World-first roller coasters, interactive flying rides, trackless dark rides and even a restaurant that moves you through a story while you eat - IAAPA Expo Europe 2026 gave theme park fans plenty to get excited about.
The attractions industry's huge European trade show took over ExCeL London this week, bringing together theme parks, ride manufacturers, designers and technology companies from around the world.
And this year's event was a big one.
More than 870 exhibitors filled the show floor, while IAAPA Expo Europe 2026 welcomed 16,530 verified attendees, making London 2026 the largest edition in the event's history.
But forget the business meetings and industry presentations for a moment. What did we actually learn about the rides we'll eventually get to experience?
Here are the biggest new theme park attractions and ride concepts revealed at IAAPA Expo Europe 2026.
Durango brings a huge new wooden coaster to Italy
One of our favourite announcements from the entire show came from MagicLand, The Gravity Group and Martin & Vleminckx.
Durango will open at MagicLand in Italy in spring 2027 following a €15 million investment, bringing a major new-generation wooden coaster to the park.
And this isn't going to be a gentle wooden family coaster.
The almost one-kilometre-long ride will stand around 30 metres tall and feature 13 airtime moments, six near misses and two underground tunnels.
One of those tunnels is expected to become the longest underground tunnel on a wooden coaster in Europe.
Perhaps most interestingly, Durango will also feature a zero-g roll, making it the only wooden coaster in Europe with an inversion.
The coaster will use The Gravity Group's Timberliner trains and Pre-Cut Track technology, while its theme takes inspiration from Mexico's Durango region and the gold rush era of the Old West.
MagicLand revealed the coaster's new front car during IAAPA, and this has quickly become one of our European rides to watch for 2027.
Efteling reveals how Ravenring will actually work
We already knew a major transformation of Efteling's Raveleijn area was underway, but IAAPA gave us our best look yet at one of its most intriguing additions.
Ravenring will become the world's first installation of Vekoma's new WaveCatcher ride system when it opens on 1 December 2026.
The attraction features 18 suspended two-person gondolas, accommodating 36 riders at a time.
As the ride rotates and rises, those gondolas swing through the air at speeds of up to 30km/h and can reach angles of up to 90 degrees.
But there's a twist.
Vekoma has developed a system called Swingfluencer which gives riders some influence over how their own gondola moves.
Using a control lever and their timing, riders can amplify their swinging movement, meaning different guests could have noticeably different experiences on the same ride.
Combine that with Efteling's theming and storytelling and Ravenring could be considerably more interesting than its relatively compact footprint initially suggests.
A roller coaster you ride in your swimwear
Possibly the most unusual coaster announcement of the show belongs to O'Gliss Park in France.
Manakai - Typhoon Coaster will become the world's first Spinfinity Splash Coaster when it opens in 2028.
The 465-metre attraction will reach heights of up to 19 metres and combine controlled spinning coaster vehicles with water effects, immersive theming and a final splashdown.
Four riders will sit face-to-face in each vehicle, while the attraction is expected to handle around 1,000 guests per hour.
It's not simply a coaster being dropped into the middle of a water park either.
Manakai is being designed as the centrepiece of an entire aquatic environment, with other visitors able to walk around and underneath sections of the attraction.
We've already taken a much closer look at Manakai on ThrillSense, but it easily earns its place among the biggest reveals from London.
SCORE! introduces a new kind of dark ride at Gröna Lund
Gröna Lund, Vekoma and Jora Vision also used IAAPA to reveal more about SCORE!, the interactive dark ride opening at the Swedish park in 2027.
Rather than following a conventional track, SCORE! will use Vekoma's new DRX autonomous ride vehicles.
The trackless vehicles use radar-based positioning technology to navigate the attraction, giving designers considerably more freedom over how vehicles move through individual scenes.
Guests won't just be watching either.
Armed with interactive blasters, riders will compete for points as they explore a fictional underground archive filled with objects and stories inspired by Gröna Lund's more than 140-year history.
It's a particularly interesting move for Gröna Lund. The Stockholm park is famous for squeezing roller coasters and thrill rides into an incredibly compact waterfront site, so adding a technology-heavy interactive dark ride should bring something very different to its line-up.
MACK wants you to eat dinner on a dark ride
This might be the strangest idea revealed at IAAPA - and we mean that in the best possible way.
MACK Group unveiled eatX, a new concept that effectively combines a moving dark ride with a restaurant.
Instead of sitting at a normal table, guests board a battery-powered FlowDiner, an autonomous moving table that transports them through different themed environments while they eat.
The first installation will be Strawberry Dining Journey at Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal near Berlin in summer 2027.
Groups of up to four adults and two young children will travel through five themed worlds while enjoying a specially created three-course meal.
The experience will tell a story inspired by the discovery of the garden strawberry in 1714, using physical sets, projections, lighting, sound and movement.
Think immersive restaurant meets dark ride.
It's not necessarily the attraction we'd have predicted would emerge from a roller coaster manufacturer, but MACK Group's experience with both ride systems and the Michelin-starred Eatrenalin at Europa-Park makes the concept considerably less surprising.
O'Fun Park is getting four new rides
Another French park made a sizeable announcement during the show.
O'Fun Park and Zamperla revealed a €6 million investment bringing four new family attractions to the park in 2027.
The biggest is Mine Discovery, the first roller coaster in O'Fun Park's history.
The family coaster will feature 155 metres of track, reach speeds of 26km/h and carry up to 22 riders per train when it opens in May 2027.
Three additional attractions will arrive when the park's season begins on 3 April: Drift Box, Giant Citern and Rodeo Wagon.
All four will form part of the park's Wild West environment as O'Fun Park celebrates its 25th anniversary.
Aqualibi is taking its indoor water slide outside
One of the final interesting reveals came from ProSlide and Belgium's Aqualibi.
ATRIUM is a new concept designed to solve an unusual problem faced by indoor water parks: how do you build increasingly huge water slides without losing the benefits of being indoors?
The answer is effectively to take part of the attraction outside while keeping riders enclosed within a transparent structure.
The first ATRIUM will be installed at Aqualibi and incorporated into its TornadoWAVE 60 attraction, Waikiki.
A large dome made from transparent fibreglass allows the slide structure to extend beyond the main building while still creating a bright, enclosed environment around riders.
It's more technical than some of the announcements on this list, but it's exactly the sort of idea IAAPA exists to showcase - and something we could eventually see adopted by indoor water parks elsewhere.
A new European theme park brand is coming
IAAPA wasn't only about individual rides.
Momentum Leisure revealed Episodia, a new theme park brand that will gradually replace its existing Majaland identity across Central and Eastern Europe.
The existing parks in Kownaty, Warsaw and Gdańsk will begin transitioning from spring 2027.
More significantly, Episodia Gliwice is scheduled to open in summer 2027 as the first park designed around the new identity from day one, while a future Bucharest destination is also planned.
The parks will continue working with major entertainment partners including Nickelodeon, Studio 100 and Peyo, allowing characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants, PAW Patrol, Maya the Bee and The Smurfs to appear within the destinations.
It's one to watch as the European theme park landscape continues to expand beyond its traditional major players.
Could Dr. Seuss attractions be coming to Europe?
One announcement is considerably less concrete - but potentially very interesting.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises and P&P Projects announced a partnership allowing the development of new theme park concepts across Europe and parts of the Asia-Pacific region.
The agreement covers properties including The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and Oh, the Places You'll Go!.
Before anyone starts planning a trip, though, no European theme park or specific attraction has been announced.
For now, this is an agreement allowing new concepts to be developed rather than confirmation that a Dr. Seuss land is definitely heading to a particular park.
Still, it's one we'll be keeping an eye on.
What did IAAPA Expo Europe 2026 tell us about the future of theme parks?
If there's one thing that stood out from this year's announcements, it's that manufacturers aren't simply chasing taller and faster rides.
Interaction appeared everywhere.
Ravenring allows guests to influence their own movement. SCORE! turns a dark ride into a competitive game. Manakai combines coaster technology with an environment that non-riders can explore. And MACK's eatX concept attempts to turn an entire meal into an attraction.
Even Durango, arguably the most traditional roller coaster on this list, combines classic wooden coaster construction with modern track technology, inversions, extensive theming and underground elements.
For theme park fans, that's arguably more exciting than another year dominated entirely by record-breaking statistics.
Some of these attractions will be welcoming riders within months. Others won't arrive until 2028.
But after three days in London, we've now got a much better idea of some of the experiences European theme parks are preparing for the next few years.
And there are several here we're very keen to experience for ourselves.
