The Rise and Fall of Hard Rock Park

Jon Binkowski of Renaissance entertainment gives an interesting post mortem of the Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This is a story of the history of the development of the failed theme park.

One of the lessons in failure could be that it is hard to compete with a free natural attraction (the beach). Harrison “Buzz” Price intentionally advised Walt Disney to place Walt Disney World in either Orlando or Ocala, Florida for just that reason: Stay away from the beach and never try to compete with a free natural attraction. Then again, the people at Morey’s Piers who have operated an attraction since 1969 in New Jersey may beg to differ!

In any case, this is Binkowski’s interesting narrative about his park project. For a really good breakdown of Regional History, we also highly recommend Dr. Barry Hill’s book on Regional Theme Park History called: Imagineering an American Dreamscape that breaks it down even further.

The video is part of the TEA Video Series from the 2017 TEA Summit. Please support the TEA by liking and subscribing to their channel.