KD 50th

[brenthodge]

I feel so bad for this community, their loyal fans and all those that have made memories at Kings Dominion over the past 50 years. While I thought they’d probably get a lot of our recycled shows and entertainment, I’ve been blown away how minimal their offerings are for this milestone year. Makes you REALLY appreciate Mike Koontz and the entire local AND corporate team for the unbelievable effort that went into our 50th. 4 original shows, two with live bands, a MAJOR nightly closing show that literally redefined what nightime shows looked like at the park, a parade??! I told Koontz in all honesty that what they assembled was more respectful and celebratory of the park and its fans than ANYTHING Disney did for their 50th. Laser and bubble shows are “fine” for a normal park on a normal year, but for the “return of shows in the KD theatre” it’s… bubbles? Im struggling rescheduling the trip there that I had to cancel next week. I’m just not feeling as compelled as I was when I was so looking forward to going. (And I’ve been “written up” for being negative on their little FACEBOOK fan page. Guess it runs in the family.)

[Timchat2]

Kings Dominion at least got its own original song ("Right Here, Right Now!) for the 50 Years of Fun Street Party, although I'm surprised they were willing to put together a fair-sized cast of performers given the small scope of the overall "Golden Summerbration" event and lack of live shows throughout the park.

Kings Island and Cedar Point were incredibly fortunate to have their major anniversaries occur at a time when Cedar Fair was feeling somewhat optimistic about the future post-COVID. It would be interesting to see what the KI and CP anniversaries would have been like in our current era.

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

Cedar Point's anniversary would have looked a little worse, but I think Kings Island's would have been similar to what we see now at Kings Dominion. With nobody (with some power) to advocate at the park level, we would have definitely seen super generic offerings. I'd be curious to see what Kings Dominion's celebration would have looked like if it was on the same scale as KI's. What would their "Phantom Theater Encore" replacement show have looked like? Maybe it wouldn't be based on a ride at all. I didn't get to see what Carowinds 50th anniversary looked like from the ground. How did it compare to what came before and after it?

I'm glad that Kings Island got to have an awesome 50th celebration and that KD is a true sister park to KI, because if those set pieces and ideas didn't already exist I doubt we'd be seeing much of the same. This makes me curious as to what next year will look like for both of the Great America 50th celebrations. Will CGA go out and close with a bang? Or will it see another year of barely having special events — barring it does not get Geauga Lake'd at the end of this season. Six Flags Great America may not look much better next year either, but they are supposed to get a new kids area which is at least something new in the park. This would also be a great time to remove the "Six Flags" from their name, but unfortunately I don't know if that would happen. IMO the old Six Flags branding needs to be completely removed and replaced. That would cost a lot of money though.

In the highly unfortunate event that they do give CGA the Geauga Lake treatment at the end of this season, I vote to send the South Bay Shores theming to Knott's Soak City, and then send all of the Great America signage to SFGA (with the "California" part removed). The rides, coasters, and any other theming can then be redistributed among the rest of the parks in the chain with Cedar Point getting almost none of it. 

[KI FANATIC 37]

Has anyone closer to KD heard anything about when Pantherian will open? I was planning a trip out there since i never have ridden I305 and I wanted to try out Rapterra. Its a shame its still not open. 

[brenthodge]

1 hour ago, KI FANATIC 37 said:

Has anyone closer to KD heard anything about when Pantherian will open? I was planning a trip out there since i never have ridden I305 and I wanted to try out Rapterra. Its a shame its still not open. 

Nope. Crickets. 

[Coastercrush]

Park says it's they waiting on theming, lmao

[ReedObsessor]

What was once the biggest part of my vacation plan this year is now the most expendable.

Having not been to KD since 1994 or 95, when I was just a kid, Anaconda was a bucket list coaster for me.  The removal news came on Christmas Day.  It sometimes felt like it was designed specifically to make me miserable at the worst time possible.

Then there's the elimination of Winterfest and the Pantherian situation, which makes KD feel a bit like Six Flags Adventure in New Jersey, which had the great taken out of it.

As of now, nothing is even being done to Pantherian, and rumors are suggesting things like August or even 2026.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg (last visit 2006), the other 50th anniversary park, is more important to me.  So is Six Flags America (never been there), given that it will be my only chance to  ever go there.

So I am willing to cut out KD from my vacation plan if there are too many bad weather days during my vacation.

Crappy Anniversary!!!

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

Pantherian being offline for the foreseeable future is something that seems to be harming the park more than expected, especially with the other 4 ride removals. I think most at the park-level are doing what they can to make the best out of the current situation for their 50th anniversary, but guests will just see the park/the new Six Flags as a whole as being in major decline less than one year after the merger.

[brenthodge]

On 6/14/2025 at 2:30 AM, Timchat2 said:

Kings Dominion at least got its own original song ("Right Here, Right Now!) for the 50 Years of Fun Street Party, although I'm surprised they were willing to put together a fair-sized cast of performers given the small scope of the overall "Golden Summerbration" event and lack of live shows throughout the park.

You mean for the “street part” that doesn’t move?? The marketing pictures- while from KI along with the description of this clearly indicated it was at least INTENDED to be more similar to the KI moveable party. This must’ve been a late in the game cut where they just rolled the float units out and combined the parade expense with the stage show and cut the parade “street party” idea. 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

I have to say I wasn't as happy with the quality of Kings Dominion's 50th show, but I'm willing to believe that part of the issue they had this year was the fact that they haven't done many of this kind of show recently. I'm also very used to Kings Island's higher quality productions. The song from Fun, Fireworks, and Fifty was also much better than "Right Here, Right Now" IMO. Yes, it was a longer song, but it used the "Wonderful World of Fun" tagline from the original 1971-ish billboards and I really enjoyed that. 

 

Here's what I think a full-size Kings Dominion 50th Anniversary could have looked like. It has large-scale KI 50 style things mixed in with some real things that have happened at Kings Dominion for 2025. 

• Re-use more of the 50th decorations from Kings Island, including the golden spirals and entrance I.D. sign. 
  • Replace the "Kings Island" with "Kings Dominion" on the sign. Keep the Eiffel Tower and "50". 
• "50 Years of Fun Street Party": a full-size parade with multiple stops. 
  • Re-uses most of the floats and items from the KI version. 
• "Volcano: The Blast Musical": a new show debuting in the Kings Dominion Theater.
  • A comedic musical revue, similar to "Phantom Theater Encore" at Kings Island. 
  • Follows a group as they experience the 'storyline' of Volcano: The Blast Coaster with other connections to Jungle Xpedition. 
• "Club KD": A decades show with better production value than it's 2025 KD counterpart. 
  • Features a new song written just for this celebration. 
  • Other songs include those seen and heard at Kings Dominion since 1975. 
  • Moments from the Spring, Summer, Halloween, and holiday seasons are included throughout. 
• "Light the Night": a new 10 PM light show to end each night of the main celebration.
  • This show takes advantage of the park's foliage without requiring vast sightlines like Kings Island has. 
  • Uses new lights all over International Street instead of fireworks. 
• Rapterra, a new B&M launched wing coaster. 
  • Replacement for Volcano: The Blast Coaster.
• Panther 305, a retheme for the giga coaster F.K.A. Intimidator 305. 
  • Literally just Pantherian but with a better name. 
• Specialty 50th food offerings available everywhere. 
• A full Carousel restoration, including a complete rebuild of its carousel organ. 
  • On my visit I found out that this beautiful 1917 PTC carousel was in desperate need of a restoration and repaint. 
  • I also found out that it is apparently not called the "Grand Carousel". Maybe it could be "Grand" if it looked to be in better condition. 
• A full Racer 75 re-paint. 
  • Maybe it could also include a re-working of the queue line and a new entrance building. 

 

I feel like Kings Island got this amount of work (minus Rapterra, obviously), and it would have been nice to see KD get even half of these much-needed investments. 

[brenthodge]

On 8/18/2025 at 5:08 AM, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

I have to say I wasn't as happy with the quality of Kings Dominion's 50th show, but I'm willing to believe that part of the issue they had this year was the fact that they haven't done many of this kind of show recently. I'm also very used to Kings Island's higher quality productions. The song from Fun, Fireworks, and Fifty was also much better than "Right Here, Right Now" IMO. Yes, it was a longer song, but it used the "Wonderful World of Fun" tagline from the original 1971-ish billboards and I really enjoyed that. 

 

Here's what I think a full-size Kings Dominion 50th Anniversary could have looked like. It has large-scale KI 50 style things mixed in with some real things that have happened at Kings Dominion for 2025. 

• Re-use more of the 50th decorations from Kings Island, including the golden spirals and entrance I.D. sign. 
  • Replace the "Kings Island" with "Kings Dominion" on the sign. Keep the Eiffel Tower and "50". 
• "50 Years of Fun Street Party": a full-size parade with multiple stops. 
  • Re-uses most of the floats and items from the KI version. 
• "Volcano: The Blast Musical": a new show debuting in the Kings Dominion Theater.
  • A comedic musical revue, similar to "Phantom Theater Encore" at Kings Island. 
  • Follows a group as they experience the 'storyline' of Volcano: The Blast Coaster with other connections to Jungle Xpedition. 
• "Club KD": A decades show with better production value than it's 2025 KD counterpart. 
  • Features a new song written just for this celebration. 
  • Other songs include those seen and heard at Kings Dominion since 1975. 
  • Moments from the Spring, Summer, Halloween, and holiday seasons are included throughout. 
• "Light the Night": a new 10 PM light show to end each night of the main celebration.
  • This show takes advantage of the park's foliage without requiring vast sightlines like Kings Island has. 
  • Uses new lights all over International Street instead of fireworks. 
• Rapterra, a new B&M launched wing coaster. 
  • Replacement for Volcano: The Blast Coaster.
• Panther 305, a retheme for the giga coaster F.K.A. Intimidator 305. 
  • Literally just Pantherian but with a better name. 
• Specialty 50th food offerings available everywhere. 
• A full Carousel restoration, including a complete rebuild of its carousel organ. 
  • On my visit I found out that this beautiful 1917 PTC carousel was in desperate need of a restoration and repaint. 
  • I also found out that it is apparently not called the "Grand Carousel". Maybe it could be "Grand" if it looked to be in better condition. 
• A full Racer 75 re-paint. 
  • Maybe it could also include a re-working of the queue line and a new entrance building. 

 

I feel like Kings Island got this amount of work (minus Rapterra, obviously), and it would have been nice to see KD get even half of these much-needed investments. 

I have a feeling a lot of this WAS planned. Had the park actually meant it when they said “the resources from Winterfest were being put into the summerbration” there should’ve been at least a close to lateral show for show comparison. It wasn’t even close. They had all the hardware needed for the parade and cut it to “rolling out set pieces”. Had all the recipes and legwork done for special food from us, and did none of it. They had the completed set design and even some of the key set pieces until last year for club KI stored behind racer. The fact that only recently have they finished breaking them down leads me to believe they were being kept until needed at KD. When they weren’t they finished destroying them. We saw a drop off in quality from KI to Carrowinds 50, but this time it fell off the cliff. 

[disco2000]

And people think I am crazy when I say that KD could be one of the sacrificed parks from Six Flags....all the signs are there...but it is a nice park and of size and potential that could be lumped in with the smaller parks they want to shed as a way to encourage higher bids.