Cigoland: 2026 Attendance Up & New Giant Swing for 2027
Cigoland has announced a Wild Swing for its guests for the upcoming season. // Image: Courtesy of Cigoland
(eap) France’s Cigoland amusement park in northern Alsace is looking back on a successful 2026 season: with a total of 212,000 visitors, the family-oriented park welcomed 12,000 more guests than in the previous year. Highlights included the “Fête du Printemps” spring festival at the start of the season and the “Nocturne de Juillet” event in July, when the park stayed open until 10 p.m. for the first time. Cigoland also offered numerous activities during the Halloween season, which this year centred on the theme of “Dragons and Emotions”. On 31 October, the final day of both the Halloween event and the season, around 3,800 visitors came to the park.
Cigoland has planned a new attraction for the upcoming season: from July, a twelve-metre-high Wild Swing from German manufacturer ART Engineering is set to complement the park’s offering. The giant swing will accommodate 16 passengers and will be open to guests aged three and over. It will be built in a themed area dedicated to the traditional craft of the wheelwright. In doing so, the park pays tribute to its founder Jean-Pierre Willmann, who once made and repaired wheels and horse-drawn vehicles from wood and metal before founding the amusement park in 1974.
Still run by the Willmann family, the park’s symbol and mascot has been the white stork (French: la cigogne blanche) ever since, with the bird providing the inspiration for its overall theme. The white stork is also the emblematic animal of the Alsace region. In the 1970s, the species was brought to the park as part of a dedicated reintroduction and breeding programme. Breeding aviaries and numerous nesting sites were established to support the return of the then endangered species and provide it with new habitats. Today, more than 120 storks have settled at Cigoland, where visitors can observe them along with other animal species. ■
