03 Sep 2019 Puy du Fou continues international expansion as operator arrives in Spain BYAndy Knaggs
An array of special effects, sound and lighting have been honed at Puy du Fou's French theme park photo: Puy du Fou España
Puy du Fou España has put on its first show, with a gallery of 4,000 spectators attending a spectacular 70-minute sprint through 1,500 years of Spanish history in the performance at Toledo, Spain.
Titled El sueño de Toledo (The dream of Toledo), the show features 185 professional actors playing 2,000 characters, complete with special effects, sound and lighting that have been honed in Puy du Fou's Vendée theme park in France.
The Toledo site is some way from full completion, with a 2021 opening having been forecast for a theme park with three villages that will in turn evoke medieval Castile, the influence of Moorish culture in Spain, and an artisan village of the 18th century. The 30-hectare site will open 200 days a year and put on four different shows several times a day, with seven shows planned for 2028.
Puy du Fou has scheduled 15 performances of the initial show by the end of October this year, with 60,000 visitors expected.
The storyline of El sueño de Toledo concerns a young washerwoman by the name of Maria, who meets the old Azacán of Toledo, who takes her on a journey through time to relive the great moments of Spanish history, meeting illustrious characters such as King Taifa Al-Mamum, Queen Isabel and Carlos V, and covering events from the Visigoths to the arrival of the railway, including the 13th century Navas de Tolosa victory, and the discovery of America.
Projections for the economic impact of Puy du Fou España see it expected to make €200m (US$219m, £182m) by 2021, while it is predicted to exceed €330m (US$361m, £301m) by 2028. A total of €242m (US$265m, £221m) has been set aside for construction for the period 2017 to 2028.
Toledo – which is around 55 minutes from Madrid – is already a renowned historical attraction, drawing several million visitors per year, and was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1986.
In France, Puy du Fou is the nation's second most popular theme park, after Disneyland Paris, bringing in around 2.3m visitors per year. Its first attraction outside of France came in 2016 with Kynren in the northeast of England. In 2017, the operator declared it would open at least three further international sites by 2027.
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