BigAl
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Forbidden Journey
It's one of the biggest theme park flops in history and is still home to some pretty big attractions after being closed in 2010. The owners want to open it up again but who will take the risk and give them funding?
I remember watching this Discovery documentary about the park when it was still being built and thinking it was a nice idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbiGZk2OF3s#ws
The park had five roller coasters, including...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKbO1j2-LBw#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFlt2s3qrVs#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l5BegU_lBE#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtcncIChf_Y#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZjXWBpQGG0#
Other attractions...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gzmUsDM9I#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viADnE4e3Is#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7bFeqEYF3Y#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xInQP5UIuKU#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkmdec78tI8#
A section from the park's Wikipedia page about the closure and sale of the attraction:
Hard Rock Park had stated the park could accommodate up to 30,000 visitors a day. However, in light of the frozen credit markets the park could not secure sufficient finance to underwrite its planned advertising campaign. As the 2008 economic downturn deepened during the summer, high gas and hotel prices coupled with limited advertising by the park led to lower-than-expected attendance. The park cited “macroeconomic conditions that significantly depressed overall demand in the travel and leisure industry” and a lack of cash to advertise.
Changes were made to operating hours and planned operating days. The original closing time of 1 a.m. was moved up to 10 p.m. in August and the park moved to weekend-only operations after Labor Day. And with an earlier end-of-season planned on November 2, the park scheduled no concerts past August 30.
In September, HRP investor Africa Israel Investments decided to write off its entire $10 million investment in the park "due to liquidity difficulties the park is experiencing". Hard Rock Park then announced that they were ending the 2008 season over a month early, laying off most of the employees, and had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the filing, the park expressed hopes of reopening in 2009; the following month the company announced plans to sell the park.
In January 2009, the company converted to Chapter 7. In February 2009, the Delaware bankruptcy court declined to force an auction and approved the sale of the park to FPI MB Entertainment (FPI) for $25 million.
On April 2, 2009, the new owners announced that the Hard Rock name would be dropped, despite efforts to obtain permission from Hard Rock International, which had been willing to continue use of the name if conditions could be met. The bankruptcy court required all Hard Rock merchandise to be destroyed as a result. Changing the name would give the park a more positive image since the old name was connected with the bankruptcy, and it was not considered family-oriented, which the new owners wanted the park to be.
In an unrelated development, a Delaware federal judge said on March 30 that some of the previous owners still owned intellectual property rights relating to the original theme. The original owners then sued FPI, claiming they had not done enough to change the park, and that the new owners were using intellectual property that was not theirs. This action threatened to delay the reopening.
In May, HRP Creative Services Co. wanted to make certain attractions separate from the park the new owners planned. Prior to the March 30 ruling, former park CEO Steven Goodwin wanted the new owners to pay royalties.
So now we come to the reason why I created this topic; what the park had planned before things went downhill. Well according to the two current articles from the Theme Park University, a lot!
Their first article is about Unused Concepts. Theme Park University's second article is about yet more Abandoned Concepts.
I'll end this first post with a video of one of the firework displays the park held:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfQc0IW8I0A#
A short, simple and sweet idea for a display. I loved the lights on the giant guitar's strings synchronised to the song.
Maybe one day they'll figure it out and get the place running properly with some of the great ideas they had in-store?