception and inauguration Largely funded by the Barclays financial company, with 20 other investors including Compagnie Générale des Eaux, the Havas group, Union des Assurances de Paris and the Picardy reg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drayton Manor Theme Park
Drayton Manor Resort is a family theme park, zoo and accommodation in the grounds of the former Drayton Manor, in Drayton Bassett, Staffordshire, England, UK. It covers , of which about are in use, and hosts about 1.5 million people each year. It is the fourth-largest amusement park in the UK by land area at . The park is also home to Thomas Land and Drayton Manor Zoo, home to over 500 animals, including Red pandas, Eurasian lynx, Sumatran tigers and a variety of monkeys and gibbons. On 3 August 2020, Drayton Manor Park was sold to Looping Group, who own two other attractions in the UK, West Midland Safari Park and Pleasurewood Hills. History The land on which the theme park was built on once belonged to the Peel family. Drayton Manor mansion, built for Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet in 1835, had been reduced to ruins by 1926, with only the clocktower surviving at the park entrance. The British Army requisitioned it as a training post during World War II. After the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hex – The Legend Of The Towers
Hex – The Legend of the Towers is a walkthrough dark ride experience at Alton Towers. The ride is based on an interpretation of the local legend of the Chained Oak Tree and is set within the restored ruins of the Towers themselves. It is narrated by the actor Jim Carter. Description Hex tells the story of the Chained Oak Tree, a legend based around the towers themselves. The story has been a local legend for hundreds of years. The legend says that the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury was cursed by an old beggarwoman to suffer a death in the family every time a branch fell from the old oak tree The Basking Ridge White Oak Tree (also known as the Holy Oak and Old Oak Tree) was a white oak that stood in the churchyard of the Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, United States. The tree was over 600 years old, and died in 201 .... Hex's version embellishes the end of the 'original' tale with the Earl experimenting on one of the fallen branches in a vault deep within th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alton Towers
Alton Towers Resort ( ) (often referred to as Alton Towers) is a theme park and resort complex in Staffordshire, England, near the village of Alton. The park is operated by Merlin Entertainments Group and incorporates a theme park, water park, spa, mini golf and hotel complex. Originally a private estate of the Earls of Shrewsbury, Alton Towers' grounds were opened to the public in 1860 to raise funds. In the late 20th century, it was transformed into a theme park and opened a number of new rides from 1980 onwards. In 2019, it was the second most visited theme park in the UK with 2,130,000 visitors which puts it after Legoland Windsor. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alton Towers was only open from July 4th until November with a limited capacity meaning only 670,000 visitors came to the park in 2020. The park has many attractions such as Congo River Rapids, Runaway Mine Train, Nemesis, Oblivion, Galactica, The Smiler, Wicker Man, Rita and TH13TEEN. It operates a tota ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fata Morgana (Efteling)
Fata Morgana, the forbidden city, also known as 1001 Arabian Nights (or "1001 nacht" in Dutch) is a dark ride in the amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands. The attraction was designed by Ton van de Ven and Jan Verhoeven and opened in 1986. Features Fata Morgana is a dark ride/ tow boat ride that was opened in 1986. The attraction is based on the 1001 Arabian Nights. The ride is populated by 140 animatronics. Fata Morgana is set inside a large building with turquoise and gold domes on the roof. A large tower serves as the entrance to the ride. There is a large square outside the ride with palm trees, fountains and flames. The ride's gift shop ''De Bazaar'', and a kiosk, ''Oase'', are located nearby to the ride. Boarding The facade of the ride is a huge domed building painted gold and turquoise. Guests enter through a large tower that serves as the entrance to the ride. They then wait on raised platforms above a round canal with a turntable in the middle. Guests are take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Villa Volta Efteling 2018
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity, sometimes transferred to the Church for reuse as a monastery. Then they gradually re-evolved through the Middle Ages into elegant upper-class country homes. In the Early Modern period, any comfortable detached house with a garden near a city or town was likely to be described as a villa; most survivals have now been engulfed by suburbia. In modern parlance, "villa" can refer to various types and sizes of residences, ranging from the suburban semi-detached double villa to, in some countries, especially around the Mediterranean, residences of above average size in the countryside. Roman Roman villas included: * the ''villa urbana'', a suburban or country seat t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postel Abbey
Postel Abbey is a Premonstratensian abbey in the Belgian municipality of Mol in the province of Antwerp. History In 1138, Premonstratensian canons from Floreffe Abbey founded the monastery at Postel as a dependent priory. In 1613, Postel became independent of Floreffe and in 1618 was raised to the status of abbey. In 1797, the abbey was closed, and the canons expelled, in the course of the French Revolution, when French troops invaded the Austrian Netherlands. In 1847, the community here was re-established, after which the abbey buildings were restored in several phases. From 1943, until the end of World War II, Herman Van Breda hid part of the manuscripts of Edmund Husserl ( Husserl Archives) in the abbey. Architecture The abbey church was built in the Rhineland Romanesque style and dates supposedly from the end of the 12th century (1190). The church has since been rebuilt several times, as a result of which the building shows some characteristics of Gothic and Baroque ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
