Next year is shaping up to be an unusual one for California theme parks and their fans. It also shows that — nearly four years after its start — the theme park industry continues to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The spring and summer of 2024 promise the thinnest line-up of major new rides at California theme parks in more than a decade. We won’t have one open until Tiana’s Bayou Adventure premieres at Disneyland sometime late in the year. The only new coaster that fans will be getting will be a kiddie coaster at Knott’s Berry Farm when its revamped Camp Snoopy debuts Memorial Day weekend.
At least preschoolers and early-elementary-aged theme park fans will have a good summer vacation in 2024, with the new Camp Snoopy and a rethemed Dino Valley land scheduled to open at Legoland California in the spring. For older fans, though, the biggest thing happening in the first half of the year will be a corporate merger — as the parents of Knott’s Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain close their deal to combine.
It probably will be too early for fans to see any effects of that deal in the summer of 2024, such as a combination ticket for the two popular Southern California thrill parks. Fans will have to wait to see how the new Six Flags — under mostly the old Cedar Fair management — will change its two flagship parks in Southern California.
Creating new theme park attractions takes time, which is part of the reason why 2024 is shaping up so strangely. The pandemic didn’t just close parks in 2020 and early 2021, it led companies to pause or cancel a countless number of new attraction projects — some of which likely would have been debuting this year.
So, to fill that gap, we are getting expanded festival and event lineups at local theme parks. The Disneyland Resort is going all-in on festivals in 2024, with the return of Pixar Fest and Star Wars Season of the Force in the spring. Fans will be getting a new parade at Disney California Adventure and plussed return of the Together Forever fireworks at Disneyland during the Pixar event.
Elsewhere, SeaWorld is opening a new jellyfish exhibit in San Diego in addition to the return of its festival lineup, and Universal Studios Hollywood will continue to welcome fans to its popular Super Nintendo World, which has been driving record attendance at the park since it opened early this year.
The big question is, of course, will it matter? Will new kiddie rides and festivals be enough to keep fans coming to the parks in 2024? Disneyland has enough great legacy attractions that some extra festival entertainment likely will be enough to keep crowds coming until Tiana opens. Universal has a big new Fast and Furious coaster under construction to stoke demand when the Nintendo rush eventually settles down.
But for everyone else in California, 2024 could be a challenge as parks try to keep from falling further behind Disney and Universal.