Kentucky Kingdom reopening as Bluegrass Boardwalk in May 2013

Posted by admin on Feb 23, 2012 | 0 comments

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – The Kentucky Fair Board has approved a lease agreement for the former Kentucky Kingdom property to the Koch family of Santa Claus, IN, operators of Holiday World theme park.

Kentucky Kingdom will be renamed Bluegrass Boardwalk. According to the Bluegrass Boardwalk Twitter page, the park will reopen in May 2013 and employ 25 full-time and 800 seasonal workers.

The Koch family says it plans to bring the Holiday World culture to Bluegrass Boardwalk, citing safety, service, friendliness, cleanliness and value.

The Kochs say Bluegrass Boardwalk will feature free soft drink, free sunscreen and free use of inner tubes at its water park.

“We’re here to serve our Guests. They’re most important,” according to the Bluegrass Boardwalk Twitter page. “This is going to become a gem. We’re going to do this the right way.”

Executive Summary

Operation of Amusement Park – Kentucky Exposition Center

February 23, 2012

•  Bluegrass Boardwalk, Inc. and the Kentucky State Fair Board have negotiated a lease as a first step toward operation of the 57.26 acre property, beginning in 2013.

•  Bluegrass Boardwalk, Inc. consists of members of the Koch family.  The Koch family has owned and operated Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN since it opened in the early 1940′s.

•  Bluegrass Boardwalk, Inc. will apply the same business model to the Kentucky amusement park as it has Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN.

•  The summary lease terms are as follows;

• • 50-year term with two 25-year options to renew and a right of first refusal thereafter to lease.
  • 2013 – base rent $400,000
  • 2014 – base rent $500,000
  • 2015 – base rent $750,000
  • 2016 and thereafter – base rent of $1 million
  • Lease years 2013 – 2016 five percent of gross revenues over $25 million
  • Starting in Lease year 2017 until $5 million is reached, five percent of the gross receipts $20 million – $25 million.  After $25 million is reached, five percent of gross receipts over $25 million for remainder of the lease term.
  • Parking to be equitable fee sharing arrangement determined after first year of operation
  • Kentucky State Fair Board to receive ten percent of sale of leasehold interest should tenant sell.  Landlord has right to approve sale.

Hamburg – Winterdom 2011 (short overview)

Posted by admin on Nov 12, 2011 | 0 comments

Photos from inside Mangyongdae Fun Fair, the happiest place in North Korea

Posted by admin on Nov 11, 2011 | 0 comments

Who says everything is gloomy in North Korea? They’ve got the Mangyongdae Fun Fair, the largest and most popular theme park in the entire world, if by the entire world, you mean the backwards rabbit hole that is North Korea.

Okay, so Mangyongdae is pretty gloomy, and pretty much exactly what you would expect from a North Korean theme park. It’s all the fun that can be had in a Stalinist dictatorship without losing a limb. Actually, looking at the photos, I’m sure someone has lost a limb on one of those rides.

Via

Trust the Germans to regiment tents at a BEER festival! Oktoberfest gets underway

Posted by admin on Oct 18, 2011 | 0 comments

Line ‘em up: Tents at the Oktoberfest campsite were pitched in neat rows for visitors, following the German stereotypes of efficiency and cleanliness

This neat and tidy rows of tents were for use by drinkers looking for cheap alternatives to the hotel

Salut! Beer lovers lift up their beer steins at the official opening of Oktoberfest today

The party’s just begun: Munich mayor Christian Ude taps the first barrel of beer with the traditional ‘O´zapft is!’ to start celebrations as women with large beer mugs show their joy

Flowers: Women dressed in traditional costume and carrying large mugs wave to the camera

However how long the tents remain in such neat and tidy rows remains to be seen – as the beer festival got into full swing yesterday.

And for anybody concerned that Europe’s biggest drink festival would run out of beer, they need not worry.

Organisers at the festival have now installed oil pipeline technology to keep the pints flowing.

The 1,000ft long pipeline runs underground to the main tent at the Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, which can hold 8,400 thirsty punters in one sitting.

Brewers have plumbed in the pipe to stop bar staff worrying about when the barrels of ale are about to run out.

The festival runs for over two weeks, and is expected to attract over six million visitors and seven million litres of beer will be drunk.

Pipeline technician Uwe Daebel led a trial beer run with a group of willing helpers and described it  as a ‘great success.’

Traditional dress: Revellers salute with traditional 1-litre beer mugs. The world’s biggest beer fest runs until October 3

Excited: Three friends in matching costumes have beaming smiles as proceedings begin

Only here for the beer: Women stretch out to reach a beer mug  and right, two friends have their arms round each other as chants begin

Sloshed: Revellers rest on the ground of a beer tent after the opening of the ‘Oktoberfest’, the world’s biggest beer fest in Germany

Let the drinking begin: Revellers form long queues for the bar

Party time: Young people lift up their beer steins to celebrate the opening of the Oktoberfest

He added: ‘We filled the glasses of everyone, but, sadly, the rest went down the drain because we couldn’t leave it in the pipeline.’

The pipeline is not the only innovation introduced this year by the organisers who are also catering for couples feeling amorous after a few frothy lagers.

Special soundproofed ‘bonk-boxes’ have been set up on the nearby camp site where they can canoodle in private.

Kitted out for the occasion: Tourists show off their typical Oktoberfest outfits inspired by traditional Bavarian dresses

Cheers: Guests Paulina, left, and Burcin arrive early to get a seat inside the tent at the 178th Munich Oktoberfest festival, and right, a barmaid dressed with traditional Bavarian clothes carries beer pints

Wet work: Girls in traditional costume get ready for a beer drinking marathon at the Munich festival

Revellers: Four Austrian beauties having fun inside a beer tent at the festival

Join the fun! Women scream as they enjoy a white-knuckle ride at Oktoberfest

Fancy another? Two blonde women clink their glasses during the opening celebrations

Tasty: A seller arranges gingerbread hearts in a booth as the festival begins

The converted containers include a double bed, soft lighting and layers of sound-deadening insulation which mean other guests on the site won’t be disturbed.

‘They’re a great idea because lots of people who come to Oktoberfest end up camping and tents are a terrible place to get intimate,’ said one festival fan

Which way to the bar? Crowds assemble as they get ready for a mammoth beer-drinking weekend

A practice rescue is carried out on the ride Starflyer in preparation for Oktoberfest and right, crowds queue at the entrance for the start of the festival

‘They’re very discreet, very private and just big enough for two – or three if you know each other very well!’

Site managers – who have 98 of the £100 -a-night cabins to rent out – are trying to play down the comparison with basic cabins provided in German red light districts for vice girls and their customers.

One said: ‘We would see them more as somewhere convenient for festival goers to rest and relax after a day out. Of course, what they do in there is their business.’

Beer tent: Rows of wooden benches await the thirsty customers who will sit and enjoy the German beers

Big round: Visitors queue up to get into one of the beer tents which can seat over 8,000 in one sitting

Sweethearts: Gingerbread hearts for sale at the Oktoberfest which opens in Munich today

Love cabins: The seven square metre rooms for couples to unwind in after tasting the alcoholic delights of the beers on sale

Tent city: The camp near the festival which will be mainly used by low-budget backpackers

Showtime: A worker checks a clock at the festival which is in front of the showground rides

Drumming up business: Traditionally dressed members of a drummer group arrive for the festival opening

Bell family plans to open kiddie rides at local flea market

Posted by admin on Sep 26, 2011 | 0 comments

The former owners of Bell’s Amusement Park plan to operate two or three kiddie rides every Saturday at a local flea market.

Robby Bell said Saturday that he and his father, Robert Bell, hope to set up the rides at Saturday Flea Market, 5802 W. 51st St., within a month.

“A lot of it will depend on PSO and when they can get power to us,” Bell said.

The rides were once a part of the family’s amusement park at Expo Square. The park operated at the fairgrounds for decades but closed after the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority did not renew Bell’s lease in November 2006.

“The first thing we will do is start putting our kiddie rides up, and we’ll refurbish them as we put them up,” Bell said.

The weekly venture is a first step toward reopening the family amusement park someday.

But Bell said the park will not be located at the flea market.

“This site is not big enough,” he said.

Ticket prices have yet to be determined.

“Times are tough for everybody, so we want to make it as affordable as possible,” Bell said.

The new kiddie ride business marks the Bells’ return to their amusement park roots.

“The way the park was actually started was my grandfather built a train that ran around his house,” Bell said. “And then when we first opened at the fairgrounds in 1951, we opened with seven kiddie rides, and my grandfather built six of them.”

Bell said his family also provided kiddie rides for the Admiral Twin Drive-in when it opened in 1951.

The drive-in was then known as The Modernaire.

Jeff Schwickerath, owner of Saturday Flea Market, said he used to go to Bell’s Amusement Park as a kid and hated to see it close.

“We want to see it reborn here and not somewhere else,” Schwickerath said.

Schwickerath called the arrangement a good economic combination.

The adults “can shop and the kids can ride the rides,” he said.

The Bells have made several attempts to reopen their amusement park since it was closed. Most recently, Wagoner County commissioners, citing a need for further study, voted last year to rescind a special election to vote on a sales tax increase to relocate the park to the county.

The election would have asked for a quarter-cent sales tax to fund Bell’s, an exposition center and an animal shelter on an acreage east of Coweta.

State says ride mishap was caused by mast ‘failure’

Posted by admin on Sep 20, 2011 | 0 comments

WILDWOOD — The state said the accident at Morey’s Piers Sea Dragon ride, which sent one person to the hospital and injured four others, was caused by steel corrosion.

On Aug. 19 a portion of the mast of the Sea Dragon ride fell into the rider’s seating area. The ride is designed as a pirate ship and the mast, which performed no mechanical or structural function, was used solely as decoration.

In the Sept 1 preliminary report by The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs’ division of carnival-amusement ride safety said that the mast falling was caused by failure of the parent steel that connected the lower and top portions of the mast.

“The mast is constructed of two pieces of piping/tubing. The top of the mast was constructed with thin wall tubing while the lower portion was constructed of a heavier wall material,” the report states. “The pieces were welded together about halfway up the height of the mast.”

“The top half of the mast, the piece that fell, was sitting on the top of the lower half and welded with a fillet weld to a plate. There was significant corrosion on the interior of both the thin walled section of the mast as well as the place that was used as the means to connect the lower and upper portion of the mast,” the state concluded. “When the material above the weld failed, there was no secondary support to keep the mast from separating and it fell.”

The state said that as part of their investigation, they found that the Sea Dragon design as Morey’s Piers did not match other rides of the same kind.

The ride, manufactured in 1982, had an eight-foot piece of galvanized pipe and a large piece of galvanized channel and a crow’s nest added.

“This all added additional weight to a weakened part,” the report said.

“Subsequent to our investigation, the failure point was ultrasonically tested and showed an approximate 40 percent reduction in wall thickness,” according to the report.

Further testing of the ride will be completed at the end of the season.

At the time of the accident, the ride was in motion and the mast struck a stationary hydraulic cylinder that was used to raise and lower the ride towers.

The operator stopped the ride by normal stop procedures, which stopped the ride in two swings.

The state said that if the operator acted correctly and used the “preferable method” of stopping the ride. If the operator had used the emergency stop, it would have caused the ride to swing freely until finally stopped on its own.

The broken mast fell into the rider’s seats, injuring five people. One rider was taken to the hospital and later released, the four other rider’s received first aid care at the pier. The mast then fell off the boat and came to rest on a fence. Several pieces of fiberglass, as well as one seat, were damaged.

After the accident the state has contacted other amusement parks and shut down similar Sea Dragon sides and removed their masts.

The state has only allowed similar rides parks to operate if the mast is removed.

“The department will not allow the replacement of the masts until a suitable method of testing or replacement of the mast is developed by the manufacturer,” the report concludes.