Time Traveler at Silver Dollar City
It will be the tallest in the world at 100-feet, and with a 10-story, 90-degree vertical drop, it'll be the world's steepest too. Its top speed will be 50.3 miles per hour, and the ride only takes 3 seconds to go from zero to 47 MPH. In other words, the soon-to-open Time Traveler roller coaster at Silver Dollar City will offer one heck of a thrill. Other features the coaster will have include a 95-foot tall loop and three inversions: the vertical loop, a dive loop and a "Zero-G Roll." To top it all off, the cars will spin! Custom engineered for Silver Dollar City in Germany, the state of the art ride will have an appearance that mimics the Ozark Mountains setting that surrounds Branson. As to why the coaster is called Time Traveler, the attraction is ultra-modern even though it will have a home in an 1880's-inspired theme park. Time Traveler will open this spring; the exact date will be announced here

Billy Yates' Hit Songwriters in the Round
For the past couple of years the GRAMMY Award-nominated singer/songwriter Billy Yates has hosted the Branson show Raiding the Country Vault and he'll continue with that in 2018 while also hosting a new show called Billy Yates' Hit Songwriters in the Round. The Songwriters show will be an all-acoustic 90-minute show that'll take place at the Americana Theater where Yates will share the stage with a different pair of hit songwriters every weekend. The guest players will play three shows each and the series kicks off with Kerry Kurt Phillips, who has written hits for Tim McGraw and George Strait, and Wynn Varble who has penned hits for Brad Paisley and Darryl Worley; they'll take the stage April 6-8. Subsequent weekends will find Byron Hill, Wil Nance, Buddy Jewell, Jim McBride, Bobby Tomberlin, Clay Mills and many others performing the hits they've written. Yates himself has a vast repertoire to dig into; his songs have been recorded by the likes of Willie Nelson, Leonard Cohen, Sara Evans, Kenny Chesney and lots of other stars. For more information visit hitsongwritersintheround.com