Fairground Rides

Ups And Down

Italy's manufacturers of amusement
rides hit a dip

THIS month a brightly coloured, trailer-mounted “Matterhorn” fairground ride will leave Bertazzon 3B’s factory in Sernaglia, a village nestling under the Alpine foothills north of Venice, bound for a travelling amusement park based near Rochester, New York. Bertazzon 3B is one of around 50 family firms in a manufacturing cluster in north-east Italy that leads the world in turning steel, fibreglass and electronics into roundabouts, bumper cars and other fairground thrills.
Swiss, Dutch or German companies hold sway when it comes to large and expensive roller coasters, but Italians dominate other rides. Alberto Zamperla, chief executive of Zamperla, the biggest of the Italian firms, with sales of €40m ($55m) in 2007, says attention-grabbing “spectacular” or “extreme” rides (rather than those aimed at children or families) are most in demand at the moment. Zamperla’s Giant Discovery reaches a speed of 110kph (70mph), rotating its riders and swinging like a pendulum to suspend them upside down 45 metres above the ground. Italian dominance in such rides depends on a constant stream of innovations in electronics and materials.
Competition from Chinese firms, which are good at copying Italian designs and are strong in small and medium-sized rides, is a cause for concern. Mr Zamperla has responded by setting up his own manufacturing operation in China. And as in other areas of manufacturing, some firms hope to fend off the Chinese by emphasising Italian craftsmanship. Michele Bertazzon’s family firm, which specialises in traditional Venetian carousels with horses and carriages, and makes all its components in-house, is taking this approach. “We don’t do fear,” he says.

More than 80% of the rides built in the region are exported, and Bertazzon 3B expects to earn about half of its €5m sales in America this year. But the weakness of the dollar against the euro in recent years has caused problems for the industry, says Enrico Fabbri, boss of the firm that carries his family’s name. Fabbri, based in Bergantino, a village that calls itself the capital of carousels and has a museum dedicated to them, no longer sells in America. At Sartori, a firm that makes rides including the Techno-Jump, Cyber Loop and Twin Twister, American sales have fallen from about 60% of the total to zero since 2000.
The recent strengthening of the dollar may help matters somewhat, but slowing economies around the world are likely to reduce demand as families tighten their belts, and the credit crunch is affecting both manufacturers looking to finance production and customers who want to buy new rides. The Italian firms hope that new amusement parks planned for Dubai, South-East Asia and China will boost their order books. But the business of making fairground rides has always been a roller-coaster affair.