Archive: December, 2008

Jeff, Mike and Pat review this week's news in the amusement industry.

• The boys can do without the cold.
• Hard Rock Park goes up for auction, nobody bids, PARC kinda thinks it's interested. Great write-up in paper on the saga that is HRP.
• Seriously, while there were the smaller issues that contributed to the failure, if coaster dorks didn't understand what the park was about, how would the public at large?
• Disney limits the bleeding on 1Q room booking by way of their 7-for-4 deal.
• Disney vs. Universal: They're different kinds of vacations. Who spends time at the pool at Disney?
• Kennywood president steps down: Conspiracy or just the course of business?
• Lack of state funding for road at Lake Compounce seems somewhat short-sighted.
• Merlin picks up aquarium at Mall of America. Interesting to see how they diversify.
• Legoland Malaysia? Locals don't get the brand. Remember how Lego nearly died prior to the licensing deals for Star Wars? Jeff wants the Millennium Falcon Lego set. The Lego video games are sweet.
• New York Times has a nice write-up on Christmas events at various theme parks. Gonch asks if all parks would do it, but it probably depends on location and weather. Universal and Disney have amazing holiday events.
• Random TV sidebar: What Jeff is watching.
• We appreciate your support of CoasterBuzz by joining the club. It's still just $20 per year.

Jeff, Mike and Pat review this week's news in the amusement industry.

• NYC wants to buy some of the Astroland property. Nobody wants what Thor Equities wants to build.
• Six Flags and Intamin settle with Lassiters over Kentucky Kingdom accident. We assume that she'll be taken care of the rest of her life financially. Jeff plugs the Cleveland Clinic.
• Hard Rock Park going to auction, bidding starts at less than a tenth of the original cost of the park.
• What impact will this strange economy really have on the amusement industry? It seems genuinely bad when you see people around you with problems.
• Industry lobbies for school years that sync with vacations and park seasons.
• Paramount Pictures wants to get back in the theme park business, this time in Osaka on the Expoland. Seems strange after Viacom then CBS shed their parks, but perhaps it makes more sense in the Japanese market.
• Santa Claus, Indiana, gets GPS love. But people are not spontaneously driving there after a TV ad.
• Mike gets Jeff on a Twitter rant again. That leads to a lengthy discussion about being over-connected. Mike cleverly points out that this is just another thing that people want to consume. There's a cultural tendency to consume far more than we need.
• Sandusky is down one indoor water park.
• Q-Bots spread to California. Gonch is right that it just keeps continuing to spread.
• Shanghai Disney? Depends on who you ask. Certainly China seems like a natural market to expand in.
• Cypress employees want to sue the park. For a lay-off? That seems pretty silly.
• Six Flags is playing a development role for a new park Qatar. Is the brand really that valuable, and in the Middle East?
• Busch Gardens Europe doing a holiday event. By the way, Ohio has two climates, Mike.
• Univeral lay-offs at 3%.
• We appreciate your support of CoasterBuzz by joining the club. It's still just $20 per year.