Now that we’re fully recovered from the 2024 IAAPA Expo, we thought we’d recap all of the announcements, train reveals, and any other new and interesting ride concepts and news we saw at the show. For our broader thoughts and experience from these year’s IAAPA, we shared those thoughts here.
Major New Coaster Announcements
Tecuani Beast
I think we all agreed the most exciting coaster announcement was Vekoma’s Tecuani Beast reveal. This was a coaster that we knew absolutely nothing about until seeing the signs at the Vekoma booth. Tecuani Beast is a double launch coaster with six inversions coming to the new BON Luxury Theme Park opening as part of the VidantaWorld Resort near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The ride will hit 65mph, and have more airtime than any other coaster in Latin America. And as they said during the announcement, the train design befits a “Luxury” Theme Park, with an amazing design, LED eyes, and LED lines along the side. Definitely the coolest coaster design we saw. Tecuani Beast is scheduled to open in 2025, along with four other new coasters at BON Luxury Theme Park.
Naruto
The other big new ride announcement was from Zamperla, sharing that they’re building the first ever coaster themed to the Naruto anime franchise. Parc Spirou in Southern France is building a whole new Naruto land — announced in October — and the Zamperla coaster will be the centerpiece of it. The family launch coaster will feature a double launch, as well as a switch track and the first vertical spike in Europe. The land is scheduled to open in 2026. And no train reveal yet, but we were told the park is likely to do a big reveal next Spring.
Model of the layout for the Naruto coaster announced by Zamperla, coming to Parc Spirou in 2026.
Train Reveals!
AlpenFury
Premier Rides and Canada’s Wonderland revealed the lead car for the AlpenFury trains. Canada’s Wonderland announced AlpenFury back in August, and the ride looks awesome. The ride uses the central Wonder Mountain at Canada’s Wonderland, launching riders out of the summit. It goes through over 1000 meters of track, with nine inversions, and up to 71 mph. The new trains are have a sled-like theme, and are very open looking. They’re very similar to Premier’s Sky Rocket II trains, but as user Danrar on Bluesky pointed out, there are a few small differences. This includes some of the side panels being removed, and a change to the restraints. Hopefully it makes a little bit easier to get in and out of these trains.
Rapterra
No big reveal announcement from B&M for this one, but they did have a Rapterra car at their booth! Of course, since Rapterra started testing the same week, not quite as exciting, but still always cool to look at these up close.
Models, Concepts, and More
Zamperla
Along with the Naruto announcement, Zamperla shared on one their posters that their new Double Heart design is coming to a park in Asia in 2026 (although no more details than that). They also told us that a second one is opening in 2026 as well, although they couldn’t share the region of that one yet. Still, it’ll be neat to see these when they come out.
RMC
Rocky Mountain Construction showed off a prototype seat for the new Wild Moose family coaster model that they announced last year. Interestingly, the actual seat part of the prototype on the floor is 3-D printed, because they’re still working on determining the specific rubber hardness to use for the seats. But, the mechanical parts are all functioning prototypes. One interesting part of the design, the entire restraint mechanism can be removed from the seat from the front, so it means maintenance on the restraints if there are any issues can be done really easily. No details on whether anyone has bought one of these models yet, but we got the impression that we might be seeing one as soon as 2026.
RMC Wild Moose prototype seat
Gerstlauer
Gerstlauer showed off a model of their “Inverted Infinity Coaster.” Turns out these aren’t actually new, one opened in Norway in 2023, and one is opening in Colombia in 2025. But, we hadn’t seen this model before. We love Infinity Coasters, and would be very excited to try one of these.
Maurer
Maurer showed off two different new Spike coaster concepts. The concepts include one with a giant “Figure 8 Loop” that looks amazing. But probably most interesting is that the models both show something new for spike coasters: longer trains. One of the downsides of Spike’s, and probably the reason they haven’t shown up in lots of theme parks (although one is coming to Six Flags Qiddiya and on the Disney Adventure Cruise ship) is the low capacity. So, new trains with higher capacity, maybe it means we’ll finally see some Spike’s not on boats!
Skyline Attractions
Along with showing off their Brass Ring Award Winning LED P’Sghetti track, Skyline Attractions also showed off a model of their new “Trail Runner” coaster concept.
The idea for Trail Runner is sort of a modern equivalent of an Arrow mine train, with lots of low to the ground, twist and turn, hugging the terrain features. As the model shows, other than the initial lift, the train follows the ground for the whole ride, getting thrills from how it passes around trees and rocks. A single rail similar to their other models, but it would be all new track and train designs. It’s a neat concept, and we could definitely use a modern mine train model.
Non-Coasters
S&S Sansei
S&S Sanei, along with Hersheypark, showed off the gondola for the new Twisted Twizzlers Gravity Screaming Swing announced earlier this year. The gondola’s for the ride are enormous up close, and you can see the detail on the Twizzler’s artwork. The color scheme also really pops (I imagine both on the ride as well as on an expo show floor).
ETF Dynamic Mover
ETF Ride systems showed off a full-size Dynamic Mover. This is their new trackless vehicle that can glide smoothly across a surface, while independently rotating the seating area where the riders are. The impressive part is it can keep the riders perfectly still while the base is moving, or rotate them in different ways. That’s not an easy controls problem to solve, and it means that you could do a lot of things creatively while moving the base but keeping riders focused on a certain point. It can also accelerate, rotate, and stop much more quickly than other trackless vehicles I’ve been on. One of the most fun looking things we saw at the show, and maybe this means we can start seeing trackless rides at smaller theme parks.
Triotech
Triotech announecd a bunch of new attractions coming to new Discovery Centers being built by SEVEN in Saudi Arabia. The attractions aren’t dark rides, but will have vehicles with open windows situated in rooms with giant screens, so they’ll give an immersive, dark ride feeling. The first thing I pictured looking at the concept art is something similar to maybe a the King Kong part of the Tram Tour at Universal Hollywood. Giant screens that full surround your vehicle. The biggest part is it fits in a relatively small, 1000 square foot space. So it should be something the places without room for full dark rides could install. They wouldn’t reveal the exact IP yet, but we know a Transformers coaster is being built at one of SEVEN’s theme parks, so that seems like a good guess.
We think that covers all the biggest new attraction announcements and ride concepts we saw, but if there’s anything we missed or that you want to hear more about let us know! You should also check out all of our Instagram posts from the show week, and our Instagram IAAPA highlights to see everything we saw at the expo this year!
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