The final day of IAAPA Expo Europe 2026 at Excel London brought an inspiring conclusion to a phenomenal week of industry collaboration, groundbreaking product reveals, and deep-dive educational sessions. Day three blended a powerful celebration of themed entertainment legacy with a forward-looking view at the cutting-edge technology defining the future of guest experiences.
Here is everything that caught our eye on the exhibition's final day.
Iconic Attraction Spotlight: Nemesis at Alton Towers Resort
One of the standout educational highlights of the week was a special panel session moderated by Edd Musgrove, looking back at the creation and recent rebirth of a true roller coaster legend. He was joined on stage by retired theme park consultant John Wardley, Larry Roles from Merlin Entertainments, and Jonathan Smith from Bolliger and Mabillard.
Hearing from John Wardley about the hurdles of designing the original Secret Weapon 3 back in 1994 was fascinating. Bound by strict height restrictions, the team famously turned the planning limitations into creative genius by carving the ride deep into the terrain of Forbidden Valley. That clever use of narrow gorges and near-miss interactions created an intense thrill experience that felt much larger than its actual footprint. Paired with a rich backstory involving a trapped alien and a secret organisation, it set an entirely new benchmark for story-led roller coasters in Europe.
Fast forward over thirty years, and the panel discussed how that deep emotional bond with the public guided the decision to update the classic into Nemesis Reborn. Jonathan Smith shared engineering insights into how the team successfully refreshed the layout while staying true to the original mythology and creative vision. Overall, the session offered a brilliant masterclass in how world-class operators and manufacturers can successfully balance nostalgic legacy with modern innovation for new generations of fans.
Highlight of the Show Floor
DOF Robotics: SphereFly
DOF Robotics turned heads on the exhibition floor with the reveal of their new compact flying theatre, SphereFly.
- Compact Footprint: Requires a space of just 90 square metres, making it ideal for shopping malls, family entertainment centres, and museums.
- Capacity and Throughput: Accommodates 4 to 20 riders per cycle, yielding a throughput of more than 200 people per hour.
- Motion Platform: Utilises a 6 degrees-of-freedom motion platform for dynamic, precision movement.
- Immersive Display: Features a massive 360-degree spherical dome screen displaying high-fidelity CGI content.
- Sensory Effects: Integrates multi-sensory elements including wind, scent, and water mist or temperature changes.
Other Top Picks from Across the Show Floor
- Alterface: Celebrating 25 years, the team highlighted their new-generation pointing system, that's designed to make interactions more intuitive, precise, and immersive. The technology is featured in Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare at Kings Island, designed and manufactured by Sally Dark Rides.
- Attractions.io: Brought the latest iteration of its application to London for its official debut. This represents the firm's largest software release to date, entirely rearchitected around the single most important question guests ask: what should we do next?
- Avius: Demonstrated how it helps leading global leisure brands capture honest, real-time visitor feedback and convert it into actionable operational insights. The team also presented its newly launched artificial intelligence analysis tools designed to improve guest experiences, daily operations, and commercial returns.
- CommandCentr: Offered an impressive demonstration of their ops platform built for theme parks, which provides a frontline-first, intuitive system for training, checks, downtime, and daily park ops.
- Experience UK: Staged its biggest-ever UK Pavilion at IAAPA Expo Europe, bringing together a showcase of British creativity, innovation, and expertise. The view from the top deck of their open-top red double-decker London bus was a particular highlight. The Katapult team were giving away free limited-edition cocktail lollipops!
- Gateway Ticketing Systems: Exhibited their handheld mobile hardware, including rugged Datalogic barcode readers built to integrate seamlessly with their Galaxy admission control software for real-time ticket validation.
- Jora Vision: Detailed recent creative successes including SCORE!, the new Gröna Lund dark ride (opening in 2027), alongside their design contributions to the new family coaster Konect at Särkänniemi.
- Lagotronics Projects: Presented a detailed maquette of their Gameplay Theater, illustrating the ride system's impressive flexibility and modular architecture by offering visitors a working top-down look at Ghostly Manor at Paultons Park.
- Photo Experience: Displayed their comprehensive suite of guest photography services, ride capture systems, and retail integration platforms.
- ProSlide: Unveiled ATRIUM in collaboration with Aqualibi at Walibi Belgium. As an industry leader in water ride manufacturing, ProSlide introduced this engineering milestone, which allows indoor water parks to extend the TornadoWAVE 60 structure outside the building envelope while preserving a comfortable, year-round indoor guest experience.
- Semnox Solutions: Introduced KwickFun, a versatile mobile operations platform combining admissions, access control, payments, and guest services into one rugged handheld device.
- Themics Philippines Inc: Featured portfolio displays celebrating recent themed installations, including Spindeln at Gröna Lund, Aviktas at Pleasure Beach Resort, and Valgard at Paultons Park.
That's A Wrap!
This completes our live coverage of IAAPA Expo Europe 2026. We'll have more in-depth analysis, insight, trends and interviews from the event in the comings days.
