Exploring The ABANDONED Hard Rock Theme Park

so right now let me introduce you to uh to you the chief executive officer for hard rock park stephen goodwin here he is [Applause] welcome hey this is the first time we've done this at night that's uh cool okay well welcome to hydro park six days from now we will be rocking and rolling so i you know i live a strange life some days i really wonder whether i'm living in a uh a fantasy just being a part of the opening of the world's first rock and roll theme park standing here tonight reminds us that we're very much a reality [Music] it has been over a decade since hard rock park turned freestyle music park closed forever it had only been open for collectively seven months before it closed after two seasons now with years of natural decay rides sold off and vandals finding their way in the park looks very different than how it did just 10 years ago join us as we take this never-before-seen tour through some astonishing buildings take a very sobering before and after look at this once thriving destination and discover some incredible things that you won't believe were left behind as i typically do with these special videos you can skip to any of these time codes on the screen for some key sections of the video oh my god holy crap there's an entire mall still here wow so there are completely intact storefronts here from when this was a mall whoa hard rock park was very resourceful in a way since on their land was an existing shuttered mall the park incorporated this shopping center into their plans and what we have here is a very interesting mix of a theme park and an abandoned mall this shopping center originally opened as the wakama factory outlets as a secondary portion of the main mall by the early 2000s however the property began to struggle and the mall ultimately sold their separate structure to a development company the land the mall was sitting on was ultimately rezoned for theme park use and this building subsequently closed in 2003 while there are very few pictures of this actual mall more recent photos from inside the existing wacoma outlets gives a peek into what this concourse used to look like in the darkness here there's a mound of stuff and i just realized that this is all theme park merchandise this is piles of crap in here just all being sold these are all park maps obviously you see these hard rock park drink guitar cups the novelty cups and the freestyle music ones look at this this entire room is filled to the brim literally every single box that goes all the way back there is filled with these cups this was the divider everything past this wall right here was unused and everything this forward was used for the park oh look at this it's an actual ride vehicle oh my god [Music] we're now entering the middle of this enormous building the section utilized for the theme park according to the architectural plans around half the square footage of the mall would be gutted and rebuilt as an arcade and dark ride the rest was partitioned off and essentially remained untouched as an abandoned mall some of the former storefronts however were used for storage administration and as we later find out the archives and that ceiling goes really high above the recessed ceiling oh look at that little mural with the neon lettering [Music] so on this side from this entrance here would have been the arcade oh what the oh there's actually stuff left i didn't know this there's actually uh uh arcade murals oh my god look at that and then in here is the dark ride painted walls here and the black floor or the black ceiling you could tell which is guest areas and which is the former mall just by the roof the fact that it's bare without a recess or without a drop ceiling and the fact that it's painted black yeah so this was like the entrance to uh to the ride maybe two double doors here wow look at this back of uh back of house area backstage behind the ride which was behind this wall here oh i bet this was like a break area right here yeah i bet this was like for employees a little break area in here uh basketball hoop for the employees and i'm sure this was uh deep storage for the ride itself okay there actually is oh the attraction's still here at least a portion of it this is this is a whole show scene whoa oh oh listen to the echo in here oh okay so yeah you can see the the bolts of where the track would have went going down right here i'm pretty sure this was the ending of it too oh my this is an abandoned dark ride show scene [Music] [Applause] [Music] the car would have come down this way out of that uh show scene the final one and then into here and this would have been the big finale or the the last uh the last show scene of the ride pretty sure that that screen right there would like illuminate from a projector and then this would have went to load unload station which oh wow is pretty torn up that looks awful i'm sorry to say yeah so like within the wreckage here you just see the this is a pile of dark ride okay so here's load unload yeah there's a mangled mess in here because the cars would have come through here and then moved along that way and then snaked through and then come that way through uh to the end so this is all concrete here with carpet and yeah yeah okay so this is shuttle to the concert venue yeah so this was uh this was the load station right here people would uh the cars would have come right here and would have loaded onto them yeah look at the lighting panels the lighting units through here probably black light in there hard rock park ladies and gentlemen the original dark ride built for hard rock park was called the trip it was actually an incredibly creative attraction based on the moody blues knights and white satin and it was a genuinely interesting dark ride it was built by sally dark rides and was rated the third best dark ride in the world in 2008. however when the park was sold this attraction was likely deemed not family friendly enough so when it was switched to freestyle music park they brought in itec entertainment to create something new monstars of rock is what they came up with obviously at an extremely low budget and the end result was a pretty awful ride this is the employee's area probably right this is behind the uh oh yeah kiss in the sky yeah yeah so this was uh oh that's so cool so all the employees signed this wall oh man oh look and they had like caricatures of themselves faces of the faces of attractions oh my god look at these just fried vehicles one's upside down look at that oh there's a wow i like how they uh they tied them together so they wouldn't flex just coming around that side was that long hallway that was backstage and just coming around the corner there's more of the mall that's stuck in its original state untouched so they just constructed this wall here this was another main entrance for the mall look at this the the store is like completely intact here who knew we'd be exploring a mall [Applause] no way architectural plans yes this is so cool oh my god look at this this is the facade of the mall for people who are looking uh into the park or from the park i should say and look at all the color samples for it this is incredible oh there's so many of them there's like all these architectural plans and and then original drawings right here oh my god oh that's original art right there this is original concept art that's not a reprint oh my god they have like uh references to the architecture they're achieving they're trying to achieve here oh my there's construction photos look at this oh my god this is literally just the entire history of this this park here's some uh architectural drawings some of the spaces here oh here's a concept of the guitar i have never seen anything like this this is the narrative the hard rock hotel myrtle beach 2003 this is literally a pitch this is a pitch for a hard rock park hotel here is a hard rock park timeline this is so this is like a breakdown of all the work and then this shows the timeline of of uh when it's being completed and such i love like textile concept stuff like this it is so cool oh my god so this is th you know what this probably was this is a another sketch of that concept art but with uh with the new stuff over it this was probably the mgm concept that they were trying to do because it has the pink panther and animation station total project cost 88 million dollars so they were aiming pretty low oh god there's a whole whole layout this is the old park this is what it was supposed to be with john's theater and and everything and then with mgm studios park written in with with pen usability studies oh yes and here's the yep okay so this is when master plan layout including mall three uh multi-cinemas support studio tour and dark ride so i guess this was still when uh when mgm was was part of it there is just everything in here it's a hard rock park things there there is so much executive travel don pinkowski look at that wow you know even for john being uh being the ceo of his own entertainment company still flying in economy class that's uh that's good on him i could spend so much time in here this is so cool but uh let's see what else this park has this looks like it was burned this looks like hot fire i think it did look at the wood that was that was fire so someone burned this part oh yeah oh god huh even before their spring 2008 opening the team at hard rock park had already begun preparing for their largest expansion what would have been called paradise city this would have completely redeveloped the other portion of the struggling guacamole mall across the street paradise city was going to be the shopping and entertainment district that accompanied hard rock park made up of hotels time shares attractions and shopping it would have been like city walk to universal studios a place they even take a jab at in their brochure this plan ultimately fell through however when the company declared bankruptcy oh my god on kodak paper photos oh my god contract signing from iapa2006 huh for example the band sister hazel okay this is the commitment form so it has all their emails between them and the band oh my god and then the band for preview center opening so they played the preview center open oh okay and it has their deposit and it has the final balance of what they would be what was what was their final balance a hundred a hundred thousand dollars so that's not the only artist that we have one republic yeah so that's a very much a sign of the time the boys only took home fifty thousand fifty thousand dollars yeah sister hazel won that contest and if you see the project contract yeah project number two zero zero zero one so that's the very first uh wow very first concert they must have had actually yeah so basically this is what they get when they do their performance and then they get chapstick they get some purell they get sharpies and packs of orbit what yeah that is fascinating box of special case cereal bars i'm kind of jealous about that that's fascinating i've never seen a uh a concert contract before look at this white board too it's they literally have like a a diagram of the uh the stage here they're planning on putting security ops yeah boost zone i wonder what that means buena vista music group they own bohemian rhapsody i guess they do in 2007 they did master use license so this was the license they used for their water their uh nighttime spectacular yeah their fireworks show wow i wonder if there's a price in there um this is the master use license agreement okay that'll that'll go through a lot of crap so the uh the license to use bohemian rhapsody and a fireworks show at a major theme park is sixty thousand dollars deemed by the walt disney company bona vista music i think obviously one of the icons of the hard rock park oh gibson oh my god so let's get let's get looking at this gibson agreement wow gibson right off the bat guaranteed one million dollars for the guitar icon building wow and this is what i'm really into is the sponsor benefits so their benefits include a 200 free hard rock park tickets per year 250 tickets available at 50 or vip oh no just standard tickets available for 50 off 10 vip executive backstage passes per year discounts on merchandise signage and piccadilly circus guitar plaza designed to be gibson guitar logo inclusion on all collateral in park point of scale collateral right to conduct samplings and consumer research ancillary gibson merchandise available in park free filming rights that's crazy they're guaranteed four directional signs park wide announcement of gibson sponsor show before and after each show we would like to thank our friends at gibson guitars now enjoy your evening gibson name appears on headstock down the frets on the body of the 78-foot guitar in the center of the park gibson name and neon illuminated on guitar after show ends for up to 30 minutes gibson guitar plaza in all access entry plaza is 248 feet long and incorporates a gibson vegas high roller guitar design and ground gibson artist birthday celebrations in the park gibson weekend events gibson contests and sweeps oh my god this is crazy uh like this is this is stuff that is never seen by normal guests and it's just sitting in a in a abandoned mall store this is a former store in an abandoned mall and we have this information on the licensing agreement with you know all of these incredible bands and corporations that's the thing that really blows my mind about it is that it's yeah eagles is one of the biggest like groups like lots of rock bands and this stuff's just sitting here [Music] wait so oh my god this is the entire catalog of architectural plans this is all of them in full length this is everything you could build hard rock park right now if you've if you just wanted to again they have all the intellectual property right here this is unbelievable i've been saying that so much in this but it's like everything is so unprecedented in how much is left behind this has never happened before in american theme park history this is that show the acrobatic show the stunt show and then this is the water park area for the kids trees lights these are all the lights on the parking lot well we could have stayed another four hours inside this mall sifting through the seemingly never-ending filing cabinets we wanted to see the actual park or at least what was left of it i've actually already covered the general history of the park rather extensively in my abandoned episode on it so if you're interested in learning more about the short-lived history of the park i implore you to check that video out that was the uh great meals diner the eat me diner and i believe it was right here this is what's left of it at least yes okay disney's got rockin roller coaster in a movie park um and uh we've got rock and roll throughout so we're kind of like rocking roller coaster on steroids here that's a nice terrace up here so this is the vip lounge the vip lounge yeah oh wow is that a lobster tail yeah check this out [Applause] it tastes great oh my god you just imagine a busy park tons of people coming down the the primary concourse and uh a big guitar right on pedestal right there or even at night with the bohemian rhapsody nighttime show you know like the fountain behind us the guitar fountain with the strings popping up and stuff like that there's tons of stuff around the park that shows you stuff like that so this is the obviously the guitar and the embedded into the the concrete here that sort of uh comes about halfway down the concourse but you can see the uh the neck of the guitar coming and then going straight through the the entrance of the uh the primary gift shop an incredibly cool piece of attention to detail that is an expansive parking lot this whole building is burned down this building is gone it is shocking to see how far this has fallen now the ticket prices are are all out [Music] [Applause] [Music] this was the uh the coffee shop here which is uh seen better days there's no saving this this is done this is it hard rock park opened for seven months and this is what it's turned into now i can't believe this established 2008 look at the roof it's completely gone how does that even happen but you can kind of get a scale of the enormity here you know this is a massive store it's hard to believe that this amount of water damage is possible stripping it's just wide open it's all lined with uh with sheetrock so an expansive this thing is huge look at the black mold on this all bowing and the roof is completely torn up man these huge armoires with merchandise on them absolutely topped over so this was the uh adrenaline rush the acrobatic type stunt show yeah it's all still here the pool's still here spending over seven hours inside the park we finally decided to leave hard rock park is now nothing more than a barren landscape of something that was much greater all rides to some degree have been removed and only context clues from the footings of the supports and the foundations of the load buildings would allow us to identify them walking around hard rock park armed with a guest map trying to figure out where things were was a surreal feeling like we were trapped in an alternate dimension where the pristine park depicted on the map existed somewhere else to me a massive theme park fan i couldn't help but obsess over the small details the fine craftsmanship in the buildings and the landscaping another aspect i was forced to use my imagination on it's truly a surreal feeling walking around what is the culmination of 400 million dollars thousands of hours of construction and countless more in designing these pathways these bars and cafes the brick in the buildings and even the two dark rides had only been used for less than a year by guests they were brand new and that thought wasn't lost on any of us i want to thank the guys from whitelake productions for joining me on this strenuous adventure and i think we all more than ever wish we could have gone to hard rock park when it was open it became even more obvious that this park had so much life ahead of it but unfortunately we'll never get to see it thanks for watching we weren't dancing in the middle we could hardly hold our heads up i think we'd had too much to drink i remember wondering what they think [Music] no fortune baseball wounds like these it's been too long for time now please just say your will we can call it a day

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 227,253

Rating: 4.9449034 out of 5

Keywords: hard rock park, abandoned theme park, hard rock, theme park, freestyle music park, myrtle beach, left behind, abandoned ride, dark ride, abandoned concept art, abandoned shop, major theme park, rock and roll, bankruptcy, bright sun films, 4k, clean, documentary, family friendly, failed theme park, retail, dead mall, abandoned mall, creepy mall, ghost mall, ghost theme park, abandoned places, abandoned hard rock amusement park, urbex, urban exploring, then and now

Id: TTQXQmWHOoI

Length: 31min 23sec (1883 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/weed-n64]

Wasn’t the whole point of them building hard rock park to try to get this mall some more play?

[u/DylanCole32]

Jesus, I went here in 2002 or maybe even summer of 2003. Had forgotten it existed. I was a child, and a small one at that, but I remember it actually being a pretty neat place. Any clue why it went under when it did?