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Hard Rock Park / Freestyle Music Park: General Discussion

BigAl

BigAl

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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.
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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?
 
This is a park I could see either Cedar Fair or Six Flags taking over.

Though I'd like it if Merlin took it, Oddly enough I believe it's a park they could work with nicely. Merlin under their current stance seem to want to build massive amounts of mechanical excellence.
Perhaps the US' first Merlin operated park?

In all other seriousness, that B&M looks mighty fine!
 
Are we watching the same B&M? That looks hilariously by numbers and uninspired. The helix before the mid-course looks totally pointless and they might as well not have bothered putting anything after the MCBR for how little there is of the second half.
 
Blaze said:
Are we watching the same B&M? That looks hilariously by numbers and uninspired. The helix before the mid-course looks totally pointless and they might as well not have bothered putting anything after the MCBR for how little there is of the second half.
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It's a huge, well themed B&M with two vertical loops, a corkscrew, a zero-G and a cobra roll. Regardless of how pointless the middle helix is, that makes it being SBNO for 3 years a massive waste!
 
That looks like one of the worst B&Ms ever built. Utterly uninspired, it seems to offer absolutely nothing whatsoever. I mean, drop, loop, cobra roll, zero-g, loop...?! Could they be anymore predictable?! It looks like the terrible second half of the Hulk, without the great first half.

I'd almost go as far as saying it looks worse than the truly terrible Silver Bullet. It's definitely less imaginative. :(
 
To be fair, most American B&Ms are bland and by the numbers... Very few are actually imaginative or decent...
 
Benzin said:
To be fair, most American B&Ms are bland and by the numbers... Very few are actually imaginative or decent...
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Hulk, Montu, Alpengeist, Apollo's Chariot, the Batman clones, Tatsu, Manta, Nitro...etc etc. I would go so far as to say the top B&M's in the world are all in the USA (with the exception of Nemesis).
 
Leaving out Katun, Oz'Iris and Nemesis?

Cloned rides cannot exactly count as imaginative either? And I detested Tatsu (and will probably detest Manta for similar reasons)...

Hulk aside, the rest are really by the numbers B&M... Hence the term imaginative (and indeed, there are a lot more B&Ms over there unmentioned which are crap, any of the current ones at Cedar Point for example)...
 
I agree it's fairly in imaginative but something still attracts me to it I could see why the gp would be drawn to such a ride aswell cough cough 'WOW LUK AT DA MASSIVE CURCLS'.
 
Benzin said:
Leaving out Katun, Oz'Iris and Nemesis?

Cloned rides cannot exactly count as imaginative either? And I detested Tatsu (and will probably detest Manta for similar reasons)...

Hulk aside, the rest are really by the numbers B&M... Hence the term imaginative (and indeed, there are a lot more B&Ms over there unmentioned which are crap, any of the current ones at Cedar Point for example)...
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure Oz'Iris would be in the top 5 B&M's to be honest, Katun probably. The clones were first built in America so surely they count having originated there? I don't particularly like the term "by the numbers" - all coasters have to have sequenced elements and if the client wants more elements than they really have money for track then they are obviously going to appear as though they are straight after one another - it's not the fault of B&M.
 
Novas said:
Benzin said:
Leaving out Katun, Oz'Iris and Nemesis?
Click to expand...

and Superman / Batman at WBMW Madrid. The greatest and most under appreciated B&M double act in the world.
Click to expand...

Batman la Fuga being one of the Batman clones...
 
Before I start this post properly, I'll just point out that the images first featured in the initial comment have been removed at the request of Theme Park University, but remember that the few images I linked can still be seen along with much more on their website. I should have checked with them if it was okay to post that concept work! :-[


Right, now for another update on the park's status from Screamscape. According to a news report they linked to, the owners may be selling the park land to an organisation called 'Abiding Village' for $10,000,000 if they can find the funds within the next few weeks. The park is supposedly somewhere between $150 and $180 million, so they will no doubt sell off the rides as quickly as they can if the land is purchased.


Oh, and I agree that the B&M doesn't look amazing but it's still a shame that such a big and expensive attraction has seen such little action, so hopefully whoever eventually purchases it will do more with it.
 
According to a Screamscape source, the park was recently spotted lit-up with a Time Machine train on the track as if it were ready to go for a test run (it might have done so but it doesn't go that far).

Interesting!
 
And now from the same source...

" (9/18/13) Another reader stopped by Freestyle Music Park late Sunday night around 10pm and noticed that not only was the Time Machine all lit up, but after pulling over to watch and listen for awhile, they claim they could hear the lift chain motor running and noticed that a train was sitting at the end of the tracks on the brake run, as if it had just finished making a test run. I’ve also been told that the park put up a large American flag at the top of the Time Machine on September 11th, and as of Sunday night the flag was still there as well. It sure seems like something interesting is going on with the coaster"

If there's only life on this one coaster in the park, and not a lot else in the vicinity, is it a possibility there's a potential buyer looking to see how it runs and rides? Interesting!

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