AV Stumpfl gets ghoulish at Walibi Theme Park
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The brief for Asylum was to transform a ride into a haunted house while making use of the latest automated AV technology to create an immersive and unforgettable experience for the public. DW Production was engaged to build from scratch all rooms and aesthetic decoration for the attraction as well as the music and effects and animatronics, with GSF Events taking the lead on the technical aspects of the ride with the help of AV Stumpfl’s distributor AED.
DW Production’s owner David Collet reports: “An old mansion house - once an asylum but since abandoned - is home to a vampire named Igor. He occupies himself by locking up and experimenting on zombies to turn them into vampires. He finds himself disturbed by human visitors during Halloween and decides to let them in in the hope they will be more receptive to his experiments. Unbeknown to the visitors, they will be victims of captive zombies gone mad – in addition to whatever Igor has in store for them.”
This story unfolds as visitors to the attraction pass through a series of eight rooms in total, starting with Igor’s hotel reception-style desk, moving into the dormitory where zombies are starved and made dependent. From there, thrill-seekers move along Igor’s access corridor with haunted mirror, into the canteen where hungry zombies await their meal. Next up is the bat-infested corridor with collapsing ceiling, followed by Igor’s experiment room. Finally, the cellar where Igor realises humans are more use to him than zombies, and the labyrinth where humans are trapped in endless corridors.
Sammy Freh, managing director of GSF Events, comments: “When DW Production asked us to develop a special electronic system for the ride, our project manager and engineer John Gillard recommended using AV Stumpfl. In this kind of environment, reliability is critical, and we knew that they could provide a trusted network interface module which would not let Walibi down and avoid potential downtime and issues.”
DW Production built Asylum from scratch in just five weeks, with GSF taking only one week to programme the technology and lighting. Collet elaborates: “It was a real challenge in terms of timing and execution. We also faced a number of constraints as we were not allowed to fix any type of rigging to the walls, floor, ceiling or roof.”
The challenges were faced head on and ably overcome. GSF specified one IObox DMX and one IObox Relay module, along with an external sound card to manage a total of 28 audio channels, all controlled by an AV Stumpfl main server for a multi-room audio immersion. This network allowed for seamless integration and management of video content, audio stream and animation triggers.
Concludes Horst Damoser, global business development manager at AV Stumpfl: “Asylum at Walibi demonstrates the extent of the wide-ranging capabilities our Wings IObox network module has, especially when used in conjunction with our Avio network protocol and control logic system. Its application in this ride draws on all of its key features, creating a spectacular, immersive experience. We look forward to our customers working on more exciting projects like this in future, pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved.”
(Jim Evans)
