First UK Angry Birds theme park opens today

The UK’s first Angry Birds Activity Park has officially opened today at Sundown Adventureland in Nottinghamshire.

The first one in the world opened in April in Finland. Sundown Adventureland, a theme park in Nottinghamshire designed for under-10s only, is the first place to feature Angry Birds playground equipment in the UK.

By playing in the parks, which will feature animal spring riders, swings, sandpits and a range of climbing towers with slides, children and parents will be able to access new features in the mobile game, as the Angry Birds creators try and fuse the digital world with reality.

The Angry Birds Activity Park at Sundown Adventureland includes several large play units, a mixture of themed swings and roundabouts and a giant dummy catapult to replicate the Angry Birds world.

Paul Tomlinson, Park Manager at the family-owned Sundown Adventureland, which is situated near Retford, said: “We’re all tremendously excited about the opening of the Angry Birds Park. There has been a definite buzz about the launch and we’ve been amazed at the response from staff and visitors.

“People of all ages seem to relate to the Angry Birds theme and we are thrilled to be bringing this digital phenomenon to life with the help of Lappset and Rovio. The younger generation is living in a world where technology rules so using that to encourage activity must be a positive move.”

By next Easter the park will also include a series of Angry Birds-themed rides and a rollercoaster by summer 2013.

Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer of Angry Birds parent company Rovio, [officially known as the ‘Mighty Eagle’], speaking at the global launch in March 2012 at the Finnish Embassy in London, said: “There is a big problem with childhood obesity in Western countries with children spending a lot of time playing computer games and watching TV. We have discovered that we can make learning fun [referring to a new range of science textbooks released by the firm] so why not make exercise fun?

“All of the Angry Birds Activity Parks will be ‘Magic Places’ which means that when people go there, they will gain access to additional content, rewards and special features such as the latest bird.

"There will also be local leader boards so there will be a real incentive to go to the park and exercise. Modern mobile phones have many sensors so the more activity a person does, the more they will be rewarded.

“You can create some really cool experiences when you combine the real world with the digital world.”

More Angry Birds activity parks are expected to launch across the UK throughout the next 12 months.

Angry Birds has been downloaded more than 700 million times and its biggest market is the US, closely followed by China.

Last year it was the most popular paid-for app on Apple’s App Store. The game, now also available as a web app, is played by more than 30 million people a day for a total of 300 million minutes.

The 300 million total minutes clocked up each day represents the equivalent of a single gamer spending more than 570 years playing Angry Birds. The game involves catapulting destructive birds at pigs hidden in a series of fortresses.