Scooby Doo Museum of Mystery at Warner Bros. World, Abu Dhabi

A first-of-its-kind dark ride takes visitors on an immersive journey through a haunted museum.

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INTRODUCTION

Scooby Doo: Museum of Mystery takes visitors on a crazy chase through a haunted museum pursued by ghosts, suits of armor and other mysterious figures. Riding in trackless vehicles, visitors become ghost hunters joining Scooby Doo and other popular cartoon characters on a mission to solve the mystery of the museum.

This is no simple dark ride. In a first-of-its-kind ride, multiple vehicles criss-cross over each other in a frantic chase. On the way they encounter mysterious characters created by projection and animatronics, with special effects and audio ramping up the spooky atmosphere.

Electrosonic worked in partnership with Thinkwell to realize the creative vision, taking responsibility for the projection, lighting effects, audio, integration and show control solutions for this innovative family-friendly dark ride.

OVERVIEW

This innovative dark ride takes the characters and themes from a popular family cartoon series and adds technology to create an exhilarating fun-packed experience.

The trackless vehicles branch into multiple scenes in an apparently chaotic sequence, crossing over each other in a format that has never been done before. Depending on the vehicle they join, visitors follow one of three routes through 19 different scenes in a frantic chase led by a show vehicle driven by Scooby Doo and Shaggy.

The vehicles take visitors on an immersive chase through spooky corridors, secret passageways and museum rooms where they encounter ghostly figures, haunted mirrors and other animated apparitions in a spooky night-time landscape created by video, lighting and special effects on 19 NEC 65 inch or 84 inch displays concealed within the scenes.

A haunting soundtrack plays throughout the wild ride with audio from 110 speakers and subwoofers from JBL and QSC reinforcing the spooky environment through special sound effects and dialog from the lead characters and some of the mysterious figures.

Despite the apparent chaos, the whole experience is controlled and managed by the show control system to ensure precise triggering and synchronization of the audio, displays and special effects. The ride can be controlled and monitored locally by a touch panel or integrated with Smart Monkeys’ Parkwide Control System for centralized management.

CHALLENGE

One of the major technical challenges was to synchronize the triggering of the audio and visual content with the diverse routes taken by the trackless vehicles. This kind of trackless ride where vehicles enter the same scenes multiple times and cross over each other is a first of its kind and required careful planning and control to achieve a realistic effect.

It was also important to hide the technology so that the action and spooky effects appear to happen naturally within the scene. This is particularly important when characters are talking.

SOLUTION

Electrosonic worked with Thinkwell and Smart Monkeys to develop and integrate a control solution to manage the multiple servers, amplifiers, projectors, displays and speakers that deliver this immersive experience. The show control system triggers all the audio and video content to play at specific intervals. Displays are concealed within museum features such as false windows, while speakers delivering dialog are hidden behind animated characters or statues to create a more realistic effect.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Scooby Doo: Museum of Mystery is an innovative, first-of-its-kind dark ride that fuses architecture, storytelling and technology in a fun-packed way. The park now has a world-class attraction that recreates one of the classic stories from this popular television series for a new generation.

Electrosonic has used audiovisual material in a powerful way to raise the bar for dark rides and create the spooky atmosphere that is essential to this story.