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Park News - (9/2/10) AmusementParkAuthority takes a tour around the Kentucky State Fair and pokes their nose around the closed Kentucky Kingdom park to see what’s been going on.
    (8/31/10) According to this report, the last major legal hurdle to clear the way for Kentucky Kingdom to reopen will take place in a heading on September by a bankruptcy judge, and then Ed Hart’s final business plan will be presented to the Fair Board in October. According to what we’ve seen of the plans, they wanted to make a new entrance and only open the larger side of the park. However Greezed Lightning is located on the smaller side of the park that would be closed, and there are no plans to reopen Twisted Twins for 2011.
    (8/13/10) I’ve got a little good news for Kentucky Kingdom fans who are bummed the park wont be open during the Kentucky State Fair. It seems North American Midway will now be bringing in 50 rides instead of just 42 to try and make up for the lack of the Kentucky Kingdom rides.
    (7/24/10) The Kentucky State Fair Board settled the dispute with Six Flags over the Kentucky Kingdom property that will see Six Flags turn over the 20 acres of property that they actually do own to the to the Fair Board, and all but ONE ride. Which ride? The Road Runner Express coaster, a Maurer Sohne Wild Moue that was installed back in 2000 which Six Flags will move to another Six Flags park instead. (Hmmm… a link to another story perhaps?) In exchange they will pay Six Flags $2.35 million, and forgive a $2.5 million tax debt and $2.8 million in rent to the Fair Board.
    On the flip side, Ed Hart’s team is working on plans to revitalize the park in the hopes of reopening it on Memorial Day weekend, 2011, if feasible. They just have to get the right financing to back their plans.
    (7/14/10) The Kentucky State Fair is coming soon… but unlike in past years where the fair guests were permitted in to ride the rides at Kentucky Kingdom as well, this year the park is closed. Click here to read a bit more on how this will affect the fair.
    (6/17/10 Crews have begun work taking apart the Skycoaster at Kentucky Kingdom. As I’ve always understood it, all Skycoasters are apparently leased to the parks and not sold. With Kentucky Kingdom staying closed for this season, the Skycoaster is being taken back.
    (5/28/10) It looks like Ed Hart has come back to the fold and is the one who has been picked by the fairboard to come up with a new business plan to revive and reopen Kentucky Kingdom through a new company, KK Redevelopment. Part of his plan is to expand the waterpark and move the main entrance to a better location.
    (5/26/10) Kentucky Kingdom is close to having a new owner it seems. A new operator will be recommended to the board at the next meeting, but still no word on exactly who it is. Only that it is someone with real experience in the theme park industry.
    (5/7/10) According to this report, there is really no chance of Kentucky Kingdom opening in any way for the 2010 season, but they are very hopeful that something can be worked out with a new operator in time for the 2011 season. Now they don’t mention it in the article, but if you watch the video, the last minute of it talks about how the Fairgrounds is now asking for either money from Six Flags to be reimbursed for the loss of Chang or to have Chang brought back to the park. Since they were the ones to give Six Flags full permission to remove the ride in the first place… and in addition to the fact that Chang was placed entirely on property that Six Flags owned in full… and not on Fairgrounds property, I don’t think they’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting Chang back.
    (2/24/10) I had wondered if this was going to happen… and it did. The Kentucky State Fairgrounds went there and have officially accused Six Flags of “fraud” by removing Chang under what they call a “false promise” of building a future waterpark expansion.
    (2/23/10) The lawsuit fight over the ownership of the rides at the former Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom theme park has started. Read more here.
    (2/22/10) A reader passed by SF Kentucky Kingdom over the weekend and noticed that while all the rides were still in place, it looked like some of the custom Batman scenery in the arena and Looney Tunes signage were being taken down.  Rented moving trucks were also visible in the park itself, as Six Flags is likely packing up their possessions and moving out.
    (2/15/10) According to this article the Kentucky State Fair Board wont likely be starting any official meetings with potential new park operators until sometime in March, after Six Flags gets final approval from a judge allowing them to legally exit their lease.
    (2/12/10) A local Screamscape reader did a little homework and came up with a graphic that shows off which property Six Flags owned and which was leased at the Kentucky Kingdom theme park. From the look of things, Six Flags owned the majority of the land that Chang was placed on, as well as the land under the nearby former Batman stunt show theater, T2 and Blizzard River. In two other small parcels, they also own the land under a few sections of Twisted Twins as well as the entire site of Mile High Falls. Here are a couple of links (1, 2) showing off the property lines owned by Six Flags, listed as KKI LLC.

    (2/11/10) According to this article, at least four different theme park operators have made inquiries to the Kentucky State Fair Board about possibly taking over the former Kentucky Kingdom site. The second page opens things up a bit more about who owns what, and what is likely to be a future legal contest over ownership of certain park rides. It states that while Six Flags leased 45 acres from the state for the park, they also owned 15 acres and anything on the Six Flags owned land seems to be owned by Six Flags free and clear. While the state reports that they own the rides on the leased land, Six Flags reports that they have been the ones paying “property taxes” for the rides on that same leased land, so if they don’t really own the rides, why were they paying property tax all that time? Anyone know which rides are on the Six Flags owned property?
    (2/10/10) A local area reader tells us that they’ve heard Compagnie des Alpes has starting talks with the Kentucky State Fairgrounds board about the possibility of taking over the Kentucky Kingdom property. CdA currently operates a number of attractions and theme parks in Europe including the Walibi parks, Bellewaerde, Hellendoorn and Parc Asterix.
    (2/8/10) In an interesting twist to the closing of Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, this article mentions that according to the lease with the Fairgrounds, Six Flags is not allowed to remove any more rides from the park and that the rides are actually the property of the fairgrounds. It also mentions that one of the new terms Six Flags was trying to get on the existing lease was to not have to pay any rent during the remaining 9 years on the term in exchange for a new profit share agreement.
    (2/5/10) The big news story tonight is that the Six Flags corporate office announced on their website that Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom is now closed, FOREVER! According to the official statement, As one of the only Six Flags’ parks on leased land, Six Flags had a window to re-negotiate the lease with the Kentucky State Fair Board as part of the corporate bankrupcty restructuring. The fair board had rejected the last offer that Six Flags had made to them in an attempt to modify the lease to ensure the long term viability and future of the park. As such, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom is no more and the company will now begin the process of looking to relocate their full time staff to other locations and decide how to relocate and redistribute the park’s 40+ attractions to the other Six Flags locations.
    While this is a huge disappointment to those in the local market, the buzz so far within the industry is that few people I’ve talked to are entirely surprised. Most seem to feel that it was just a matter of time and that SFKK was the black sheep of the Six Flags family from the moment it was purchased years ago. It never really fit into the chain of Six Flags parks that existed at the time and most have been scratching their heads about just why it was ever purchased in the first place due to it’s limited growth options.
    (10/29/09) A local source tells me that at this point about the only part of Chang still left standing is the lift hill, which is expected be taken down by this weekend.
    (9/22/09) The local news has now confirmed that work has begun to remove Chang. However the Chang rumor mill is working overtime lately, ever since we broke the story that the ride was likely to be Chicago bound. The latest wild rumors being spread now claim that Chang could touch down at any number of other Six Flags parks without a Stand-Up coaster (SFA? SFGAdv?) while another rumor talks about only sending the trains to Chicago and sending the coaster to SFMM. However my own trusted sources say nay-nay to all of these, and to hold fast to our guns… as Chang is most definitely to be Chicago bound unless something goes very wrong.
    Also the latest rumors say that the Northwest Territory at SFKK not open again for the 2010 season, even with Chang’s removal, due to a lack of a budget to repair and reopen it. They also tell us that the corporate office has confirmed to local management that Twisted Twins will likely never run again as well. More on this as it comes in.