Steel Curtain at Kennywood Park // Media Day Review

I love being a wedding & engagement photographer, but if, for some reason, something happened & I could no longer shoot weddings, I would want to be a roller coaster photographer.

Thankfully, with a roller coaster obsessed husband, I’ve had some really fun & incredible opportunities to photograph roller coasters. In fact, when we go to new amusement parks, most of the time we’re lugging a few hundred pounds of camera equipment (that might be a bit of an exaggeration – but it also might not be) into the park with us so that I can take fresh images & Derrick can shoot video footage.

And this past Friday – we did just that! Except, it wasn’t a “new” park we were headed to, it was our “home” park: Kennywood Park. (Oh & just in case you’re wondering, our kids did not attend the entire event with us – but they did join us in the park once Kennywood opened for the day!)

Derrick & I were given the immense privilege of being invited to attend Media Day for the grand opening of Kennywood’s brand new roller coaster: Steel Curtain. I will never forget the level of excitement in Derrick’s voice when he called me on the phone & breathlessly exclaimed, “I got the invitation! We’re going to Media Day!”

For those of you not familiar with a Media Event for the opening of a new roller coaster – it entails the park inviting in the local news, radio stations, photographers, and videographers in order to document the opening of their new ride. Every park is different in how many media personal get invited (for example: we’ve heard that the Cedar Fair parks are extremely challenging to get an invitation from). Thanks to Derrick’s successful YouTube channel (in which he’s done a ton of “reporting” on Kennywood – especially following the construction of Steel Curtain), plus our pre-existing relationship with the Park, we really hoped that we would get an invitation & we did!

So, our alarms went off at 4:30am on Friday morning & by 5am we were on our way to the park. At 5:30am they began to sign everyone in & they opened the park gates to welcome in the group of media & VIPs.

It was a packed morning with all of the activities scheduled before the park opened for regular operations for the day. The “first riders” were to board the very first train around 6:30am, followed by anyone from the media being able to ride, then around 9:30am, they would have an official dedication of the ride & the Pittsburgh Steelers would make an appearance to ride the roller coaster that was being named after them. There was food provided & special access to the ride until about 1pm.

If you haven’t gotten an idea of just how excited we were to attend this event, let me try to explain:

Roller coasters aren’t just a “hobby” for Derrick. They’re not just a weird “obsession”. Roller coasters are something Derrick has dreamed of making a career for a long long time. Once upon a time, he even strongly considered going to college to be a roller coaster engineer (the reason behind him not going down that path is a long story). You know how people always say: “Find the thing you are passionate about & figure out how to make that into a career”? Derrick has been trying to figure out a way to make “roller coasters” a career for over a decade. It’s not exactly an easy “career path” though – I mean, other than working at an amusement park, what else is there in the field of “roller coasters”?

I don’t exactly have an answer to that question – not entirely anyway. Derrick still has his day-job, but over the last few years, he has found some fun outlets to let his love of roller coasters shine & flourish.

He started his YouTube channel as one of those outlets. It has steadily grown & gathered a small loyal following (along with a few trolls along the way). I’ve also written posts on my blog about our amusement park adventures, giving tips & tricks & sharing our experiences at different parks. It was thanks to one of those blog posts, that our relationship with Kennywood Park began. I wrote a post about “5 Things to do at Kennywood Park in the Rain” & the PR team at Kennywood found it. Shortly after, they reached out to me & asked if Derrick & I would be interested in coming along on a behind-the-scenes tour of the park, with the purpose of taking & providing images for their social media accounts. Of course, we ecstatically said YES & thus our relationship with Kennywood Park was born.

Since that tour, we have kept in contact with the PR team at Kennywood – especially when the rumors became true & their new roller coaster was announced. We’ve watched with baited breath as the Log Jammer was torn down & construction began on the Steel Curtain. We became season pass holders just so that we could keep an eye on the construction. Derrick has been following every update & even gotten access to several construction tours. As the ride was finally completed & the testing began, we waited on pins & needles for the coaster to pass all of the safety tests & run it’s required number of laps.

Here’s the deal though: getting officially invited to Media Day simply solidified to Derrick that he’s on the right track. Will his YouTube channel eventually overtake his “day-job” income? Maybe! But for now, he’s more than content to simply be seen as a “player” on the roller coaster scene & to be included on the list of “roller coaster personalities”. We saw so many “famous” YouTubers & Instagramers at the Media Event – people we have been following for a long time! It was like being in a crowd with a bunch of celebrities!

This is a position he’s been working toward for several years & it’s finally paying off. All the work of building an Instagram account, all the work of creating a YouTube channel, and all the content creation he has come up with for those two accounts – it’s all paying off. He has written thousands of words in scripts, he has composed his own music as the background to his videos, he has worked on his “radio voice”, and he has never given up.

Are you beginning to see just how monumental it was for us to be invited to the Media Event for Steel Curtain? I am so proud of Derrick & the huge strides he has made to reach this point! This is truly a giant hurdle that he has finally breached & it is so exciting!

Our experience at the Media Event was absolutely fantastic. We rode on the 3rd train to leave the station that morning & sat in the very back row. Steel Curtain is an incredible ride – it’s dizzying & intense as you are almost constantly flying thru a new inversion (it has the most inversions in North America after all!) It’s definitely completely different than any other coaster I have ridden – fast-paced, the perfect length, with the most incredible views of the park. From the top of the lift hill, Racer & Jack Rabbit look like kiddie coasters! Regardless, Steel Curtain fits into the coaster lineup at Kennywood Park like it has always been there.