Iowa’s Adventureland Oktoberfest 2016

Adventureland has updated its Oktoberfest website again with more details about this year’s event. They now list more entertainment, including a Ben Ulin hypnotist show, and the names of the stage locations:

  1. Carousel – somewhere on Main Street, I assume. It looks like it will be a small stage of solo acts, similar to the one that used to be in front of Iowa Beer & Wine Shop.
  2. Main Stage – this is probably something they are setting up in front of the Giant Sky Wheel. They recently cut down a bunch of tall trees in a planter in front of it, and we found out this was so it would not block the view of a stage, so this makes sense.
  3. Rathskellar (their spelling; the real word, and the signs on the building, say -er) – this would be the Bier Garten location. Since they do not say Bier Garten, perhaps they are moving the stage to the Rathskeller side this year.
  4. Coors Light Cafe – since more of the park is open this year, I am going to guess this will be the Coca-Cola Cafe (formerly called Soda and Sounds). I am expecting to see them covering up the “Coca-Cola” branding on the building with Coors Light banners 🙂
  5. Iowa Beer & Wine – construction just began in front of this spot to turn it in to a covered seating area, similar to what they have at the Bier Garten. This location is going to be used for the piano acts.

That covers the five stages. We’ll know in a few weeks how close my guesses are.

See my summary of all known Oktoberfest 2016 facts and rumors here:

http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Oktoberfest_2016

Space Shot and Monster lights updated

Apparently, about a month ago the Space Shot spotlights were reprogrammed. They are now doing a blended color change, where lights on two sides are one c0lor, and on the other two sides a different color. It seems to go through many more colors than it originally did when it was just cycling through primary colors. Around July 4th, it was just doing red, white and blue.

According to a poster in my Facebook group, The Monster debuted a new lighting program recently. I saw it running on Saturday night and it caught my eye because some of the ground lights were flashing. It seems to stop the heartbeat read lights on the tower sooner, and does more things with the ground lights than the original program. I’m not quite sure I like it yet, but I expect it will grow on me as I see it more. That’s certainly a lot more going on. The programmers have certainly been learning more things they can do with the lights since the ride opened on June 4th.

More to come…

2016 season almost done…

Adventureland’s calendar tells me the park is now in weekends-only mode, meaning there are just five more weekends to get to the park this year (plus the special one-day Oktoberfest event on October 1).

If you haven’t made your trip yet, time is running out. After the peak summer months, the park should be far less crowded.

2016 Map – Monster replaces River Rapids log ride

In 2016, The Monster opened, replacing River Rapids log ride. Cookies and Creme opened, replacing Football Toss. The Round Up was renamed to Tilt-A-Whirl on the map.

map2016

2012 Map – Hole In One

At this time, the maps were PDF files on the website. I will post a JPG version of it at some point.

In this map, the corner location in Last Frontier was still Hole In One.

map2012

Come on over!

Welcome to the unofficial Adventureland information resource site. This site will consist of news updates, articles, and an encyclopedia of information relating to Adventureland Park in Altoona, Iowa.

Your first stop should be to check out the Wiki – an encyclopedia of “everything Adventureland”. It is currently just getting started, but it should give you a good idea of the scope of this project.

Wiki

Let me know what you think!

Watch this space for future announcements…