You might hear it said that the United States is saturated with theme parks. Like a sponge that can’t hold even one more drop of water, some people believe that the United States has exactly as many major amusement parks as it can handle – one or two for each metropolitan area that can realistically support one.
It’s no surprise that, like any industry, the theme park industry has its giants. If you’re looking for destination parks harboring dark rides, intellectual properties, and Hollywood-level storytelling, you’ll look for a park owned by NBCUniversal – Comcast (operating under the Universal Parks & Resorts division), or The Walt Disney Company’s Disney Parks.
For more mid-level fare with regional parks concerned with thrill and light theme, you’ll likely turn elsewhere, like Cedar Fair (owners of Cedar Point, Kings Island, Knott’s Berry Farm, and eight other amusement parks) or Six Flags Entertainment Corp. with thirteen of its own thrill farms.
Somewhere in between are SeaWorld Parks (operating SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and their associated boutique, accessory, and water parks) and Herschend Family Entertainment (with their Dollywood, Silver Dollar City, and Darien Lake). UK-based Merlin Entertainments has edged into the US market with LEGOLAND parks, too. Smaller family parks also dot the landscape, of course, like Kennywood, Kentucky Kingdom, Hersheypark and Elitch Gardens.
But when’s the last time a major amusement park was built from scratch the US? Here at Theme Park Tourist, we explored the forgotten Geauga Lake park, which was closed under intense opposition after 150 years of operation. Today, we’re going to dive into modern America’s lost theme park – a park whose closure sparked just as much debate. But Hard Rock Park barely lasted 150 days.
What waited inside of Hard Rock Park, and why did it disappear before most theme park fans even had a chance to visit? Let’s find out together. A big thank you goes to the incomparable Theme Park University, who expertly chronicled the life and death of Hard Rock Park in a stunning ten-piece essay that’s an invaluable source for seeing the park’s details and history. Be sure to check out their work.
Armchair Imagineering
If you’re a theme park fan, you’ve almost certainly spent many nights imagining your ideal park – sketching maps, envisioning attractions, and designing each corner of your park in exactly the way you want. Of course, the reality is that real park designers work collaboratively, and under the intense scrutiny of budgets, corporate oversight, and executives. Designers dream big and routinely have those dreams downsized, reigned in, or squashed altogether by the reigning powers and “pencil pushers”. Dreams just don’t come true.
Except for Hard Rock Park.
Hard Rock Park was born almost entirely in the mind of a man named Jon Binkowski (above). Hard Rock Park was his park, just as Disneyland was Walt’s. And if things had turned out differently for the little park, perhaps Jon’s name would be a young industry staple.
Jon was involved in themed entertainment his whole life, from humble beginnings at SeaWorld San Diego culminating in an executive position there. Soon, he split to form his own company and successfully created entertainment offerings for Disney, Six Flags, Universal, SeaWorld, and more. His Renaissance Entertainment is still in the business today, creating leading exhibits and attractions around the world.
Real estate
Independently, Binkowski’s most prominent entertainment holding was an ice-skating theater near the closed Waccamaw Factory Shoppes in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Myrtle Beach is an extraordinarily popular vacation destination on the east coast of the US that attracts 17 million visitors annually, and Binkowski’s ice theater was one of hundreds of tourist attractions and roadside family establishments to dot the city.
As luck would have it, Binkowski’s ice-skating theater caught the eye of a local entrepreneur named George Bishop, who had radical plans to transform the mall (and the ice theater with it) into an entertainment complex called Fantasy Harbour. An innovative theme park – and the first new one in the US in a long, long time – Fantasy Harbour would’ve contained four themed lands situated around a central lagoon, with each land representing one of the four seasons.
Bishop set to work, campaigning and donating toward the improvement of infrastructure around the Waccamaw mall as roads were widened, parking lots were laid, and power lines were run all in anticipation of a full sized theme park moving in. Bishop’s Fantasy Harbour would be a coup – a major destination park for the masses who showed up to Myrtle Beach every summer.
Tragically, Bishop passed away before construction could begin on the park itself, but with the skeleton laid, the project pressed forward with Binkowski at the helm and a man named Steven Goodwin to help finance the park.
But Fantasy Harbour never got built. Read on to uncover the twists and turns of fate that lead to the most unusual and infamous theme park in the world, straight from the mind of Binkowski.
Fantasy Harbour
The infrastructure was laid for a massive, major theme park in Myrtle Beach. However, a problem quickly arose with Fantasy Harbour.
Myrtle Beach is a veritable tourist capital, filled with resorts, hotels, motels, outlets, malls, family fun centers, go-kart tracks, mini golf, and more. A whopping 17 million visitors annually was nothing to sneeze at, but how could a new park break into the already established lineup of a tourist Mecca?
Investors were clear – Myrtle Beach could support a theme park, and they’d be willing to invest to make it happen. But a generic park of off-the-shelf carnival rides would do little to distract families from the beautiful (and free) beach just four miles east. Even those families looking for a thrill would likely find it more prudent to visit the existing carnival rides positioned at family fun centers and go-kart tracks all around the tourist area.
A Fantasy Harbour of simple carnival rides would not do.
If Binkowski wanted funding for a Myrtle Beach park, he needed a brand to back him up.
Originally, he toyed with the idea of a movie studio themed park (which was very en vogue in the late 1990s when design first began; today, the concept has lost much of its luster as seen by the aging of Disney’s Hollywood Studios and the revamp of Universal Studios Florida). Perhaps luckily, Binkowski couldn’t find a studio willing to operate or even license their identity to the South Carolinian park. Disney and Universal were uninterested in expanding; MGM had just closed its own failed attempt at a park in Las Vegas; and Paramount owned five North American parks already, but it had purchased and branded them, not built them from scratch.
The search was on to find a suitable intellectual property to carry a park and impress potential investors.
With no oversight or intrusion, Binkowski designed a park borrowing from Fantasy Harbour’s basic layout, drawing in roller coasters, theaters, restaurants, backstage areas, and even a parade route. This very simple “armchair Imagineering” was backed by more professional knowledge than most of us can tout, but still amounted to a man designing his own perfect park. And for Binkowski’s central theme, he selected… music.
And it clicked.
A series of informal business connections between Renaissance and Hard Rock International (remember how Renaissance Entertainment worked on Universal’s CityWalk and its Hard Rock Café?) put Binkowski in close touch with Hard Rock’s Vice President of Franchise Operations (that is, the guy normally in charge of overseeing franchise locations of the company’s Hard Rock Café.)
Negotiations began and by the early 2000s, initial work was started on the world’s first Hard Rock Park.
Context
As luck would have it, four major projects had come to a close in the theme park industry at the turn of the century.
In 1998, Disney’s Imagineers had singlehandedly created what was easily their most cohesive and immersive project to date – Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The enormous, detailed, and light-on-attractions park had shifted something in the industry, and marked a definite end to the era of the studio park that had come before. Post-Animal-Kingdom, the industry craved immersive, detailed parks built on storytelling, not big tan show buildings and flat façades.
That appetite was re-whet the next year, when Universal’s Islands of Adventure opened. Universal’s first outright attempt at a Disney-style theme park (again, leaving behind its studio park origins), Islands of Adventure blew away all expectations, catapulted Universal into the creative heights formerly monopolized by Disney. Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence – it was former Disney Imagineers who designed much of it.
Just a few years later, 2001 would see the opening of two radically different parks – Disneyland’s second gate, California Adventure was dismissed immediately as Disney’s first outright failure. It lacked the creative vision, reverent storytelling, and outstanding detail Disney was known for. Quite the opposite, Tokyo DisneySea opened in Japan and was lauded from the start as the best theme park on Earth. Like Animal Kingdom, it was light on attractions but superlative in every way.
An opportune time
On September 11, 2001 – shortly after the opening of Disney’s two newest parks – terrorists attacked the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City. The devastating event rippled throughout the entire world, affecting billions and altering many global industries. One of the most severely affected? Tourism.
Families wary of travel changed their plans and the “staycation” entered the vernacular. In uncertain times and leery of travel (especially air travel), people simply opted to stay home. Disney and Universal found themselves floundering with record low attendance, slashing prices just to keep visitors coming. Across the industry, projects were cancelled altogether, and creatives like Binkowski found that their work dried up.
In the themed entertainment business (i.e. Disney Imagineering or Universal Creative), your work is based on your project. When your project is finished (a park or attraction opens), you’re ideally hired for a new one. Otherwise, you’re off to find work as a freelance designer. It’s this natural ebb and flow of projects that explain how Islands of Adventure so resembles Disney’s forgotten Beastly Kingdom park land, or how designers can develop projects across chains.
And after September 11, a lot of designers found themselves in limbo. Disney and Universal were cancelling any plans they might’ve had to build new attractions, much less entire new parks.
In the early 2000s, only one large-scale project was moving forward in the United States: Hard Rock Park. So recognize that, even if Hard Rock Park is remembered with a chuckle due to its short life, it was designed and built by the same creative folks who had brought Disney and Universal’s parks to life.
To build a park
Hard Rock Park was backed by a $385 million loan (of which $225 million would be used to build the park… a relatively small sum in the industry. By comparison, Disney California Adventure was only $600 million, and was infamously known as a cheap park light on attractions). But with 55-acres (about the size of Disneyland Park) including the Ice Theater and part of the closed Waccamaw mall, Hard Rock Park would make good use of the money. And like all theme parks, it would only grow (literally and figuratively).
Of course, a park built around music would need plenty of it, and Hard Rock Park’s designers were ready. They divided the park into dozens of controlled music zones using directional sound and cutting edge audio equipment to immerse guests into different sounds along different areas of the path, with music melding perfectly between zones. If Islands of Adventure had earned the awe of the industry for composing music specifically for the park, Hard Rock Park should’ve earned it for incorporating music so effectively.
Hard Rock Park was privately owned by a company called HRP Myrtle Beach Operations, LLC with Binkowski at the helm. That meant that the designs he and his team developed didn’t require final creative approval or even budgetary oversight. Hard Rock International simply licensed its name and likeness to HRP Myrtle Beach Operations, LLC for $2.5 million a year and brand approval for visual design elements tied to the Hard Rock identity.
The park was projected to draw 3 million visitors during its first year – a figure it had to reach to meet investor expectations. This was perhaps a lofty goal by some estimation, necessitating 20,000 to 30,000 visitors per day (which the park was built to handle) to visit the park. A number like that would require some sincere marketing and outreach efforts to ensure that families visited.
However, 3 million doesn’t sound outrageously large with some context. Theoretically, to host 3 million visitors would require that 1 of every 6 visitors to Myrtle Beach would visit. For the first year, that might be a stretch, but it’s not necessarily an outrageous figure as the park settled into its skin. For context, 3 million visitors in 2015 would’ve made Hard Rock Park the 18th most visited park in the US – right between Hersheypark and Six Flags Magic Mountain.
But Hard Rock Park never reached 3 million visitors. In fact, a park built for 25,000 a day played host on average to 1/10 of that. Each day, between 2,000 and 3,000 visitors explored Hard Rock Park… Before we talk about why, let’s discuss what they saw when they came.
Hard Rock Park opened April 15, 2008. On the next page, we’ll begin our in-depth walkthrough of the park, so you can see just what visitors saw on that day.
All Access Plaza
We’ve taken some time here at Theme Park Tourist to discuss the importance of the “entry land.” Put simply, most parks need a “Main Street, USA” equivalent. It’s functional and it’s part of a park’s narrative. Hard Rock Park was no different. But there was something different about what went into All Access Plaza.
It’s obvious from the start that the creative forces (or at least inspiration) behind Universal’s Islands of Adventure’s Port of Entry were mixed into the stew of Hard Rock Park’s All Access Plaza. Like Port of Entry, All Access Plaza departs very narrowly from the Main Street formula by creating a curved avenue of shops and restaurants, blocking visual access to the park’s center (rather than highlighting it like Disney’s castles.)
Conceptual and philosophical alterations aside, All Access Plaza kept to the law of the land: one side of the street – disguised as different facades – contained the massive All Access Merchandise (the park’s main souvenir shop) while Amp’d Coffee (the ubiquitous breakfast café serving pastries and caffeinated beverages) was across the way. If Main Street is designed in 1900s Midwestern style and Port of Entry is an international mythic port, then All Access Plaza is entirely designed within the Mission Revival architectural stylings of Southern Californian Spanish missions – the same style shared by many of the Cafés.
At Islands of Adventure, the picture-perfect moment is an ancient red stone bridge carved with the park’s operational thesis: “The Adventure Begins.” Clearly taking a note from its predecessor, guests en route to the central lagoon at Hard Rock Park step under a red brick bridge emblazoned with the words:
“Here we are now, entertain us.”
– Nirvana
Painted underneath the bridge was one of those spectacular detailed touches that Hard Rock Park contained: a spoof of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Hard Rock Park’s version was entitled “Fiat Saxum.” Let there be rock. Let the painting set the mood for a park that was certainly unlike anything Disney dared do. Like the Hard Rock brand, it was a bit edgy. And for all the praise Disney and Universal get about designing “details,” Hard Rock Park matched them blow for blow. It also might’ve turned off locals in the deep Bible Belt of Myrtle Beach.
On the other side of the bridge, the pavement would take on an odd pattern. It should make sense why. You were standing on the neck of a guitar embedded in the pavement. Follow the frets and strings down to the Gibson Vegas High-Roller Plaza, the wide-open plaza that overlooks the park’s central lagoon. Like Islands of Adventure’s Port of Entry Shores, this giant guitar signaled the start of your descent into rock offering your first panoramic views of the park that lay before you, with water fountains erupting from the pickups.
The Whammy Bar nearby was appropriately staffed by live rock performances each night and had an outdoor patio positioned along the park’s main promenade, somewhat like Islands of Adventures’ Confisco Grill.
Here at the water’s edge, the path diverged left and right. We’ll head right and tackle the park counterclockwise.
Cool Country
As you leave All Access Plaza, you pass under a wooden archway signaling your arrival in the first real, themed portion of the park. As the rocky coasts of All Access Plaza give way to a dense wetland and the lagoon, you know you’ve entered Cool Country. As you might expect, Cool Country celebrated some of the most prolific genres of American music – bluegrass, rock and roll, and – of course – country music. But more than just the music itself, Cool Country did a pretty nice job of representing the lifestyle synonymous with that music.
The area was filled with wooden structures and rusted shacks that recall a country music album cover – the kind of place you’d want to drive a pickup truck. Wetlands and fields and mud pits… Immediately upon passing under the entrance archway, guests faced Muddin’ Monster Race, an unusual custom family flat ride disguised as muddy off-roading vehicles. Truthfully, it set the stage perfectly for a park that seemed to customize almost every since attraction to fit its theme. Observing guests were even spritzed with “mud” (water) as the ride revolved.
Even the park’s chair-o-plane aerial swings, Just A Swingin’, fit the grittier country vibe with a dark canopy and a body devoid of the typical dainty murals. Along the water amid the reeds and cattails was the Cool Country Stage, set perfectly for live bands to set the atmosphere at night. And just to round out the offerings stood the Rockabilly BBQ and the Wheelhouse Canteen bar.
The visual center for Cool Country was, without a doubt, the towering Ice House Theater.
Binkowski’s existing ice theater – now incorporated into the park – fit the area perfectly. Most would’ve assumed that the theater was custom-built for the park, unaware that it really was an icehouse and a pre-existing theater.
In terms of starring attractions, there was only one: Eagles – Life in the Fast Lane was the marquee attraction of Cool Country. The 1976 hit song probably wouldn’t be classified as “country,” but the ride’s aesthetic felt right at home in Hard Rock Park’s country zone. The coaster was a modified Vekoma Mine Train (similar in style, size, and scale to Disney’s Big Thunder Mountain) boarded via a wooden shack being gripped by menacing, claw-like trees.
The coaster’s finale was a helix around metallic rock-and-roll scarecrows, which shot plumes of fire into the sky (an effect that Six Flags installed heavily in its parks as it renovated existing coasters the same year, 2008).
Included here were the well loved and iconic (or, as “iconic” as something can get in four months) Rock-Cow-Billys – eight foot tall bronze sculptures of cows modeled after famous music artists. More than just great photo opportunities, the cows were “living,” conversing statues using the same technology as Islands of Adventure’s delightful Mystic Fountain. And like their forbearer, a wayward, nosy, or eager guest would be squirted from hidden water nozzles in the cows’ udders or… well… elsewhere. The unusual Heavy Metal Graveyard – a walkthrough garden of outrageous art installations – rounded out the land.
Born in the USA
It’s not easy to encapsulate the American rock dream in a few acres at a seasonal amusement park, but Hard Rock Park did all right. Passing through the patriotic land’s entry arch and billboard, guests first passed an entire interactive play zone for kids called the Kids Rock State Park. The nicely themed zone featured climbable lookout towers, slides, nets, rocks, pathways, a high and low ropes course, and soft-floored play areas.
Like the rest of the park, the area would’ve looked spectacular given ten or twenty years for the trees to grow in, but altogether the play area was a worthwhile seasonal variation of California Adventure’s Redwood Creek Challenge Trail, and certainly on par with what you might expect from Dollywood.
The State Park was reigned over by Slippery When Wet, a Premier Rides suspended family coaster seating four back-to-back riders per train. Hoisted to the top of an elevator lift, the cars were set loose down a meandering, winding track that twisted over the State Park, gliding through geysers, misters, and fountains.
Exiting the “State Park” and crossing the street, a mini-area recreated classic Americana boardwalks (the likes of which had existed near Myrtle Beach, even). The star there was the Shake Rattle ‘n’ Rollercoaster, a typical and classic Vekoma junior coaster, identical to Flight of the Hippogriff or the Barnstormer (which, yes, are clones of one another, along with 77 other copies).
Along with the 60s-inspired Great Meals Diner (with its neon sign so coincidentally flashing only the center letters: “eat Me,” the street terminated in the disguised façade of the abandoned mall, dressed as carnival games. This is the first appearance of the Waccamaw mall, which will play a very important role as our trip around the park’s perimeter continues… So let’s follow the sidewalk (or should we say, “pavements”) as we continue into the park’s second and most impressive half.
British Invasion
It is indeed a British Invasion! Named after the cultural phenomenon of the 1960s when rock and pop music immigrated to the United States from the UK (largely thanks to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and the Who), this land celebrated the quirky and indivisible influence of British pop culture on global music.
It was here in British Invasion that the park housed many of its family rides, like London Cab Ride (a trippy and totally customized scrambler) and All The King’s Horses Carousel. You couldn’t forget the outstanding Magic Mushroom Garden (certainly one of the most uniquely themed family flat rides) located on the edge of the lagoon.
Nearby was the chuckle-inducing Phonehenge Stage – yes, a recreation of Stonehenge built entirely with the instantly recognizable red telephone booths of the UK.
Perhaps the most unique attraction ever at a major park, The Punk Pit was a giant walkthrough maze of inflatable slides, climbing walls, tunnels, spikes, and bounce rooms for everyone (which includes adults).
The land’s roller coaster is a most unusual one: Maximum RPM, designed by Premier Rides. The roller coaster’s queue is contained in an old British factory. But this queue has a twist: karaoke. Really! Amid the warning signs supposedly left from the “factory,” guests were encouraged via an Uncle Sam spoof, “YOU Are Responsible For Your Entertainment.”
Once in the station, you might’ve noticed that the ride’s vehicles look suspiciously like BMW’s MINI Cooper line (yet not QUITE like the ones Premier used on the licensed Italian Job: Stunt Track coasters at the Paramount Parks. Hard Rock Park’s quasi-Coopers would be the subject of a lawsuit later on).
Altogether, Maximum RPM is a pretty traditional family coaster of swoops and turns, but with one very unusual feature: a Ferris wheel lift. The first of its kind, the roller coaster dispatches a single car into a Ferris wheel, which rotates to bring the train to the ride’s highest point. Once the track connects, the car zooms down the hill while another car is loading below. The Ferris wheel lift, of course, is practically a landmark for the park and coaster.
The backdrop for the entire British Invasion area was the former mall, its façade built out to resemble a row of British flats. While the flats disguised the huge mall, they also concealed the one of the park’s most famous attractions, which was contained inside of the mall.
Hard Rock Park offered a single dark ride that’s often regarded as one of the most incredible dark rides ever built. Free of plot, characters, and (mercifully) laser guns, Night In White Satin: The Trip was sincerely supposed to be a trip. As in, an LSD trip. Which is appropriate, since they say that if you remember the 60s, you didn’t live in the 60s.
The attraction was – of course – presented in mind-melding 3D all to the sweet, supple sounds of Nights in White Satin, the 1967 track by the Moody Blues. Satin drapes, an old man, a unicorn. Dead trees, rainbows, floating candles, skulls, spinning geometric shapes, smoke rings. The smell of candle wax, star fields, and projection domes…
The totally incomprehensible dark ride was sincere art. Your best chance to get an idea of the attraction would probably be the video above, released by its manufacturer, Sally Corp. (Yep, the same folks behind the blast-the-ghosts cartoon dark ride at your local park).
Rock & Roll Heaven
The park’s crowning area – its “Fantasyland” if you will – is Rock & Roll Heaven. Entering from All Access Plaza (that is, having turned left at the lagoon where we turned right to Cool Country) guests would pass through the entry above. To enter from British Invasion, though, is to cross a floating boardwalk on the park’s central lagoon. So named for its 350 memorialized musicians with carved brick pavers, Rock & Roll Heaven is filled with an otherworldly mist that might’ve made you feel as though you were walking through the clouds.
Home to Reggae River Falls (a family friendly splash playground) and Malibu Beach Party, a live lagoon-side dive show / music extravaganza, Rock & Roll Heaven might’ve thematically amounted to a catch-all, trying to get at least one mention of everyone’s favorite music.
However, at the end of the path, an identity began to develop. In a sort of metal wasteland, stones and sheet metal began to appear alongside sleek white architecture. The towering statuesque Hermit specter from Stairway to Heaven presided over the wasteland. In that central plaza, barren trees curled around a massive stone guitar with water streaming down it as strings. Breaking the stream of water would emit a sound like plucking a string.
The one thing that gave the land its own identity and style was the centerpiece of this metal wasteland: Led Zeppelin – The Ride. Truly the only outright “adult” coaster at the park, Led Zeppelin was a beauty. The sleek white track of the super-smooth B&M coaster was 150 feet tall and containing 6 inversions. The ride raced at 65 miles per hour along a twisted course built against the lagoon, always projecting a picturesque reflection.
The coaster experience began with four unique pre-show rooms (different rooms depending upon the row of the coaster you chose) leading to deluxe trains that, of course, featured on-board audio of Led Zeppelin tunes synchronized to the ride experience, all entered via – you guessed it – a lead zeppelin station.
Hard Rock Park wasn’t perfect. But it was a truly unique family park given a rock and roll spin. It was carefully designed and lovingly detailed in a way that revealed its team as Disney and Universal Imagineers working on a healthy budget for a seasonal park. With customized, soulful flat rides, a world class dark ride, and a lineup of roller coasters wherein each was somehow innovative, you might’ve expected that Hard Rock Park would become a noteworthy contender in the seasonal park lineup.
It lasted four months.
It began with cutting back the operating hours… drastically. Originally scheduled to be open from 10 AM – 1 AM the next morning, the park began to close earlier and earlier until its gates were shuttered well before dark. That eliminated the nightly fireworks shows, too. Prices were slashed at the gate to little avail. The Park scheduled no more concerts after August 30, despite two full months of operation planned for September and October.
With a full month left of its operating calendar, Hard Rock Park announced an early closure and laid off its staff, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the park announcing a 2009 reopening. Bankruptcy is a scary word, but it’s not unheard of. Six Flags underwent Chapter 11 bankruptcy (which is focused on reorganization) and emerged in 2010, and by all counts is a stronger company for it.
However, just a month later, the park converted its Chapter 11 bankruptcy to Chapter 7… liquidation.
What Went Wrong
As with any failed entertainment initiative, lots went wrong. Some argue that the Hard Rock brand was too mature to attract families. Others say that Myrtle Beach couldn’t have supported a theme park regardless of the intellectual property behind it. Some people say that it was the location in relation to the city’s tourist center, while others say it just couldn’t beat the beach itself for tourist attention. There are many opinions and many people who feel very strongly about Hard Rock Park. But here are a few things that seem generally agreeable that we think played a major role:
1) How the park was (and wasn’t) marketed
Advertising is important for all theme parks, even established and successful ones. The people behind Hard Rock Park did very little. They imagined that 17 million people would encounter Hard Rock Park simply by proximity, and that plenty of those people would opt to visit.
Josh Young of Theme Park University explained to Jim Hill in a 2014 look back for the Huffington Post: “To management’s way of thinking, if they managed to persuade less than 20% of those people who were already vacationing in and around Myrtle Beach to come experience Hard Rock, their theme park would have been a financial success right from the get-go. But that didn’t happen. Consequently a theme park that had been designed to accommodate 20,000 – 30,000 people per day wound up having an average daily attendance of just 2,000 people. The theme park’s marketing — the fact that so few folks knew that Hard Rock Park even existed — really got this project off to a rough start.”
Perhaps this is also the spot to discuss how brands matter. It’s not that Hard Rock was the wrong brand or intellectual property for the park. Indeed, it might’ve been one of the only choices to bring the park to life. But it was a double edged sword. When on vacation with young children, parents probably would not select the Hard Rock Café as a great lunch spot. The brand skews a little older. Which is fine, except that teens and young adults drawn by the Hard Rock name and marketing arrived at a park mostly filled with family rides and family coasters. The introduction of walk-around punk-rock bear characters only added to the marketing confusion – is this park rated G, or PG-13?
2) How the park was priced
Theme park pricing is a delicate subject. As Disney Parks crest $100 for a single day (albeit, with deep discounts for multi-day trips) and annual pass tiers in excess of $600, people keep asking why theme park ticket prices just keep going up and up. Even as prices skyrocket, attendance at huge destination parks continues to climb, where annual price hikes are now necessary just to avoid overcrowding.
But for most seasonal parks, operators “give away the gate.” Parks ask a steep fee for a single day entry, but it’s all psychological. Sure, Busch Gardens wants $75 to get in for a day. But you’ll get a discount of $15 for purchasing tickets online; buy-one-get-one with a can of Coca Cola; pay for a day and get all summer; upgrade to an annual pass for less than the price of another visit.
Consider it a loss leader… the idea is, “just get them into the parks, then you’ve got them for parking, food, souvenirs, front-of-the-line-passes, upgrades, etc.” (Even then, balance is important. Make it too cheap and you get Six Flags circa 2005, selling $40 annual passes that change the crowd composition).
Hard Rock Park wasn’t exactly a discounted experience. Admission for a single day was $50 in 2008. Not markedly different from the Kings Islands and Cedar Points of the world (albeit, those parks are far more built-out, offering more in the way of attractions and entertainment). But while most parks offer steep discounts for children (based on age or height) and then further discounts via local retailers or promotions, Hard Rock Park’s pricing was concrete. $50. Even for a 4 year old. To not offer a child ticket tier was unheard of (except for major adult-themed events, like Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights) and probably did little to attract families.
Pretty quickly, managers backpedaled by offering deals like the one below.
An annual pass came in at $150 – the same price, in 2008, as Cedar Fair’s Platinum Pass, providing free parking and admission at all dozen of the chain’s parks nationwide.
Perhaps most humorously, the “single day VIP pass” was four times as much as general admission at a whopping $200, but allowed you to skip the (non-existent lines) at the vacant park.
As the season progressed, Hard Rock Park got desperate and offered wild price cuts and buy-one-get-one style deals like the coupon above, but it was too late. Crowds were already heading out of Myrtle Beach for the year, and Hard Rock Park hadn’t met its attendence expectations or – more importantly – fueled the word of mouth it promised.
3) The world in 2008
Remember when a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $4.25? Remember when a global financial crisis was looming on the horizon and the United States was about to be plunged into the worst financial straits since the Great Depression? Given the financial climate of the era, Hard Rock Park – and subsequently, Freestyle Music Park – might not have stood a chance anyway.
The “staycation” had been taken out of the mothballs yet again as families saved by cutting out their once-a-year pilgrimages to cities like Myrtle Beach. Those who did make the trek certainly didn’t want to pay $200 (on admission alone) for a family of four to visit a Hard Rock themed amusement park.
Rock On?
Despite promises that Hard Rock Park would reopen in 2009, its fate was sealed.
In February 2009, another private group, FPI MB Entertainment, purchased the park for $25 million (the entire park and all its rides selling for about the same cost as Kings Island’s 2015 roller coaster Banshee). By April, the new owners had announced that, despite efforts, the Hard Rock licensing would be dropped. All Hard Rock Park merchandise was destroyed as part of the bankruptcy court rulings, and a new, family-friendly name was selected.
Freestyle Music Park would use what it could of Hard Rock Park’s music-themed infrastructure, but focus on rock n’ roll, country, reggae, pop, R&B, alternative, Christian, and disco music. The park’s address was changed as Hard Rock Parkway was renamed to… Fantasy Harbour Blvd.
What changed? In short, a wave came across the park, removing any specific references to songs, characters, bands, or albums that Hard Rock had specifically licensed. Otherwise, the park’s offerings were no different except for the addition of a few new children’s areas and some expected renaming.
- Rock & Roll Heaven was renamed Myrtle’s Beach.
- Born in the USA was renamed Kids in America.
- British Invasion was renamed Across the Pond.
- Cool Country was renamed Country USA.
- Four new flat rides were added to the “Kids in America” area.
- All five roller coasters received new names, none referencing any specific band, album, or song.
- Nights In White Satin: The Trip was entirely removed and replaced by a truly awful dark ride called Monstars of Rock, made worse by comparisons to what it had replaced.
At the close of 2009 (the park’s second season ever, and first under the Freestyle Music Park name and ownership) president Steve Baker said, “Overall, I’m really happy… We’re doing our best and we’re here to stay.”
The park closed for the season in fall 2009 and never opened again.
Long story short, Freestyle Music Park was drowning. Advertisers and advisors sued the park for a million dollars right out the gate. The park responded by saying that they would pay the debt with no issue, and that creditors were treating them unfairly just because the previous Hard Rock owners had been so unreliable. Ride manufacturers, creditors, even the lessors of radios and shelving units sued for non-payment and the property was plunged into foreclosure.
Even BMW sued, claiming that the park’s Ferris wheel lift coaster (pictured above) had modeled its trains after the company’s MINI Cooper line without properly licensing the look. (The ride’s manufacter – Premier Rides, had built MINI Cooper trains for the Italian Job: Stunt Track roller coasters at three Paramount Parks, but under license. Hard Rock’s version was just a little off, but too close for comfort for BMW’s lawyers.)
For years, parties battled to get money from the owners of Freestyle Music Park, while the park sat completely motionless, its Led Zeppelin / Time Machine roller coaster visible from all around as a beacon of what had been.
Before you get any big ideas, don’t expect anyone to swoop in, purchase the property, and work to re-open the park. A Kentucky Kingdom style rebirth is not just unlikely here, it’s impossible. After five years of standing but not operating, something finally did move on the property in late 2014. Its major attractions were shipped overseas to be rebuilt at various parks around China and Vietnam. Like Geauga Lake, the property was essentially sold for parts. Now, the remnants of Hard Rock Park are barren but for the paths and standing structures.
Lessons to Learn
Hard Rock Park will always be a sort of enigma. Every year, historic midways and forgotten little amusement parks around the United States sell their last ride tickets and downsize or close altogether. Each time, it’s a tragic loss of a historic little amusement park. But Hard Rock Park was different.
Built from scratch, designed by talented thinkers, as detailed as any contender, and innovative in many ways, it went from grand opening to bankruptcy in mere months, only adding to its enigmatic narrative when it re-opened the following year de-branded and washed over with a generic music theme that eliminated any political incorrectness that had, unknowingly, been the charm of the park in the first place. It’s probably the only modern example of a park that’s outright failed, and unexpectedly, too.
After our in-depth retrospective look at the 150 years of Geauga Lake and its eventual and heartbreaking demise, it’s interesting to see a park last barely a full season before meeting the same fate. Even if fewer people got to see Hard Rock Park, those who did visit during its single year feel just as strongly as those who miss Geauga Lake: this was a park that should still be around.
Six years later and with its rides en route to Vietnam, the rest of us are left with a lot to learn about a little park that couldn’t.
The lesson? Next time you tell yourself that you’ll put off a first visit “until next season…” don’t.
