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(Non-UK) European Parks that actually do good tat

SilverArrow

SilverArrow

Certified Ride Geek
So during Plopsterix I noticed a distinct lack of good theme park tat in the parks' shops.
Bellewaerde had a few nice branded items and some nice animal items (with the logo etc), Plopsa had 0 things that actually said plopsaland on them- everything was random IPs and Asterix's shop was all stuff from the cartoon. Parc Saint Paul had a few things with the logo on but none of the parks had any ride related merch at all!

I am a sucker for a nice ride t-shirt/magnet/poster/some other random thing so this disappointed me a bit, although I was also grateful for the reduced temptation to spend money! I've seen ride related merch at both US and UK parks multiple times.

So, are there any European parks that do good merch? Any that do ride themed merch?

If so, where?
 
Phantasialand has some really impressive coaster-related merch, from my brief recollection. I remember a stunning Taron tee-shirt with the fab Intamin rails blending gracefully with some mist and a sober but elegant font :)
 
Germany in general is pretty good, Phantasialand of course with the HUGE merch store, Europa Park is also pretty good, Holiday Park also had a plethora of merch, but a lot was limited to the ride specific shops.
I found the Sweden parks to be quite limited, Grona wasn't awful but I've struggled both times to find something I really want, Liseberg had good volume but lacking quality.
Don't get me started on Walibi tho, for a massive brand it was probably the worst merch, Toverland and Efteling were ok but were nothing on the German parks.

Surely DLP has the best merch?
 
I'd say DLP has the crown regarding merch, but a lot of it is not-related to rides itself. Other than that, Efteling is also big on the merch game, but with all the extra stuff they're doing aside of the park it's also less ride specific and more towards their IPs.
I did notice that there actually isn't a lot of ride merch these days (and parks don't seem to do pin badges anymore; out of three parks this weekend I only managed to find one in Park Asterix, boo!).
 
I'm a phan of Phantasialand merch. I've now got a Drago mug and T-Shirt from the Six Dragons shop, and wouldn't be against buying more. For merch that doesn't look like theme park merch (I like things to be subtle), Hansa Park does a good line.
 
Europa Park gas a great range of Merch including a whole collection of soundtrack CD's, photobooks ( I love a souvenir guide) and DVD's! For a small park Toverland has a good collection including CD's. Phantasialand could do better! As could Efteling - although both are still good though! I got the wonderful Efteling photo-souvenir coffee table book full of concept art etc.....Its wonderful!
 
Most park merch shops are just full of IP based or park IPs. Phantasia has a large shop but bar a couple of items most of it is just kids tat with their dragons on, not even exciting designs involving them.

Europa park has a pretty good selection of park based tat (they do a cool umbrella which I think Port Aventura do a similar version of). I think it was Tripsdrill that had some decent items like bags with coaster logos etc.

The Plopsa parks occasionally sell bits relating to their rides/coasters (e.g. chunks of Heidi wood in De Panne, or seats from Expedition GeForce at Holiday park) but most of their tat is just Studio 100 IP items which makes sense but is a little disappointing. It's the same with any studio owned theme park, Disney and Universal are the same. Mostly bland IP based tat with no (or very little) relation to in-park things.
 
I love the tat at Efteling! They have such a good mix - I'm a sucker for 'weird' theme park items so stuff like Baron 1898 soap is right up my street. Also love a good tote bag.

Also Toverland. They had a park branded towel which I needed to have.
 
In my opinion the merch of Walibi (mostly Holland) is great! To be honest, I am feeling very young and so maybe I am in that target group. :D
 
Genasi said:
In my opinion the merch of Walibi (mostly Holland) is great! To be honest, I am feeling very young and so maybe I am in that target group. :D
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Hard Gaan.

I was disappointed with Phantasia merch. Wanted to come away with something nice, but didn't.
Efteling came to mind, probably because the CD is my all time favourite item.

For ride themed merch you're more likely to have luck when its a dedicated ride exit shop, which is why Merlin have been mentioned as good at this cos they'll stick one on anything. Ones that spring to mind are Helix, Wildfire, Lost Gravity (seems to be a newer trend as well) and several at Hansa, Heide, Europa.
 
I found Phantasialand's merch alright, but it is quite limited in terms of what there is. Though when they do something good, it is GOOD.

My favourites are probably Walibi (Holland did some fab stuff with Lost Gravity and their new shirt looks awful and fab in equal measures) and Movie Park Germany; their main shop with that huge display of mugs was fab! Also the Van Helsing shop was pretty fab and did some awesome ride merch.

But yeah, the Merlin parks know how to do their merch, and how to make decent shops too (Smiler and Ghost Train shops are rather nice).
 
I found Phantasialand's merch was aimed at children with all the dragon lark. Not enough klugheim stuff at alllll. Wanted a badass klugheim/Taron mug :(
 
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