 There are a lot of amusement parks out there that seem destined to be the next big thing. They might be right on the threshold of being a well known local park and moving up into the next tier of being a well known regional park. Then you have the parks that are frustratingly dragging along with very minimal investment that are located in highly populated areas that seemingly could really make a huge mark on the industry, but they just never expand to capitalize on that potential. I'm going to be looking at several different parks in North America that I feel could be the next major players in the industry and give my thoughts as to whether or not I think this will happen in the future. Elich Gardens in Denver, Colorado has an interesting history. Elich Gardens in its original location actually opened in 1890 and closed in 1994, but for 1995 was relocated to its current site, also in Denver. So it's in its second iteration right now, but unfortunately for Elich Gardens, funding has been approved in March of 2020 for a redevelopment project called the River Mile. This is a huge project for the Denver area and Elich Gardens sits right where investors want to develop. Though it probably won't happen for several more years, the park in this location will have to be closed, but Revesco Properties stated that when the time comes, Elich Gardens would be moved to a bigger, even better location. This could actually be a really good opportunity for the park to become a decent park. Due to its location in Denver, there's such a great area to draw from, with virtually no competition, which is why many have been puzzled over the years as to why the owners of Elich Gardens never capitalized on this. The closest notable park to Elich Gardens is a small park called Cliffs in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Besides that, there's Lagoon, which is an eight-hour drive, but there's no major competition anywhere close to this park. Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Kentucky, which originally opened in 1987, and stood Standing Banata operating from 2010 to 2014. And this is a great success story. There are many parks fairly close to Kentucky Kingdom, but this park is really special. This park was left abandoned by Six Flags after the 2009 season, and it sat dormant for several years. And then it arose from the ashes at the hands of Ed Hart, who brought it back to life. Ever since 2014, Kentucky Kingdom has been built up as a strong up-and-coming amusement park, and is continually being invested into with many more exciting things to come in the future. This park is already very well respected amongst enthusiasts, and will surely continue to flourish in the future based on what we've seen so far. I think there's a lot of great big things to come for Kentucky Kingdom, and they absolutely deserve it. This park has done a complete 180. From when it was Six Flags, Kentucky Kingdom, it's just completely transformed, and it's become so much of a better park, I think, and I think a lot of us enthusiasts really appreciate what Ed Hart has done with this place, so thank you so much, Ed Hart. Lagoon in Farmington, Utah opened in 1886. This is a park that really began to emerge in the spotlight, with the opening of Cannibal in 2015. The park is already looking to have a bright future ahead, as they're impressively also building their mysterious 11th coaster, which will be known as Primordial. Little is known about Primordial, but based on the enclosing structure being built, this is looking like it could be a really good sized addition. Lagoon already has a really solid collection of 10 coasters, with a well-rounded lineup featuring many great family coasters along with the likes of Cannibal and Wicked. When it comes to the surrounding area, Eelich Gardens is 8 hours east of Lagoon, Silverwood is 10 and a half hours northwest, and Cliffs in Albuquerque, New Mexico is 10 hours away, and those are basically the closest parks, so there is really nothing around here. This park is really on its own, and I think they're going to really sort of capitalize on that potential that they have, and we could see a lot of really great stuff coming from this park in the future. Magic Springs and Hot Springs, Arkansas opened in 1978, and this is a beautiful park with a great scenery. It's a very good sized park it seems, and it could be expanded greatly. Despite its absolutely beautiful location, this park leaves a lot to be desired, as far as the major attractions go. The star attraction here is a Mauer Sky Loop, which is definitely very unique, and intimidating for the general public for sure, but there's not much else to this park really. There is a water park here as well, which is probably a good draw for the area, and maybe that's why much hasn't been invested into the dry park, but I think they could really do a lot with this place. It seems like they have a lot of land to work with, and I would hate to see this park just kind of sit how it currently is, because they could really do so much with this place. Six Flags over Texas is about five hours southwest of Magic Springs, Six Flags St. Louis is six and a half hours northeast, and Worlds of Fun is seven hours north, so this is another park that really just sits way out on its own. Six Flags, Darien Lake and Darien Center New York opened in 1981, and this park is absolutely huge, this is a resort park with a great setting. It's situated 45 minutes east of Buffalo, and this park has such a huge market to draw from, with virtually no major competitors. Now Canada's Wonderland is only two and a half hours away, but is located in Canada of course, which means you'd have to drive across the border to reach it. Marine land is also only a bit over an hour away, but once again is located in Canada, in Ontario specifically, but Darien Lake is set up so nicely to be a destination park. There's already a water park, hotel, and campground on site here, along with tons of land and a picturesque setting on the lake. Six Flags graced the park with the Common Vekoma Boomerang and SLC models in 1997 and 1998, and then in 1999 they added the first of the two Superman Ride of Steel Intamin hyper coasters, which after 21 years is still undeniably the star attraction of Darien Lake. So they got three coasters in back to back years in the late 90s, but after that the park received a Zamperla Moto coaster 11 years later in 2008, then 10 years later with the small compact Gerstlauer Eurofighter known as Tantrum in 2018. I really do hope that Six Flags takes a little bit of time with this park to really turn it into more than it currently is because it really has so much potential being such a huge resort property. They really could do a lot with this park, and it's a wonder why it hasn't been turned into something like that already. Adventureland in Altoona, Iowa opened in 1974, and this is a park that we've heard a lot about lately. This park has made great strides in the past five years as they've installed two new coasters and have a third new one on the way. Of course having just demolished the OD Hopkins Looper known as Dragon, this park is one that you can tell the owners take great care in as it looks so nice and has a great atmosphere. There is currently no real competition in the surrounding area, with the closest major parks being Six Flags St. Louis and Six Flags Great America, which are both at least a five hour drive from Adventureland. Worlds of Fun is also about a three and a half hour drive, so that's not even that close either. There is ample opportunity for Adventureland to become much more of a destination park rather than the small local park they've been known as for over 40 years. The owners have already stepped up and took initiative by making great investments into the small park, and it seems like they've had great success thus far and don't plan on stepping it down anytime soon, especially with the looming proposition of a large theme park opening in the near future. Marine Land in Ontario, Canada has been around for quite a while, opening in 1961. The owner of Marine Land passed away last year in 2019, and his wife took over control of the park. Since this, she has expressed great intentions of opening some really nice additions that this huge park sorely needs. Marine Land is a massive park in size, but is severely underdeveloped, as there are many expansive areas where there are no attractions, rather just a large open grassy land. To begin to hopefully bring this park up to where it needs to be, to try and maximize its potential and compete in the area, officials have confirmed that they are hoping to add two new rides, one of them being a very thrilling flat ride made by Zamperla. There are also talks of a possible new large scale roller coaster in the coming years as well. Marine Land is known mostly for, besides the animals, a huge 183 foot tall aerodynamics custom looper, opened in 1983 by the name of Dragon Mountain. It's a terrain looper and is quite fascinating in layout, but beyond that they haven't really added anything notable besides the SNS drop tower. This park could really use a lot of work, and I hope that these plans do come to fruition in the next few years. California's Great America in Santa Clara, California, which opened in 1976, is arguably the only of the five paramount parks which Cedar Fair acquired in 2006 that has yet to be truly transformed into an upper-tier Cedar Fair park. While Cedar Fair has thrown this California park a bone every now and then over the years, with one of the best GCI's in Goldstriker and one of the first RMC Raptors with Railblazer, this park hasn't really been pushed over that threshold as it currently stands. I think that will change in the future though, as Cedar Fair revealed a pretty nice looking 10 year plan a couple years back, and we're even going to be getting a BNM Hyper at one point, which may still happen at some point in the future. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is only an hour away, but the heavy hitters of California like Magic Mountain and Disneyland are about 6 hours away. California's Great America isn't competing directly with these parks though, and seems to pull from a different demographic and area altogether as compared to Discovery Kingdom. Seeing what Cedar Fair has done with all of the other paramount parks to date, I believe that they're going to do really great things with California's Great America in the coming years as well. Six Flags Mexico, opened in 1982, is located right in the heart of Mexico City, and there simply just isn't any major competition around for at least several hundreds of miles. There is La Faria, located just over 20 minutes north of Six Flags Mexico, which is also in Mexico City, but that park may never reopen again, and Six Flags Mexico seems to be the superior park with much better operations based on the horrendous things I've heard about how La Faria is operated. This also seems to be an underrated Six Flags park as well, which houses a pretty solid collection of nine coasters, including Medusa Steel Coaster, an excellent looking RMC conversion, and Superman El Ultimo Scape, a great Morgan hyper coaster. Six Flags has invested decently into this park in recent years, but this park could really be something greater due to its location and how well the park has been set up. From what I can see, this is actually a beautiful place with a pretty good atmosphere, and maybe even some decent light theming along with a couple really solid attractions. Last on the list that I want to talk about is Waldemir in Erie, Pennsylvania, which opened in 1896. Anyone who has watched my channel for some time likely knows how much I love Waldemir. This is one of those small, family owned and operated parks that opened in 1896, so it's been around for a long time. It's actually one of those parks where you can just walk into without having to pay admission, and you can just pay per ride or you can buy a wristband. But Waldemir is a truly special place, and I believe we will be hearing some great things from the park over the next decade. The reason I say that is when I began visiting Waldemir in 2009, they just had a tiny water park with a few slides and a lazy river just kind of shoehorned into the front of the park. They had a couple decent flats as well, but in the past decade, they've made some awesome progress, and it makes me so happy to see such care put into these small parks to ensure their continued success. Over the last five or six years, the water park has been completely renovated from being a small sliver of property attached to the front of the park, to probably being at least three times the size it originally was, by adding a massive wave pool, water complex, and rally racers mat slides which are currently being built. The water park is definitely a huge asset to Waldemir and draws in a lot of locals, but they've been giving the dry park some love too. In addition to receiving one of the best wooden coasters in the world, with Ravinefire 2 in 2008, a Zamperla Disco ride called Mega Vortex was added in 2009, as well as Chaos for 2019, which is a Zamperla MIDI Discovery Pendulum ride. Looking at the year by year additions, since 2007, they've basically added really good additions to the park every year, from thrilling flat rides to big water additions to a new kids area, and in addition to the new mat racer slides for 2020, there is also a new SBF spinner called Whirlwind Opening. For these reasons, I think this small park on Lake Erie will only continue to improve and draw in more people as the years go on, and I wouldn't even be too surprised to see another decent thrilling coaster addition at some point in the next decade as well. So do you guys agree with my picks? Let me know which parks you think I may have missed that you think could potentially become major players in the industry. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much again for watching. Be sure to like my page Coaster Daddy on Facebook, and follow me at Coaster Daddy Official on Instagram. This is Coaster Daddy. Bye.