Pandemonium (roller coaster)

History

The first instillation of Pandemonium opened at Six Flags New England on April 16, 2005 and dubbed as Mr. Six's Pandemonium. The New England park came to roller coaster manufacture, Gerstlauer to help bring a coaster to the park that would be attracted to all ages. Gerstlauer then introduced Six Flags with the manufacture's latest development of the spinning roller coaster, that was developed in the early 2000's. In early 2005, Six Flags New England announced its plans for the upcoming season by adding two roller coasters to the park, including Mr. Six's Pandemonium, themed after the advertising character of the company. Without any notice, Six Flags New England removed the theming of Mr. Six on the roller coaster and operated it as Pandemonium for the start of the 2007 season.

In late 2006 and early 2007, both Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Six Flags St. Louis announced adding a new spinning coaster to their collection of rides at their park. Six Flags licensed with professional skateboarder, Tony Hawk, two help brand the company's newest two coasters after the success of the Boom Boom HuckJam, which toured many Six Flags parks in 2006. The ride was originally billed as the "Tony Hawk experience" and was designed to have the look and feel of a giant red-and-black skatepark. It offered a full "extreme sports" experience, with monitors in the queue lines displaying highlights of the history of action sports and a large spinning Tony Hawk figure crowning the ride. In 2007, both parks equipped their two new coasters with CD ride technology that captures your on-ride experience and then burns it onto a DVD for a take home souvenir.

With the success of Tony Hawk's Big Spin, Six Flags announced in late 2007, they would be adding two more to their parks. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and Six Flags Over Texas both opened the next two installments in the spring of 2008.

In November of 2010, Six Flags began the process of cancelling licensed intellectual property deals they had with various brands including what they had with Tony Hawk himself as the company was emerging itself from bankruptcy at that time. Discovery Kingdom, Fiesta Texas, and Over Texas operated until January of 2011 that 2010 season for Holiday in the Park, so those three parks quickly dropped Tony Hawk's name from the ride and any other memorabilia associated with him and operated their coaster as Big Spin for the remainder of the season. At the start of the new season in 2011, all four Tony Hawk's Big Spins were officially renamed to Pandemonium like its sister park at New England.

Superman: Ultimate Flight was announced by Six Flags in late 2011 to be built at Discovery Kingdom, which would replace their Pandemonium roller coaster. Pandemonium at Discovery Kingdom officially closed at the park on January 1, 2012. As a relatively new coaster, Six Flags moved the coaster to the headquarters of Larson International and Roller Coaster Museum, which are both located in Plainview, Texas to keep as storage. In mid 2012, Six Flags México announced The Joker for the 2013 season. Track of the stored Pandemonium moved from Texas to Mexico to its new home.

Layout

According to the Gerstlauer website, the manufacture has two different models of its spinning roller coaster collection and one where a park can customize to fit its desires. The five Pandemonium's make up both of the two, the 400 and the 420. Each model has different statistics, so the Pandemonium's ranges in height from 52 feet (16 m) to 54 feet (16 m) with the same speed of 31 miles per hour (50 km/h). Discovery Kingdom was the only park to feature the 400 as the others were the 420 model. The 400 model, is shorter at 48 feet (15 m), more compact, and had a lower capacity. The layout consists of several "segments" separated by brakes. The first segment comprises a swooping drop and climb into the second segment, which is a series of S-shaped turns. The third segment is a heavily banked figure-8; the fourth is a series of hills that form a semicircle; the fifth is a pair of small hills; and the sixth is a helix into the seventh segment; a long loop, which leads to a massive hill, and finally into the brake run. For most of the ride, the cart is spinning around rapidly.

Fiesta Texas and St. Louis's Pandemonium has a portion of its track above a Half-pipe like structure, used as part of the former theme for Tony Hawk.

Installations

All rides were installed by Ride Entertainment Group, who handle all of Gerstlauer's operations in North America.