Check out the coverage at The 'Ville Voice: "Kentucky Kingdom Meltdown Has Begun", where we are already seeing posturing by mayoral candidates, taking stands as if both sides are equally at fault, which doesn't seem to be at all clear at this point.

Steve Magruder — LouHI Administrator and web programmer


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Good riddance.
http://valleyreport.blogspot.c...loses.html

The Valleypoint brings up a good point about Six Flags' economic woes. However, something else to consider.

In May/June 2006 I briefly worked inside Kentucky Kingdom for a time-share company. I noticed day after day most of the same people, especially teens. I found out these two things:

1) 90% of daily visitors to the park are season ticket holders
2) Most season ticket holders are under age 18.

SFKK was the babysitting service for Louisville. With demographics like that above, I'm not surprised about their financial problems. How the heck do you sell merchandise with so few fresh customers? The kids might buy some food, but they are not going to keep buying merchandise. That is bad economics.

I think SF was trying to get rid of a white elephant, and I can't really blame them for wanting to do that.

Have you hugged your penguin today?

Proud member of the "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy"

I'd like to see the data that shows 1000 employees and 10,000 room nights. While maybe they had 1000 employees on the books I bet less than half of them worked on a regular basis. A more interesting (and verifiable) number would be how many hours per week were worked. The argument that people came here just to go to Kentucky Kingdom to me doesn't make much sense. Maybe people that come to Louisville for another reason go there for a day to keep their kids happy but I feel quite sure that very very few people come to Louisville because of Kentucky Kingdom.

There are people that just go someplace because of an amusement park but those are much bigger parks or they have something special to offer. Great Wolf Lodge, Baush Gardens, etc. come to mind immediately.

I've learned that whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

Today's follow-up at C-J: "Fair board may seek new amusement park operator"

Wow, that was fast.

Our kids have earned free tickets every year for reading so many books. We've only used those tickets once or twice. We don't like the layout of the park, there doesn't seem to be anything spectacular as a pull, and the rides seem to either accommodate really young children, or teens. One year, our girls were too tall for the kiddie rides but too short for the big rides. Even with our very modest one-income household, we chose to drive to Holiday World and pay to get in, instead of using their earned free passes to SFKK. Whatever happens on the property, if it's another amusement park, it needs a major overhaul.