Saudi Arabia's First World-Class Theme Park Destination

Six Flags Qiddiya City is the first Six Flags theme park in Saudi Arabia and the first Six Flags destination to be designed and built from the ground up since 1971 outside North America. Located southwest of Riyadh, the park spans 320,000 m² across six immersive themed lands, featuring 28 attractions and a vibrant mix of food, beverage, and retail offerings. Opened on 31 December 2025 under the patronage of HRH Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, Governor of Riyadh Province, the theme park marks the inaugural asset within Qiddiya City — a flagship milestone within Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 programme. AtkinsRéalis served as Lead Design Consultant (LDC), coordinating and integrating the full multidisciplinary design and supervision scope from concept through to construction and park opening. The park introduces an immersive, story-driven format for the Six Flags brand, with themed environments developed specifically for Saudi Arabia and informed by local culture and context.

Record-Breaking Achievements

Six Flags Qiddiya City opened introducing a new generation of attractions that set global records for height, speed, and scale. The theme park now stands as a new benchmark for innovation and ambition in the global theme park industry. Ride systems were designed and engineered by global ride vendors. AtkinsRéalis' role was to enable and integrate them, engineering the foundations, interfaces, and site works so vendor-defined geometries and performance criteria could be achieved safely within the escarpment setting. Falcons Flight is the world’s longest, tallest and fastest rollercoaster. Sirocco Tower is the tallest free-standing shot tower. Gyrospin is the tallest pendulum ride. Spitfire is the tallest inverting top-hat coaster. Iron Rattler is the tallest tilt coaster. Together, these five attractions represent unprecedented achievements in theme park engineering and design.

Engineering Excellence on Extreme Terrain

The park's escarpment setting presented engineering challenges never before attempted at this scale. The foundations for Falcons Flight illustrate the project’s technical ambition. Engineers had to accommodate unprecedented dynamic loads while limiting lateral deflection to just 1 millimetre under a horizontal load of 250 kN. All of this was achieved within fractured rock masses, discontinuous strata, and steep slopes with severely constrained access. Conventional piling and gravity systems were impossible on narrow cliff benches, prompting a complete rethink of foundation constructability. The team developed bespoke high-capacity micropiles with CHS reinforcement and multi-directional anchored systems, providing exceptional stiffness using equipment suitable for constrained platforms. Each foundation was individually engineered to its specific geological conditions, minimising excavation and environmental impact. Agile construction methods including mini rigs, rope access, and lightweight equipment allowed safe delivery despite extreme terrain, and the resulting foundations performed completely as predicted during commissioning.

Immersive Storytelling and Experience Design

Building on a pre-concept creative vision provided by Qiddiya Investment Company, the park blends Six Flags' brand energy with narratives rooted in Saudi culture and context. AtkinsRéalis was responsible for taking that pre-concept intent and turning it into a fully buildable reality - developing all creative, thematic, and show-set design from concept through IFC, not just for the attractions but for the entire guest-facing environment. Six distinct themed lands were created with original story worlds, scripts, show content, animatronics, and special effects. Every queue, pathway, plaza, shade structure, kiosk, F&B venue, retail space, and ride-adjacent area was designed to carry the story forward, ensuring immersion never broke. Even the smallest kiosks and carts were treated as part of the storytelling fabric, designed with the same level of detail as larger outlets. Thrill, safety, and storytelling were treated as interdependent priorities, with safety always forming the foundation.

Integrated Creative and Technical Delivery

What sets this project apart is that AtkinsRéalis delivered the full creative, thematic, architectural, and engineering design under one umbrella. This approach allowed the team to carry a consistent story, look, and feel from concept all the way through IFC and construction. It also enabled faster decision making, reduced the gap between creative intent and technical design, and resulted in a more cohesive final product. The Creative, Technical and Show Design team developed thematic narratives, scripts, and spatial storytelling in parallel with architectural, structural, and engineering design. Show sets, themed facades, props, and interiors required close coordination with structural, MEP, fire and life safety, acoustic, and ride interface teams. Digital engineering, advanced BIM coordination, and real-time 3D environments kept global teams aligned throughout. The design phase ran from 2020 to 2024, with hundreds of specialists working across multiple countries-including during the Covid pandemic.

Sustainability and Long-Term Resilience

Sustainability was embedded through project-specific assessment methodologies and performance standards developed by AtkinsRéalis. Riyadh's extreme heat, strong UV exposure, and arid climate directly shaped material selections, with finishes and systems chosen to handle thermal stress and solar wear while maintaining visual quality over time. Public realm and landscape design prioritised shade, thermal mitigation, and passive comfort strategies to support year-round operations. The cliffside setting introduced geo-hazard challenges addressed through specialised foundation solutions, cliff stabilisation, talus slope remediation, and geo-hazard mitigation tailored to site conditions. Long-term resilience measures safeguard foundations, utilities, and ride systems over decades of operation, ensuring the structure's durability, safety, and performance throughout the asset's full lifecycle.

Impact and Legacy

As the first asset to open within Qiddiya City, Six Flags Qiddiya City establishes construction and engineering benchmarks for future developments across the Gulf region. The project's delivery model, combining creative integration, advanced digital workflows, and rigorous geotechnical engineering, sets a precedent for future assets within Qiddiya City and beyond. The governance structure and stage-gated process from concept to site supervision provide a replicable framework for managing complexity and maintaining quality across large-scale developments, demonstrating what future entertainment destinations in the Kingdom and the broader region can achieve.

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Saudi Arabia's First World-Class Theme Park Destination

Matthew Tribe