Aardman, the award-winning UK studio, has announced the creation of a world’s first accommodation destination featuring one of its leading IPs in Sweden.
The renowned animation company has worked with the park to create an original Shaun the Sheep visitor experience, with five specifically constructed overnight wagons. Designed and constructed with the style and feel of the well-known television series, the new experience will open to guests in June this year.
Together with Shaun’s Wagons, there are also 17 lodges in Wild Lodge and Hillside by Wild Lodge, as well as Camp Oak, a well-known glamping destination where guests spend the night in huge family tents, which will create a total of 170 beds.
Skånes Djurpark CEO Glenn André Viste Bøe says: “Living in Shaun’s Wagons is much more than accommodation and by far the most exciting new addition to the park in several years. Staying here is a complete experience for the whole family, where guests can experience the rural environment for 36 hours and play with Shaun, his friends, and greet all the other animals in the park.”
Turning animation into reality
Faret Shaun Land, or Shaun the Sheep Land, is a dedicated 20,000-square-metre themed area at Skånes Djurpark, inaugurated in 2016. Children and adults alike can learn about animals, experience a market and ride along a 250-meter track with drivable tractors. There are also several unique Nordic species, including Gotland rabbits, Skne Blommehens chickens, Jämtland goats, Linderöd pigs, and Värmland forest sheep.
Shaun’s Wagons have been purposely designed to provide unique overnight stays near nature and wildlife. There will be a luxury wagon with room for six people as well as four specially constructed basic waggons sleeping five. Each wagon contains a bathroom, living area, kitchenette, and specially made bunk beds modelled after Bitzer’s doghouse from the series. Parents can get away from the chaos of the farm thanks to a separate bedroom.
Ready for a day’s adventure
Visitors will soon be able to rest comfortably overnight in the new cabins and awaken to the sound of a rooster crowing. Breakfast will be enjoyed outside on the guests’ private patio area thanks to morning deliveries of freshly laid eggs and buns to little henhouses found next to the ends of the wagons. Following a morning workout with Shaun, visitors will be able to assist in getting the farm’s tractors ready for the day’s work.
The overnight packages for the new offering will include breakfast and dinner, and in the evening after the park has closed, overnight visitors can assist with feeding the animals before unwinding and watching an outdoor movie, mirroring the activities of Shaun the Sheep and his flock, with a herd of Värmland sheep being left to graze freely between the wagons.
Ngaio Harding-Hill, Aardman’s head of attractions and live experiences, adds: “The development of themed accommodation at Faret Shaun Land at Skånes Djurpark is fantastically exciting as the next step in our partnership with the attraction.
“The interiors and the detailed theming in the wagons have been specially designed to evoke the experience of visiting Shaun and the Farmers’ home on Mossy Bottom Farm in England. We cannot wait for the arrival of the wagons at the park.”
Shaun the Sheep has also been a popular feature in museums worldwide, including an exhibition which opened at Museum of Art “Eki” KYOTO last year.
