For a theme park that’s part of a chain, albeit a small one within a larger group (Compagnie des Alpes), Walibi Holland enjoys an individual identity. Yes, the red ‘W’ branding is the same as that of the Walibi parks in Belgium and France. The Walibi characters make an appearance, too. But since 2018, the park in Biddinghuizen has adopted a park-wide ‘Festivalization’ theme.
It starts the moment you walk through the entrance and into the main street, cloaked in street art. It continues as you eat food from street food trucks. There’s an edgy vibe to rides like Untamed and Lost Gravity. Twice a year, high-energy music festivals, Defqon. 1 and Lowlands, are staged in the grounds adjoining the 40-hectare theme park.
But management of Walibi Holland wants to remind people that this is a place not just for teenagers and young adults. “We have such a high penetration rate of that market, you cannot dream for more,” says Mark Guffens, director of marketing and sales. “But that target group is not growing in population. So we said, let’s also focus on families with children.”
Whether it’s the huge Ferris wheel at the bottom of Main Street, water rides including the world’s first Splash Battle, family coasters, or a whole host of attractions in Walibi Play Land, there’s plenty for this group too.
“Every survey we did, families were always very surprised at the offer in the park,” says Guffens. “It existed already, we just did not concentrate on it for a few years.”
YoY ride
And now there’s YoY. Launched at the start of the season in April, this twin-track Raptor coaster from Rocky Mountain Construction (RMC) offers a choice of ride experiences. Join the queue for the blue side, and you’ve signed up for “Chill”. But if you go for green, then “Thrill” is on the menu.
The ride’s marketing campaign urges guests to “Ride The Other Side”. Both are 655 metres in length. And in fact, both are thrilling. It’s just that the blue track does not offer any inversions. It’s also slightly slower, with a top speed of 80 rather than 82 km/h.
The ride boasts two pairs of 8-seater trains, which slow down but do not come to a complete stop in the loading area. If one train leaves before the other, it will slow down on the lift hill to allow the other to catch up.
The two trains follow each other as closely as possible during the 1 minute and 40-second ride, coming together during a “high five” moment. However, it’s not a racing coaster, since they arrive back in the station at the same time. Other elements on the green track include a barrel drop, zero-G stall, cutback, barrel roll and two corkscrews.
That’s six inversions, and a maximum G-force of 4.0 (or 3.5G for those “chilling out” on the blue side).
Joy for all at Walibi Holland
As a single-rail coaster with inline seating, neither side is super smooth. Yet YoY provides a lot of Joy – the intended meaning behind its name.
“When we were first looking at a name, there was only one Y in Joy,” reveals Guffens. “But what is Y? It is two becoming one, or one becoming two. And that is the identity of this attraction.”
The coaster is an embodiment of the park’s renewed focus on experiences for all, he adds. “YoY is accessible for families as well as teenagers and thrill seekers”. Or at least anyone over the minimum 1.22 m height restriction.
But what of the ride’s theming? The green side features leaves and branches on the front car of the train, as well as up the side of the station building. An earthy, edgy experience if you like. Blue symbolises water, sea, and fluid movement, with shells and seaweed on the front of the train. Yin and yang?
The new roller coaster experience certainly balances out other investments at Walibi Holland in recent years. Untamed, a wood-steel hybrid coaster from RMC, opened in 2019 and became an instant thrill-seekers’ favourite.
Following the 2020 relaunch of the Speed Zone, it was expanded in 2023 with the addition of Speed Zone – Off Road. This features the Zamperla family coaster Eat My Dust, plus an interactive Magic Bikes ride by the same manufacturer, called Wind Seekers.
The ride development process
With a highest point of 29 metres, YoY enjoys the bragging rights of Europe’s tallest, steepest and fastest duelling coaster. If you count each side as a separate coaster, then Walibi Holland now has more RMC rides than any other place in the world.
Guffens explains the rationale behind choosing this attraction:
“RMC did a wonderful job with Untamed. It’s considered one of the best hybrid coasters in Europe. So we kept in contact. The single rail coaster [Raptor] has been on the market a few years already. On the one hand, we wanted to have something which is completely original. But on the other hand, we didn’t want a prototype.”
“This was the right marriage: the only coaster with two single rail tracks, but it’s not a prototype because the ride system exists.”
Guffens acknowledges the input of Compagnie des Alpes (CdA) project manager Julien Simon: “Of course we engaged him, he is such a specialist in coasters”. However, he also stresses that when it comes to developing new attractions, “Nobody in Paris [CdA HQ] will say, ‘This is what you need to do. ’
“That’s the wonderful thing about the CdA group. The local attachment is very important.”
Walibi’s evolving demographics
Guffens, who previously worked at Walibi Belgium, notes that Walibi Holland is not the only park in the group seeking to broaden its demographic.
“Walibi Rhône-Alpes [France] was always for the children and families. But if you see all the investments of the last few years, they are approaching the style of Walibi Belgium, which targets both teenagers and families. And now we want to get back to making families enthusiastic for the park in Holland.”
Last season, the park entertained around 920,000 guests. The goal of the investment plan that began in 2019 with Untamed was to exceed one million by 2026/27, a target that Toverland, located in the south of the Netherlands, achieved in 2023.
The nation’s top theme park, Efteling, is head and shoulders above everyone else. Its attendance last year of 5.6 million was made up of 4.9 million guests. Even allowing for a pause during the Covid years, Guffens confirms Walibi Holland is ahead of target.
Many of the festival goers flocking to Lowlands this August on the adjacent 80-hectare event grounds will be of the park’s traditional demographic. Meanwhile, teenagers love the Halloween Fright Nights, which return in October for their 18th season. As an alternative to the popular after-dark experience, families can enjoy Spooky Days.
Walibi Holland: a park in the moment
Walibi Holland’s director of marketing and sales says the ‘Festivalization’ strategy will remain in place for now, as it continues to give the park a point of difference.
“Almost all theme parks are nostalgic parks,” notes Guffens. “The theming is often retro. Why? Because it can last forever. We reversed that. At a certain point, we will need to change this strategy, but we want to be a park of today, not 10 years ago.”
Located in Flevoland, a manmade province of the Netherlands surrounded by water, Walibi Holland is about an hour’s drive east of Amsterdam (public transport options are less quick). Whilst it attracts some German and Belgian guests, and even a few from the UK, “We are a national theme park, we do not attract people from Spain and Italy,” says Guffens.
And this, he believes, is a good thing in the current economic climate. “I have been already a few years in the industry. I’ve seen a few financial crises. What you often see when a crisis is occurring is that people go back to local.
“Many things changed after COVID. We were one of the first parks to pre-sell dated entrance, and for the majority of our tickets, we’re still doing it. When bad things happen, there are always some good things that come out of it.”
