The London Resort has announced the first development contracts during a presentation at blooloop V-Expo.
The three companies announced in the first batch are Electrosonic, Garmendale and Katapult. Combined, they bring expertise in large scale audio-visual control systems, ride systems, and attraction design.
Electrosonic has recently worked on Europa Park dark ride Snorri Touren, providing development and deployment of the show control systems, along with consulting on the audio-visual show control systems for large evening show The Crane Dance at Resorts World Sentosa.
Derbyshire based Garmendale specialise in ride systems, including motion platform dark rides such as The Forbidden Caves at Bobbejaanland, as well as transportation and family rides.
Themed attraction designers Katapult have worked on numerous smaller scale projects, including designing CBeebies Land Photo Studios at Alton Towers and Peppa’s Magic Photo Studio at Paultons Park.
Another 65 businesses, of which over half are British based, have been notified that they are in a shortlist for being awarded contracts. The initial call for interest received nearly 2000 registrations of interest from businesses, 30% of which are local to the project and 90% are small or medium sized enterprises. The UK Government has set a target for one third of the project’s total costs to have been spent with small or medium sized businesses.
The announcement of initial development contractors adds a much needed forward boost to the project, coming not long after the planning examination stage was once again delayed in September until at least April 2022. This followed further attempts by Merlin Entertainments to raise issues with the Planning Inspectorate about the project.
Meanwhile CEO PY Gerbeau has taken on additional duties at the French Ice Hockey Federation (FFHG), becoming the Provisional President after having previously held the position of Executive Vice President.