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Patrick: Six Flags sold their European parks to Star Parks, most of them were sold to Compagnie des Alpes. Why was Movie Park Germany not sold to this French company?Antje: Compagnie des Alpes already owns two German parks, Fort Fun and Panorama-Park, which are not so far away from Bottrop. Since 2000 the German economy has not been very good, causing lack of trust. I believe those two facts were the main reason why our park is still in the Star Parks group. On the other hand, when we compare with the past, we have now more opportunities to determine our own goals and targets. This way we can choose how to invest in the park. Let me give a simple example, in our main street we choose to have a new pavement. In the past this would have been out of the question. Now we were able to get rid of the gray concrete pavement. This is just one example to show that we have a good relationship and interaction with our British owners. They come and visit us every four to eight weeks.
Patrick: The park invested in family rides; will this be the focus for the next years?
Antje: We would like to make a new orientation inside of the park. When people arrive with two children, one kid of 6 years old, the other one 12 years old, then the parents shouldn't need to split themselves in half to go with the first kid left for the more exciting attractions and to the right for the small children rides. We would like to bring more balance, so families can enjoy the park in every area, for every age. So we are now paying attention to the composition of the park, like we did already in the new Santa Monica Pier area. Here families and groups find attractions for every age
Also we have had the problem that because of the cheap season pass, lots of teenagers spent their whole spare time in the park and got bored after a while. The consequence was that we had problems with the atmosphere in the park and with vandalism.
Patrick: But will there be any hope for the thrill seeking fans?
Antje: We have plans to modify the former Gremlins locations. We have some ideas about an interactive attraction, which will be thrilling, I can promise. We have not yet a fixed date for this, but the idea is already present for an amazing and promising adventure.
Patrick: Except for the new rides, there is always and in every park the yearly work to keep all rides maintained. Is this giving any additional problems?
Antje: People do not realize sometimes the cost of maintaining an attraction. Every year we must fulfil very strict and severe regulations: all our rides are investigated by TÜV. They make then recommendations. This is also one of the reasons why we had to decide to tear down Cop Car Chase, formerly known as the Lethal Weapon rollercoaster. In order to have it running again this year, a minimum investment of 1 million Euro was required with no guarantees that the attraction would meet all technical requirements of TÜV. We have tried to sell the rollercoaster, but the transportation cost made them decide not to buy. Therefore the ride was demolished. But also for other big rides we have to make several investments.
Like Mystery River for instance. This water attraction is currently down. This unique rapid river was engineered to have a wonderful adventure of the Neverending Story. For this, four custom made pumps were developed. Now some of these pumps are no longer operating. And we need to decide how we replace them.
Patrick: One of the new rides which were "announced", was the Atlantis Adventure. What happened with the attraction?
Antje: We were indeed planning to have this new attraction built: it would have been opened in Studio 1. But we have heard that the prototype in China was suffering with several difficulties. We wanted that the attention was going to the new rides which were opening and not to one problem ride. We have seen that this was giving negative publicity to some neighbouring parks and we have tried to avoid this by deciding not to place this attraction after all...
Patrick: Have you ever considered having some Express system or Single Riders Queue?
Antje: I believe this is very common in the United States, but lots of Germans do not want people to pay for faster queue lines, it does not seem to be fair. The entrance fee is high enough. We can have of course some systems to increase the capacity, but we should dare to ask ourselves the question if this effort will be worth it. We have about 20-30 days per year when it is really very crowded. For other days, this system would not be needed. But a system, where people can have a ticket with time indication, might be a possibility on a longer term.
Patrick: What about the studios themselves. Are they still in use?
Antje: As you can realize with the current new themed area of Santa Monica Pier, there is no longer a Studio Tour in the park. The studios themselves are still in use. There was recently a movie shot, where the studios were hired for about three months. An entire village was built inside. In the future we plan to re-use the movie objects. Maybe already next season...
Patrick: Have you ever considered organizing a winter event?
Antje: Yes we have, and we are convinced that if we would start doing this, we should invest enough to make it a success. There is a lot of competition from the local Christmas markets, so it will require lots of efforts to convince people to visit our park.
This year we are starting to have special events for companies, but maybe in 2008 we might start a winter season. There is only one problem which needs to be cleared out and that is to foresee proper infrastructure. When Warner started here, there were no plans for this kind of events. For instance not enough heating systems are foreseen. Also the buildings are not properly isolated for the winter. So we need to make lots of investments to adapt the park.
Patrick: I also have read that there might be some water park extension. Is this reality, or rather a rumour?
Antje: I know our boss has been talking about this idea, but currently there are no real plans to develop a second park.