It has been a long time since BGWFans published a basic, barebones, in-park construction update to its frontpage. Instead, progress photos for new rides, shows, etc have been largely relegated to our various social media channels for the past few years.
That said, now that we have a major new roller coaster to keep tabs on again, it seems like it may be a good time to dust off the old photo update formula and give it another go. If you enjoy this kind of content in article form (in contrast with photos immediately going up on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc), let us know and we’ll try to do more of it over the coming months!
Project 2020 Clearing
Though there has been a bit of movement visible on and around the site of Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s next rollercoaster for months now, over the last two weeks things have really kicked into high gear.
Heavy clearing is now visible throughout the Festa Field area. Though this clear-cutting operation has yet to reach the Rhine River, if work continues at its current pace, it shouldn’t be long before progress is visible from the Oktoberfest/San Marco bridge.
The gallery below contains site clearing photos taken on May 31st and June 2nd.
By far the best way to see the current clearing process, however, comes from riding Apollo’s Chariot. The photo below was provided by friend of the site and ParkFans member, Dylon. It was taken on May 31st.
Judging by what could be seen last weekend, here is our approximation of the cleared area as of Sunday.
Progress has picked up on another, often ignored, aspect of Project 2020 as well—the relocation of the Festa Field pastures. A lot of the new additions thus far seem to be temporary, but hopefully we’ll see more permanent construction in the months ahead. The photos below are all from June 2nd.
Bel Concertino
Project 2020 construction isn’t the only new thing occurring in Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s Italian-themed section right now. Last Friday, without any warning or announcement ahead of time, a new show, Bel Concertino, debuted in Il Teatro di San Marco.
From what we understand, the show, as we saw it performed last Friday, wasn’t entirely complete. That said, we were very happy with what we saw. It’s a simple, straight-forward, well-executed dinner theater-style performance with featuring excellent live music and vocals.
Small, understated, entertainment like this is precisely what we would like to see more of from Busch Gardens Williamsburg in the future.
Below I’ve included some photos of the show’s debut.
Balmoral Castle
Lastly, I want to mention that work is still ongoing behind Caribou Station on the Balmoral Castle (blue train) rebuild project. Good photos are still incredibly hard to get of the engine and its tender, but we have seen evidence of ongoing work for months now.
Anyway, two (fairly low-quality) images of Balmoral Castle sitting on the backstage storage track are included below.
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