Stinky time capsule at Alton Towers Resort celebrates AromaPrime’s 50th birthday

By | December 15, 2023

To celebrate the 50th birthday of theme park smell maker AromaPrime, Alton Towers Resort has added a smelly time capsule to its archive. AromaPrime and Alton Towers Resort have been working together since the early 1990s to create fantastical pongs at the theme park.

Founded in 1973, AromaPrime became the world’s first scenting company to specialise in theme parks and museums.

Roller coaster designer John Wardley first worked with AromaPrime in 1989 to create a damp crypt smell for Chessington World of Adventures’ Vampire ride. Following the success of this project, John and the Sparks Group approached AromaPrime again in 1991 to find spooky scents for Alton Towers’ Haunted House dark ride. Since then, Alton Towers Resort has scented many of its rides, with a custom Alien Egg Nest stench for Nemesis Sub-Terra, a smoky woodsmoke scent for the Wicker Man roller coaster and a musty aroma for Hex, to name a few.

To mark AromaPrime’s 50th birthday, and celebrate the long-time collaboration with Alton Towers Resort, the new time capsule has been filled with the park’s many iconic whiffs, sealed for another half-a-century!

Liam R. Findlay, Theme Park & Historical Scenting Consultant for AromaPrime, says: “It is brilliant to celebrate the strong and creative bond we have with Alton Towers Resort. So many visitors to the theme park have fond memories connected to the smells we have created together. It was exciting to fill our time capsule with smells like Woodsmoke, Cabbage Soup and Musty, with the idea that those who open it up in another 50 years can sniff what the park once smelt like – time travel via smell! We have also found the original 1991 invoice for the smells used in the Haunted House, now known as The Curse at Alton Manor, and included this in the time capsule. In addition, there is a letter to those in the future, asking them what smells are at Alton Towers Resort in their time! I look forward to creating new atmospheric smells for the new and exciting attractions the resort is sure to create going forward!”