Hard Rock Park - August 2008 - Remastered Version
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ส.ค. 2022
- In August of 2008 I visited Hard Rock Park, the new theme park that opened in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina just a few months prior. The park only stayed open under the Hard Rock Park name for one season before being renamed the Freestyle Music Park. Unfortunately, the park closed for good in 2009.
Many consider Hard Rock Park to be one of the biggest failures in amusement park history. One the day I visited, it was a Saturday in the summer. The weather was nice. The park should have been packed but there wasn't any lines for anything. It was pretty clear the park had to change something or it wouldn't survive.
This video was originally recorded in 1080i using a Sony HDR-HC1. It was re-edited and rendered in 4K 60FPS with HDR, mainly to bring out more of the colors, especially during the final night shot stills. I had to replace portions of the audio with copyright free music as one of the record companies had issues with some of the music in the video, so it was removed and replaced.
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I always thought that they went too big too fast. The customization on all the big rides is fantastic, but it adds A LOT of cost to each ride. You think how many millions less they would've spent if they allowed themselves to buy more generic versions of the rides and then just theme around them. For instance, that ferris wheel lift probably doubled the price of the Premier coaster. They went overboard at the start and didn't give themselves time to grow.
The park was too ambitious. There was a phase two that was explained to me, prior to Six Flags being involved. I remember discussion about doubling the length of Maximum RPM, which would have a indoor portion. Also, a rapid ride themed to the river Styx was mentioned as well. No idea if any of that was just talks or actually in planning phases.
I also visited the park on a Saturday in the summer that year. I really loved it. The music, rides, and overall vibe was amazing. I had a great time! I just wish it would of lasted.
Thank you for sharing that video! It really brought back some great memories!
I am glad you got to visit the place. Not a lot of my coaster friends did.
@@SeanFlaharty I loved it and wish it would of been more successful, but I can understand why it wasn't. It was too far from the beach. Too far from the action. When I visited the place was dead. I knew something wasn't right although I personally had the time of my life. I even went to customer relations on the way out to let them know how much I loved it. I NEVER do that.
Later that evening I went to Family Kingdom and it was PACKED!!!
It's amazing! Tks.
Man this park looks like a good vibe
Hi Sean, i hope you doing well. I remember this from a documentary in discovery or something, i really appreciate the geek shot on that coaster #tbt2008
Thanks, Leo. I know this footage has been used in quite a few other videos. This is the first time I decided to upgrade it. When I uploaded it years ago, technology wasn't the same. I may do some other remastered videos soon.
Loved this video and original video
Thank you for watching both of them!
I was actually there, but had a very difficult time locating it. Didn’t have a gps at that time and just drove up and down the coast looking for it before giving up. Thought it was in north myrtle beach by the Hard Rock Cafe; (at that time Hard Rock Cafe was located there and was a neat pyramid design). When I finally found it I was leaving the beach and didn’t have time to go, the location for Hard Rock Park was terrible! If this was where the Pavilion park once was it would’ve been great. Needed to be by the ocean, where all the vacationers were in my opinion. There was no advertising outside the myrtle beach area, I didn’t even recall any signs in the area for it, why I couldn’t locate it at first. Thankfully the swamp fox is still there and located at family kingdom, a great wooden roller coaster.
It really was hidden from all the other major attractions in the area. I hope all is well, Derek!
Those kites are interesting. Maybe the feed to pay the jetski drivers were too much for the park and that's why they went under
Ha ha. Perhaps. There was a lot of little things that I noticed that probably were pretty expensive to build, yet they did it. I remember Robert telling me to go check out one of the mirrors in the bathroom. One of them was a video screen with a five second delay. So, you looked into the mirror and moved but the image was delayed. It was a nice touch and I bet expensive with the screen and camera. Having a video camera in a bathroom at a park now days would never happen and I remember it feeling kind of creepy, even back then. Lol.
@@SeanFlaharty woah that mirror idea is very unusual... perhaps anywhere else in the park would have been better than the bathroom!
I have many videos of a Park here in Brazil "Playcenter", I would like to leave them at 60 fps, what method do you use Sean?
This only seems to work with stuff that is recorded in 30fps. It won't work with 24fps. I use Final Cut Pro X to edit and when I import something in 30fps, I just render the project in 60fps. That is the easiest way I do it. There are a lot more extra steps when I am editing stuff that was recorded on tape. It has to be digitized then rendered in 60fps using an old PC that has a copy of Premier Elements on it. I have tried to use the current version of Premier but it won't accept those older files, so I work around it using the old version.
I really miss this place
I live in myrtle and I’m 19 now… went here as a kid about the age of 4. Vaguely remember it but I remember it being such an amazing happy place. Then they switched the name and i went there one more time then boom got shut down. They kept that roller coaster by that road (close to home) for about 7 years after closing and i would look at it everyday missing it as a kid. Then I visited it abandoned so that was cool lol. thanks for the memories
I never made it back to the park once it changed its name. It was eerie that the park was so uncrowded on the day this video was recorded. Personally, I left the park thinking it wasn't going to be open for much longer. I had an incredible day there and I wish more people could have experienced the park.
Man I wish I could’ve gone, this place looks awesome!
It was a fun place. It was pretty clear, at least to me, that it wouldn't survive in the way they were marketing it. It should have been packed on the day I recorded that video. It was great weather, on a Saturday, in the summer. Barely anyone was there.
The b&m sit down still exists, being relocated to a park in Vietnam and is now known as dragons run
Yes. A few other rides were moved to Vietnam as well.
I have not been to many amusement parks, frankly, but in fact I was at this park as well on the summer it opened I forget if it was June or July. I was on a very rare family vacation at the beach and went to Hard Rock Park with two of my cousins, one of whom is now unfortunately deceased. As of this comment I still have a Led Zeppelin II album cover T-shirt that I bought there at the gift store!
It's so great you got to go there. Whenever a park opens I gotta get there and film it just in case it has the same fate as this one.
The funny thing is that when I was recording footage like this, I had no idea the park would be gone as quick as it was. While it was clear to me that the park was struggling, they did have plans to expand. I am pretty surprised to see such an empty park on a Saturday in the summer.
South Carolina really needs a big or medium size amusement park because right now they are all small and don’t offer anything too exciting we had that with Hard Rock Park and the old Pavilion
Both were cool places to visit, for certain. Carowinds may be reason for a lack of attendance. While it's not exactly close to Myrtle Beach, it is a large park that brings in the crowds. Hard Rock Park, as cool as a place it was to visit, did a pretty bad job at advertising. Had they done a better job at that perhaps the park would have survived longer than it did.
It’s frustrating absolutely no posters of this park exist besides the animated map and of all the roller coasters
I have a couple shirts from the park still. I know others that purchased more things in the gift shop that they still own. I wish I would have gotten some more items.
These rematers are lovely! how did you upscale everything?
I used Final Cut Pro X and used a HDR project to start. It takes a lot of tweaking but it can be done. Sometimes it will look really washed out. I made a kind of template I can use to make it easier from the start as sometimes it can be a nightmare. Lol.
It's so sad because of how much effort was out into this place it just unfortunately opened at the worst time
A big part of the problem was location. It wasn’t exactly near the beach and the park didn’t do the best job at advertising outside the area. It was a fun place but I thought it was pretty evident the park wasn’t going to do well. The day I recorded this footage was on a Saturday in the summer. Most parks would be packed to the gills during that time. Not this park. It was pretty empty.
I'm from Vietnam
just been to Dragon Park last December and ride Led Zeppelin
I wonder if Hard Rock park didn't exist, what coaster would be in the park
Good question. You are the first person to comment on my videos that you have ridden Led Zeppelin at it's new location. I am glad it is still thrilling riders.
I didn't know the park existed until 2014 as they were taking down Led Zeppelin and putting the parts in the Parking lot. I was working at Ghost Town in the Sky in Maggie Valley, NC at the time. If they would have marketed the Park in Western NC I would have went! I know one guy who worked there and another that visited it several times and they said it made Walt Disney look like a Parking lot Carnival! Even though I was a 6 hr Drive away,made $8 a hr at the time and In the middle of a severe Recession, Me and a lot of other people would have went. I would have went and been glad to pay $50 a person plus Motel to go. Only if Hard Rock would have Marketed the park via Magazine, TV, and Radio ads at least a 500 mile radius of Myrtle Beach. It would still be there making money, instead of the dull and boring Industrial Park / Warehouses that's there now.
Yes, I agree. They didn't market the park well. Here in Ohio, no one other than folks that follow amusement parks knew the place existed when I would talk about it. I enjoyed my single day at the park. I left it kind of feeling sad as it was very clear during my visit that the park would not survive if they didn't change something, which they didn't.
Who built the Ferris wheel coaster?
Premier Rides.
@@SeanFlaharty thanks Sean, I’m working on a very big new project and I’m gonna Show it to Premier when I’m done with it, it’s on my blueprint in my mind rn with extra stuff!
@@JettCrocodile That's cool. Good luck with your project.
I had always wanted to visit this park after hearing the reviews but of course it closed just as fast as it opened. I wondered why was Myrtle Beach chosen ?? I would think at that maybe somewhere in Florida or even near a “ musical “ city like Nashville or even Las Vegas. I know it had money problems right from the start but these probably would have been a better choice than MB as these are more touristy.
IK the owner made a like Public Speaking Documentary and if I remember, the person who created the park got the idea because he owned a failing movie theatre and their was alot of space with the mall closing. He created a concept for the land called Fantasy Harbor,a park just like Holiday World it was themed around seasons and marketing was gonna be cheap (This was around 1999-2000) because its public entities (Concept is online) but the investors and people the owner talked to said if its gonna work you will need an IP. He talked to multiple companies like Six Flags,Disney,Cedar Fair and other park companies but because Myrtle Beach was "So close to Orlando" it was a no". Then MGM wanted to get involved into this park, and someone had the Idea to work with Hard Rock. The owner took the plans and taped over new names on the old MGM plans and they got designing. I feel like if they stuck with the original Fantasy Harbor the park would've stuck. The park used alot of Huss rides and relocated rides from other parks. (One being a Togo Looping Mouse from Japan?)
There were a lot of HUSS rides indeed. I hadn't heard if any of the rides came from other parks though. They didn't have a TOGO at the park.
How about geauga lake
I have a video highlighting some of the moments from the Six Flags Ohio media day. It wasn't recorded in HD though but is shown on TH-cam in 60fps. I don't believe I recorded any footage at the park after Cedar Fair took it over.
looking at the photos and videos of the park, it didn’t feel like a cash grab like six flags or Disney. It generally felt like people took the time, money, and passion for it
They did put a lot of effort into the park. I believe the main problem was they just didn't advertise outside of the Myrtle Beach area. It was like no one knew about the park other than the locals, and coaster enthusiasts. As much fun as I had during the day I recorded this footage, it was still a bummer to see the park so empty on a Saturday in the summer. The park had expansion plans but it was obvious, at least to me, that it wasn't going to survive.
I went when it was freestyle park. $17.76 for two tickets. I also remember Dr. Phil did a video here about teenagers holding their breath on Led Zeppelin so they would blackout during the ride.
I hadn't heard about that. I remember the park being very affordable.