On Aug. 26, Forest Park resident Maddy Norton expected to have a Wednesday afternoon retreat with her coworkers at Navy Pier in Chicago. Instead, she was the millionth rider at the Flyover attraction, winning unlimited free rides for life.
“I was so shocked. It was almost comical because this does not happen, ever,” Norton told the Review. She grew up in Berkley, went to Proviso Math and Science Academy, and has lived in Forest Park since April.
While Norton didn’t previously know much about Flyover — an immersive theater attraction with moving seats and a giant screen showing drone footage of Chicago — her company gave her department vouchers for the ride before an afternoon of meetings and presentations.
Norton said she, about eight of her coworkers, and a few other patrons were watching a video before the ride started. Staff told them, “This is so special because this group contains the millionth rider,’” Norton said. “We all kind of looked at each other and were like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ We didn’t think anything of it.”
“It’s been an exciting summer monitoring these numbers to find out who this guest will be, and today is the day,” Tracie Toney, general manager of Flyover Chicago, said in an Aug. 26 video provided by Flyover. “They’re on the ride right now. Cannot wait to surprise them!”
After watching the Flyover ride, staff asked Norton to come to the front of the group to walk out into the gift shop, where she was greeted with balloons, pom poms and confetti poppers celebrating her as the millionth rider.
“I was very grateful,” Norton said. She added that the Flyover team was “so wonderful and so gracious, but I also felt a little bit bad for my team. …We were on a retreat, and I was taking up all this time and threw our schedule completely off.”
After celebrating the Flyover milestone, Norton returned to retreat programming, where she was first in the group to give a presentation.
“My hands were shaking. I couldn’t focus. It obviously went completely fine and my colleagues are so wonderful,” Norton said. “This completely crazy thing just happened, and now I have to go sit down and be corporate again. …My sister keeps saying it’s like a sitcom, which is the perfect way to describe it.”
Since winning Flyover rides for life late last month, Norton has already returned twice to the attraction — once with her partner, who lives out of town, and another time to celebrate with Flyover. Whenever she wants to visit any of the four Flyover locations, she just has to email the company to receive two free tickets.
Though Flyover also has locations in Las Vegas, Iceland and Vancouver, “Chicago is our first location to reach one million riders this fast,” Kiana DiStasi, vice president of Flyover, said in a video. “We’ve only been open in Chicago a little over two years.”
“I would love to go to Iceland. I’ve never been, and I’ve also never been to Canada, so I would like to do that,” Norton said. Her partner’s parents live in Las Vegas, “so I’m sure I will be utilizing that [location] in the near future.”
Norton said, even after riding Flyover three times in a week, she’s not tired of it.
“It’s a very cool experience,” Norton said. “So far, I have noticed different things every time I do it.”