Six Flags Qiddiya Unveils Park Design

Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC) unveiled on Monday the design for Six Flags Qiddiya, one of the key entertainment facilities in a new city that is being built just outside Riyadh, and is destined to become the Kingdom’s capital of entertainment, sports and the arts.

“Our vision is to make Six Flags Qiddiya a theme park that delivers all the thrills and excitement that audiences from all over the world have come to expect from the Six Flags brand, and to elevate those experiences with authentic themes connected to the location. As a place that will create indelible memories and moments of delight, telling stories that resonate with our guests is a central notion that will be evident throughout Qiddiya,” said Michael Reininger, Chief Executive Officer of QIC.

Six Flags Qiddiya will be one of the key entertainment features in Qiddiya’s first phase when it opens in 2023. The rides and attractions found in each land have been designed exclusively for Qiddiya and include many that will set world records.

“The Six Flags brand began in 1961 when we opened as our first park, Six Flags Over Texas, which was themed according to the six flags that once flew over Texas. At Six Flags Qiddiya, we return to that heritage by creating six immersive lands designed for Saudis of all ages who seek family entertainment experiences steeped in their rich culture and history. We are thrilled to be part of a project of such scale and scope and are proud to celebrate this milestone with Qiddiya,” said David McKillips, President of Six Flags International Development Company.

Six Flags Qiddiya will cover 32 hectares (79 acres) and feature 28 rides and attractions across the six lands: The City of Thrills, Discovery Springs, Steam Town, Twilight Gardens, Valley of Fortune and Grand Exposition.

The Citadel is the central hub of the park. It is covered by a billowing canopy form inspired by traditional Bedouin tents. It holds a variety of shops and cafes and transforms into an interactive show space throughout the day. From here guests can pass through gateways to enter each of the themed lands.

The City of Thrills is the embodiment of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030: a forward-looking, boundary-pushing, future city anchored in Arabic design motifs. Here visitors will find Six Flags Qiddiya’s most recognizable and anticipated thrill rides. The Falcon’s Flight, inspired by the Kingdom’s iconic raptor, will be the longest, tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, while the Sirocco Tower will break more records with the world’s tallest drop-tower ride.

Discovery Springs reflects Qiddiya’s unique and timeless relationship between the desert and the sea as its collection of rides and experiences play with elements of earth and water. It is an aquatic wonderland of waterfalls, aqueducts and geysers, as well as exotic plants and trees. This oasis offers visitors relief from the summer heat by creating the feel of a dense rainforest in the middle of the desert. Visitors to Discovery Springs will discover a first-of-its-kind interactive ride called the Sea Stallion, where riders are propelled over rivers, behind waterfalls and through trees along a custom-designed course, as they control the speed and acceleration of their horse.

Steam Town is where the past and future collide in a rugged frontier town that is powered by steam and echoes with screams. Themed around mechanical marvels and a collection of dynamic contraptions, the land’s signature ride is the Iron Rattler Mine Train. On this ride the best elements of a roller coaster are linked with a dark ride to create a hydraulic lift which releases passengers into a freefall plunge through a narrow, steam-filled mineshaft. Other key features of Steam Town include the Sawmill Falls Water Coaster which combines a roller coaster track with a splashing boat ride, a spinning mechanical ride called the Bull Rider and a custom-themed climbing structure called the Treehouse Trek.

Twilight Gardens is an oversized landscape of the imagination filled with colorful flowers and friendly creatures, all specially designed for younger visitors and their families. This enchanted land’s key features include the Twilight Express Coaster, which takes passengers through a majestic garden, the Critter Chase, an interactive dark ride set in a 3D environment, and the Kaleidoscope hot air balloon ride.

Valley of Fortune is an exciting land of adventure that takes place amidst time-worn architectural ruins of old Arabian masonry, enlivened by the activity and trade of fortune seekers from around the world. This land’s signature attraction is Spitfire, a triple-launch coaster, which will take guests into a sky roll before an acrobatic stall and a breathtaking dive back to the valley floor. Other features of Valley of Fortune include Skywatch, a hydraulic boom ride where riders are lifted into the sky, the auto-themed Treasure Trail and the Aeromax, a family plane ride that swings and rotates freely over the park.

Grand Exposition is a celebration of innovation combining the nostalgia of traditional carnival midways with the greatest feats of science and technology such as the Gyrospin Pendulum, which swings riders to record heights. It is also home to Six Flags’ classic and most loved coaster Colossus, a gravity-driven wood-steel hybrid roller coaster that stretches over an 800-meter track. The land also features the Arabian Carousel, where Arabian horses march in a circular parade, the Expo Flyer swinging ride and Automania, with bumper car attractions themed as London cabs.

We watch video after video, consuming the world on our handheld devices in bites of two minutes, one minute, 30 seconds, 15. We turn to moving pictures — “film” — because it comes the closest to approximating the world that we see and experience. This is, after all, 2024, and video in our pocket — ours, others', everyone's — has become our birthright.
But sometimes — even in this era of live video always rolling, always recording, always capturing — sometimes the frozen moment can enter the eye like nothing else. And in the process, it can tell a larger story that echoes long after the moment was captured. That's what happened this past week in Beirut, through the camera lens of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and the photographs he captured.
When Hussein set up his camera outside an evacuated Beirut apartment building Tuesday after Israel announced it would be targeted as part of military operations against Hezbollah, he had one goal in mind — only one. "All I thought of," he says, “was photographing the missile while it was coming down.”
He found a safe spot. He ensured a good angle. He wasn't stressed, he said; like many photographers who work in such environments, he had been in situations like this one before. He was ready.
When the attack came — a bomb, not a missile in the end — Hussein swung into action. And, unsurprisingly for a professional who has been doing this work for two decades, he did exactly what he set out to do.
Time slowed down
The sequence of images he made bursts with the explosive energy of its subject matter.
In one frame, the bomb hangs there, a weird and obtrusive interloper in the scene. It is not yet noticed by anyone around it, ready to bring its destruction to a building that, in moments, will no longer exist. The building's balconies, a split-second from nonexistence, are devoid of people as the bomb finds its mark.
These are the kind of moments that video, rolling at the speed of life or even in slow motion, cannot capture in the same way. A photo holds us in the scene, stops time, invites a viewer to take the most chaotic of events and break it down, looking around and noticing things in a strangely silent way that actual life could not.
In another frame, one that happened micro moments after the first, the building is in the process of exploding. Let's repeat that for effect, since even as recently as a couple generations ago photographs like this were rare: in the process of exploding.
Pieces of building are shooting out in all directions, in high velocity — in real life. But in the image they are frozen, outward bound, hanging in space awaiting the next seconds of their dissolution — just like the bomb that displaced them was doing milliseconds before. And in that, a contemplation of the destruction — and the people it was visited upon — becomes possible.
Tech gives us new prisms to see the world
The technology to grab so many images in the course of little more than one second — and do it in such clarity and high resolution — is barely a generation old.
So to see these “stills,” as journalists call them, come together to paint a picture of an event is a combination of artistry, intrepidity and technology — an exercise in freezing time, and in giving people the opportunity to contemplate for minutes, even hours, what took place in mere seconds. This holds true for positive things that the camera captures — and for visitations of violence like this one as well.
Photography is random access. We, the viewers of it, choose how to see it, process it, digest it. We go backward and forward in time, at will. We control the pace and the speed at which dizzying images hurtle at us. And in that process, something unusual for this era emerges: a bit of time to think.
That, among many other things, is the enduring power of the still image in a moving-picture world — and the power of what Bilal Hussein captured on that clear, sunny day in Beirut.

Six Flags Qiddiya Unveils Park Design