The Night the Lights Went Out in PKI

[bradb055]

Alright... Has anyone noticed that all of the newer rides have dull and boring flood lights to light them up? Yes, this works for some rides, but not all of them. What ever happened to all of the great lighting that amusment parks were know for? Is Coney Mall the only place where old school carnaval lights can be seen? I remember going to PKI (KI at the time) and having a lot of fun just seeing all of the rides lit up at night (monster, scrambler, Shake R & R). The lighting of the rides can be crucial to a coaster or rides theming and its success. Yes, of coarse some rides are better with out lights (Beast) but for the most part they are needed. Even the Christmas style lights on The Vortex are better than nothing. My personal favorite was Xtream Flyers arch. It used to light up all diffrent colors and fade in and out. Now the towers lights cant even be seen by Drop Zones airport worthy landing lights! Bring back the night atmosphere PKI please. Wow, I feel better getting that off my back.

Edited January 1, 1970 by Bradb055

[PKI Homey]

I must agree with you on the lighting. Maybe we'll see some improvements in the off-season. It's not like they would make a major announcement about that. I hate to keep bringing up this name, but CP has really nice lights on many of their coasters. Ex: Millenium Force-color changing chasing lights on the hill, the white chasing lights on Mantis, the color changing lights on the Power Tower. There are many more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

[fryler87]

Agreed to an extent. At CP, they have sweet lighting. MF and PT have those multi-colored lights that change. I must say, it looks beautiful and sweet. It's one of those not-so-expensive things that can really give rides a face lift. The flood lights also make rides look sweet (Mean Streak and TTD at CP), however they can't be used everywhere.

The old school lighting is pretty cool. I think it's more of the type/aura of a ride that makes it have its lighting. Although, I will agree that some of the lighting should be brought back.

[BoddaH1994]

I totally agree. I have thought the same thing many times.

Just think about the potential with Delirium. Chasers on the bottom of the Frisbee would be really cool, like neons or something.

All coasters should have chasers going up the hill, it should be a state law.

-Ryan

[CYoung2003]

In my opinion some rides should have the flood lights and nothing else. Just because of the colors schemes. Perfect example is none other than the big bad Drop Zone. First off, its a 315 ft multicolored tower, so if you put flashy colorful lights on it, it would look stupid. And plus it has those "airport runway worthy lights" is because the lights need to light up the whole tower so we can see the tower. But I do agree with you on one thing, Skyflyer's lights were pretty sweet.

[fyrfyter]

Just think about the potential with Delirium. Chasers on the bottom of the Frisbee would be really cool, like neons or something.

Neon is bad if it isn't protected, because it is made of glass and breaks rather easily. Not to mention, the fact that neon does not do well with vibrations either. I think PKI should really invest in some fiber optic lighting. Its really flexible, light can travel really far, and you never have to worry about it getting the neon flicker, or a bulb burning out. If the bulb does burn out, its only one bulb, instead of several, and it can change colors and have all kinds of neat lighting effects.

[fryler87]

Fiber optics would be a wonderful alternative...it can work on something that moves or vibrates and you do only need to replace one bulb instead of many. If anybody here as ever seen a swimming pool with fiber optics you know it's pretty neat...when you have fiber optics that change colors, it gets even better.

The only two downfalls with fiber optics is that when they break, (and they do) they CAN be a hassle to fix. I didn't say they ARE a hassle...they CAN be. Working at a pool company, I can attest to this. The other is that they are initally expensive to install. Other than that, I think we will soon see this lighting technology used on rides very soon. Let's hope someone in the upper-ranks of ride design and decor will think of this.

[Tanner]

I think Delirium looks great how it is lit now. If you haven't seen it, check out the photo gallery. I do think, however, that some rides need more light. Vortex would look nice lit up at night, along with Racers. I'm not sure about Face/Off, but if they'd light that sucker up as they do Invertigo at SFGA the ride would look amazing.

[Scooby_Doo]

I agree! Delirium looks awsome at Night! Vortex looks kinda dull at night they should make Vortex look a bit better at night...The Best which is my fav coaster seems all right how its lit.

[coasterrz]

Face Off is lit up by spotlights I think The Vortex looks good the way it is with the chaser lights going up the lift hill. Racer also looks good with the chaser lights on the backward side running all the way through Coney Mall. In general, all the attractions in Coney Mall have decent lighting especially Zephyr. While I would like to see more lights (like on the International Street buildings) I think PKI has done a good job lighting their attractions.

[Beastfreak]

I hate the chaser lights on Vortex. I think they only look good on Racer and old out back type Wooden coasters. Vortex needs some spots. There is this really cool picture that someone took of The Vortex back near the time it opened (it hangs in one of the offices) that is a time lapse picture at night. So the only thing you see is the bright orange and blue of the track and a streak of orange and blue from where the train flew by. The only way to do this is to have spots on the track, which they must have brought in portable lights because I know a flash would do the trick (a strong one) for a still shot, but not a time lapse. The old school gas lights aren't bright enough to make the track glow like it does in this picture.

I've always wanted night photos of a lot of the rides at PKI but they just don't light them up very well. So we only get day shots. I personally like the park better at night... I get a more spirited feeling when it is dark and the rides are all lit up like the vegas strip.

[fyrfyter]

I hate the chaser lights on Vortex. I think they only look good on Racer and old out back type Wooden coasters. Vortex needs some spots.

i think Fiber optic color changing chaser lights would look good on Vortex, not just spotlights. Spotlights are so plain and boring, when there are more adventuresome lighting options available for such things.

[Dane]

As you may or may not know, my favorite section of the park is Coney Mall. A big part of the reason I like it is for its lighting. The Monstor is breathtaking at night. Sure it will be more work to maintain all those bulbs, but the effort that is put into design and matinance in lighting shows. And woulden't you want to be proud of your work? Think about it, if you were a lighting designer for some ride lighting company, woulden't you rather have a picture of the Monstor at night in your Demo book rather than a pic of Drop Zone?

[Shman]

I was once told that Delerium WAS supposed to have lights installed on the underside of the frisbee....don't know if it is true or not, but if you look closely there are some squares on the inderside where it would make since the have lights. The only thing about having color-changinging lights on all the rides is the plan fact that it is expensive. It does run a very pretty penny to buy things like that. An interesting fact about the fiberoptic lighting.....PKI has been debating this for a few years now, in fact Fiberoptics was the main thought for what to replace the lights that outlined the Intnl. Street buildings for all those years. Two years ago PKI determined that they need to take those lights down because they were unsafe (FACT: the lights on those buildings were a temporary installation for the celebration of the first season.....because they were supposed to be temporary they just used strands of christmas lights....These lights were so appealing that KI decided to keep them....a few years ago PKI determined that the bulbs were to unsafe to change when they burned out.....plus many of the sockets had rusted away so the lights would not work) That is why the lights are no gone.....you will find a few strands here and there...but the do not work anymore. Maybe in a few years we will see Intnl. Street lit up again....most likely by Fiberoptics....maybe even colorchanging...who knows.

As for the Lights on Sky Flyer....they were originally fiberoptics wraped around the legs with Robo-color lights feeding the color-changing light. Unfortunatly the design was very poor...the light Robo-color fixtures were located half way up the towers which made it very hard to maintain them. The lack of constant maintence and poor design is what led to the lack of lighting now. But I do agree that it was very cool...and I think that if the park does the Fiberoptic project on Intl. Street they should buy a little extra and fix up the sky flyer...along with adding it to the sling-shot.

[Beastfreak]

Now color changing lights on international street, that would rock.

Lights on the bottom of Delirium... as much as I originally would have liked it, I don't think they were ever designed into it. If you watched the discovery channel show you would know that there is no wiring running down the arm of the ride. All the ride sensors are triggered with wireless technology. The squares on the bottom of the ring are only little flanges that were used during the moving of the indiviual "pie-slices" of the ring during installation. With the flood lights there would be no need to have underside lighting on that ride.

And now that I'm all thinking about night lighting and time-laps photos.... maybe we'll see some more flat ride night shots for the site in the next few weeks!!

[CoasterKrazy]

Amazing lighting, which can be seen at such parks as Cedar Point, seems to be non-existant at Paramount's Kings Island. The park at night seems to be lack-luster and dull. In my opinion, there is only one ride in the park where this is exceptable, and that is The Beast. I hope that with time, PKI will pay more attention to the parks night lighting. They have so much potential with the structures they have in the park, but it's just not being used.

Son of Beast, Racer, Vortex, Tomb Raider: The Ride, International Street, Action Zone, the Eiffel Tower; All these places/structures and more have great lighting potential. Check out some pictures of Cedar Point rides at night on rcdb.com or guidetothepoint.com and you'll see what I mean.

[Tanner]

As you can see, with the floodlights, that Delirium is lit up really well. I don't think there is a need for lights on the ring because it is lit up by the floodlights that light up the structure as illustrated by this picture.

[coasterrz]

Actually, the lights on IS were not removed because of safety, or at least thats not the reason I heard. I heard that they removed them/turned them off for the 2002 season. The reason I heard is that they couldn`t find replacement bulbs for them. If they did find replacement bulbs, they were very expensive and/or had to be cujtom made. Since the park didn`t want to do that, they decided that turning off the lights would be better than having only half the lights operating. Shaggy might know more. I do believe that the park was looking into adding a new lighting system on IS. IS feels boring at night now without lights on the buildings. Incidentaly, Magilla Gorilla`s Grill (back side of Oscar`s the employee cafeteria) at least earlier this year, still had lights on it. Also, for this season, all the signs for rides in Coney Mall that were lined with lights (with the exception of The Vortex) had their lights removed, probably for the same reason. I wish they wouldn`t have done this, but just redone the wiring to accept a common and current type of light.

[Coaster-King]

Cool

[fyrfyter]

I think PKI needs to look at re lighting the whole park. I think Coney Mall needs a major update to its lighting concept. It can still look retro, yet be updated. nice brighter streets lamps would be cool, as well as adding fiber optic and giving it that updated look. I think the same holds true for Int'l Street. It would look really neat with update ligthing and fiber optics strung around. I think aslong as they don't do fiber optic overkill, it would look good.