Chinese investors considering developing sports complex on old Hard Rock Park site

I don't care what anyone says, my theory is that MonStars of Rock is the sole reason for the demise of this place. And yes, I'm aware it didn't even exist prior to Hard Rock Park's failure. That's how bad it was.

The thing that always floors me is that, by all accounts, they developed a really good product. It was just insanely arrogant and stupid to assume that it would sell itself.

The park was great. But you're right. They didn't market it AT ALL and they didn't understand the market. There's a reason the water parks and amusement parks in the area opened late and stayed open late.

Total disaster that didn't need to be one.

I'm with Vater - MonStars was so bad I think it should have been used as a guide on what NOT to do with a dark ride. There are no words to describe its awfulness.

edit: If you put sports fields on the land, the Curse of MonStars would probably result in career-ending injuries for half the players...THAT bad.

Hard Rock Park is still on of the best days we've ever had at a park.

We closed the place (1am) - even after arriving at opening (11am).

A lot went wrong. They didn't sell it. What little they did sell, they didn't sell correctly. They tried to be a little bit of everything (shopping, entertainment, food and a few rides - family during the day, more adult at night) under the Hard Rock umbrella - which I believe would have eventually worked, but they didn't give themselves enough time to let it.

From all accounts, Freestyle Music Park was nothing like Hard Rock Park and shouldn't even be brought into the conversation when discussing what HRP was.

Such a crazy moment in time and I'm glad we made the effort to get there back in '08.

Lord Gonchar said:
they didn't give themselves enough time to let it.

I'm pretty sure a lack of money was a much bigger factor than time.

That's what I was implying. Not having the money didn't allow them the time they needed.

Two sides of the same coin, but probably not clear enough.

Lord Gonchar said:

From all accounts, Freestyle Music Park was nothing like Hard Rock Park and shouldn't even be brought into the conversation when discussing what HRP was.

Without experiencing HRP first-hand, I'm sure you're correct. That said, looking at the remnants of HRP that existed during my visit to FMP, it wasn't too hard to imagine how incredible it was. FMP was a surprisingly nice, albeit empty, park. I can confidently say it had the potential to be a solid park, but was far, far from it in '09.

It's funny, I would estimate the distance from the greatness of Hard Rock Park to the mediocrity of Freestyle Music Park was quite a bit less than the distance from the greatness of Nights in White Satin to the embarrassingly terrible MonStars of Rock.

Vater said:

It's funny, I would estimate the distance from the greatness of Hard Rock Park to the mediocrity of Freestyle Music Park was quite a bit less than the distance from the greatness of Nights in White Satin to the embarrassingly terrible MonStars of Rock.

Probably entirely true.

I'd say that Nights In White Satin was arguably the best dark ride I've ridden while everything I've been told leads me to believe MonStars was definitively the worst dark ride ever.