Dutch coaster titan Vekoma establishes downtown Orlando office
You can't hear the rumble of roller coasters in downtown Orlando, but thrill rides have a new presence there. Vekoma Rides, a manufacturing giant based in the Netherlands, has opened a North American office in the downtown business district.
'This is the place to be in terms of theme parks, even though we work all over the U.S.,' said Ricardo Etges, vice president for sales and marketing for the Americas. Etges was Vekoma's first Orlando-based employee.
Now there are eight people working out of its office near the intersection of Orange Avenue and South Street, including research and development engineers.
'We basically have an extension of our engineering department in the Netherlands,' Etges said. 'In the Netherlands, we have between 250 and 300 people, and we found out that we can expand our engineering capacity with local resources in Orlando.'
The company, founded in 1926, originally made farm equipment and later steel products for the coal-mining and petrochemical industries. It started shifting to amusement park rides in the 1970s and in 2019 decided to focus more on North American markets.
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In March, Vekoma opened the Flash: Vertical Velocity at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey. It's the first 'super boomerang' style coaster in the western world, Etges said. Coming up is Siren's Curse, a tilt coaster under construction at Cedar Point in Ohio.
It's 'a traditional lift-hill coaster with the seesaw element on top,' Etges said. 'The train parks in the horizontal position, and there is a track section that goes from horizontal to vertical, like a seesaw. And then once it locks on the vertical position, it releases a train.'
Among its Florida coasters are Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom as well as Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Tron / Lightcycle Run at Magic Kingdom plus Epcot's Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, which debuted in 2022. It has also produced rides for Universal Orlando and Legoland Florida.
The move into Orlando was designed to help expand the business in Central Florida and to become 'more proactive and present to our clients,' Etges said.
'A roller coaster is almost like you have a long-term relationship with the park,' he said. 'Because the roller coaster is not only about installing the ride and making sure that the ride is up and running, but also keeping the ride up and running and reliable for decades.'
Other plusses for a Central Florida office include proximity to parks ('We actually had a field trip to Epic [Universe]'), vendors, potential employees and November's IAAPA Expo at Orange County Convention Center, Etges said.
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'We usually have 15 to 20 people from our team coming from the Netherlands, and we have a lot of meetings with clients,' at the Expo, he said. 'We usually have at least one vehicle being showcased' on the convention center floor, which is produced by Orlando-based International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, he said.
There are other projects in the works, but they remain hush-hush.
'We always need to wait until the park announces the ride to be able to start to talk about it,' Etges said. 'But at IAAPA this year, we're going to have some surprises.'
Email me at dbevil@orlandosentinel.com. BlueSky: @themeparksdb. Threads account: @dbevil. X account: @themeparks. Subscribe to the Theme Park Rangers newsletter at orlandosentinel.com/newsletters.
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