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ParkWord March 2013


I was intrigued to learn of the fate of Jeff Bush, who was sucked into a sinkhole that formed last month beneath his house near Tampa, Florida. Trapped amidst rubble in the circular chasm, the 36-year old was presumed dead.


Sinkholes are common in Florida and occur, according to one source, when a layer of clay under top layers of sand is washed away and the sand seeps through holes in the underlying limestone, like the sand in an hourglass. A much larger sinkhole exists at Legoland Florida. It appeared sometime around the 1950s, when the park was run by Dick Pope as Cypress Gardens. Pope was creative, and used it as a parking lot. The park has been through several changes of ownership since, and even got a second 90ft-diameter (27m) sinkhole in 1985 which forced the closure of its main restaurant. Now covered in shrubs and trees, the original hole can still be made out towards the back of the park between the Boating School and Driving School attractions. Merlin Entertainments clearly didn’t fancy redeveloping this area when it transformed Cypress Gardens into Legoland in 2011. Yet it would have made the perfect setting for Miniland, the park’s signature Lego city. Surely Merlin can’t have been afraid of the sinkhole collapsing once more after all these years? Unlike poor old Jeff Bush, with Lego you can start all over again.


Hello to you if you picked up this issue at RAAPA Expo in Moscow. The event, celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2013, remains the largest amusement industry trade show for all of Eastern Europe, despite some newer pretenders. Park World sends its congratulations to all at the Russian Association of Parks And Attractions on reaching this milestone.


On page 22 you can read an interview with RAAPA vice-president Igor


Rodionov as he offers some insight on the many new theme parks being proposed in Russia. Some of these are massive projects, with budgets that would make them amongst the most expensive parks ever built worldwide. We can safely assume that they won’t all come to fruition, but there does appear to be a genuine appetite for building new parks and attractions – of all sizes. Suddenly Russia is becoming one of the industry’s hot spots.


Owen Ralph – Editor


Editor Owen Ralph (+44 161 438 2934) parkworld@btopenworld.com


North American Editor Contributors this issue


Paul Ruben (+1 585 381 1012) parkw@rochester.rr.com


Heather Eichenbaum, Gary Kyriazi, Suzy Knauf


Sales Manager Mark Burgess (+44 1622 699124) parkworld@datateam.co.uk


Publishing Director Paul Ryder pryder@datateam.co.uk Data Development Manager Alex Wetton awetton@datateam.co.uk Managing Director Parvez Kayani p.kayani@datateam.co.uk Publication Secretary


Jennifer York (+44 1622 699109) parkworld@datateam.co.uk


MARCH 2013 ISSN 1462-4796


© Copyright 2013. All materials in this publication remain the copyright of Datateam Business Media and no part of it may be reproduced without the written permission of the proprietors. A request to insert an advertisement is deemed to be an acceptance of Datateam Business Media Ltd’s conditions of trading, copies of which are available on request.


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