Efteling and the Power of Inheritable Nostalgia

As night fell on the 4th September 2022, Spookslot, the beloved haunted castle walkthrough attraction at the Efteling, gave its final ghostly performance set to the unsettling tones of “Danse Macabre.” Spookslot had been delighting and unnerving guests of the Dutch theme park since 1978, and despite being joined by more technologically advanced and thrilling attractions over the years, it had developed and maintained such an adoring fan base that manic scenes of guests scrambling to purchase Spookslot commemorative merchandise just before its closure went viral on social media. Diggers have already moved in to make way for its replacement, but walk around Efteling now and you’ll hear wails of “where is Spookslot?” from children, and over at the Efteling Museum, you’ll notice that all of the visitors, young and old alike, are primarily there to catch a glimpse of a few select set pieces that have been subtly integrated into the displays of former attractions and disused props.

Spookslot's signage tucked away in the Efteling Museum.

As an adult who recently visited Efteling for the first time, and after Spookslot’s closure, I initially struggled to grasp quite why Spookslot’s demise was met with such fervent emotions from the Dutch public. I enjoy “Danse Macabre” as much as the next Goth-at-heart, but the attraction was essentially an animated tableau, in which guests would watch from a static position tombstones and ghoulish characters return to life through crude animatronics and the now-ubiquitous use of Pepper’s Ghost; by today’s standards, it was not very exciting.

However, when I passed by De Vliegende Hollander, a dark ride/water coaster with a seventeenth century maritime theme, I was immediately taken by the soundtrack playing around the ride’s entrance, and I had a bit of an epiphany. The reason I was so drawn in by De Vliegende Hollander’s soundtrack was that it instantly reminded me of the soundtrack to Pirate Falls at Legoland Windsor; a soundtrack that had weaved its way into the musical foundations of my brain at the impressionable age of three. Clearly, in my mind, a lilting pirate-y song is short-hand for good childhood memories, and De Vliegende Hollander, despite being entirely new to me in my late twenties, still managed to tap into that feeling.

De Vliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman) entering its water coaster section.

Nostalgia as a Business Model

I would argue that Efteling is acutely aware of this effect, and the notion that what its guests encounter when the brain is so malleable in those early childhood years, will form the basis for what they seek out to scratch that feel-good itch throughout their adult lives. Knowing this, the park has crafted its offerings to harness that itch, to secure its continued success for years to come in a way that arguably no other park in the world has done so far.

Condensed down, the Efteling model is to reach new generations of fans by continuing to appeal to guests who visited in their own childhoods and are seeking the comfort of the familiar. Indeed, Coen Bertens, former Park Director of Efteling, described the mission of the park in a talk at IAAPA Expo Europe 2022, as being to (perhaps paraphrasing slightly) make memories worth revisiting; in other words, to encourage visits across generations. In practice, this means the park continues to grow, whilst also preserving its now-historic attractions in some shape or form, to ensure that older generations continue to feel welcome and expose their children and grand-children to the same experiences they had, who will in turn bring their own families to the ‘World of Wonders’ down the line. I would term this process of subsequent generations reliving and sharing their experience at a place of such strong emotional resonance, ‘inheritable nostalgia.’

Inheritable nostalgia as the key to business continuity can be seen in both the operational decisions of the park, as well as its creative choices, and I will explore several of these below, starting first with what I believe encapsulates Efteling’s entire ethos: the theatre production, Caro.

Langnek, a well-known character from the Magical Forest, or Sprookjesbos.

Caro: Ethos in Theatre

Caro (short for ‘Carousel’) is a seventy-minute theatrical production exclusive to the Efteling Theatre that first opened in 2018, exploring the key life moments of a man named Oscar through acrobatics, dance, well-known English-language classic songs, and most importantly, Efteling soundtracks. We witness Oscar on ‘the carousel of life,’ through childhood, marriage, parenthood, and even grandparenthood, all played out on a revolving stage; this is quite literally the circle of life.

Both the choice of subject matter and of familiar Efteling music cements this production as what can best be described as Efteling propaganda – albeit not in the commonly pejorative sense. Watching Oscar’s family lineage unfurl to a soundtrack of Efteling pieces such as the ride Fata Morgana’s “Harem” and the whimsical little ditty that echoes from the toadstools in the Sprookjesbos magical forest (“Paddenstoelen”), the two-fold message is clear: have children (and grandchildren) and bring them to Efteling. As tragedy unfolds to “Danse Macabre,” Oscar rediscovers happiness through his daughter and the birth of her son, and whilst it is never explicitly stated that the family go to the Efteling, the connection between family and Efteling is solidified through the choice of musical backdrop.

One of the many Paddestoelen that plays a nostalgic tune in the magical forest, Sprookjesbos.

Looking around at the audience during my recent visit as a childless adult, I certainly got the sense that I was not who Efteling was broadcasting to. Parents bounced toddlers on their knees to the infectious blasts of “Carnaval Festival” (an earworm so pervasive it is supposedly used in Dutch train stations to dissuade loitering), whilst grannies stood to mimick the dance of the Indian Waterlilies in a 1960s Dutch Easy-Listening musical interlude. All of the audience participation served to reinforce nostalgia and a sense of cultural affinity with Efteling as well as the intergenerational family values it stands for.

Even the choice of costumes for the family, hovering somewhere between the 1950s and the present day (much like Efteling itself), and therefore not constrained by time, allows an audience that has grown up with Efteling to see themselves and their memories within the story, and also demonstrates that Efteling sees itself as with lineage yet timeless; a place that will continue to exist as a cultural touchstone, both old and new.

Spookslot: A Three-Pronged Approach

Work underway on the former site of Spookslot, now to be Danse Macabre, September 2022.

Whilst Caro demonstrates the ideological underpinning of Efteling’s business approach, we can see this in practice with the handling of several attractions, including the aforementioned Spookslot. Efteling clearly recognises the cultural significance of Spookslot – an attraction that has been part of Dutch lives for forty-four years but has reached the end of its lifespan – as the park has taken a three-pronged approach to the attraction’s send-off: preservation, commemoration, and regeneration.

Firstly, as mentioned previously, as soon as the attraction closed, iconic props from the ride, including the sign that hung outside by the entrance, were carefully removed and have already joined the treasure trove of Efteling bits and pieces in the on-site museum. By preserving these symbols of a ride now passed, Efteling can easily demonstrate sensitivity towards fans, ensuring continued brand loyalty, whilst also enhancing the public’s perception of Efteling as a park with heritage. This is important as heritage is often read as ‘trustworthy’ and ‘culturally valuable’ – thereby securing the broad family market Efteling needs to thrive. Efteling also chose to produce multiple publicly-available videos before the attraction’s closure, both providing a high-definition, detailed view of the attraction in operation, as well as what is essentially a (heavily-scripted) miniature oral history with three of the people who designed and constructed the attraction in the 1970s. Clearly Efteling feels there is a public appetite for this material, but it is also interesting to see an attraction taking care to produce archive-worthy material in an industry that is often considered ephemeral. It does however make perfect sense when you consider Efteling’s ethos.

A specially-created walkthrough of Spookslot, uploaded to the official Efteling Youtube account.

Secondly, Efteling has commemorated the attraction by going on a merchandising blitz. Extremely limited edition art books and pin badges were on sale for just one week prior to the attraction’s closure, thus creating an exclusivity to the souvenirs that in turn imbues the attraction itself with an almost mythical status that both those who managed to secure the merchandise and those who did not will likely remember for years to come.

Finally, before the attraction’s closure, Efteling made sure to announce its replacement, Danse Macabre. From just the name alone, one can assume that the ride will be a spiritual successor (no pun intended) to Spookslot, and there has been talk of the new attraction utilising elements from the old – even perhaps existing physical assets. In this sense, Efteling is regenerating its own intellectual property that already holds significant cachet, rather than laying Spookslot to rest. As those familiar strident strings played out across the 38-second teaser trailer for Danse Macabre, long-time guests could be assured that their nostalgia would not be forgotten.

The teaser trailer for Danse Macabre, uploaded by the official Efteling Youtube account.

The Rebirth of Python

In 2018, Efteling demolished its double-loop corkscrew coaster, standing since 1981, and then, perhaps surprisingly, proceeded to rebuild it. Only a few elements of the original track remain, but the layout and overall appearance is identical to the original. Most would agree that Python is now quaintly old-fashioned in the world of steel rollercoasters, and another well-known rollercoaster of the early 80s from the same manufacturer and of a very similar nature, Corkscrew at Alton Towers in England, was permanently demolished a whole decade before Python was given a new lease of life.

The decision to dedicate significant resources to the re-tracking of a fairly middling ride by rollercoaster aficionados’ standards makes best sense viewed through the lens of Efteling’s use of inheritable nostalgia.

Wooden rollercoasters have long been considered culturally valuable and worthy of conscious preservation, with five rollercoasters in the UK having listed building status, but Efteling seems to have been ahead of the curve in choosing to renew its steel coaster once it reached the end of its natural lifespan. Perhaps Efteling chose to re-track the ride knowing that the average guest would still find the ride thrilling enough, and that it was tried-and-tested and therefore a relatively low-effort fix to a maintenance issue, but I would argue that the reasoning runs deeper than that. As proponents of the business model of the theme park as potential heritage spaces, Efteling chose to invest in preserving that inheritable nostalgia, encouraging children of the 1980s to take their children – and potentially already their grandchildren – to experience what may have been their first ‘major’ rollercoaster.

A view of Efteling from the Pagode observation deck, with Python's white track peeping over the tree-line, to the extreme left, September 2022.

A Replicable Model for Other Parks?

In a mature industry, with many major post-war theme parks around the world having already celebrated their fortieth birthdays and beyond, Efteling stands apart for pinning so much of its identity on the preservation of its history. Pre-war parks are afforded default heritage status as anything pre-1945 is still coded in our minds as officially ‘vintage,’ and some do capitalise on this to varying degrees, such as Knoebels Amusement Resort in the United States, which has been family-run since 1926 and has the tagline “For all ages, For all time.” But just as many people still think that 1980 was twenty years ago rather than forty, post-war ‘modern’ parks are also silently reaching an age in which they can be considered historic – public sentiment is just now slowly catching up.

Entrance to Efteling, September 2022.

One could certainly argue that the Walt Disney Company harnesses its history to keep guests returning: the renaissance of 1970s mascot Orange Bird as a merchandising superstar at Walt Disney World is a case in point. Disney also prominently advertises the work of the Walt Disney Archives, which covers all divisions of the company, including park assets; there are exhibitions, TV series, frequent social media posts, and merchandising collections “from the vault,” but no post-war park seems to integrate perpetual preservation into their business’ branding quite like Efteling. Even the signs put up during maintenance of an attraction reflect their ethos: “Work is needed to preserve today’s splendour for posterity.”

There are some hints of other theme parks starting to notice the potential business sense in placing value on their heritage and the preservation of their existing assets. Here in the UK, a seemingly successful retro range of merchandise at Thorpe Park appeared in 2020, and this year, Nemesis, the much-loved 1994 B&M inverted coaster at Alton Towers, will close to undergo a full retracking, for a planned reopening thirty years after it first roared through the Forbidden Valley. Whether this retracking will be as faithful to the original as Python’s was remains to be seen, but as steel tracks on still-popular rides wear out, parks are increasingly going to have to grapple with their stance on preservation and where it fits within their park’s identity.

Efteling has maintained an exceptionally close connection to its 1950s-1960s roots, positioning itself as a Dutch institution, and it is hard to see how many other parks in Europe and beyond would be able to replicate that model wholesale; Efteling has crafted the foundations for its heritage image over multiple decades and its choice of ‘timeless’ or intentionally historic themes lends itself well to continuing that trend. However, that is not to say that other parks cannot learn from Efteling in how they approach rephrasing ride closures, marketing nostalgia, and shaping public perception of their park’s role in family memory-making. If parks seek to replicate the longevity of Efteling, which is celebrating its seventieth anniversary throughout this year, they would certainly do well to look towards the Netherlands and take notes.

Props in the Efteling Museum, including a fairy from the still-extant ride Droomvlucht.