Fascinating piece at the Graun by Daniel Dylan Wray about the links between amusement parks and the lumpen-futurist end of UK dance music - hardcore, donk, etc - with a specific focus on the Hull Fair, where the most emetically rotational rides (Waltzers) double as sound systems. They have not just resident deejays but guest sets, and MCs who chant their throats raw during sessions that can go on for 11 hours. One of the chants is the classic ardkore "oi oi oi!" shout-out.
I had never heard of Hull Fair, which is enormous ("16 acres, 300 attractions".. 600,000 attending over the course of its week-long annual existence) and honestly it looks from Wray's description to be my idea of hell: the roar of the burger grease, the smell of the crowd, the blare of the rides, the glitz blitz of the lights. And also the aroma of fresh vomit, according to Wray.
The names of the Waltzers (another term I never heard of - I'm not an habituee of these places - but I like the echo of the waltz, originally a lumpen, for-its-time raunchy dance before being gentrified) sound like back-in-the-day raves or deejay names: Hell-Blazer, Atmosphere Creator.
This connection between fairgrounds and the rougher-but-cheesier end of rave was forged pretty early on. I remember when first writing about hardcore, someone telling me that it was all you ever heard at funfairs these days.
And then from the other side of the equation, the raves themselves had gyroscopes and merry-go-round rides and even bunjee jumping from very early on.
I remember a Raindance advert on the pirates listing "the biggest free funfair we've ever had!!" as a prime reason to go.
Other evidences includee the "Fairground Mix" of The Prodigy's "Everybody In the Place".
On the B-side of "Everybody" there was a track called "G-Force", which I guess doubled, or tripled, as a reference to the music's rush-inducing torques, the accelerant thrills of pills, and the extreme sensations of fairground rides.
"Rides are bumping against the limits of physics and the human body to deliver experiences that are more death-defying than ever before. There are hyper-coasters (more than 200 feet tall), giga-coasters (more than 300 feet tall), and strata-coasters (even taller) capable of hurtling people at 120 miles an hour. A 640-foot-tall “exa-coaster” more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty will open soon in Saudi Arabia, and will reach speeds of 155 miles an hour.
"The goal is not just to delight but to overwhelm."
Compare this from Wray's piece:
“What we do takes people away from the pain and sorrows of life,” says Willy G, passionately. “It’s like a big wonderland. And if we can create that for people … what more can you do?”
"Walt Disney pioneered the art of micromanaging visitors’ experiences when, 70 years ago, he opened his first park, Disneyland, in California. To prevent life’s unpleasantness from impinging on his utopia, he did not allow the sale of newspapers...."
Other snippets:
"But even as rides have become more complex, the storylines behind them have gotten quicker and simpler to accommodate shrinking attention spans. “You have to create these moments where they are impactful, but they’re not long enough to bore you. It’s like, ‘Wow, this is great.’ BOOM—and then you’re just jumping on to the next one,” Thierry Coup, a former Universal executive who oversaw the creative development of Epic Universe, told me. “It’s more like the TikTok philosophy.”
"At Universal’s parks, Kevin explained, “everything is as it should be in a perfect world.” Harry Potter’s Paris at Epic Universe, for example, has magical creatures and no cigarette butts. “Obviously, if you go to Paris, you’re going to see Paris as it really is,” he said. His frown made clear that “Paris as it really is” was indisputably a bad thing."
"For all the warm and fuzzy feelings they engender, theme parks spend an astronomical amount of effort and money to simulate the feeling that they are trying to kill us. Stardust Racers, the sinewy roller coaster that towers over Epic Universe, shoots bodies through the sky at more than 60 miles an hour and plunges them toward the surface of the Earth from the height of a 10-story building. On a roller coaster, the theme park commands your full and undivided attention."
"Roller-coaster aficionados have their own extensive vocabulary to catalog all of the techniques that rides use to give you the impression you’re going to die. Stardust Racers, which a roller-coaster critic called “one of the greatest on the planet,” has “top hats” (abrupt rises and falls mimicking the shape of Abraham Lincoln’s stovepipe hat); “airtime hills” (which make you feel like you’re floating); “ejector airtime” (which tosses your body into the ride’s restraints); a “zero-g roll” (a 360-degree twist that spins you upside down and makes you feel weightless); “crossovers” (where the track loops back on itself); and several “head-choppers” (moments where the coaster seems like it’ll rip your skull off)."
"One of the challenges of building coasters is that each one is, essentially, a prototype—Stardust Racers is the only ride in the world that weaves two groups of people around each other and upside down, mid-air—and these prototypes must work safely and reliably from opening day, 14 hours a day, hundreds of days a year, for 30 years (the estimated lifespan of a coaster).
A roller coaster’s first riders are usually about 170 pounds with a head, torso, legs, and no arms. These dummies—human-shaped plastic bags filled with water to mimic the weight of real riders—can be outfitted with sensors, then loaded on a coaster to test whether speeds and g-forces conform to the computer’s predictions. Tweaks are rare, but sometimes necessary: a section of track might require reconstruction or brakes might need to be introduced to slow an unexpectedly speedy stretch. Disconcertingly, one can find videos online of dummies flying off rides during testing, though a 2005 survey of a decades’ worth of fatalities in the U.S. found that an average of four people die annually from coasters, fewer than the number killed by kitchen appliances."
"Roller coasters were once limited by technology, but now it’s our bodies that are holding them back. Coasters can subject riders to g-forces more powerful than those typically experienced by astronauts—people on Stardust Racers will experience more than 4 g’s of force, compared with the 3 g’s typical during a space-shuttle launch—though industry guidelines limit how long riders should be made to endure such strong accelerations. At upwards of 4 g’s, the human heart struggles to pump blood; you should experience this for no more than two seconds, per the standards for rides in the U.S. “The time is very important here because you don’t want people graying out or maybe even blacking out,” Daniel Schoppen, a roller-coaster designer with the firm Intamin, which has built attractions for Universal’s parks, told me. “This is not enjoyment. This is not fun.”
And this is interesting in re. the music connection:
"Once a coaster has been deemed safe, its designers ride it over and over to further finesse the experience. To Schoppen, the best coaster is like a piece of music: “Every part has its own motif, has its own feeling,” he told me."
Also this: "Braving a ride offers “a sense of assurance that you will survive no matter what is going on, what trials and tribulations you may be undergoing,” the Disney historian and former “Imagineer” Tom Morris told me. “It’s a way of proving that you can get through it.” When the world scares us, people turn to the controlled terror of theme parks."
