Rob Middleton
“Nothing is as frightening as your imagination suggests it may be.” That’s how Sally Corporation designer Drew Hunter describes House of Nightmares, an attraction that just opened at Gröna Lund, a historic seaside amusement park in Stockholm, Sweden. Implementing state-of-the-art technology to elicit visceral emotional responses — fright and delight — is the heart of what Sally does.
Established in 1977, Sally Corporation bills itself as “The Great American Dark Ride Company.” From their first two sales for attractions close to home, Kennedy Space Center and St. Augustine’s Old Wooden School House, Sally Corporation today counts products in over 20 different nations around the world. They feel they are now the world’s most experienced dark ride company, employing 40 people, headquartered right here on Forsyth Street in La Villa! After so many years as an industry leader, the company’s installations are too numerous to count, with close to 60 separate million-dollar-plus dark rides.
This Memorial Day will see the opening of the biggest, most elaborate, interactive dark ride they have ever created, Justice League: Battle For Metropolis, at both Six Flags Over Texas and Six Flags St. Louis. Months of conceptual design, a new motion-based ride system, a mix of state-of-the-art animatronics and 3D video technology, countless special effects, a custom composed musical score… All this and more go into the creation of what park goers will experience in a four minute ride. With live fire, cannon blasts, holograms, explosions and surprises waiting around every corner, riders will truly feel as though danger is imminent, and the peril is real, as they immerse themselves in another fight of good vs. evil in the DC Universe.
If explosions, nightmares and superheroism are not exactly your thing, take comfort in the knowledge that Sally Corporation also proudly creates products like musical stage shows featuring animatronic penguins. That very item was just shipped to the Chimelong Penguin Hotel in Zhuhai, China (“the largest penguin-themed hotel in the world”!). You read that correctly; sometimes things are shipped from the USA to China, including amazing things produced by the Sally Corporation right here in Jacksonville, Florida!
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