Poitiers, France: Futuroscope Opens “Aérobar”

In the last few weeks, visitors to France’s Futuroscope theme park have been able to enjoy their food and beverages at truly lofty heights! The park’s new “Aérobar” has been constructed between the “Kinémax” and “Cité du Numérique” attractions, and it is the Aérobar’s unusual gastronomy concept that makes this “heightened” dining excitement possible. Before guests are lifted into the air, they select and pay for their favorite menu, which can include the “flight”, a beverage of their choice and a snack. Then up to twelve guests are seated at a round table in an open, four meter diameter gondola on a rail inside a metal structure with an attached tethered balloon that elevates them to a height of 35 meters. Guests have a good ten minutes or so to finish their small meals and enjoy the view of the park before returning to solid ground so the next hungry passengers can head up, up and away! The Aérobar was designed and manufactured by France’s acclaimed Aérophile balloon ride company in collaboration with French architecture firm DVVD. Futuroscope invested a total of some 1.5 million Euros for the entire facility. Park Director Dominique Hummel enthuses, “The Aérobar rounds out Futuroscope’s highly original, innovative range of attractions to give our visitors even more fun than ever before”. But the gastronomy concept behind this new attraction is not completely unheard of. “Dinner in the Sky”, a culinary experience in which up to 22 guests per dinner are elevated by crane in a box up to a height of 50 meters to enjoy their meals, has been on offer for a number of years now in many cities in Europe and the USA (cp. EAP 5/2009). (eap)