08 Apr 2014
Puy du Fou-style theme park for Auckland Castle, UK
BY Jason Holland
French theme park Puy du Fou has announced it will partner with Auckland Castle in the UK to create its first international location.
The historical re-enactment park – which is located in the Vendée region of Western France – has signed a deal with the Eleven Arches Trust to create a visitor attraction in County Durham.
The project is the brainchild of entrepreneur Jonathan Ruffer, who bought Auckland Castle in 2012 and handed it to Auckland Castle Trust to transform into a world-class tourist destination as part of a £50m ($84m, €61m) investment.
The new concept will be based on the Puy du Fou, which has both a theme park – The Grand Parc – and a spectacular night show – the Cinéscénie. It will aim to bring regional and national history to life.
The project will be rolled out in two phases. The first features the launch of an 80-minute night show in 2016 in the style of the Cinéscénie. The show will run as a not-for-profit venture, with Puy du Fou assisting in the creation and staging of the show as an official partner.
The show will celebrate 2,000 years of regional history, drawing on the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London for inspiration. It will use Auckland Castle as a backdrop and feature large-scale re-enactments, projections, music, water fountains and pyrotechnics.
Puy du Fou’s Cinéscénie – the world’s biggest night-time show – has been running for 37 years and is performed by 3,400 volunteers. The Eleven Arches show, which will be staged 30 times a year to a crowd of 6,000, will feature 600 volunteers, with a special training academy being created.
The second phase of the development – a theme park – will open in 2020. Construction will cost £80m ($134m, €97m) and although smaller in size and scale than Puy du Fou at 115 acres, the new park will aim to attract 800,000 visitors a year. It will be a commercial venture.
The total cost for the project will be £100m ($166m, €121m). It will be fully open by 2020, with construction commencing in 2018.
Ruffer has donated £2m ($3.3m, €2.4m) towards the £20m ($33m, €24m) cost for the initial stage of the new project. The remainder will be raised through grants, including EU funding.
Nicolas de Villiers, president of Puy du Fou, said: “Eleven Arches wants to promote British history in a poetic way, as Puy du Fou does in France. Auckland Castle has a rich history and Britain is a great civilisation. It’s exactly what Puy du Fou is looking for in an international development partner.”
de Villiers first announced plans to support the development of similar parks around the world in 2012 during the TEA’s Thea Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, where Puy du Fou won the Thea Classic award. The Eleven Arches tie-up is the first such deal to be announced.
Eleven Arches is being headed up by Anne-Isabelle Daulon, who said the attraction will “capture the soul and spirit of the Puy du Fou and export it to County Durham.” She said a masterplan for the park’s “shape, size and format” has been created and a framework agreement for future collaboration is being worked out between the trust and Puy du Fou.
Daulon says the project will be community-driven: “The objective is not to create a park for the sake of it; it’s a journey that includes regenerating the region and telling the story of the castle and surrounding area.”
The night show will create 10 full-time jobs and six seasonal posts, while the theme park is expected to create 128 full-time jobs on opening. By 2024, the trust hopes to have created a total of 300 full-time jobs.
Read more about the Puy du Fou here.
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