As some of you may know, Glenwood Caverns had a high-profile fatal accident in 2021. As this is still under active litigation, we were unable to discuss this while filming with them. Notwithstanding this restriction, this video was produced independently with no promotional funding or editorial control by the park, and there was no quid pro quo in exchange for its publication. As a policy, we do not do full-integrations (videos where a sponsor dictates the content of the video itself.) Some broader context: this was the first of what we hope to be many videos shot-on location, including research through background interviews with relevant individuals. The idea is to be able to cover topics in greater detail than we can with existing footage, which requires getting more people involved in the process of making one of our videos. In all honesty, we learned a lot from this first attempt and are already approaching our second shot-on-location video differently.
Summary of articles I read: The drop tower operators didn't unbuckle the seatbelts from the previous ride that were unoccupied, and a 6 year old girl who sat on top of the seatbelts pulled the tail flap across her lap, making it appear as if she were buckled in. An alarm sounded, but operators ignored it and she fell to the bottom of the mineshaft.
Looks like they changed it alot since the accident. I'm sort of surprised that they were able to keep the ride. I remember the mine drop beimg pretty fun.
I appreciate the comment but not touching on this made this entire video feel like an ad for the park and less like a video about park logistics. How do they manage waste? How do they manage food? There are a lot of interesting topics that could have been covered instead of sugar coating how "safe" the park is. I distinctly remember hearing about the death in the local news and that's the first thing I think of when I hear Gleenwood Cavern. As a long time viewer and Nebula subscriber, I'm a little disappointed at how this was handled. I hope future partnerships will be handled differently.
I won't be as vitriolic as some commenters here, but as a big amusement park aficionado, I was a bit let down as this was more about one specific park than the business as a whole. I was expecting a video detailing the cost-revenue analysis. Like, how come some amusement parks can offer free admission while others (like big chains) use admission fees? Maybe for a future video that isn't centered on one location.
I get that, but I will point out that a lot of Wendover videos focus mostly on one location as a way of communicating the overall logistics of the industry. Take his ski resort video for example. I think that's mostly just Sam's style of videos, for better or worse.
@@ConnorLangkopf You are right about that in general. But usually he uses one example to look at an entire industry. This time is different tho. He didnt use this park as an example. this was all just about this one park in specific
I will say though free admission isnt as simple as that, as in those parks, you usually have to pay for each ride you do, whereas at parks with paid entry, you can ride most or all the rides inside the park for free once you're in. Its a differential in business model.
Description is misleading. Agree with others - this feels like paid advertising, especially since the accident from 2021 is completely ignored, while touting all of their safety systems.
on the other hand do you comment under every video about brick about bricks falling on people's heads and under every plane video about plane crashes caused by operators?
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 He didn't mention the accident once in the video. Instead he spent the entire time gaslighting his audience about how incredible their safety procedures are. This is the reason it feels like an ad - it's misleading to discuss their safety procedures without bringing up the recent accident.
I could see it both ways. I feel like "How great Glenwood Caverns is" would get less clicks because people would need to know what that is. "How an Amusement Park Works" is more generic and lines up with the other videos on the channel. I think that's more of a youtube's algorithm problem than just them. Its not just them who do that but a lot of videos I just don't know what they are about till i click on them because people are optimizing for clicks.
I don’t get what this video was about? A bit on the history, a bit on rollercoaster safety, a bit on general safety + procedures, but essentially nothing about the actual operations of an amusement park.
Topics for how to make a proper "How an amusement park works" video: Opening procedures, maintenance, behind the scenes, food prep, ticketing, games, logistics, pricing, new ride installation, guest experience, employment/training, budgets, or just about anything else but what your video discusses.
"A 6-year-old Colorado Springs girl plunged more than 100 feet to her death at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park over Labor Day weekend because operators of the vertical drop ride did not properly check her seatbelts, according to a state investigation into the fatality. Investigators found the girl, Wongel Estifanos, was sitting on the two seatbelts instead of wearing them across her lap, and the ride’s two newly hired operators never noticed even though they made seatbelt checks. An alarm system warned of a problem, but the two workers weren’t trained well enough to know what to do about it, so one of them reset the system and sent the ride on its way, investigators with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s division of oil and public safety found."
I was so confused, why was he talking ONLY about GC and not other parks hence the title How an Amusement Park Works? I guess it wasn't titled How Amusement ParkS Work but still I would have assumed he would talk about more then just GC.
@@MustraOrdo I mean i could get on board with the single park thing if it was actuaklly about how it works (got to imagine there's lots of actual logistics concerns with the location!), but this is just 'how cool their rides are'
Yes, it was about an amusement park and how it works. Maybe next he can do How "a" Restaurant Works and just talk about his favorite restaurant for 20 minutes.
I wish I had done that. I was watching on Nebula, where I have pretty high expectations for integrity. Now I'm too annoyed to let this go! 😅 I hope I'll catch whatever explanations/apoligies they release, and any tea on other channels. For once I wish I had X and could see what's being said there, but at least there's Reddit.
Talk about squandering audience trust. I’ve been subbed since this channel was “That Wikipedia List” videos, and I’m unsubscribing right now. I was here for the channel’s reasonable effort towards accuracy and responsibility. It appears that’s gone.
The upbeat and "inspiring" background music feels just as forced as this ad...ahem "partnership". Wendover is typically very logistics focused but this was just felt like an overview of a random theme park in Colorado
@@andrewb220I did this too when Economics Explained partnered up with PIA of all people for some ungodly reason and advertised on the community feed. I also did the same when the LTT controversy happened, but resubbed when I was satisfied with their actions going forward. These channels need accountability when they do the wrong thing, and a chance to be better, which I hope Wendover will do.
13:25“...powered by the intuitive simplicity of magnetic fields.” - As an engineering student who has just spent a good amount of my year banging my head against a wall trying to understand magnetic fields, this made me laugh.
@@sulljasonyeah also it was pretty informative for me, didn't know so many things about Amusement/theme park rides safety However I do agree the title is a bit misleading and he could have put a more appropriate title
is this an ad?......this feels like an ad, no one said its an ad? is it an ad? the fact you didnt mention someone died a few years back makes me think this is subtle ad? i could be wrong. but it would of been interesting to hear about how a death can affect the operation of the park ect
It's a logistics video on theme parks l, specifically one in one of the harshest locations. Plus Glenwood seems to be more apt to more "amatuer" media types, instead of needing a TV channel to get a media pass. Amateur not trying to be derogatory, just not typical media, which is boring, and overproduced anyway.
@@FIDEL_CASHFLOW_ did he ask you to buy anything? Does he work for Iron mountain or whatever fucking place is called? Were you required to watch the rest of this video? What the fuck is wrong with you people? The video is free. You don't have to be here, and you're not charged anything to be here. Why are you complaining? Just click another video.
Your disclaimer about the accident is completely disingenuous and unacceptable. You spent the majority of this video discussing how "safe" the park and its procedures are- when a completely preventable accident occurred and a child died as a result. Instead, you're functioning as a PR wing for the park at a time when they're facing scrutiny for a major safety lapse. On top of this, the park is in "litigation" because they're hiding behind a bullshit waiver that they claimed absolved them of any responsibility. And, really, this video has little to nothing to do with how an amusement park works. It's a 5 minute history lesson with a 15 minute safety plug for a park that did not have procedures and training that was adequate. No thanks.
...accidents like this happen all the time at amusement parks no matter the amusement park. There are far more brutal ones that have occurred at Disney. He used this park in particular because it's the only park in the US that has the extreme issue of being on a mountain. It also has the typical background of most small, family-owned amusement parks which are more numerous and rather different from the big corporate parks who usually just buy or build paved parks around the most popular areas.
@@poetryflynn3712 And... if someone did a video on the safety systems of Disney rides and failed to mention that a death in the past 5 years they'd deserve some criticism. Likewise, a video on waterslides touting the safety of their super-tall waterslide that failed to mention a kid who recently died would deserve criticism. I really enjoyed the video, a cool behind the scenes look, covering some cool safety features and some of the unique challenges. And yet... _clearly_ they had to agree not to mention the accident in order to get that access. That *is* granting the subject of the video editorial control.
@@poetryflynn3712 "We were unable to discuss this while filming with them." And just look at the content of the video. He mentions they changed the name of the ride where a young girl died but not _why_ they changed the name. For someone who is so very good at storytelling how could he fail to mention it unless his contract forbid it?
@@x--. Is it not possible out of good credibility he decided not to say anything until something was decided in court? It's pretty common for people to see that as being decent to both parties especially if one of the parties openly with holds information, i.e. refuses to discuss it.
Looks like he got to film a nebula video there as payment. A bit disappointing to see a whole video ad instead of a sponsored segment and with no disclosure upfront. It might also be acceptable if we actually got to see the interesting video he got out of it but it is a nebula exclusive too. :/
This. Even during the video I got the feeling it was rushed -- how is a gondola a tram? was there just not stock footage, is there a world where trams are gondolas? We're talking about the history, okay, safety challenges okay... wait, what is this about?
Especially since although the video may have been produced without direct funding, it was probably part of a contract that let them takeover the park for The Getaway (where most of the footage is from) Also, The Getaway is pretty good. Check it out
@@TheFotoPhinish No editorial control- so of all of the theme parks he could have chosen to use for a case study- he focuses on how safe this specific park is despite a high profile death that recently happened. Nope, no sale.
meh… most wendover videos follow a format of explaining a larger concept by doing a deep dive into a particular real-world instance. it is a bit sour that it’s concerning a business but it is conventional for a video on this channel
@@donut7087 that’s fair… as someone who has worked in the amusement industry, it did feel pretty cookie cutter and unspecific to the park, just using the park as a case study, but there was certainly much more detail that could’ve been included. although, glenwood is a very unique park when it comes to location so yeah that did feel very “how **this** amusement park works”
@@GavHern for example when he lunches into the explanation of how the roller coaster works, it was off-topic that I immediately suspected something wasn’t right. There’s just not enough content to make this video work, and it’s a pretty blatant sponsorship.
@@mixhpun there is certainly enough to talk about to make this concept work, i just don’t think it was directed at the right things. it could mention more about the inspection process, ride safety protocols, EMT staff, the process of installing and commissioning a new ride, etc.. unless i’m just misunderstanding your comment. and it’s not “blatant sponsorship”, since it is not verifiable that there was any incentive for wendover to produce this video, although it does certainly feel like one which is still problematic.
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 Sam likes to style this channel as providing journalistic overviews of a variety of issues. The favors and prodcution behind this video would be seen as a serious breach of integrity by any journalist. Like seriously this shit is basically the textbook practice of how corporations try to curry favor with the public through a "trusted outlet"
Sooo... I hate to be someone making a correction, but magnetic braking through eddy currents is not capable of fully stopping a train. A rollercoaster is required to have some kind of friction system to fully stop a train. This can be anything from drive tires (what defiance uses) to the large clamps many other coasters use. If you want more information, El Toro Ryan is a very good resource for the engineering behind rollercoasters.
It also uses physical pinch brakes on the initial brake run as seen @12:21 in the lower right. The majority of the braking force is supplied by the magnetic brakes, but the final stop would be because of the pinch brakes.
@@josiahsimmons9866 I don't disagree with you. At around 12:30 he mentions the magnets deploying brake fin alloys. That mention of something being deployed made it sound like some mechanical braking was taking place. To me at least.
This video is a rare big let down from Wendover. It just doesn't have a good focus and like others have said, it feels more like an ad than actually talking about how an amusement park works. Also there are factual errors in the coaster part, especially when talking about the braking systems.
I also thought it was just all over the place. There was no real topic in this video about how an amusement park works and was more about "look at how cool this random ass park is"
I watched this on Nebula, which is titled "Inside the Operations of an Amusement Park". Yeah, sorry Sam, this video came across like an ad for the park. The part where you talk about how the park works didn't start until after you spent close to 8 minutes talking about the Defiance experience. I don't want to say "this could've been a Half As Interesting" video, but the parts that aligned with the title was only 4 or 5 minutes long. To be clear, I don't believe this was intentional, but please don't do it again.
That's very polite, but knowing Sam as an intelligent operator on TH-cam, I don't believe for a second that he unknowingly made an advertisement pretending to be an educational video.
While overall filmed nicely, this just doesn't quite flow as well as your other videos. Is it logistics, promotion, an ad, or a mix of all of them? Gotta do your piece, sure, but mentioning any promotions earlier on would help sate some of the frustrations expressed in the comments.
@@loser.czsksracky3507 ...accidents like this happen all the time at amusement parks no matter the amusement park. There are far more brutal ones that have occurred at Disney. He used this park in particular because it's the only park in the US that has the extreme issue of being on a mountain. It also has the typical background of most small, family-owned amusement parks which are more numerous and rather different from the big corporate parks who usually just buy or build paved parks around the most popular areas.
@@willtheprodigy3819is this a Sam burner account? You seem a little too pro Sam in this and other comments. Read the room bud. They covered up how and why a 6 year old died at this park where they legit talk about how safe it is without mentioning how or what they were compensated while admitting they had a partnership. If this isn't Sam, do some homework. If it is Sam, do better.
(will the prodigy) is a Sam burner account, he keeps deleting these comments when I post them... And he replied to a ton of the negative comments FYI... Looks like he missed this one so far!😂
@@braxtoncarroll5133 “Read the room” is a logical fallacy called “appeal to popularity”; just because a lot of people are saying something doesn’t mean those people are right. This DID explain the logistics of a park using one park as a case study. The fact that they filmed there has nothing to do with the content of the video. You’re just a hate mob lol.
This felt more like a tour of the attactions at Glenwoods Caverns with a bit of operations info on the side. It's still a good video, but the title setup my expections for more about food operations, team management stratgizes, restroom logticis, and marketing planning.
I never leave comments, but this whole video just felt like an ad. Don’t appreciate feeling like I’m tricked into a 22 minute advertisement when I’ve always throughly enjoyed this channel.
This is the worst wendover video i have seen.... As a coaster enthusiast, a ton of the details about the coaster are not correct and are clearly the result of a very a poor understanding of how it works. And thats not to mention how weird this is relative to the usual logistics and economics of x wendover does....
I think thats a general youtube's algorithm problem and people trying to optimize for it. A lot of channels I have no idea what the video is about. LTT is really bad about it "i risked my life to save $500" and its a video about a power supply or something.
(will the prodigy) is a Sam burner account, he keeps deleting these comments when I post them... And he replied to a ton of the negative comments FYI Looks like he missed this one so far!😂
@@willtheprodigy3819 Nobody's calling the park unsafe (which is ironic, because this specific ride was extremely unsafe in the way it operated for a number of reasons). People are asking why Wendover spent the majority of the video discussing safety while complete ignoring the massive lapse in safety that occurred there. It's not just one operator's mistake- it was a lapse in procedure and training. Any park that allows an operator to clear a fault without a mechanic assessing the situation is an unsafe park. Which is why I've never heard of a single park anywhere else that would allow teenagers with 2 days of training to assess whether a restraint fault is legitimate or not. That just isn't allowed anywhere.
I’ve never heard of this park or the incident people are talking about, but this was a lot of nothing. I was expecting to get to see how things operate on a daily basis. I wanted to see employees and behind the scenes stuff like food service, park maintenance, waste management… things that make it work day to day.
ngl i was waiting for the first 5 minutes or so for some sort of twist, the surging music and saccharine, uncritical positivity just felt so unfitting and almost surreal. regardless of whether money changed hands, regardless of whether we need to be worried about potential COI/disclosures, this ceaseless dickriding with no real angle just makes for bad content
I suppose other theme parks were asking too much money to host a park takeover for "The Getaway"? So it was cheaper to go to the park under active litigation and agree to produce a thinly-veiled ad that counteracts some of their bad press in exchange for a cheapened price? Logistics on getting supplies up the mountain and waste down are glossed over in favour of how 'safe' the park is - and while the current systems the park has ARE now safe, the explanations of them are a little heavy-handed. Plus a lot of weird wording that - as a coaster enthusiast - tells me this was definitely a script sent by marketing at Glenwood.
If one were to consider how to go about creating a deep dive on the logistics of operating an amusement park from scratch, the first thought wouldn't be "what's a niche, small amusement park that I can use for the case study?" It would be "Let's do some research on the broad strokes, and find the best "average" mid-size amusement parks and reach out to several, and based on the responses, use one or two as a case study for access, interviews, and contrast. If there was an ongoing legal case involving any location, and you are prevented from discussing it, then maybe its a good idea not to use it as a case study at all, as safety is a fairly integral topic for amusement parks. You can't spend a bunch of time talking about safety using a specific case study, talk about how they do so much to prevent accidents, and then skirt around mentioning that despite this, there was still a failure of safety for that specific example of a park. You don't even have to assign blame to the park if its still in the court. But not mentioning it in the main video at all IS disingenuous. The way I see it, a high profile fatal injury led an amusement park to reach out to you as a PR move, and you jumped at the opportunity, and felt you could be 'unbiased' because you weren't taking money from them directly/being sponsored by them, and you were retaining editorial control. But there's so many other things that can cause you to be biased and curate focus to put the subjects of the case study in a good light. Maybe they put on a show for you and the inside access you got was itself curated to look more positive than you realize. Maybe you feel like any discussion on the topic would lead to legal consequences that you don't want to risk and as you're not a lawyer, not wanting to take that risk. That may be fair, but its still bias! Maybe you feel like if the video isn't an overwhelmingly positive take, future places that you want to film at for future projects, will be less willing to give you access to their restricted areas. Whether or not they directly sponsored you, there are so many ways you can feel pressured to be biased. And its easy to overlook it and think you have a fair narrative without realizing the bias. But if people are telling you that "This video feels like an ad" and "There's tons of things that feel disingenuous about this video.", it's a good idea to listen, check your biases, acknowledge it, and figure out how to do better. This may have come from a place of genuine oversight, but trying to defend it does nothing to help your reputation. I love your videos and have watched them for years, and I've loved the integrity you've generally seemed to had with your values, for example when you advertised Wren, while acknowledging your distaste for carbon offset schemes and why you were promoting Wren as an exception to the industry as a whole. It's easy to lose touch of that integrity, without even realizing it. But there are those who recognize it when they're called out, and do something to address it, and those who double down. This is definitely the time to reflect and think about how you want to go about engaging with your audience in the future. Lets just say, I'm really hoping I can continue to enjoy your videos in the years to come.
Sam, we love your videos and the analysis that typically accompanies them. Something like this cheapens your brand. Be careful, projects like this are how you lose an audience. I also think it may backfire for Glenwood. I had never heard of them before this video, but now I'm very aware that they killed someone. Not exactly the PR boost they likely were going for.
@@kicapanmanis1060killed isn't the best choice of words here. Still, a 6 year old died on a ride. The suspiciously fawning video talking about all their safety measures does its absolute best to dance around it, or even acknowledge that it happened. Also not mentioned, the death in the park last year
Correction- at around the seven minute mark, it is said that this is the only underground drop tower in the world- this is incorrect. At Alton Towers Resort (in the UK) there is a set of four underground drop towers in an experience known as Nemesis Sub Terra
As a longtime Wendover viewer and fan, this was definitely disappointing. I'm still a fan, there's no need for hyperbole. One bad video and questionable decision doesn't ruin everything, but it does tarnish the reputation. Do better. Hopefully you take this (seemingly) near universal feedback.
This comment more accurately shares my sentiments than the others which are more vitriolic. Was this a video about the logicistics of an amusement park? Yes, technically. But Wendover's brand has been about "Yes, Objectively" without needing the demurements of the word "Technically". It was interesting and I watched the entire video. I did feel a little tricked into watching an ad rather than a normal explainer. This could have been solved with a title change that accurately calls out a specific amusement park I think. Just wanted to leave some constructive criticism for things to improve in the future.
A few mistakes I've noticed, one, Defiance is not the steepest drop west of the Mississippi, that goes to Cannibal. Two, beyond vertical drops are not considered inversions as you do not pass 135°. Three, a banana roll is only one inversion, once you're past 135° you don't go back until you're exiting the element. Four, what Defiance has is what's known as a vertical lift, camel backs are a thing on coasters, but they're a different element all together. Five, magnetic breaking systems cannot hold a train on their own and will always be paired with either a clamp or drive tires to completely stop the cars motion.
You just made us watch an Ad?! And based on the sentiment on this video, everyone feels the same way. Never going to this park if I ever had to choose.
They got so much B Roll of this park because the production team probably had nothing to do for that entire time filming that final ping pong ball challenge in The Getaway where they sat there for like 2 hours.
Would’ve liked for this to be shown beforehand that it was an ad. I like your content more when I can know you’re not being directly manipulated in your opinions by money.
Amusement Parks don't appeal to me, but Wendover videos usually make me interested in topics that I don't usually care about-this was an exception, and it feels like an ad.
I've been a Wendover fan since the very beginning, love what y'all do, but this video is one I will not finish watching. This is clearly an ad and not much else.
I've been working at a factory for the past few months and I have so much more respect for engineers. Truly brilliant people who make these things possible.
I was wondering why so many down votes, then I saw the comments, *and this misleading video is exactly why TH-cam needs to keep the dislikes option on at all times.*
This is quite clearly an ad for the amusement park. I appreciate that you specialize in logistics (which this video really was not about even if the title suggested it), but there is still in error in your explanation of the roller coster brakes. Of course Newton's third law is relevant for that, but the mechanic that explains why an external magnetic field can slow down the carts is Lenz's law.
Given that this amusement park featured in Nebula's "The Getaway", and location footage from that show features in this video, the idea there is no quid pro quo is tricky to believe. This felt a lot more like an infomercial than a genuine mini documentary. I didn't know anything about the ongoing litigation over an alleged wrongful death until this comments section made it clear, but that makes this video's clear skew towards discussing safety features, and not of the ride at the centre of the litigation, over actual logistics, feel... compromised... Be careful, Wendover. Reputations can be destroyed very easily, especially online.
Did I really just watch a 22 minute ad? I don't care if you didn't accept money from them or not, this video doesn't come across as all that objective.
I mean the points would be the same for almost every park so I don’t think there is anyway to be more objective in this case. It was a basic info dump with some low level info any industry person learned in their first days.
@@EraYaN To come across as more objective, they could have disclosed their partnership at the beginning of the video, covered the latest safety incidents at the park or at least safety incidents in general, and have covered more parks than just this one.
@@mohdodat2what do you think partnership means in this context? They let him come in and film. That’s what it means. They had no editorial control over the video lmao
14:00 you legit discuss safety. This is shockingly poor tatse given your pinned comment. Change the title to ' the logistics of advertising ' so it goes down easier.
It wasn't just me! I was so confused. Did someone else edit the video and not know what a tram was or they didn't have footage so they just included the tram? What kinda half-ass... They did a illustration of the caves, do an illustration of the tram.
this discusses an aerial tramway which is a separate mode that uses a similar term, so "tram" works for that given the context of the video, though I wouldn't have called it that given there are less ambiguous terms for it
4:08 There’s no Six Flags Buffalo, New York. You’re thinking of Six Flags Darien Lake. And in late 2008, when “Thunderbolt” went up for auction, Six Flags didn’t own Darien Lake. It was operated by PARC Management since April 2007.
While this is more than half as interesting, I’d like it to be more than half as truthful. Can you please explain the nature of the “partnership”? Do they provide detailed information about the park in return for not discussing the accident?
Damn, I've loved watching your videos for a long time. You finally made one about something I know a lot about, (Rollercoasters in particular) and now I'm questioning everything I learned from all your other videos. This script reads like it was written by chat gpt prompted by a hungover, checked out intern.
Getting a lot of heat in the comments here about this Partnership deal, and not mentioning the fatal accident in the video... Your comment says it wasn't produced with "promotional funding or editorial control", but what's the partnership look like if there's no funding?
Guest 532: "I want to ride something more intense than Canyon Swing 1" Guest 532: "Cliffhanger Coaster 1 looks too intense for me!" Guest 532: "Help! I'm drowning!" Guest 532 has drowned.
I understand the video. Sam or Amy clearly loves this park. It is near to your home, and I imagine what everyone hears as an ad is your personal feelings about the place showing through. As the video finished I was thinking, "Wow. Sam or Amy really loves this park. That was a love poem."
Best 22min infomercial you've created. I literally went to the description looking for a link to buy tickets. But now I'm confused. And don't know anything about actual theme park logistics....
Yep, this definitely confirms that Sam is a roller coaster enthusiast. How many rides did he do straight on Crystal Tower for The Getaway? It looked like quite a few!
As some of you may know, Glenwood Caverns had a high-profile fatal accident in 2021. As this is still under active litigation, we were unable to discuss this while filming with them. Notwithstanding this restriction, this video was produced independently with no promotional funding or editorial control by the park, and there was no quid pro quo in exchange for its publication. As a policy, we do not do full-integrations (videos where a sponsor dictates the content of the video itself.)
Some broader context: this was the first of what we hope to be many videos shot-on location, including research through background interviews with relevant individuals. The idea is to be able to cover topics in greater detail than we can with existing footage, which requires getting more people involved in the process of making one of our videos. In all honesty, we learned a lot from this first attempt and are already approaching our second shot-on-location video differently.
Summary of articles I read: The drop tower operators didn't unbuckle the seatbelts from the previous ride that were unoccupied, and a 6 year old girl who sat on top of the seatbelts pulled the tail flap across her lap, making it appear as if she were buckled in. An alarm sounded, but operators ignored it and she fell to the bottom of the mineshaft.
@@1.4142 what happened to the girl? Did she survive?
@@1.4142 Yikes, that's terrible. Thank you for researching it so I didn't have to.
Looks like they changed it alot since the accident. I'm sort of surprised that they were able to keep the ride. I remember the mine drop beimg pretty fun.
I appreciate the comment but not touching on this made this entire video feel like an ad for the park and less like a video about park logistics.
How do they manage waste? How do they manage food? There are a lot of interesting topics that could have been covered instead of sugar coating how "safe" the park is. I distinctly remember hearing about the death in the local news and that's the first thing I think of when I hear Gleenwood Cavern.
As a long time viewer and Nebula subscriber, I'm a little disappointed at how this was handled. I hope future partnerships will be handled differently.
I won't be as vitriolic as some commenters here, but as a big amusement park aficionado, I was a bit let down as this was more about one specific park than the business as a whole. I was expecting a video detailing the cost-revenue analysis. Like, how come some amusement parks can offer free admission while others (like big chains) use admission fees? Maybe for a future video that isn't centered on one location.
I get that, but I will point out that a lot of Wendover videos focus mostly on one location as a way of communicating the overall logistics of the industry. Take his ski resort video for example. I think that's mostly just Sam's style of videos, for better or worse.
@@ConnorLangkopf You are right about that in general. But usually he uses one example to look at an entire industry. This time is different tho. He didnt use this park as an example. this was all just about this one park in specific
You sound like someone who would enjoy Defunctland's Fastpass history.
Who am I kidding, you probably already gave that one a thumbs up!
I'd say it seems like Sam went to an amusement park nearby, happened to bring a camera (and operator probably) with him and made a video about it.
I will say though free admission isnt as simple as that, as in those parks, you usually have to pay for each ride you do, whereas at parks with paid entry, you can ride most or all the rides inside the park for free once you're in. Its a differential in business model.
NGL, I was expecting more about the logistics of theme park ops, this is a little too "Clearly an Ad" for my taste.
Gotta pay the getaway bills somehow
I like your defiance of the normal licking 2nd comment.
Clearly an ad, without the disclosure that it's an ad. Maybe the least satisfied I've felt after watching a Wendover vid.
He literally said this isn’t paid advertising or anything. This isn’t an add
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 Sure, and this isn't a comment.
Description is misleading. Agree with others - this feels like paid advertising, especially since the accident from 2021 is completely ignored, while touting all of their safety systems.
I mean, he literally appears in the video: 7:10
Not only feels, it is paid advertising.
on the other hand do you comment under every video about brick about bricks falling on people's heads and under every plane video about plane crashes caused by operators?
He literally said this isn’t paid and also stated the accident as well. Read the pinned comment before commenting shit.
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 u glazing him in every single comment chain is WILD
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 He didn't mention the accident once in the video. Instead he spent the entire time gaslighting his audience about how incredible their safety procedures are. This is the reason it feels like an ad - it's misleading to discuss their safety procedures without bringing up the recent accident.
Alternate Title: 20 Minute Ad Read for Glenwood Caverns
Or "the logistics of advertising"
Is this the place featured in an episode The Getaway on Nebula? Could be an ad for The Getaway too.
(Haven't finished the video yet as I write this.)
Plus nebula ad
Should probably change the title to "How great Glenwood Caverns is" rather than "How an Amusement Park Works"
I voted for "the logistics of advertising"
You have comprehension problem 😅
I could see it both ways. I feel like "How great Glenwood Caverns is" would get less clicks because people would need to know what that is. "How an Amusement Park Works" is more generic and lines up with the other videos on the channel. I think that's more of a youtube's algorithm problem than just them. Its not just them who do that but a lot of videos I just don't know what they are about till i click on them because people are optimizing for clicks.
that looped music in the background made me quit watching
Test comment
Half way through I was wondering when he was going to get to the point, then I realized this is just an advertisement.
He stated many times that it’s not a partnership or an advertisements
He did say that but we're not sure we believe him
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 If not ad, why ad-shaped?
@@warrenjohnson5971 How do you figure? He clearly explained how building and maintaining a theme park works, using one location is a case study.
My god, I was thinking the same thing
Renaming the video to something more specific rather than something so broad in general when it isn't I think would make viewers feel less misled.
I voted for "the logistics of advertising"
Somebody wanted their amusement park experience as a business write off
I don’t get what this video was about? A bit on the history, a bit on rollercoaster safety, a bit on general safety + procedures, but essentially nothing about the actual operations of an amusement park.
It's an ad for that specific park (had a fatal accident a few years ago, so likely pr campaign) and nebula/the getaway
It's an ad ---- Sorry! a "partnership"
I feel like he fundamentally answered all of those questions.
@@willtheprodigy3819this has got to be a Sam burner account
It's better title would be "how to expand a theme park" as well as "an ad for a new theme park attraction".
Topics for how to make a proper "How an amusement park works" video:
Opening procedures, maintenance, behind the scenes, food prep, ticketing, games, logistics, pricing, new ride installation, guest experience, employment/training, budgets, or just about anything else but what your video discusses.
5 minutes history lesson, 15 minutes talking about how safe this park is
"A 6-year-old Colorado Springs girl plunged more than 100 feet to her death at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park over Labor Day weekend because operators of the vertical drop ride did not properly check her seatbelts, according to a state investigation into the fatality.
Investigators found the girl, Wongel Estifanos, was sitting on the two seatbelts instead of wearing them across her lap, and the ride’s two newly hired operators never noticed even though they made seatbelt checks.
An alarm system warned of a problem, but the two workers weren’t trained well enough to know what to do about it, so one of them reset the system and sent the ride on its way, investigators with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s division of oil and public safety found."
The ride involved in that event was also used in The Getaway, so it feels even more icky.
thank you very much for this summary 🙏
Division of oil and safety...?
The "the safety system worked correctly but a poorly-trained worker overrode it, causing an accident" reminds me of the Smiler accident in 2015
I wonder how the seat belt warning worked and that it was not on correctly
IS this a Glenwood Caverns ad?
Yes
I was so confused, why was he talking ONLY about GC and not other parks hence the title How an Amusement Park Works? I guess it wasn't titled How Amusement ParkS Work but still I would have assumed he would talk about more then just GC.
@@MustraOrdo I mean i could get on board with the single park thing if it was actuaklly about how it works (got to imagine there's lots of actual logistics concerns with the location!), but this is just 'how cool their rides are'
I'm sold
If it's not, I don't know what it is.
Yes, it was about an amusement park and how it works. Maybe next he can do How "a" Restaurant Works and just talk about his favorite restaurant for 20 minutes.
He always uses one example as a case study. This is not different AT ALL.
@@willtheprodigy3819PSA this is a Sam burner account
@@willtheprodigy3819 this is different because it's sponsored
(will the prodigy) is a Sam burner account, he keeps deleting these comments when I post them... And he replied to a ton of the negative comments FYI
A restaurant that he has obviously been paid to talk about for 20 minutes*
One minute in...
This is the first wendover video I have turned off... It feels and flows wrong...
But its an advertisement so makes sense.
Same.
I wish I had done that. I was watching on Nebula, where I have pretty high expectations for integrity. Now I'm too annoyed to let this go! 😅 I hope I'll catch whatever explanations/apoligies they release, and any tea on other channels. For once I wish I had X and could see what's being said there, but at least there's Reddit.
I feel like ive been hoodwinked. Does this not cross the "you have to say you got paid" line?
Talk about squandering audience trust.
I’ve been subbed since this channel was “That Wikipedia List” videos, and I’m unsubscribing right now. I was here for the channel’s reasonable effort towards accuracy and responsibility. It appears that’s gone.
According to the pinned comment, this was a "partnership" and no money exchanged hands. Sooo, maybe not? Maybe still? No fucking clue
@@speckkatze There doesn't need to be a direct exchange of $$$ involved, any sort of received goods, services or favors will do.
@@speckkatze So for example, letting someone film a Nebula episode at your amusement park.
@@JimboRustles Im aware of this, which is why I simply quoted what was said saying that it could still mean that it should be labeled
The upbeat and "inspiring" background music feels just as forced as this ad...ahem "partnership". Wendover is typically very logistics focused but this was just felt like an overview of a random theme park in Colorado
To be fair it did make me kinda wanna go
Instant unsub. You lose all good will with this kind of BS.
@@dcae Exactly. It quacks like an ad.
@@andrewb220I did this too when Economics Explained partnered up with PIA of all people for some ungodly reason and advertised on the community feed. I also did the same when the LTT controversy happened, but resubbed when I was satisfied with their actions going forward.
These channels need accountability when they do the wrong thing, and a chance to be better, which I hope Wendover will do.
@@andrewb220unsubbed too
13:25“...powered by the intuitive simplicity of magnetic fields.” - As an engineering student who has just spent a good amount of my year banging my head against a wall trying to understand magnetic fields, this made me laugh.
This is the point where I stopped the video and went to the comments to figure out why this video was so terrible.
lol yeah just came to make the same comment
I am goin into my 2nd year of mechanical engineering and I am wondering what they hell those buzz words mean like what
Glad us engineers are seeing eye to eye on how “interesting” this marketing is
Even I was kind of confused. My imagination is high, so I could see how it might work, but I would still be skeptical.
22 minute advertisement is crazy... did not expect this of Wendover Productions.
Kind of thought the same thing but he didn't really lie about anything. Hard to separate what people might wanna know about a thing and an ad.
How is it an ad? He said it’s not.
@@sulljasonyeah also it was pretty informative for me, didn't know so many things about Amusement/theme park rides safety
However I do agree the title is a bit misleading and he could have put a more appropriate title
(will the prodigy) is a Sam burner account, he keeps deleting these comments when I post them... And he replied to a ton of the negative comments FYI
@@braxtoncarroll5133you've said this a lot here and I'm curious, do you have any evidence?
is this an ad?......this feels like an ad, no one said its an ad? is it an ad? the fact you didnt mention someone died a few years back makes me think this is subtle ad? i could be wrong. but it would of been interesting to hear about how a death can affect the operation of the park ect
... What is wrong with you?
Definitely an ad. Sad to see a TH-camr that I love be so underhanded and deceptive.
It's a logistics video on theme parks l, specifically one in one of the harshest locations. Plus Glenwood seems to be more apt to more "amatuer" media types, instead of needing a TV channel to get a media pass.
Amateur not trying to be derogatory, just not typical media, which is boring, and overproduced anyway.
@@FIDEL_CASHFLOW_ did he ask you to buy anything? Does he work for Iron mountain or whatever fucking place is called? Were you required to watch the rest of this video? What the fuck is wrong with you people? The video is free. You don't have to be here, and you're not charged anything to be here. Why are you complaining? Just click another video.
@@ccubsfan94What about logistics is covered here other than how safe and attractive it is despite a child being killed on a ride?
Is this a 22 minute long ad? The fuck happened Sam?
Ye this is some sussy shit.
Money.
Money happened upon Sam
bendover productions has become a shill. yall remember his dubai video?
@@bbbnuy3945I can never unsee this 😂😂
@@heathersyvilla9617I know… I already miss the ‘old days’ when I just read Wendover… ie - 3 minutes ago….
Your disclaimer about the accident is completely disingenuous and unacceptable. You spent the majority of this video discussing how "safe" the park and its procedures are- when a completely preventable accident occurred and a child died as a result. Instead, you're functioning as a PR wing for the park at a time when they're facing scrutiny for a major safety lapse.
On top of this, the park is in "litigation" because they're hiding behind a bullshit waiver that they claimed absolved them of any responsibility.
And, really, this video has little to nothing to do with how an amusement park works. It's a 5 minute history lesson with a 15 minute safety plug for a park that did not have procedures and training that was adequate. No thanks.
...accidents like this happen all the time at amusement parks no matter the amusement park. There are far more brutal ones that have occurred at Disney. He used this park in particular because it's the only park in the US that has the extreme issue of being on a mountain. It also has the typical background of most small, family-owned amusement parks which are more numerous and rather different from the big corporate parks who usually just buy or build paved parks around the most popular areas.
@@poetryflynn3712 And... if someone did a video on the safety systems of Disney rides and failed to mention that a death in the past 5 years they'd deserve some criticism. Likewise, a video on waterslides touting the safety of their super-tall waterslide that failed to mention a kid who recently died would deserve criticism.
I really enjoyed the video, a cool behind the scenes look, covering some cool safety features and some of the unique challenges. And yet... _clearly_ they had to agree not to mention the accident in order to get that access. That *is* granting the subject of the video editorial control.
@@x--. You have no evidence.
@@poetryflynn3712 "We were unable to discuss this while filming with them." And just look at the content of the video. He mentions they changed the name of the ride where a young girl died but not _why_ they changed the name. For someone who is so very good at storytelling how could he fail to mention it unless his contract forbid it?
@@x--. Is it not possible out of good credibility he decided not to say anything until something was decided in court? It's pretty common for people to see that as being decent to both parties especially if one of the parties openly with holds information, i.e. refuses to discuss it.
This is the longest ad I have ever seen. I really hope you get paid for it
The entire video I got the same feeling... just a very long ad.
Looks like he got to film a nebula video there as payment. A bit disappointing to see a whole video ad instead of a sponsored segment and with no disclosure upfront. It might also be acceptable if we actually got to see the interesting video he got out of it but it is a nebula exclusive too. :/
😅
He gets his money, but how do I get 20min of my life back? I'll remember this on my death bed and die cursing at Sam.
Agreed. I made it half way before I realized there was not going to be an interesting twist. This is my first thumbs down to Wendover.
This video is all over the place
I mean... It's an ad, and that park had a fatal accident in 2021. Probably trying to do some PR
This. Even during the video I got the feeling it was rushed -- how is a gondola a tram? was there just not stock footage, is there a world where trams are gondolas? We're talking about the history, okay, safety challenges okay... wait, what is this about?
Probably the first time a Wendover Productions video made me disappointed.
When he started nebula his TH-cam content went downhill.
Agreed
More people need to know this was a partnership
It wasn't. "this video was produced independently with no promotional funding or editorial control by the park."
@@TheFotoPhinishin the same sentence sam said they partnered with the park. it was a partnership but it’s not an ad
Especially since although the video may have been produced without direct funding, it was probably part of a contract that let them takeover the park for The Getaway (where most of the footage is from)
Also, The Getaway is pretty good. Check it out
Agreed
I asked for clarification, but we shall see if they reply
@@TheFotoPhinish No editorial control- so of all of the theme parks he could have chosen to use for a case study- he focuses on how safe this specific park is despite a high profile death that recently happened. Nope, no sale.
This looks like a marketing pitch and not an organic video. Shame
meh… most wendover videos follow a format of explaining a larger concept by doing a deep dive into a particular real-world instance. it is a bit sour that it’s concerning a business but it is conventional for a video on this channel
@@GavHern I would say this dive wasn't particularly deep though. Just really reads like bland corpo friendly stuff compared to his other videos.
@@donut7087 that’s fair… as someone who has worked in the amusement industry, it did feel pretty cookie cutter and unspecific to the park, just using the park as a case study, but there was certainly much more detail that could’ve been included. although, glenwood is a very unique park when it comes to location so yeah that did feel very “how **this** amusement park works”
@@GavHern for example when he lunches into the explanation of how the roller coaster works, it was off-topic that I immediately suspected something wasn’t right. There’s just not enough content to make this video work, and it’s a pretty blatant sponsorship.
@@mixhpun there is certainly enough to talk about to make this concept work, i just don’t think it was directed at the right things. it could mention more about the inspection process, ride safety protocols, EMT staff, the process of installing and commissioning a new ride, etc.. unless i’m just misunderstanding your comment. and it’s not “blatant sponsorship”, since it is not verifiable that there was any incentive for wendover to produce this video, although it does certainly feel like one which is still problematic.
Bro you need to click the "includes paid promotion" button. It's not optional but a requirement of the TH-cam TOS.
It’s also required by US law
He stated it wasn’t a paid partnership. ‘Maybe try reading before just assuming.
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 How much do you think they paid for their tickets to the park to do all this filming?
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 lol i see u dickriding in every single comment thats critical of this advertisement, er i mean “content”
@@sirshowaddywaddy7910 Sam likes to style this channel as providing journalistic overviews of a variety of issues. The favors and prodcution behind this video would be seen as a serious breach of integrity by any journalist. Like seriously this shit is basically the textbook practice of how corporations try to curry favor with the public through a "trusted outlet"
Sooo... I hate to be someone making a correction, but magnetic braking through eddy currents is not capable of fully stopping a train. A rollercoaster is required to have some kind of friction system to fully stop a train. This can be anything from drive tires (what defiance uses) to the large clamps many other coasters use.
If you want more information, El Toro Ryan is a very good resource for the engineering behind rollercoasters.
It also uses physical pinch brakes on the initial brake run as seen @12:21 in the lower right. The majority of the braking force is supplied by the magnetic brakes, but the final stop would be because of the pinch brakes.
I thought he said the eddy currents were responsible for deploying a friction breaking mechanism.
@@whitecanegamer At 13:00 he says "This entirely magnetic system allows Defiance to operate without any physical braking mechanism"
@@frisco557 Ah, yep! I didn't catch those, I just saw the drive tires.
@@josiahsimmons9866 I don't disagree with you. At around 12:30 he mentions the magnets deploying brake fin alloys. That mention of something being deployed made it sound like some mechanical braking was taking place. To me at least.
This video is a rare big let down from Wendover. It just doesn't have a good focus and like others have said, it feels more like an ad than actually talking about how an amusement park works. Also there are factual errors in the coaster part, especially when talking about the braking systems.
I also thought it was just all over the place. There was no real topic in this video about how an amusement park works and was more about "look at how cool this random ass park is"
@@zach7821 5 minutes history lesson, 15 minutes talking about how safe this park is... (I was hoping for more logistics)
I watched this on Nebula, which is titled "Inside the Operations of an Amusement Park". Yeah, sorry Sam, this video came across like an ad for the park. The part where you talk about how the park works didn't start until after you spent close to 8 minutes talking about the Defiance experience. I don't want to say "this could've been a Half As Interesting" video, but the parts that aligned with the title was only 4 or 5 minutes long. To be clear, I don't believe this was intentional, but please don't do it again.
That's very polite, but knowing Sam as an intelligent operator on TH-cam, I don't believe for a second that he unknowingly made an advertisement pretending to be an educational video.
While overall filmed nicely, this just doesn't quite flow as well as your other videos. Is it logistics, promotion, an ad, or a mix of all of them? Gotta do your piece, sure, but mentioning any promotions earlier on would help sate some of the frustrations expressed in the comments.
Also the death that occured in 2021, think we can all agree that its a pretty big deal that should be at least mentioned if not explained in detail.
@@loser.czsksracky3507
...accidents like this happen all the time at amusement parks no matter the amusement park. There are far more brutal ones that have occurred at Disney. He used this park in particular because it's the only park in the US that has the extreme issue of being on a mountain. It also has the typical background of most small, family-owned amusement parks which are more numerous and rather different from the big corporate parks who usually just buy or build paved parks around the most popular areas.
@@poetryflynn3712 Still should have been mentioned (even with the investigation not being finished).
@@poetryflynn3712 Also because they filmed the Getaway here!!
so... for filiming "the getaway"... did you guys had to promis to make this video as an advertisement for Glenwood caverns?
Next week is going to be a 22 minute video discussing the logistics of the goat farm.
Surely not, otherwise they would have to clearly disclose this exchange of services/favors in this video.
@@teamcoltra I'd watch that. Like a proper massive farm.
@@teamcoltra Alpaca.
gotta love undisclosed advertising
Where’s the evidence that this was an ad?
@@willtheprodigy3819 literally read the pinned comment where it's stated that this was filmed in partnership with Glenwood
@@willtheprodigy3819is this a Sam burner account? You seem a little too pro Sam in this and other comments.
Read the room bud. They covered up how and why a 6 year old died at this park where they legit talk about how safe it is without mentioning how or what they were compensated while admitting they had a partnership. If this isn't Sam, do some homework. If it is Sam, do better.
(will the prodigy) is a Sam burner account, he keeps deleting these comments when I post them... And he replied to a ton of the negative comments FYI... Looks like he missed this one so far!😂
@@braxtoncarroll5133 “Read the room” is a logical fallacy called “appeal to popularity”; just because a lot of people are saying something doesn’t mean those people are right. This DID explain the logistics of a park using one park as a case study. The fact that they filmed there has nothing to do with the content of the video. You’re just a hate mob lol.
This felt more like a tour of the attactions at Glenwoods Caverns with a bit of operations info on the side. It's still a good video, but the title setup my expections for more about food operations, team management stratgizes, restroom logticis, and marketing planning.
Well, yeah. It's an ad for the park
Is it over for Wendover Productions? Did he just drive his channel over a cliff doing PR fluff for a third-rate theme park? Stunning.
I never leave comments, but this whole video just felt like an ad. Don’t appreciate feeling like I’m tricked into a 22 minute advertisement when I’ve always throughly enjoyed this channel.
As usual, people only comment when they want to hate on something. Pitiful.
@@kicapanmanis1060 You're doing exactly that. Grow up.
This is the worst wendover video i have seen.... As a coaster enthusiast, a ton of the details about the coaster are not correct and are clearly the result of a very a poor understanding of how it works. And thats not to mention how weird this is relative to the usual logistics and economics of x wendover does....
Genuinely curious, what details about the coaster are incorrect?
it don't think he wrote a single line of the script, it feels like it came straight from the park's marketing team
@@Shagolagal The eddy current braking description was off
@@kerbalengineeringsystems7415 Also, calling the lift hill a "camelback hill".
Oh, no. Almost every wendover video is like this. You only notice it now, because you know about the topic he talks about in this video
Has wendover turned into an advertising agency?
Yes 👍
It's the Godwin's law of TH-cam
Somebody wanted a tax write-off for their trip to a theme park... 😂
And they filmed the getaway here!
Yeah that's Sam at 7:10 right?
@@richardnavratil9661yea
Clickbait title, and the worst kind, the kind thats just a lie, not a stretching of the truth
Well tbf the title is written in the singular "an amusement park". Still misleading though
I think thats a general youtube's algorithm problem and people trying to optimize for it. A lot of channels I have no idea what the video is about. LTT is really bad about it "i risked my life to save $500" and its a video about a power supply or something.
Feels like a PR video for the park which had a fatal accident in 2021 where their “guardrails” absolutely did not prevent an accident.
One ride operator that made a fatal mistake means the whole park in unsafe? I’m sure they were fired and dealt with. People make mistakes.
@@willtheprodigy3819yep and a 6 year old died. Don't worry though, at 14:00 sam gives a great synopsis of safety at the park.
(will the prodigy) is a Sam burner account, he keeps deleting these comments when I post them... And he replied to a ton of the negative comments FYI
Looks like he missed this one so far!😂
@@willtheprodigy3819 Nobody's calling the park unsafe (which is ironic, because this specific ride was extremely unsafe in the way it operated for a number of reasons). People are asking why Wendover spent the majority of the video discussing safety while complete ignoring the massive lapse in safety that occurred there. It's not just one operator's mistake- it was a lapse in procedure and training. Any park that allows an operator to clear a fault without a mechanic assessing the situation is an unsafe park. Which is why I've never heard of a single park anywhere else that would allow teenagers with 2 days of training to assess whether a restraint fault is legitimate or not. That just isn't allowed anywhere.
@@braxtoncarroll5133 loooool I wish I could delete comments. I’m just a troll and an instigator. Somebody has to play devil’s advocate. 😈
I’ve never heard of this park or the incident people are talking about, but this was a lot of nothing. I was expecting to get to see how things operate on a daily basis. I wanted to see employees and behind the scenes stuff like food service, park maintenance, waste management… things that make it work day to day.
Lmao y'all just Barbara Streisaned the park. I didn't even know the accident happened.
This is an ad
It really feels that way, doesn't it? A video in exchange for filming permission and aid for The Getaway.
It is absolutely an ad.
What’s that saying? “Trust grows at the speed of a coconut tree and falls at the speed of a coconut”.
A reputation-damaging video 😢
ngl i was waiting for the first 5 minutes or so for some sort of twist, the surging music and saccharine, uncritical positivity just felt so unfitting and almost surreal. regardless of whether money changed hands, regardless of whether we need to be worried about potential COI/disclosures, this ceaseless dickriding with no real angle just makes for bad content
Glad someone else noticed how weird the surging, triumphant music was.
I suppose other theme parks were asking too much money to host a park takeover for "The Getaway"? So it was cheaper to go to the park under active litigation and agree to produce a thinly-veiled ad that counteracts some of their bad press in exchange for a cheapened price? Logistics on getting supplies up the mountain and waste down are glossed over in favour of how 'safe' the park is - and while the current systems the park has ARE now safe, the explanations of them are a little heavy-handed. Plus a lot of weird wording that - as a coaster enthusiast - tells me this was definitely a script sent by marketing at Glenwood.
If one were to consider how to go about creating a deep dive on the logistics of operating an amusement park from scratch, the first thought wouldn't be "what's a niche, small amusement park that I can use for the case study?" It would be "Let's do some research on the broad strokes, and find the best "average" mid-size amusement parks and reach out to several, and based on the responses, use one or two as a case study for access, interviews, and contrast.
If there was an ongoing legal case involving any location, and you are prevented from discussing it, then maybe its a good idea not to use it as a case study at all, as safety is a fairly integral topic for amusement parks. You can't spend a bunch of time talking about safety using a specific case study, talk about how they do so much to prevent accidents, and then skirt around mentioning that despite this, there was still a failure of safety for that specific example of a park. You don't even have to assign blame to the park if its still in the court. But not mentioning it in the main video at all IS disingenuous.
The way I see it, a high profile fatal injury led an amusement park to reach out to you as a PR move, and you jumped at the opportunity, and felt you could be 'unbiased' because you weren't taking money from them directly/being sponsored by them, and you were retaining editorial control. But there's so many other things that can cause you to be biased and curate focus to put the subjects of the case study in a good light. Maybe they put on a show for you and the inside access you got was itself curated to look more positive than you realize. Maybe you feel like any discussion on the topic would lead to legal consequences that you don't want to risk and as you're not a lawyer, not wanting to take that risk. That may be fair, but its still bias! Maybe you feel like if the video isn't an overwhelmingly positive take, future places that you want to film at for future projects, will be less willing to give you access to their restricted areas. Whether or not they directly sponsored you, there are so many ways you can feel pressured to be biased. And its easy to overlook it and think you have a fair narrative without realizing the bias.
But if people are telling you that "This video feels like an ad" and "There's tons of things that feel disingenuous about this video.", it's a good idea to listen, check your biases, acknowledge it, and figure out how to do better. This may have come from a place of genuine oversight, but trying to defend it does nothing to help your reputation.
I love your videos and have watched them for years, and I've loved the integrity you've generally seemed to had with your values, for example when you advertised Wren, while acknowledging your distaste for carbon offset schemes and why you were promoting Wren as an exception to the industry as a whole.
It's easy to lose touch of that integrity, without even realizing it. But there are those who recognize it when they're called out, and do something to address it, and those who double down. This is definitely the time to reflect and think about how you want to go about engaging with your audience in the future. Lets just say, I'm really hoping I can continue to enjoy your videos in the years to come.
Sam, we love your videos and the analysis that typically accompanies them. Something like this cheapens your brand. Be careful, projects like this are how you lose an audience. I also think it may backfire for Glenwood. I had never heard of them before this video, but now I'm very aware that they killed someone. Not exactly the PR boost they likely were going for.
Lol sure "killed".
@@kicapanmanis1060killed isn't the best choice of words here. Still, a 6 year old died on a ride. The suspiciously fawning video talking about all their safety measures does its absolute best to dance around it, or even acknowledge that it happened. Also not mentioned, the death in the park last year
Correction- at around the seven minute mark, it is said that this is the only underground drop tower in the world- this is incorrect. At Alton Towers Resort (in the UK) there is a set of four underground drop towers in an experience known as Nemesis Sub Terra
Alton Towers didn't pay enough for the mention
Glad I’m not the only one who thought this was weird content.
bro forgot “thank you to glenwood caverns for sponsoring this video”
As a longtime Wendover viewer and fan, this was definitely disappointing. I'm still a fan, there's no need for hyperbole. One bad video and questionable decision doesn't ruin everything, but it does tarnish the reputation. Do better. Hopefully you take this (seemingly) near universal feedback.
Hopefully he continues to do this and ignores the conspiracy theories.
This comment more accurately shares my sentiments than the others which are more vitriolic. Was this a video about the logicistics of an amusement park? Yes, technically. But Wendover's brand has been about "Yes, Objectively" without needing the demurements of the word "Technically". It was interesting and I watched the entire video. I did feel a little tricked into watching an ad rather than a normal explainer. This could have been solved with a title change that accurately calls out a specific amusement park I think. Just wanted to leave some constructive criticism for things to improve in the future.
A few mistakes I've noticed, one, Defiance is not the steepest drop west of the Mississippi, that goes to Cannibal. Two, beyond vertical drops are not considered inversions as you do not pass 135°. Three, a banana roll is only one inversion, once you're past 135° you don't go back until you're exiting the element. Four, what Defiance has is what's known as a vertical lift, camel backs are a thing on coasters, but they're a different element all together. Five, magnetic breaking systems cannot hold a train on their own and will always be paired with either a clamp or drive tires to completely stop the cars motion.
Mofo got some rollercoaster knowledge, respect.
@@loser.czsksracky3507 What can I say, autism+COVID meant I had a LOT of free time
Hope they paid your enough money for this to be worth the major damage to your reputation
You could have been paid 100k by Glenwood Caverns for this video and it probably would be worth it for them lmao
I guess Glenwood Caverns let them shoot “the getaway” there in return for the video
You just made us watch an Ad?! And based on the sentiment on this video, everyone feels the same way.
Never going to this park if I ever had to choose.
This feels like an ad
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then...
Crazy ad
I wonder how Sam could have afforded to rent out the Adventure land Park for his new show. This explains it. Nice integrated ad.
What show, whats it about?
For those of you who are unfamiliar, a block zone is a section of track only one train may occupy-
Can't believe I got this deep into a comments section about theme parks before finding this quote! Upvote upvote upvote!
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Thank you. 🤣😆
They got so much B Roll of this park because the production team probably had nothing to do for that entire time filming that final ping pong ball challenge in The Getaway where they sat there for like 2 hours.
I hope you can revisit this topic in the future and tell us how amusement park actually works.
Would’ve liked for this to be shown beforehand that it was an ad.
I like your content more when I can know you’re not being directly manipulated in your opinions by money.
It's not an ad. And they didn't receive money.
@@kicapanmanis1060Please it's an ad no question
@@kicapanmanis1060 get schooled lol
That looks like an incredible location to set the final round of a game show...
That sounds like something a snitch would say.
I really hope noone loses anything in a cave
@@jordanhass A snitch or THE snitch?
@@emraefyou're right, THE snitch, which is just you and DEFINITELY NOT ME
@@jordanhass wait what??? there are more snitches??!
I feel like ive been hoodwinked. Does this not cross the "you have to say you got paid" line?
I clicked on this video VERY excited to hear about the logistics of amusement parks and this was so disappointing 😢
Wendover: Inside the Operations of an Amusement Park
Me, a 25-year veteran of RollerCoaster Tycoon: Thank you Sam, very cool
This video made me want to play the game so bad, lol
1:09 You know they're a keeper when you suggest bouldering through a 9 inch cavern on a second date and they say yes.
Amusement Parks don't appeal to me, but Wendover videos usually make me interested in topics that I don't usually care about-this was an exception, and it feels like an ad.
This is just an ad?
The title of your next video should be "How we lost all credibility in 22 minutes"
Was this ad the price for getting permission to shoot "The Getaway" at Glenwood Caverns?
I've been a Wendover fan since the very beginning, love what y'all do, but this video is one I will not finish watching. This is clearly an ad and not much else.
Hmm. I think I may have figured out how Nebula paid for using Glenwood Caverns as a filming location for The Getaway.
I've been working at a factory for the past few months and I have so much more respect for engineers. Truly brilliant people who make these things possible.
I was wondering why so many down votes, then I saw the comments, *and this misleading video is exactly why TH-cam needs to keep the dislikes option on at all times.*
This is quite clearly an ad for the amusement park. I appreciate that you specialize in logistics (which this video really was not about even if the title suggested it), but there is still in error in your explanation of the roller coster brakes. Of course Newton's third law is relevant for that, but the mechanic that explains why an external magnetic field can slow down the carts is Lenz's law.
The glaze is actually wild.
Given that this amusement park featured in Nebula's "The Getaway", and location footage from that show features in this video, the idea there is no quid pro quo is tricky to believe. This felt a lot more like an infomercial than a genuine mini documentary. I didn't know anything about the ongoing litigation over an alleged wrongful death until this comments section made it clear, but that makes this video's clear skew towards discussing safety features, and not of the ride at the centre of the litigation, over actual logistics, feel... compromised...
Be careful, Wendover. Reputations can be destroyed very easily, especially online.
Did I really just watch a 22 minute ad? I don't care if you didn't accept money from them or not, this video doesn't come across as all that objective.
I mean the points would be the same for almost every park so I don’t think there is anyway to be more objective in this case. It was a basic info dump with some low level info any industry person learned in their first days.
@@EraYaN To come across as more objective, they could have disclosed their partnership at the beginning of the video, covered the latest safety incidents at the park or at least safety incidents in general, and have covered more parks than just this one.
@@mohdodat2what do you think partnership means in this context? They let him come in and film. That’s what it means. They had no editorial control over the video lmao
@@Purriah If they had no editorial control over the video, they shouldn’t have created it.
Guess nothing can change your mind then. You want to be mad so you will be mad no matter what the facts are.
14:00 you legit discuss safety. This is shockingly poor tatse given your pinned comment.
Change the title to ' the logistics of advertising ' so it goes down easier.
Learn how to spell first.
That's not a tram. That's a ropeway or gondola.
A tram is a smallish slowish train that usually runs through city centres, Mr Wendover.
Exactly!
It wasn't just me! I was so confused. Did someone else edit the video and not know what a tram was or they didn't have footage so they just included the tram? What kinda half-ass... They did a illustration of the caves, do an illustration of the tram.
this discusses an aerial tramway which is a separate mode that uses a similar term, so "tram" works for that given the context of the video, though I wouldn't have called it that given there are less ambiguous terms for it
@@Windfarmer A *more* ambiguous term for it might have worked as well, like "transit".
Americans use weird terminology. Unfortunately, this ropeway is actually called an aerial tramway in American English.
Wow. This is an insane departure from this channel’s normal quality. A long ad read; virtually nothing about logistics. Insane.
4:08 There’s no Six Flags Buffalo, New York. You’re thinking of Six Flags Darien Lake.
And in late 2008, when “Thunderbolt” went up for auction, Six Flags didn’t own Darien Lake. It was operated by PARC Management since April 2007.
Good catch.
By you... not by their team which should have caught it.
0:03 It's an ad. Get out while you still can. Report as "spam or misleading"
thanks
Getaway if you will
His videos are becoming all shilling and propaganda, already remove my sub, disgusting behavior
thank you
Gross. Unsub.
I learned more from the comments section than I did from the video. Wish I could see the dislike count. You are getting absolutely hosed here.
While this is more than half as interesting, I’d like it to be more than half as truthful. Can you please explain the nature of the “partnership”? Do they provide detailed information about the park in return for not discussing the accident?
This is the first time I’ve watched a Wendover video and have left supremely disappointed
Damn, I've loved watching your videos for a long time. You finally made one about something I know a lot about, (Rollercoasters in particular) and now I'm questioning everything I learned from all your other videos. This script reads like it was written by chat gpt prompted by a hungover, checked out intern.
Getting a lot of heat in the comments here about this Partnership deal, and not mentioning the fatal accident in the video... Your comment says it wasn't produced with "promotional funding or editorial control", but what's the partnership look like if there's no funding?
It's more likely that this video was made in exchange for them getting to film there for the Getaway, or some agreement along those lines.
Guest 532: "I want to ride something more intense than Canyon Swing 1"
Guest 532: "Cliffhanger Coaster 1 looks too intense for me!"
Guest 532: "Help! I'm drowning!"
Guest 532 has drowned.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 f*ckin ❤ this comment so much
@@keelahrose Guest 532: I'm not riding haunted mine drop, it isn't safe!
Incorrect statement about the underground drop tower - Nemesis Sub-terra opened at Alton towers in 2012, 5 years earlier.
I understand the video. Sam or Amy clearly loves this park. It is near to your home, and I imagine what everyone hears as an ad is your personal feelings about the place showing through. As the video finished I was thinking, "Wow. Sam or Amy really loves this park. That was a love poem."
shame you're doing feature length ads now
The person that renamed the title
"Ad for Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park's safety & rides"
Brutal. Brutal, and based.
Best 22min infomercial you've created. I literally went to the description looking for a link to buy tickets. But now I'm confused. And don't know anything about actual theme park logistics....
Very cool in-detail video of a park more people should visit!
Yep, this definitely confirms that Sam is a roller coaster enthusiast. How many rides did he do straight on Crystal Tower for The Getaway? It looked like quite a few!
The upbeat music underneath the entire thing is so absurd conpared to your other videos.