goatdan

It's a great question. It's sort of like the Supreme Court's definition of porn -- I'd know it when I saw it. Unfortunately, I think that is how the amusement industry is, and based on people's reactions here, it didn't have enough last year and the addition of some kiddie rides won't change that for them. In a quick aside, I would define a family ride as a ride the whole family can ride and, more specifically, the whole family would want to ride. Pirates of the Caribbean is a family ride. The train at various parks is a family ride. The observation elevator would be one. A mini-truck is a kiddie ride that adults can happen to ride with their kids. I think a lot of amusement parks overestimate how many kiddie rides they should have, and they underestimate the power of a good, true family ride.

Fascinating conversation, I just caught up with the whole thread... a couple comments: - The $40 price tag will only work if the deals that they work out with the resorts are super cheap, and if they can flood locals with coupons for the area. As has been pointed out, a $40 price tag won't get most vacationers to change their mind about their plans, and let's face it -- no one going to Myrtle Beach currently with the exception of the people on this board is going to visit FMP. In fact, most of those vacationers have not even heard of it (too bad Hard Rock didn't stick, as they have heard of that). So the price tag has to be so ridiculously good that a family will skip their already made plans to instead go to this park. And without an established brand name, it's going to be really tough to pull them in. Think about it: if someone goes to Tampa and sees Busch Gardens or LA and sees Disneyland, they have probably heard the brand name. But, if you are a Myrtle Beach visitor and hear about this "Freestyle Music Park", price is the *only* way to entice you to go, and unless it is ridiculously cheap I don't see that working with non-locals. As for the locals, if you went last year what is the draw to return, and if you didn't go last year, what is drawing you to it now? - About the name... they decided to use a name that is going to be used to brand an indoor ski hill in Russia?! Makes sense for a ski hill, but it is an unestablished "brand". It's like if Muscle Park would have bought the park and renamed it "Muscle Music Park", no one would go, "Oh yeah, they're part of the Muscle Park chain from Japan!" The ski hill it makes sense for, but the brand doesn't have an identity and will only confuse people in the market. - Finally, the complaint of not enough to do is a valid one, and it isn't just because the average crowd sizes were tiny... For a park to establish itself as a good park, it needs things that people want to do, things that people want to do again, and things that people can do when not waiting for rides. HRP didn't fail as an experience because the crowds weren't big enough to make it seem like a full day, HRP failed because once people got in the door with the possible exception of LZ, people didn't want to do things again after having done it once, and there wasn't enough non-ride stuff to hold their interest. --- So far, as far as I can tell the new management has not fixed the "too little to do" problem, and has created two new problems to overcome. I can't see this going too well.

Pre-shows make the line seem longer. But i hope they don't put a group of people in a room and make you watch the pre-show like how they do on Tower of Terror at DCA. I'm surprised that anyone hates pre-shows. I agree that they get repetitive if you've seen them too many times, however with both the Tower of Terror and Test Track examples, if you've got say an hour long line, the pre-shows are shown like 45 minutes into it. It isn't like the line suddenly would be 45 minutes without the pre-show, as there is still always a line kept after the pre-show. It isn't like the ride is sitting there so that during the entire pre-show its empty. It's an opinion thing, obviously, and for the most part I like my theming elements without specific pre-shows to watch (I'm all about looping videos in that case, IE the video that used (?) to play before Outer Limits: Flight of Fear), but I would never not go on a ride because there was a pre-show... This one sounds interesting. Not sure what they're going for with the theming -- Join the resistance! Ride this escape vehicle! See movie props including Terminators that aren't moving in the station, that you're supposed to be resisting! It has potential, but it also has potential to make absolutely no sense.

Right, which it seems to me is why Six Flags has been adding to the water park at that park and not trying to directly compete with KD. Seems like a solid business plan... SFKK is in one of the most competitive theme park markets outside or Orlando in my opinion. It's in a relatively small city which has King's Island about two hours away and Holiday World about an hour and a half away. Beech Bend is also less than two hours away, although even discounting it you have three major parks in a small area. Louisville's population is just North of 1.2 million. To compare to SFA, DC has a population of 500,000ish, but the surrounding areas in other states make it about 1 million. Then, add Baltimore's 2.6 million since SFA is less than one hour from it, and you have a population base of around 3.6 million to divide between two parks... I'm not comparing Cincinnati's population because I'm also not including Richmond's population (Cincinnati is admittedly larger), but I figure it is fair because I'm also not including Santa Claus's 2000ish people. SFKK is in a *very* competitive market, and unlike SFA I feel the problem is that they haven't figured out their identity just yet.

Dang it, so that the above makes sense (and posting it again since my first post is pretty old now...)

Blue and red painted track with a Superman logo on the ride station makes the ride a "strong themed" ride? I always thought the themes for the US based Superman rides were basically a joke. I'm really liking the idea of a Bizarro themed ride because: 1) The queue will have to introduce the character, as he isn't that perfectly well known. 2) It ties into Clawshun Industries perfectly which means at least so far, their attention to theming has been far above and beyond the usual. 3) It is daring enough to theme the ride on what I assume will be the storyline, and not just on the best known character. I think it's really an interesting tact, and we'll see how well it works out. I think the ride has to be well themed to work now so it could be a disaster (with a great ride still at the heart of it) but it would really be an evolution in theming. There are no other rides that I can think of that are named specifically for the villain who I assume Superman will have to save you from before the ride is over... It could be a very neat theme.

Thanks! It's not like I actually have anything to do with installations, it is I have just always found it interesting what parks pick and how they do with it. I once read something by Harrison Price who was a consultant to a bunch of these parks, and he basically said the exact same thing. Premier Parks blew everyone's mind in the early part of this decade because they installed huge things year after year. But they didn't upgrade infrastructure to secure long term growth, they just made a big splash but then expected attendance to go to near impossible levels to offset them. Just as a for instance, the "Flagging" of Geagua in 2000 was a $40 million dollar ride package. To make up for that, if the average guest spend $40 per visit, they would have needed an increase of ONE MILLION guests through their doors to make up for it. That's before even thinking about operating costs (which would go up with a million more people), cost of goods sold (also would go up) and so on. If I'm not mistaken, I read somewhere that Geagua pulled in just under a million in attendance before 2000. So, they would have needed to MORE than double their attendance in one year to pay for it. SFA's installations where the same sorta thing, although cheaper. And I believe I've also read that SFA's attendance was similar. So we're talking about a necessary doubling of a park's attendance to justify the ride package they just received. Unlike spreading that over a normal period of time (say six years, with a coaster every two years), they did it in one and then didn't get a return, so they added more coasters to those parks. Superman in 2000, Batwing in 2001. I'm assuming the total ride package had to be about $60-70 mil during this period, which means that spread over the three years, SFA would have had to have seen a bump of 500,000 guests every year for it to break even (at the $60 mil level with estimated spending at $40 / guest). Instead, by adding all these coasters and completely neglecting things other people care about like concert series, and water slides, and family rides, they catered to a small group of people and I sincerely doubt the return on investment was anywhere close to where it would have been if they had been smarter. Six Flags doesn't *owe* anyone any new rides nor coasters anywhere. They install what they feel makes sense at their locations as best as they can now, and unlike the installations at SFA and SFO, their current installations cater to the *entire* market (not just coaster lovers) and have a much more realistic swing in visits to pay for them.

@ the ghost -- it's generally agreed that Pooh didn't fail because it was an old character (in fact, it was put in because he's one of Disney's most popular properties) but because the ride itself just isn't that good. Before the new movie, Indiana Jones was an old property, and that ride has held its own very well. And Pirates of the Caribbean was one of the most popular attractions there before the films, and it had been the for a long time by that point. It's almost impossible to tell what will work versus what won't. @ KDCOASTER FAN -- The thing though is that if the water park is the driving factor behind people coming to the park, and the park gets a new water slide then that is a good investment for them. Maybe new Six Flags has decided that they don't want to try to compete on coasters because of the surrounding area, but they can have the best water park around. That doesn't necessarily synch up with your thoughts, but they are still doing something. -- And as for attractions getting added every X years, Disneyland is a great example with the last major attraction being IJ, and Nemo while it is different wasn't a huge change. During the 50th Anniversary, Disneyland advertised that they were 50 years old and had gangbuster attendance basically the entire time on the back of nothing. And that was in a very competitive market, with other parks who did add things that year. There is no "golden bullet" ride that if you install one, your attendance will go up by XX%. It just doesn't happen. And when you're talking about adding a roller coaster package that costs $20 million, you're saying that at a $40 per head cost to come to the park you need an additional 500,000 *just to break even* on that addition. In a larger park well established, getting a ride or a parade or whatever for $5-10 million isn't a bad gamble, and then you add to that the fact that people will probably spend more on average at that park. A $20 million ride at SFA would take a 500,000 increase in guests. What would that be, probably like 25%-33% increase year over year? A $10 million ride at SFMM (and let's say their average price per guest since they are bigger is $50) would require an increase of 200,000 guests, or less than what I assume is 10% of their attendance each year. To me, it makes *total* sense why they are betting on smaller $1-5 million rides and attractions at parks like SFA and SFKK right now. It is a plan for slow growth that brought many of the large parks to what they are today, and is sensible for a company to do, unlike the last management that figured a $20-$50 million addition to a park was a good idea.

Fixed!

Heh, I was thinking the same thing. When Six Flags announced the parks they were looking at selling, when I told some friends I was going to Magic Mountain, they told me it was closed. And I'm not anywhere near California. Doesn't really help your marketing plan when you make it sound like you're closing the parks, and leave it ambiguous as to when it is going to happen... I'd write the letter like this: It didn't work for Magic Mountain. For Six Flags Houston it worked because they knew the park was being shuttered, and they had a reason for it that they were closing that was explainable, and they basically threw a party. Telling people you are going to try to sell never gives a good impression, and I'm surprised Cedar Fair was dumb enough to do just that, regardless of if they wanted to sell them or not. They could have just told the parties whom they thought would be interested first to judge that interest level...

While on one hand I find it sad to hear that it's closing, on the other hand even when I visited there a couple years ago (2006, I think) I couldn't believe it was open. The park looked like it had just been plopped down sorta in a field with no regard to how things went together. The two memorable things of the day was when my buddy got one of the flyers going back and forth so much it made the snapping noise and the ride operator stopped the ride, said he heard a weird noise, and then didn't let anyone else ride it. We went to eat nearby, watched him pick his nails for a few minutes, and then restart the ride without talking to anyone nor having anyone look at it. If he actually thought it was a problem, you would've thought he would've actually talked with someone. Ah well. The Afterburner was the reason I went, and it lived up to the hype (in my mind at least) and was actually a spectacularly fun ride for an old school Arrow coaster. The "Zoo" was horrible, as they had tigers and whatnot basically caged up in corn towers or whatever you call it. Not good looking conditions at all for them, and while I like zoos I only felt sorry for all the animals there. We left shortly after that and drove to Michigan's Adventure the same day, which we hadn't expected to do, but after about three hours at Fun Spot you were just basically done with the place, and it was time to move on. It was a fun little stop, but not one that I would make the trek on purpose for again any time soon.

^ Oh, it's always a question if advertising works or not, and often times it is nearly impossible to put a finger on how well it worked. Did Coke increase its sales because it had a funny commercial at the Super Bowl, or did Coke increase its sale because after the Super Bowl, people needed to restock their refrigerators? Both sides could be argued. Same thing applies to Mr Six. If attendance increased during that time, was it because of Mr. Six, or because of the "spectacular" times other people were hearing about. IF attendance decreased during that time, did Mr Six cause it to decrease less? Or was it weather, or rides that didn't resonate with the general public, or bad word of mouth, or something else entirely? No matter what, Mr Six entered the collective minds of the nation and wouldn't let go, which meant that Six Flags was talked about a lot. It might have hurt, if people said, "Yup, I saw that commercial, and BOY do the parks SUCK when you get there!", and if that is the case, the re-launch of him could get people to go, "Yup, I saw that commercial, and my last trip to Six Flags was SO much better!" Or it couldn't, who knows? As for a virtual queue, considering how much Disney doesn't exactly love theirs and the revenue stream that I'm sure the Six Flags one must be, I can't imagine seeing that change. It would be much easier for Six Flags to make a change like, say, making the lockers near the rides completely free, and that would definitely be an increase in value.

The thing about the chain being national that some people pointed out does both hurt and help them. The hurt side is as mentioned -- when a park has an accident, the GP figures it happened at their park, and it then hurts attendance chain-wide more than an accident at two non-related parks would. The flip side that hasn't been as mentioned is that when they do something that gets national attention that is good, it draws attention to all of the parks. When Kingda Ka was built, a lot of articles that mentioned it also mentioned the Six Flags parks nearby, whereas when Dragster opened, it was at Cedar Point period. Mr Six is a well known figure, and the Venga Boys music is known as the "Six Flags song" by a lot of people. With the last group of commercials, I took them always as, "Look, you work hard. Make time to play. Go to Six Flags." It worked on a national setting, and when Mr Six invaded... well, practically everything it seemed, it meant it got all the Six Flags parks attention that, hey, you could go out to a Six Flags park and instead of working, have a day of just fun.

Are there any sites that have a comprehensive history of MGM Grand Adventures with pictures and / or video of the park? That's one place that I was always very interested in, yet only ever seem to find sketchy information on it, and almost no pictures.

From what I have personally observed at the parks that I have been at for New Years Eve parties (a couple Disney ones), at about 11:00, everyone starts getting out of line so that they can hang out waiting for the count down. By about 15 to midnight, there is no lines for any rides. When midnight hits, there is a little partying and celebrating and whatnot, and then everyone does one ride on their way out so the lines perk back up for a few minutes. By 12:30, the park basically becomes walk on everything. Closing the rides at midnight at Magic Mountain will probably work really quite well because of this. I too had been wondering how Six Flags would leverage the Dick Clark property, and I'm a little surprised they aren't doing the full night broadcast from New York, followed by Magic Mountain and put all their musical acts at Magic Mountain. It seems like one of those obvious synergy things that they could do with the property to both advertise their parks and make Magic Mountain *the* place to be on New Years Eve. I guess that's why I don't work for Six Flags though

^^^ I don't expect him to get the point with Knotts. The flagship of the Cedar Fair chain has always and probably will always be Cedar Point, and the way that they have positioned Cedar Point has always been that it has the biggest, baddest and "best" coasters on the planet. I think that when they took over Knotts, they figured a similar approach would work. Bigger coasters, and more of 'em. Cedar Fair doesn't have anything similar to Knotts in their entire chain, and I don't think Knotts will be returned to its "roots" by the chain ever. And like I said, even in a sale, I think Knotts was a totally unique place based on a family trying to tell multiple stories and them really being the only people who knew exactly how those stories would play out. Now that they are gone, those stories will slowly fade out no matter who runs the park.

^^^ No, I believe that at least some of it does, but I can't say that I saw it on my last trip as often as it seemed to occur when I was younger, although I'll readily admit that may have just been because I didn't visit the right places at the right times. I do know that the additions have taken out a lot of the stuff that I thought was extremely cool upon that first visit. I didn't find my last visit to be unenjoyable -- I think the Mystery Lodge was spectacular, even if the story is a little slow moving, and although it seemed like there were less 'character' employees around, it still seemed neat. I've visited that area of California five times since that point, and although Knotts has added a lot under the Cedar Fair regime, nothing has captured my attention or felt like it was correct for that park, and because of that their changes have made me end up deciding to visit other parks. When Silver Bullet went in, I thought about it and how it looked pretty fun, and then I decided I should actually visit all of Magic Mountain's coasters since they definitely had a better quantity than Knotts did of the high thrills. When Pony Express went in, it made me think about the family rides that had been installed or upgraded at the Disney parks and made me end up deciding to go over there instead. Knotts was unique and completely different in a market with a lot of competition, and I don't think that Cedar Fair understood / understands that aspect of their park. And to be frank, I don't know how many people outside of the original owners of the park ever could have run that park "correctly" as it seemed like the entire show might have been something made up in their heads, and not something that could have easily transferred to others. I still like it and sometime would like to go back. But I hope that when I do those special bits aren't removed.

For those of you wondering what Knott's used to be like, well, it was quite amazing. It was like a Disney park, but with a more mature theme. Gone were the Fantasyland style characters and the sugar coated rides, and in their place were things that were still fun and appropriate for all ages, just a little less 'family friendly.' I don't know what of this they still do, but the Western section used to have a ton of character. There were gun battles in the streets, and people dressed up as sheriffs and bad guys would wander around and you could interact with them. I very specifically remember there being a "jail" building where a sort-of audio aminatronic guy would talk with you (through someone else hidden somewhere -- looking back, I don't know why the guy wasn't just in there, but whatever). The train got held up by robbers, and people came and 'saved' you. They had a fair mix of dark rides, coasters and other unique things. I remember the Bigfoot Rapids section (just opened when I was there), which was highly themed, included park rangers walking around both at the school room, and one was out front the ride telling people about Bigfoot that may lurk nearby. I had never been so blown away. Now, admittedly I was about 9 years old at the time so this may not be 100% accurate, but it was really impressive because you could interact with so many people. It felt like you were in a world where for the most part, there was a big show going on around you always, and you never knew if you wanted to get on a ride lest you miss someone getting shot and falling off a roof, or something else amazing that you would have never expected to see happen. The whole park was like this. Everything was based around the theme of the areas, and the rides themselves for the most part came completely secondary to just enjoying the surroundings. When I returned in 1998, I had the choice of going to Magic Mountain for free on my season pass, or paying to get into Knotts and I easily took the paying for Knotts. At the time, I thought it was the much superior park. Even though a lot of what had made it so great in my first visit was no longer there, it seemed like a lot of it had been replaced with new stuff that was just as impressive. Mystery Lodge was mind-blowing, and made up for anything that I felt had been removed. Cedar Fair when they took over the park didn't seem to understand the specific point that it held in Southern California. It didn't compete with Disney -- that park was and is about as sugar coated as can be, and is ultimately mostly about the rides. It didn't compete with Universal, and the incredible expensive rides they built that took you into the movies. It could have never competed with Magic Mountain, as that park was ALL about the thrills and had years of building them under their belt. But Cedar Fair seems to have decided that the Magic Mountain route was the way to go, so they have built rides to compete with their line up. But ultimately, Knotts doesn't have the land to ever truly 'catch up' with the amount of extreme rides that the Mountain has, so it now seems to be caught in an odd sort of limbo, where Cedar Fair is trying to build more attractions that will bring back in the original crowd, but not completely understanding that I don't think that it was the attractions that well, attracted people as much as it was the unique sense of place and show that went on in that park. And that's my overwritten thoughts on Knott's

Random guess here -- it hasn't been removed because they haven't found a buyer for it yet, and without a buyer they are deferring the cost of removal until they either get a buyer for it (who they would probably have pick up the cost of removal) or until they need the space.

I said this in an earlier post here: "So, oddly enough, I feel kind of glad that this thing crashed and burned like it did. I love theme parks. I want more successful theme parks. But I also don't want any random person deciding that they way to make a theme park is to just put anything together and it will work. If this took seven years of planning, they were seven wasted years." I didn't say that I was "actively happy" about its demise, but I am in some ways glad that it didn't make it. Since apparently you need me to explain this deeper, here's the thing... In the way of small parks that grow, that wasn't what Hard Rock Park was meant to be in any way from the beginning. Small parks that grow are just that. And as they grow, they can adjust and enhance things in the future. HRP wasn't made like one of these, so it is no use comparing it to that. On the flip side, you have the mega parks that are designed and have a ton of detail paid to them when they are first made. The thing about these parks is that I feel that they have to be really thought through or else they shouldn't exist as parks. DCA shouldn't exist as a park. I actively dislike that park, and yes I have visited it and was disgusted that I did. HRP was designed in the vein of DCA -- a park tossed together with a bunch of off the shelf stuff and a theme that was very hard to hold the park together with. I'll admit that I'm "actively" happy that DCA has failed as badly as it has because it is a bad experience. HRP looked in every way to be a bad experience too. Okay then, name me the top three headlining attractions at HRP. Other than LZ, what do you really have? Why are you taking this so personally? Did you work there and is it that I'm making statements about stuff that you don't like? I don't get it. Why can I not base my opinions of how themed a ride is based on pictures of that ride, as well as an on ride video of it, as well as people who I personally know and trust telling me that it sucked and didn't have a real theme? So you would say that a park that didn't last though an entire year was well managed? Like I said before, if you take classes on getting into business, they say you should have enough cash on hand to get you through a year no matter what happens. Clearly, HRP didn't have enough cash to get it through one full year of operation. If I heard that in a business basics class, I'd say that "mismanaged" is a pretty solid term for it, and I'd agree that they were "conceited" if they thought that they knew about this more than anyone else. Remember at the beginning of the season when HRP was advertising that you should pre-buy tickets for certain dates because the park was certain to sell out every day? That was when my opinion on the park first started to sour... But quality goes into cost. And I *do* think that the industry will be stronger if the closure of HRP makes the people behind the 'Decades' concept and parks like Wild West World and whatnot are forced to think more about what they do before they do it. "Build it and they will come" is *not* a good business strategy. But market location was the management's decision. They decided where to put the park. There wasn't anything there before it (other than a failed entertainment venue) so it wasn't like they were told it *had* to go there. I said this before, and I still believe it to be true -- if it continues to run as HRP, it will have a ton of trouble unless they either greatly reduce the size and cost of the park (and maybe the theme), or if they invest a TON of money into the park. If the park was making much of any money, they probably could have made it until at least next year. That didn't even happen.

This is pretty incredible. I for one would hope to never to judging parks (or really, anything) entirely off of internet comments, or at least admit that. In that case, Esselworld is a hidden gem and Disneysea is overrated as hell. I never said that I judged it "entirely off internet comments." I looked at their ride line up, their location, the cost to get in, and what I thought would be interesting to do once there: - I'm not a huge Hard Rock fan anyway. Strike 1. - I like small, twisty and intense rides the most. HRP had none of those. Strike 2. - It was a few hundred miles away from anything else that I did this year. And the first two strikes didn't make it worth the drive to me. Strike 3. Truthfully, I didn't even look at internet comments about the place until after I had decided that I wouldn't be going, and they just confirmed what I had thought about the place. First off, I said "love". How many people do you know over the age of 14 who go to Magic Mountain and state that Gold Rusher is the best ride there, and the best ride ever. And Gold Rusher arguably has more of a 'theme' than LITFL did, as it actually has stuff to go through. And I will admit, you're right. It isn't "no one." I'm sure that someone likes it the most. But it isn't the majority of people who will name X2 or Goliath or Tatsu. As for the Walibi model, it is themed which makes a heck of a lot of difference in a mine train, don't you think? If that's your opinion, fine -- but I would argue that arguing about issues with an underlying theme of a park isn't anecdotal if the park couldn't even make it through a full season of operation. And really, it's the off season. I'm not trying to 'offend' you by stating why I feel that HRP didn't make it. But for whatever reason, it seems like you want to sit here and say that my opinions are wrong since I never went to the park, and therefore the park was probably great. Clearly, it wasn't or it wouldn't be closed right now. So something went wrong. If your argument is the economy, as I pointed out both Cedar Fair and Six Flags announced upticks in their attendance this year. What makes HRP so different than one of those parks? And if that isn't the argument as to why the park went out of business, can you share what was. I'm interested in the theories.

But then they would have a TON of operating expenses, and unless huge crowds turned out they would have the same cash flow problem that they had this year. Using this same logic, couldn't we make Six Flags far more profitable by dropping their ticket prices everywhere to $20 and having them put in portable flats that they can tour from park to park every year? It doesn't sound like a winning strategy to me... Maybe this park was made just for the thrillerman1 demographic But seriously, I didn't discover rock music until I was 14. Most people that I know didn't have any care for it until around that age. Yet I had rode a mine train when I was three. And, by the time I was 14, I didn't really care about the mine trains any more. I liked Arrow looping stuff (!!) No, but I also knew that I had no need to visit. I, like everyone else, has to decide which parks I want to go to since I have limited time and a limited budget. And based on what I saw, I chose to go to parks such as Fun Spot in Indiana over Hard Rock Park (woot Afterburner!), and I'm not in any way disappointed I did. A collection of different genres isn't an identity, it is a theme. What you're describing it the thematic elements. And that is great and really helps to enhance a park if they have a coherent identity to get behind. I would define 'identity' as a sense of what it was at its heart. Cedar Point doesn't have a theme really, but I would say that its identity is a park that builds the tallest and fastest rides aimed at thrill seekers. Hard Rock Park didn't have an identity like that, unless you called it an amusement park with rides aimed mostly at kids with classic rock themes. It isn't ignorant when both Cedar Fair and Six Flags announced an increase in their attendance this year chain wide recently. I HAVE been to South Carolina, while I don't know the exact attendance figures, Carowinds is getting a 'new' coaster next year, so Cedar Fair must think there is some upside in that economy. I don't need to have been to the park to have an informed opinion of it. In fact, perhaps people like me who looked at it and made the informed decision that we had no interest in going is part of the reason that the park suffered like it did. Hard Rock Park and its mismanagement remind me of Geauga Lake and the mismanagement there that closed it. You can't suddenly one day wake up and expect to have 2 million people show up at your park unless you're Disney, and even then it is no guarantee for success. This park needed to decide what they were going to be -- extreme park based around hard rock music, or a music themed park that should have picked a different name, or a kiddie park, or whatever -- and then built small and tried to grow. Instead, they built a mine train in the middle of no where that no one over the age of 14 could have loved, and stuck a song on it that no one other than thrillerman1 under the age of 14 would have known. I understand that *you* liked it, and that is great, but it is clear that not enough people did or it would still be an operating park.

With the possible exception of that Premier wheel thingie, I'm certain you'll be able to claim all of the other credits elsewhere in the future. No chain should even think about buying that place to reopen in, unless they want to spend hundreds of millions more to actually attempt to make it a destination park.

I said it back when they first announced they were closing for the rest of the season, and I'll say it now -- The park ended up with no identity, and that was its main problem. The theme of music was not pulled off well at all, and quite frankly outside of Vegas like someone suggested, I don't think that it could be. Nights in White Satin is *not* a ride that is good for families. But most of their rides were kid / family rides at heart. So, you create a park that doesn't cater toward families, but then have rides that cater toward families... and you expect it to work? You create a theme that no 1-13 year old is going to care about, yet you make most of the rides target their demographic? When I first saw this, I was wondering if I missed something, but nope -- that was their ultimate business plan. I'm sorry, this was an apparent problem with the park from the beginning. I saw it from the pictures. Robb saw it when he visited. I've heard from others who visited that said the same thing. 'Interesting place, but it won't last long.' The economy has nothing to do with it. If the economy was stronger, it still wouldn't matter if the park couldn't come up with a coherent theme, no one was going to go. And it clearly couldn't and didn't. The fact that their money was so tight that they went bankrupt within a short period after opening means they don't understand business. I looked into starting a business once, and took some classes, and they said that you should have enough money upon opening to operate for a year if you don't make a dime, just in case. Obviously, that lesson was lost here. So, oddly enough, I feel kind of glad that this thing crashed and burned like it did. I love theme parks. I want more successful theme parks. But I also don't want any random person deciding that they way to make a theme park is to just put anything together and it will work. If this took seven years of planning, they were seven wasted years. And the fact that the executives want to get paid nearly $1 million after the park spectacularly imploded? Amazing.

Um, based on the fact that you get the stock at the Metropolis stock exchange and not the Gotham one, I would expect the theme will stay Superman. I can't imagine they are going to have a viral campaign with the wrong theme. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed the subtitle to the ride, but I would expect it will continue to be called Superman at the start. I like the idea of Superman: Doomsday that someone else mentioned. Shoot, as long as it isn't something like "Superman: Lex Express" I'll be happy. I think this whole thing looks really cool. And the people at the park was a stroke of genius. I also have to say watching those YouTube videos with the Acer basically attacking the 'company reps' and the 'protesters' was both funny and sad at the same time. If Six Flags actually starts theming things well, do you think their heads will explode?