Inside the animatronics and flashlight tech of Kings Island’s Phantom Theater
blooloop published a behind-the-scenes look on May 27 at Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare, the interactive dark ride that brought the long-dormant Phantom Theater name back to Kings Island in Ohio. Sally Dark Rides handled the ride design and its 26 scenes, which mix built physical sets, animatronic figures, and projection mapping along a route that reuses the attraction’s original ride system.
The interactivity comes from the Belgian firm Alterface. Riders carry flashlights and use them to recapture escaped ghost notes that have scattered from a haunted pipe organ. Alterface says its tracking runs at very low latency, registering where a guest is aiming in as little as 30 milliseconds, so the figures and screens react as riders sweep their beams across each room.
Rather than a simple point-and-shoot score, the ride is built for steady exploration, with the animatronics and scenic effects responding as guests move through the story. The piece is a useful vendor case study on layering an interactive system onto a traditional animatronic dark ride.