KENTUCKY KINGDOM CLOSED

[Dbfan]

And I never got a chance to go....Well, at least since I was old enough to ride the rides

[Guest rcfreak339]

If I was head of the KEC Board I would be beyond worried. The only things that come there now are the UL basketball team, rodeos and the occasional concert. And UL is leaving next year for their new downtown arena. Wheres the money going to come from? I know the state fair is a big deal but I mean come on SFKK had to be one of the biggest money makers to them.

[The Interpreter]

http://www.wlky.com/news/22468433/detail.html

[Guest rcfreak339]

"The mayor has been, in the last 48 hours, in contact with Six Flags and the Kentucky State Fair Board, who they lease from, and we're very hopeful that a new lease can be worked out," said Poynter. "This is an important company to Louisville, hundreds of jobs. Hundreds of jobs also for teenagers during the summer. It's an institution in our city, so the mayor's very hopeful things can be worked out."

Big Quote there...

[RingMaster]

Six Flags overexpanded and went into way too much debt quite a few years before Cedar Fair did. Both chains bought parks they paid way too much for, laid off way too much of the middle management that knew how to run the parks and had done so so very well, put way too much investment in roller coasters to the virtual exclusion of everything else, and rewarded their own managements richly while cutting benefits for the lower paid seasonal workers...largely forgetting that the lower level people interact directly with the public, and good customer service starts with treating your own people well. Messrs Shapiro and Snyder stepped in after Gary Story and Co. and tried to turn around Six Flags, but it was too late, the debt was there and the damage done. Bankruptcy followed. The Cedar Fair saga is still being written. It has many parallels to Six Flags, though.

...I remember back when Six Flags owned parks overseas in Europe; those were the first ones to go along with Worlds of Adventure.

[bzahlong]

Here's a thought. This is a golden opportunity for Kings Island. They could extend an offer to the season passholders of Kentucky Kingdom to "trade up" to a KI gold pass for a special discounted rate. They could make whatever the discount was back from day spending (parking, concessions, games), as well as bring in some out of market traffic to KI. I hate to see that park close, but it's been trending downward for a long time, and just like any business, if it's not making a profit it's not worth having open. I feel badly for all of the folks impacted by losing their jobs though. Decent jobs for teens in Louisville are pretty hard to come by.

[The Interpreter]

As people contemplate some other owner coming in to run a park at the SFKK site, remember that only part of the park was leased from the fair board. Some of the land is in fact owned by Six Flags. Any sale of that property would have to be approved by the bankruptcy court at this juncture....

[Guest rcfreak339]

"The former owner of Kentucky Kingdom, Ed Hart, has been in talks with Six Flags chairman Mark Snyder to reaquire the amusement park."

This statement is from 2007...I just have a gut feeling Ed will buy the park.

[goofywdw]

wow I am so glad I got to go at the end of the 2008 season. Only coaster I can say I will miss is Greezed Lightnin'. It was an alright little park but I can't say I am going to miss it terribly.

[shark6495]

Here's a thought. This is a golden opportunity for Kings Island. They could extend an offer to the season passholders of Kentucky Kingdom to "trade up" to a KI gold pass for a special discounted rate. They could make whatever the discount was back from day spending (parking, concessions, games), as well as bring in some out of market traffic to KI. I hate to see that park close, but it's been trending downward for a long time, and just like any business, if it's not making a profit it's not worth having open. I feel badly for all of the folks impacted by losing their jobs though. Decent jobs for teens in Louisville are pretty hard to come by.

thats a brilliant idea. I think if I remember the ol Surf did that where they honored the KI season pass, in an attempt get people to spend money there. Then when Surf closed I believe the Beach honored their passes. So it would be interesting to see a "trade in your 2010 Kentucky Kingdom pass for a free KI pass or upgrade to gold or platinum for a small fee" You give a family of four free passes to replace the ones they have spent money on. You know you have a solid amount of money coming in even if they only visit the park one time.... a little good will goes a long way... either way a sad day for KK

[Shaggy]

As people contemplate some other owner coming in to run a park at the SFKK site, remember that only part of the park was leased from the fair board. Some of the land is in fact owned by Six Flags. Any sale of that property would have to be approved by the bankruptcy court at this juncture....

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

[Guest rcfreak339]

Even the sign in front of the park has been taking down...If this park closes for good we will lose the single largest employer of teens in the Commenwealth.

[Tomkatt7]

There isn't much time to get rides moved to other parks, or to do much of anything really by opening day. What are the odds that this is all a power move by Six Flags to get a better deal on a new lease?

[Shaggy]

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

[rotag]

If I was head of the KEC Board I would be beyond worried. The only things that come there now are the UL basketball team, rodeos and the occasional concert. And UL is leaving next year for their new downtown arena. Wheres the money going to come from? I know the state fair is a big deal but I mean come on SFKK had to be one of the biggest money makers to them.

they do have other stuff that comes in that is directed towards a certain crowd that draw big crowds (ex: the M.A.T.S. show, also known as the mid america trucking show) as i have participated in these special shows in the past. but still, it will be a sad thing to loose another park.

[mav86]

that would be a mistake. I worked at SFKK when it was just KK and there were some shady things going on then with Ed and the park. It's sad that SF is closing the park. It really was a great park back in the 90's but SF just didn't know how to operate it right.

"The former owner of Kentucky Kingdom, Ed Hart, has been in talks with Six Flags chairman Mark Snyder to reaquire the amusement park."

This statement is from 2007...I just have a gut feeling Ed will buy the park.

[Browntggrr]

It could be a power play... a very smart one IMO... but then again it seems Shapiro has slammed the door shut, persay.

I'm not totally sold on the power play theory. Given the state of the economy and SF as a company, if the lease is too expensive and the park will not make money (or even break even) what is the point of staying open?

I can see SF just trowing in the towel if the deck is stacked against them, which is a typical attitude of many businesses going through financial issues.

If one park is making money, and another is not, the company is not progressing. And what investors have faith in companies stuck in neutral?

[Guest rcfreak339]

The fair board and Six Flags cannot come to a agreement. Kentucky Kingdom will close forever. http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=11937722

[RingMaster]

I can't come up with anything to say about this. It's just saddening to see something happen like this.

[violakat03]

The fair board and Six Flags cannot come to a agreement. Kentucky Kingdom will close forever. http://www.wave3.com....asp?S=11937722

Looks to me from that article like they are still trying to negotiate. The Fair Board is still trying, at least.

This will be interesting how it all plays out. I'm leaning in favor of a power play on Six Flags' part, but I could be wrong.

[SonOfBeast2000]

man that sucks, but i could see it coming

[The Interpreter]

During a bankruptcy reorganization, the debtor only has a limited time to accept or reject current obligations (the latter requires court approval). Power play? I doubt it. If anything, the fair board, knowing that Kentucky Kingdom was profitable (and it was), probably refused to re-negotiate the lease. As noted, other factors are hurting that area, and the existing lease probably made it marginal to continue to operate there, what with the Cardinals leaving, etc. If anything, I think the Fair Board assumed Kentucky Kingdom would always be there, no matter what. Now, they may well attempt to re-negotiate a new lease. The old one is rejected, from what I understand.

[Oldschool75]

KI needs to buy Dutchman back!

YES YES YES YES!

[The Interpreter]

Some fascinating details here, in this usually reliable blog (yes, it is a blog, and yes there is opinion in this, not just fact, but it is widely followed by many in Kentucky, and is usually reliable):

...Shortly after the announcement, the Fair Board's Harold Workman worked up a CYA statement, trying to deflect the blame that's surely his for losing the last cash cow at what will become a largely-abandoned property, with the exception of two weeks a year....

Let's get this much straight as the finger-pointing gets underway. Workman's mismanagement of the lease agreement and negotiations with the park are clearly the problem, and he works for the state, so ultimately the economic development failure points to the governor. You can't blame this one on the Mayor. In fact, in one way it points to Jerry Abramson's skills in this area....

Did Workman not see that things were going downhill? Tearing down Chang!, the world-renowned roller coaster, should have been a sign that extraordinary efforts would be needed to keep the park alive.

So I'm blaming Workman, regardless of the CYA statement above. You can't really blame him for losing the University of Louisville's football, baseball and basketball teams, but you can wonder why Fairgrounds Stadium hasn't become a mecca for local high school sports. Remember the local experiments with pro hockey and arena football? Tops on their lists of problems, as I recall, were the difficulties in reaching a lease agreement with Workman.

And difficult lease agreements with the amusement park go back to Ed Hart's days operating the original Kentucky Kingdom.

Maybe that's just part of the business, but it's hard to see where Workman's leadership is working. He's been the Fair Board President and CEO since 1993. If anyone's going to take the fall for the Six Flags disaster, and clearly someone should, it should be him.

http://www.louisvill...in_Kingdom_Case

[KIfan1980]

With all the concern in Louisville over this you'd get the idea that having an amusement park in your back yard is a good thing for a city - someone should explain that to the Mason City Council.

[trint2004]

huh, not a shocker here, after they closed half the park and moved there star coaster. and the whole superman tower thing i didnt see it staying open for much longer. I would how ever like to see a new company pick it up and try to bring it back to the way it was in the 90's. That park could have been great. It was still a fun place to visit. Im sadden that its leaving.

[jzarley]

Very sad news...I had one of my most fun days ever in a park at Kentucky Kingdom many years ago. (Of course, that was before it was an SF park...)

[Shaggy]

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.

[KingCobra]

I havent been to the park since summer of 2007, but I can't say that I am totally shocked over this. With the removal of Chang and the Twisted Twins which as been SBNO for 3 years-ish (I may be off there im not sure) it seemed that the park was heading in this direction. Losing in my opinion the best coaster they had (Chang) and then the land the park sits on, between being leased and also having a road divide the park and the height restriction put in place by the airport near by the deck seemed stacked against survival. I am hoping that something happens with that area, especially with the future of Freedom Hall after the Cards no longer play basketball, it could be financially crippling to the area.

[nhimes90]

I can't say that I am totally suprised. When they removed Chang I thought they were gonna close. It's sad though I was planning a trip there in May.