Orlando, Monday, 1 December 2025.
IAAPA Expo in Orlando is shaping vendor roadmaps for 2026–2028 capital programmes, with several suppliers using the show floor to signal industry priorities. Most notable: Attractions.io unveiled an AI assistant last Sunday that personalises guest interactions and real-time operations using journey-wide data—promising reduced front-line strain and smarter queuing and F&B decisions. Meanwhile, manufacturers including Brogent and Triotech announced partnership-led turnkey media attractions and large-scale IP projects, underscoring consolidation around packaged, media-heavy experiences. On the hardware side, Reverchon revealed a next-generation flume and new individual restraints designed to improve capacity, compliance and lifecycle costs. Alterface and others demonstrated modular interactive systems aimed at family engagement. For operators and procurement teams, the takeaways are clear: prioritise vendors offering integrated media+technology ecosystems, assess AI’s operational impact on staffing and guest flow, and factor modernised water-ride safety and retrofit options into master-planning and risk-management budgets.
Technical focus: Reverchon’s next‑generation Flume and its new restraint concept
Reverchon used its IAAPA Expo stand to present a next‑generation Flume ride that the company positions as an evolutionary step in water‑ride engineering, pairing a refreshed ride architecture with newly developed individual safety restraints intended for both retrofit and new‑build installations [1]. The announced restraints are described by the manufacturer as individual safety bars that increase rider adaptability and can be fitted to earlier ride versions, signalling an emphasis on modular retrofittability and lifecycle management rather than a one‑off redesign for a single model [1]. [alert! ‘Reverchon released a press summary at the show but has not published full engineering specifications for restraint geometry, materials, dynamic load ratings or certification test reports; these details are required to fully assess compliance and retrofit interfaces’] [1].
Engineering innovations implied by the announcement
Reverchon’s messaging implies three engineering priorities in the new Flume: improved rider restraint adaptability, attention to throughput and capacity, and platformed vehicle designs that ease retrofits and thematic re‑theming [1]. The company’s broader R&D narrative at the Expo, which highlighted upgrades for existing rides and new prototypes, supports an interpretation that the new Flume uses a modular vehicle chassis to accept alternative restraint modules and aesthetic shells — a design choice that reduces down‑time during lifecycle upgrades and lowers total cost of ownership for operators facing multi‑year capital programmes [1]. [alert! ‘Reverchon has not provided CAD cross‑sections or vehicle interchange schematics in the publicly released show materials, so exact modular interfaces remain unspecified’] [1].
Theming and guest‑experience choices tied to procurement strategy
The showfloor pattern — with media specialists promoting turnkey IP experiences and hardware manufacturers pushing modernised rides — makes clear why a manufacturer would prioritise modularity and straightforward restraint retrofits: operators are balancing themed, media‑heavy investments from suppliers such as Brogent and Triotech with long‑term park‑asset sustainability [3][4]. Brogent used its IAAPA presence to highlight its range of media and flying theatre products and to announce partnership activity for project pipelines, emphasising operator demand for packaged media‑led attractions that simplify procurement and delivery [3]. Triotech’s announcement of large‑scale, IP‑based projects similarly signals operator preference for turnkey, brandable experiences — a procurement pressure that increases the value of hardware that can be rapidly re‑themed or upgraded without full replacement [4].
Why individual restraints matter for capacity, safety compliance and lifecycle costs
Individually configurable safety bars — the form Reverchon announced — directly target three operator concerns flagged repeatedly at the Expo: regulatory compliance, mixed‑occupant fit, and dispatch cadence [1]. Individual bars allow teams to secure a wider anthropometric range without resorting to slower, manual secondary checks, which can reduce dispatch times and thus improve theoretical hourly throughput; they also create defined attachment points that ease inspection workflows, lowering labor hours for routine safety checks when compared with one‑piece, integrated lap systems [1][GPT]. Attractions.io’s IAAPA unveiling of an AI Assistant — positioned to optimise queuing, F&B choices and real‑time guest responses — demonstrates the industry’s simultaneous focus on software‑driven guest‑flow improvements that compound hardware gains in throughput and operational efficiency [2].
Procurement teams looking at water‑ride modernisation must evaluate three interlocking vectors revealed at the Expo: hardware adaptability (Reverchon’s flume and restraints), media‑integration and IP delivery (Brogent, Triotech), and operational AI (Attractions.io) that can turn hardware capacity into realised guest throughput [1][3][4][2]. Alterface’s Imagination Playground demonstration on the show floor illustrated how modular interactive stations can be embedded into family zones to increase per‑capita dwell time and revenue without complex structural works, reinforcing the case for vendors that offer integrated creative and systems‑level support for installations across the park masterplan [5]. IAAPA’s Expo structure as the principal trade convening for attractions provides the commercial context for these signals: vendors used the show to map product roadmaps against operator capital cycles that typically run across multi‑year windows, making Expo announcements a practical input to 2026–2028 budgeting and risk scenarios [6].
Procurement implications and practical next steps for operators
For operators and procurement teams, the Expo’s clustering of announcements creates a short checklist for capital planning: prioritise suppliers offering modular hardware and retrofit paths to protect existing asset value (as emphasised by Reverchon), demand clear integration plans for media and IP delivery (as signalled by Brogent and Triotech), and model staff‑and‑AI interactions to quantify how Attractions.io‑style assistants will alter labour needs and queuing profiles [1][3][4][2]. Because many vendor claims at the show are at the product‑reveal stage, procurement teams should request detailed technical packages — including restraint certification data, interoperability matrices for vehicle modules, and AI privacy/operation‑scale performance metrics — before committing to multi‑site rollouts [1][3][4][2][5]. [alert! ‘Several exhibitors released high‑level product announcements at IAAPA without full technical dossiers in public press materials; procurement teams will need vendor‑supplied engineering documents and independent test certificates to complete due diligence’] [1][3][4][2][5].
Bronnen