Shaggy

The Vortex on-ride was recorded in 1994. Action Theater is there, the Skyflyer is not (added in early 1995.) Shaggy

Those two videos are significant for two specific reasons... 1. In the Adventure Express video, you can clearly see the construction area for Outer Limit:Flight of Fear. The concrete pad/footers had been poured. This confirms my earlier post that the videos were recorded in 1995. 2. In The Racer video, the coaster still retains it's final bunny hop into the brake run. It was unnecessarily removed once OL:FOF was built. Shaggy

I still miss King Cobra. It was by far the most enjoyable stand-up I've ever ridden.... and I've ridden a bunch. It was, when first installed, a beautifully picturesque ride. Those that only saw it when it was a part of Action Zone have no idea how well that coaster fit into the original Safari theming. I'll never forget seeing and riding it for the first time in 1984. It seemed so state of the art then, yet was immaculately blended into it's surroundings. BTW, the date of the video is circa 1995. How so? The Skyflyer is there, but Outer Limits Flight of Fear was not. Shaggy

SFKK was indeed going to expand the waterpark. There was nothing underhanded in the plan to expand it, nor was it a shell to remove Chang. Actual renderings and site plans had been completed and submitted to the state for the expansion. Even Mr Workman (PRes of the State Fair board) saw the plans. Shaggy

Bingo! We have a winner!

http://www.wfpl.org/...start-in-march/ (that last statement is certainly an understatement!) I'm sure Mr Workman also has a few acres of land in Florida he'd like to sell... There's probably been inquiries... but little else. It WREAKS of political posturing to me, he's trying to save face by throwing a bone to the public. Oh, and if anyone believes a new "park" can be open for the 2010 season then I have some land in Florida to sell them. ;-) The brewing argument of who owns the contents of the park itself will tie this thing up in court for quite some time. If Shapiro is feeling evil enough, he could send in the bulldozers next week. But something tells me his silence since the initial announcement, as well as the non-activity on the site are doing all the talking for him. The Mayor and Mr. Workman are on the news virtually every day scrambling around trying to come up with "solutions" and making statements such as the above. SF just refers people back to their intial crafted closure statement. (Which explicitly says many of the rides would be relocated.) The mere suggestion that another operator could just move in, hire staff, fire up the rides and make everything hunky dorey by May demonstrates that Mr. Workman either A.) Is completely out of touch with the reality of what it takes to operate an amusement facility, B.) is completely ignorant when it comes to the legalities of who own the properties and the time it will take to sort that out, or C.) he's full of S&%t. Guess which one I'm leaning towards... Shaggy

Good luck with that. They shot themselves in the foot with their arrogance. These local bureaucrats trying to squeeze every nickel out of their businesses is only hurting them in the long run. I agree... both Abramson and Workman are tremendously arrogant, Workman has a history of being very difficult with tenants of the Fairgrounds. The monies obtained from SFKK's lease, as well as parking were not used to better Louisville. That money went straight to Frankfort and using Workmans own words "Funded the Fair Board." Hmmmm... the Fairground was recently under investigation due to the health and safety board finding deteriorating facilities as well as extreme violations in the concession areas. Trust me, it was horrifically gross. (Don't ever buy anything deep-fried from the permanent food booths at the Fair.) So I guess we can rule out the money being used to keep the fairgrounds rat and roach free. On the flip side, Shapiro is no saint either. He's the head of SF and seems to have an arrogance of his own. But he's calling the shots on this one. The public statements being made by Workman and Abramson are just face talk... trying to downplay the furor facing them. As far as finding another operator for the waterpark... yeah right. Not if it's levelled. I bet Shapiro is already ordering the bulldozers. Shaggy

Mayor speaks out, says there's nothing that can be done, SFKK is closed. http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100205/BUSINESS/2050349/Abramson+“shocked”+by+Kentucky+Kingdom+closing

I happened to get in touch with a contact on the State Fair Board. As of this morning, it seems that it's all a done deal and SFKK will be removed. The way they put it, both sides are prepared to walk away as the relationship has not been amicable for sometime. They blame a lack of revenue and attendace for SFKK's inability to meet lease options. In other words, losses were predicted for the park this season that would have prevented the parks ability to make the lease and restructure. The removal of signage continues. It's all the buzz here in Louisville... and as of now most fingers are pointing at the State Fair Board and Jerry Abramson (Mayor.) But I think it goes much deeper than that. It's been clear that Shapiro has never liked SFKK and considered it a mis-directed eyesore from the time he took the reigns. I expect when push came to shove a few years ago, Shapiro recognized that they needed to completely redirect the park to become an actual profit center. Thus the initial directive to focus on the waterpark. Some here on the message board insist that SFKK was profitable... it was only mildly so and only recently. Debts incurred by it's purchase were paid off only within the past 7 years or so. Those huge debts came from the initial purchase from Ed Hart, the local Louisville businessman that built Kentucky Kingdom into a "large park." (It had been owned prior and operated as a kiddie park.) He installed HUGE rides in the park right and left season after season, but did so paying "on time." He then sold out to Premier... not Six Flags. Premier then bought Six Flags and began the branding process only to incurr the large debts owed ride manufacturers and overspend while brading parks. Several of the rides in KK, when purchased by Premier, were actually being "rented" from manufacturers like Chance and Vekoma. Initially Premier had desired to own many parks, brand them all SF and operate them all as a huge entity. They quickly realized that they had to operate each park on it's own merit, as they could not continue to rob Peter to pay Paul... or rob SFGAm to pay SFWOA. As a result, the SF parks started operating as their own profit center. SFKK was a low profit park, and suffered year after year without new installs and dwindling upkeep. The small parks that had been branded/overexpanded could not support themselves and immediately began to falter thus SFWOA, SF Astroworld, SFDL, SFA, SFEG and more to come. In the meantime, operating costs at KK escalated to the point of necessitating changes to park operations that crippled attendance. They shut rides, limited operating hours, sold rides, shortened the operating calendar, and failed to entice others through new installs. At the worst time possible, the Lassiter accident occurred scaring even more locals from attendance. Finally, SFKK is on the "bus line" and a couple of gang related incidents at the park have scared familes away. It's well known (although it's not pc to mention) that a certain dynamic of teen clientelle made the park miserable and avoidable on weekends and evenings. KK has been plagued with issues from it's inception. The Lassiter incident was not the only accident in the park that prompted attraction removals. Starchaser and Vampire were both removed due to ride incidents covered by the news media. There was a very ugly public divide when KK purchased and demolished low income housing on Crittenden Drive to build Twisted (then) Sisters. Many low income families were displaced and given little notice of the loss of their homes, ultimately it cleaned up the area. There was always the ongoing fight over the height variance at the park. Twisted (then) Sisters lies just 3 feet below the flight path for the airport. The loss of rides and attractions at SFKK over a 10 year period is staggering. Off the top of my head I know of 17. By comparison, they have installed only 6, 3 of which are waterslides and one is an upcharge. Had the park not closed, T2 and Twisted Twins were due to be removed during the 2010-2011 off season. I know this for a fact. I believe that when Shapiro submitted a feasible, yet drastically reduced, lease option to the State Fair, it obviously allowed the park the funds to remodel/re-structure the park into a waterpark. Such a change would have reduced the operating season even more, thus an immense discounted lease was imperative. The State Fair balked, thinking SF would have no option than to agree to continue to operate as is. They can't, so as of this morning, the plug is still being pulled. It's pretty easy to see what has happened at the park. IMO it's sad that the park is likely being demolished, but it's also not a huge loss.

Don't be surprised what a difference a week can make... ;-)

I don't think anyone at SF ever dreamed of re-locating rides to other parks by the opening of the 2010 season. It could be a power play... a very smart one IMO... but then again it seems Shapiro has slammed the door shut, persay. The next few days will be very telling. The Mayor is in a panic, that's obvious by the news coverage. Also, the Fair Board is apparently holding emergency meetings because they, as the 11:00 news put it, "Were surprised by the news" and that they learned "via the media release." It seems the Fair had held SFKK by the nuts for so long, they failed to notice that the owners grew a new, and bigger set. As someone else pointed out... once the Cardinals leave for the new arena and if SFKK is demolished... the Fairgrounds is hosed. The loss in parking revenue alone is borderline devistating. Shaggy

Only part? It sits on 58 acres. 38 are leased from the Fair. Either way, it would be a crippling loss to the Fairgrounds. The Mayors office and State Fair Board are scrambling... it's apparent by their statements all over the local Louisville news. IMO, It could be strategic posturing on Shapiro's part... he's obviously playing hardball. But it does seem pretty certain since they've gone to the trouble of closing the website and publishing a rather detailed closure statement. This should not come as a shock to anyone, quite frankly. When a park suffers in reputation year after year, then begins an ongoing effort to remove, not operate and sell rides, not to mention operate on extremely abbreviated hours then the writing is on the wall. Shaggy

Yes, but from 0.17-0.22 it is the Arrow suspended coaster. The commercial was a conglomeration of B-roll footage from 3 parks... Kings Dominion, Great America and Kings Island. The coaster is obviously Anaconda at Dominion as is the flume, the invert is Top Gun at Great America, and the ice show/waterpark/around park footage is from KI. The footage of the riders on the suspended is green screen. They used a suspended car that had already been produced and edited in the "moving" effects. FYI, the ice show footage is a give-away because of the skater being able to turn a back-flip. He was a featured skater at KI, and had quite a fan following.

Bingo! You are a genious! Thanks for figuring this out. :-)

Great photo! Did you take that? LOL... no, but I do have a picture of me in front of the Bronson Gate ;-) Shaggy

Ouch, I am old... I can't believe folks don't immediately recognize the Bronson Gate. Did no one here see Sunset Boulevard? ;-) http://dearoldhollywood.blogspot.com/2009/01/sunset-boulevard-ready-for-my-close-up.html

I am having the same issue with the toolbar being located in the middle of the reply box. Very, very frustrating. Is there not a fix?

The two least photographed rides that have ever existed at KI are the Rotor and Bavarian Beetle. It's worth noting also that in this picture, the Rotor is shown to the right of the Bavarian Beetle. When the Wild Animal Habitat opened in 1974, the Rotor was relocated to the left of the Beetle so a path to Coney could be placed from WAH. Re attendance: KI's largest attendance year was, if memory serves me correctly, 1996 (Outer Lmits year.) Shaggy

LOL, sorry about that! I just can't bring myself to part with the Ki stuff... too near and dear to my heart. I beg your forgiveness ;-)

About once a year I purge (via Ebay) stuff I haven't looked at or used in years. Many of you know I am an avid collector of all sorts. When I was an avid coaster enthusiast, amusement park collectibles were a part of that. Well, time marched on, my interests wained and I am selling most of the park postcards I've picked up over the past 10 years or so. I put them up on Ebay in groups for miniscule amounts for those that may want them for their collection. Some of you may be interested in other parks, so I thought I'd let you know via this forum. Why this forum? The postcards are from all sorts of US parks... but none from KI, those I am hanging on to ;-) Shaggy If interested, check it out on Ebay - user name Shagscooby (of course!)

The Paramount's Kings Island website did have POV of their coasters online for quite sometime. They were even downloadable. Shaggy

In BGW's case, the Burgermeister is the emcee of the Festhaus. He serenades the attendees with traditional German/Bavarian folk songs, introduces the Oompah band and dancers and most importantly leads the raising of the steins. http://www.themeparkbrochures.net/1997/bgw1997_7.html

So sad to hear this... I had the pleasure of seeing him year after year as a kid growing up near BGW. I talked with him a few times and he was indeed a gentleman. It's a big loss. http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_ob...0,6623827.story

The proposed Flying Dutchman for KI was going to take the place of King Cobra. It obviously ended up at Six Flags GL... and Paramount retained money from that install... believe it or not. (Paramount partenered with Vekoma in the development of the ride and owned rights to the design.) Shaggy

Prior to SOB, a wooden coaster had been considered for the Swan Lake area. Chances are good that Paramount would have also removed the lake for the sake of an attraction. Shaggy