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DarKastle ride is ready to rock

By Bill Tolbert

May 1, 2005

Busch Gardens is betting untold millions that the park's new thrill ride "Curst of DarKastle: The Ride" will pack in the guests this summer and help resurrect the local tourism industry.

DarKastle is set to open this month, a few weeks after the park opened for the season.

Park reps led reporters on a recent "hard hat" tour of construction on the new ride.

John Gillespie, vice president for marketing for Busch Gardens and Water Country USA, said the DarKastle commercial will be the only one used in the local market for the next year. In outer markets, it will rotate with a generic TV spot already airing.

The alternating Busch spots will run in markets with the Go Williamsburg promotion, the ad campaign designed to increase overnight visitation here.

As a result of collaboration, more attraction spots are running in sync to leverage marketing.

"When you combine those with anything Colonial Williamsburg is doing, you have a very powerful 'come to Williamsburg' message," he said.

The challenge is taking an attraction that has park brass buzzing more than anything else in recent memory and translating that to prospective customers.

The commercial will focus on three things. Foremost, he said, is making sure to emphasize that this is a thrill ride. While the entire ride is inside a massive building, it actually is a roller coaster-type ride with moving cars that spin, bump, fly, rise and drop through the use of the latest high-tech wizardry.

"This is the next generation of a thrill ride," Gillespie said.

The other two points the marketing needs to stress are the fear element and the enormity of the ride.

"This is a ride that will make passengers feel like they drop the equivalent of 30 stories," Gillespie said. "You get that thrill-ride drop."

And it's important to keep the message simple. "We don't want to wrap it up in techno terminology," he explained.

Busch is using print advertising to promote DarKastle as well. Two key elements of print advertising are visible already in the wrapped motor coaches the park is using as moving billboards.

Last December, when Busch hosted the media to announce plans for DarKastle, park executive vice president and general manager Donnie Mills was visibly excited about the attraction. His excitement continued through the recent media tour.

"This is a fantastic attraction," Mills said, following the tour through the 40,000-square-foot building. "One of the things I'm most excited about is that this is a family attraction. And it's a family attraction with enough thrills, enough excitement, and the right amount of scare factor to appeal to teens and adults as well."

Larry Giles, the park's vice president for design and engineering, led the tour.

Giles said, "We've tried to create a thrill ride that is a unique thrill ride. We've taken 3-D to another level, which allows us to interact with you."

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