Lagotronics Projects created one of the UK’s most ambitious dark ride experiences for Paultons Park

Mischievous ghosts. Misbehaving spirits. And a Phantom Phaser to capture them as you ride Ghostly Manor, Paultons Park’s new interactive, indoor dark ride. Opened in May, Ghostly Manor is a £3.5 million (USD$4.7 million) attraction that transformed the park’s former 4D cinema into an ambitious dark ride experience. Guests travel through a haunted manor and use their Phantom Phasers—onboard “blasters”—to capture the wayward spirits. At the end of the ride, they’re presented with their “ghost-catching score.”

We go behind the scenes of this spookily good dark ride to learn more about how Lagotronics Projects brought Ghostly Manor to life.

Originally a 4D cinema, Lagotronics Projects helped to transform the site into a new dark ride experience. Image credit: Paultons Park.

Big gameplay in a small footprint

For Ghostly Manor, the team at Lagotronics Projects, in partnership with Mack Rides, introduced a new dark ride format: the Gameplay Theater. The ride system features continuously rotating vehicles, each seating eight passengers, four back-to-back, that move on a horizontal axis through the circular layout of the ride.

“This system allows for high guest throughput in a relatively small footprint while ensuring a seamless blend of media-based storytelling, interactive gameplay, and richly themed physical sets,” explains Jacco Groen in ‘t Wout, CTO of Lagotronics Projects. The team leveraged their deep experience delivering turnkey attractions to help deliver components for Ghostly Manor, including the interactive system, A/V equipment, rigging, lighting, and show control.

Guests use Phantom Phasers attached to the ride vehicle, pictured, to capture ghosts. Photo credit: Lagotronics Projects.

“The interactive system is our own system, LagoTRIG4, which is based on a wireless positioning system to track and monitor 40 wireless shooting devices, the Phantom Phasers, in the ride,” explains Jacco. They also used their in-house software, Lagotronics Mission Control, for show control and management of all connected hardware.

Mixing digital with physical

“One of the most unique features of this ride is that you can seamlessly transition from playing in fully themed physical sets to projection,” explains Kevin Hendrix, who manages marketing and communications for Lagotronics Projects. With its circular design, the ride features projected scenes on the outside and physical scenes on the inside, with ride vehicles rotating between each.

The inner scenes feature interactive physical sets with integrated projection mapping enabled by two DWU1400-GS projectors. The outer ring uses three curved 10.2-meter by 2.6-meter (33.5 by 8.5-foot) screens, illuminated by three pairs of DWU1100-GS laser projectors.

Lagotronics Projectors, with Mack Rides, introduced a new format for Ghostly Manor called Gameplay Theater. Photo credit: Lagotronics Projects.

“Due to the nature of our product, where guests aim their shooters on the screen and interact with it, it's very important to us that the aspect ratio and warping/blending don't cause any deformations over the entire screen. Since every blend causes challenges in the geometrical calculations, it was very important for us to limit the number of blends,” says Jacco.

An additional challenge was how close the riders are to the screens. To overcome this, Lagotronics mounted the projectors above the screens at an angle to avoid casting shadows and used 0.37-0.4:1 ultra short throw zoom lenses.

Guests transition between screens and physical sets, as seen here, to capture ghosts. Photo credit: Lagotronics Projects.

Team effort

“Christie team members helped us a lot by reading into our request and understanding our challenges regarding blending, warping, and the small footprint we had to work with. They came up with a solution that turned out to be as good as we could get it.

The effort that Joe [Graziano] and Peter [Czwiertnia] put into the project made Christie a reliable partner for us. That, plus an attractive price offer, combined with the 5-year warranty, made the decision easy,” says Jacco.

The result? “The audience reactions to the ride were great. Everybody was very enthusiastic about the experience as a whole,” says Jacco. “Although our work is in the main ride only, everything around the ride, from the exterior to the queue line, made the experience as it is. Paultons and their team did a marvelous job. It was a great team effort, and we are happy to have been a part of it.”