Germany's Bankrupt Space Park | The Story of Space Park Bremen
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- Space? It's a pretty common theme among theme parks, ranging from the early Luna Park ride "A Trip to the Moon", to the various versions of Space Mountain to exist throughout various Disney parks. I would even throw Kennedy Space Center in there as a loosely defined "space themed park" because of just how downright ambitious it is. However, what I want to speak about today is something different, as in, an actual short-lived, indoor theme park dedicated just to space and science fiction. Today, we'll be talking about the bankrupt Space Park Bremen, taking a look at its fascinating attractions and determining why it lasted for less than a year.
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A quick correction: As many people have pointed out, Space Shot was not an actual S&S Space Shot, but is a Huss Shot'n Drop instead.
My grandpa managed to take me there when I was ten years old. It was quite fun. I'm very glad to not have missed it.
Yeah, definitely a unique credit of a park to have visited.
Thank you for realising the video idea and raising some international recognition for the short, but turbolent theme park history of my hometown.
Yeah, it was a really interesting idea. Is there anything I got wrong or missed?
@@PoseidonEntertainment I think that, apart from the loss of the anchor tenant (Kaufland) and the vacant stores, there was too little national advertising for the Space Park. I lived nearby at the time and when I wanted to visit the park, it was already closed 😞
@@iseethreedee2317 I faintly recall that after Kaufhof pulled out, Walmart wanted to be the anchor tenant their brief expansion into Germany, but Space Park didn't want them.
@@CoraBuhlert Yes, that is quite possible. Walmart tried to gain a foothold in Germany at the time, but unfortunately couldn't hold its own against the competition and was 2006 out of the game.
Themed entertainment design student here…
I am currently taking a class with the lead concept designer on this project. He is frankly one of the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing and I cannot wait to share this video with him. He might even show it to his future classes!
Even though he’s worked on many different attractions and parks throughout the years, the Space Park was his absolute favorite and it seems he had a “blast” (pun intended) designing it.
He mentioned something about the lack of advertising and I believe he mentioned that there was a Star Trek convention in Munich that only found out about the project right before or after the park closed. There’s a massive possibility that the park could have prospered if it had stayed open long enough to be the host to the Star Trek conference.
As someone who has never gone to the park, I still find myself impressed by the level of theming they were able to pack into an enclosed space like that. I may have a different perspective on the themed entertainment industry than Poseidon Entertainment, but I really respect how much time and effort they take to create these historic videos. They really help other people and students like me to find out about hidden gems in the themed entertainment world.
Live long and prosper, everyone!
⭐
Oh Boy, Memory Lane - I am born and raised in Bremen. When Space Park openend, I was actualy there, i was in like 5th or 6th grade and the space park contacted local schools for some classes to be there at the grand opening gala to enter the hall with Space Park flags. At the opening gala apparently also where actors from the shows they licensed. My school was in the same District as the Space Park (Gröpelingen) - (We got free shirts and a free ticket to enter, I entered later with my mother). Even as a kid I noticed that the Space Park was lackluster sadly, it could have been great but it wasn't.
Nice fact about the Space Shot. When you got shot up, suddenly you get shot over the outer framework. It has a nice effect that you think "Oh oh, we realy went over it now" - it was a simple but cool effect, on the bottom you have the outer framework and you think it will be up till the end, but it isn't - when you are above it it feels a bit spookey =)
When you orderd a Burger in there, the burger by the way also had the shape of the Building.
Sooooo they could license stargate and Star Trek but couldn’t find an anchor tenant lmao. That’s crazy. Such a shame all the talent and craftsmanship went to waste. It truly looked like a well made experience. Just another reminder how unique American car and “road trip” culture is compared to our European cousins
I did think it was strange that an hour drive would deter people, but I suppose it makes sense if you're not used to driving that long for that often. Weird, because there was a period in my life where I had an hour long commute for about 4 years.
@@PoseidonEntertainment I know the feeling!
There's several reasons it failed. As mentioned in the vid, marketing and PR for both retail and the park was underutilized grossly. But Germany in particular isn't so great with welcoming groundbreaking new concepts. At the same time we have high standards both for acceptance and from the implicated cost of meeting these standards. It would have taken the park at least 5 years to draw in significant crowds, and especially with family vacations or even day trips people here tend to stick to what they know with the limited free time they have. Generally Bremen is well situated close to the A1, which connects northern Germany and namely Hamburg with the Ruhrgebiet (one of the world's most populated regions) and South Germany. Bremen is a bit over an hour drive away from Hamburg and about 3 hours from the Ruhr-region (Northrhine-Westphalia). Parks and Attractions in Germany hardly ever turn out to be a succes in Germany. Parks like Phantasialand built up and raised the bar slowly with steady growth to support the risktaking. A great example is the abandoned Universal Studios Krefeld project, also in the early 2000s. Landmark Entertainment had already acquired the real estate and was quite far ahead in the planning stage when they eventually got fed up with the ever more scrutinizing regulations and limitations they were facing with the local legislature in the region. "Your CityWalk is too expansive, it will drain our local Downtown businesses" was the last straw argument for LE to pull out. But they also realized how they would struggle more with attendance than ealy EuroDisney had. People in Europe generally take longer to accomodate with new entertainment offerings, but Germany is even worse in that regard. To underscore my perceptive observation: I'm a German multimedia artist who never clearly fell into a clearly discernable (stereotypical) direction and thus my talents and creativity were never welcomed in Germany, so i concentrated on utilizing the internet from early on. Projects like Epcot3D, my music, ride designs, philosophies and all else i do.. Most Germans only like what is similar to what they are used to. That's why Space Center, among many other cool and revolutionary Ideas failed or never came to fruition.
@@ArtificialArtist man and I thought America had a hard time with change sometimes. I’m glad you have an outlet for your artistry, even if it isn’t immediately close to home!
@@PoseidonEntertainment As someone in America who works with various people from around Europe, they are constantly baffled if I even hint that I have to drive anywhere for an hour or longer. Being fine with driving long distances really seems to be an American phenomenon, perhaps a side effect of how massive and spread out America is.
It's not a whole theme park, but I would like to mention the Space Center in Utah
We have The Christa McAuliffe Space Center and quite a few more that branched out from it.
I volunteered at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center all throughout middle school and also helped out at the other space centers a few times.
Each of these Space Centers are space simulation centers that are inspired by Star Trek. So basically you and your friends come for either 2.5 or 5 hours depending on how much time you paid for, and go onto one of our ships. From there you get to engage in one of our many stories and work together to achieve your objective, whether that be working together or fighting against other alien species, exploring new places for the federation. Or inspecting something that went wrong in federation space. Or anything else
It's really fun and there's so many fun scenarios that can happen, if you and a group of friends are ever in Utah I really recommend trying it out 😄
As a volunteer, I got to play a lot of different characters like generic intruders, space pirates, various aliens (my favorite was the time I got to dress as a drashnok and scare the crap out of some college students by chasing them around and growling and snarling everywhere), and various lower deck crew members.
Volunteers also get to help make sure that the crew's ships computers are doing what they should and answer stuff that the crew sends out like outgoing scans or messages to the lower decks. And we got to help set up scenes for whenever the crew leaves the ship. It was really fun :3
If anyone has any questions about it I'm happy to answer the best I can ^^
Definitely sounds like it's on the verge of being considered a theme park to me. I passed through the airport in SLC on my way to Vegas last year but it made me realize that a trip to Utah would be really interesting. I was really interested in the geography and the lake and figured that there's a lot of natural sight-seeing to do. Whenever I make a trip, I'll have to plan other things to do too, so that sounds like it will be going on the list.
@@PoseidonEntertainment Cool, hope you have fun when you come here 😄
The cinema actually stayed open after the bankruptcy of the Space Park, and I can remember how weird it was to walk from one end of this giant but totally empty building only to get to it before it was developed into the "Waterfront".
I was there today - it's a mall now, featuring Bremen's best cinema.
It's never a good sign, when something closing is the biggest news a place gets.
It's like hearing a movie is now available to rent and thinking "oh, that was in theaters"?
wow i did not expect this to become a video essay, went there as a kid a couple of times
The Space Park Bremen is one of my best childhood memories. I visited it twice with my parents as we were quite some space and sci-fi fans (i mean, i grew up watching Star Trek and Star Gate). I rememebr beeing frightened by the last screen in the spacequest darkride, as some sort of Alien eyes came ot of the screen into your face. And i almost caused an acciedent on the coaster, as i thought: how is the ride without closing this helmet thing? So i let it open, the operator who checked it didn't noticed and the ride startetd. While we pass next to the second operator, he told me to close it, which i first still refused, but after a few seconds, i leand in and i finally closed it.
The Borg Encouter had something special. As the ride in Bremen seems to be a bit different from the Vegas one with less Actors, but the first room featured consols like on a federation starship. As a Trekki-Child it was awesome to play with this panels, althougt they were just stickers. But then the third and final room of the encounter was a big cinema which seats had an aipressure function in them. At a specific moment in the film, air was filled into the seat to simulate beeing pushed by the borg. At first i thought: which bloody child kicks my seat? But after the ride, my mom explainted that this was a special feature.
Damn, i miss this park...
Superb video as always. Apologies for the 'actually...' comment, but the drop tower was actually built by Huss, who at the time were also based in Bremen I believe.
It's embarrassing to be corrected, but I find that I'm often wrong about details like that lol. I pinned a correction in the comments
Man this park was amazing. We lived about an hour away so my parents took us 4 or 5 times before they closed down. Broke my heart when they had to close.
By the way the roller coaster was way cooler than it looks on video, it was like legit being in a flight simulator in space.
that borg encounter show traumatised my 7-year old self. They seperated me from my dad as the actor where hurrying us into the theater and at that young age I couldn't seperate show from reality. 20 years later and i still think that show was scary. I loved the park tho and was sad when it closed
While I'm sad I never got to see the original Space Park, I can at least say that visiting the Waterfront is alotta fun nowadays.
We have an Arcade, nerd stores (Gamestop and Elbenwald) and a few more places to get merchandise and electronics.
I've been to autition for the star trek borg show, back in the day. Some higher ups from Paramount were there to supervise the casting. None of us got the role. Afterwards we heard, that they already had the suits made and had to select the actors base in their size to fit the suit, which none of the our casting candidates did
I did not know it only existed for such a short time. My father went with me once as a child and it was fun. I was not into scifi yet so didn't enjoy it as much as I would today. Kind of sad how they messed this up. Considering how popular stargate is in Germany it would have been very successful if it had stayed open for a few years.
I went there for a friends birthday party as a kid and honestly it was pretty damn cool from what I remember (I especially loved the roller coaster), though my strongest memory of that day is the mother of one of my friends mistaking the sugar and salt dispensers and thus ending up with some very sweet fries and schnitzel.
Really like the dynamic music you played over your 20 second or so video logo banner (2:30). I have always appreciated the sophisticated (not dumbed-down) narration that you create. However, I wonder if Generation Alpha has any idea what you mean when you refer to a ride as an 'E Ticket' attraction. I guess only us Old People (lol) know what you mean. Another excellent entry Poseidon !!
I'm really not a fan of the side of RUclips that doesn't think its audience can't handle anything other than constant stimulation. There's definitely a significant audience of people out there who appreciate slower, more thought out entertainment.
Thank you Dad for taking me to Space Park when we could! :)
Fun fact from here (Bremen): Now it’s a mall and this is one of the most hated destinations in the whole city
Good video!! Looking forward to more content focused on the actual theme parks though.
It's quite literally a theme park?
@@PoseidonEntertainment sry for not elaborating, I just meant I preferred the videos on highly immersive theme parks like Disney Universal, and Fantasialand. But it was still a fun video to watch! Keep it up!!!
Thank you for the video! I was lucky enough to visit the park. It was well executed and had a very impressive aesthetic for the time. Jet it lacked depth and was a "one and done" for most people except the nerds. Still i found most attractions to be impressive and innovative for 2004. Also remember the park basically being a ghost town.
The thing about space is that there’s just so much of it.
Awesome video and great job finding so much footage of this place! Just wanted to point out the drop tower was actually a rare Huss shot'n'drop, not the more common S&S Space Shot. The easiset way to tell the difference is the Huss model has the large square visor at the top of the passenger vehicle, and theres also a visibly moving counterweight in the center, unlike the S&S models!
Thanks for the info, I pinned a correction
8:08 "or something that looked decent for 2004" truth 😂 lemme dust off my KSwiss and put on my Mark Echo shirt 🎉
you should really talk about the new beijing jurassic world ride, its not a jurassic world water ride. but instead its a legit trackless dark ride with crazy good animatronics... it has screens but the transitions between screen and animatronic IS SO SMOOTH... for example near the end there's the t rex and indominus and they begin roaring at eachother and then you go hide in a stall and the stall has a screen and then it plays out an animation of claire throwing that flare or whatever at the indominus and the t rex and raptors attack him.. and then he gets thrown into a wall by the t rex.... your vehicle turns around and the wall next to the screen is destroyed and theres an animatronic of the indominus twitching slightly, lying on a pile of rubble, I recommend watching this video, or attraction 360's video from 2/3 months ago: ruclips.net/video/NrK0W4ec6ao/видео.html&ab_channel=Attractions360%C2%B0
Should you ever cover another small German themepark, I really suggest Filmpark Babelsberg!
While not very impressive when it comes to thrills, it is part of one of Germans two major movie making centres, being basically (very small) a German universal studios.
It has a whole lot of history behind it, being now 31 years old, and I think could be a very nice short topic for you to make a video about!
Yeah, looks interesting, I'll look more into it
i'd kill for a space-themed park. KSC is the next best thing I suppose
I appreciate the educational aspect, but I really wouldn't mind a few rides there.
Yeah this park would have not lasted more then 10-15 years propably.
But it closing with in just 7 months is really a shame.
Indoor theme parks always seem to live on borrowed time. I'm surprised that the Adventuredome has lasted as long as it has.
Looked cool imo
Great video can you maybe do a video on more Tampa attractions like Mosi or I know it’s just an airport but the Tampa airport is just incredibly well designed and convenient best airport I’ve ever been to trust me I’ve been to a lot of airports. Anyway thought they would make interesting video topics
MOSI is long dead, I don't know how it's still even open. I remember how massive it was a child though, but I doubt enough surviving media exists to make a video on.
Yeah It’s really sad how it’s declined it used to be such an awesome place when I was little but since
The second building closed and the imax theater. Also the butterfly garden. It only takes like 30 minutes. They had a cool space exhibit but over time
It just got tiring. I went two years ago for a cool
Limited time dinosaur exhibit which was cool. Anyway a friend of mine’s mom worked there got to go after hours for events which was cool. Anyway maybe Tampa airport is an interesting topic or Legoland Florida I hope to go back there soon
The Planet Quest vehicles ended up in THE PETRONAS SCIENCE CENTRE?!
They appear to be the same lol
I will give my life for Poseidon Entertainment.
Choose your words carefully ❤😂
I need you to rewatch this video another 7,000 times on repeat
@@PoseidonEntertainmentPLEASE make a video about Movie Land in Italy.
6 minutes ago? Woah!!!
I lived in Bremen, DE in 2002 and didn't even hear about this. This would have been interesting to check out...This is one of the reasons I love your channel.
In der Waterfront kann man noch ein paar vereinzelte Überreste finden, wenn man genau sucht.
@@Quert_Zuiopue Meine Familie vor Ort wollte nie nach Vergnügungsparks suchen, aber ich liebe sie. Ich verbrachte die meiste zeit damit geschichte aufzunehmen. Obwohl ich auch gerne nach solchen dingen suche, werde ich das nächste mal, wenn ich in Bremen bin tun.
KSC is my favourite place to visit in Florida. The upsell tours of the launch complexes are fantastic.
I've been thinking about going back soon and looking into the upcharge experiences. Most seemed worth the cost
seems like most of the props and animatronics in the jurassic park river adventure works again, most animatronics look very smooth (like the baby stegosaurus is almost life-like now) and most of the effects are back, like the raptor running up to the cage. The doors still have a 50/50 break down chance and the trex appears early, but overall the ride works great now!
Looks more like a Huss shot n drop. not an S&s
Others have also pointed this out lol. I just pinned a correction
Thanks for making this video. Its great to see the history of such a short lived park that would otherwise have probably been mostly lost to time. You put all of it together into a clear and concise documentary. Keep up the good work.
As for 22€ being expensive for Space Park Bremen, it really was Europapark was 26€, Phantasialand was 24.5€ and the close by Heide Park was at 22€ as well. You can probably tell why Space Park Bremen was seen as rather expensive.
It's a shame it never really got any attention the idea and amount of work put in really makes me wish it lasted longer
Lol, judging from the video performance, I'm not surprised the park wasn't attracting people
#DisneyDiva
Was here ❤ lol.
Heading to Disneyland on Friday rain and all smh but the show must go on. Birthday March 31st 🎉❤.
Yoooo there was a Stargate ride!? That's the coolest thing, I've only gotten into Stargate in the past few years I'm sad I never got to try it.
Cool video, Congratulations, We are actually working in Bremen
I live in Bremen and am sad that I never got experience Space Park for the brief time it was open, though I've been inside the complex, now called Waterfront, many times since. Some of the old space theming is still visible in the interior and a rocket model was still displayed outside the complex for several years, though it's gone now.
i remember going there as a child my parents took me there because me and my brother are big star trek fans and there was a star trek themend ride...
Considering how expensive theme parks are now, even in 2004 this place with amazing theming sounds like an absolute steal for enthusiasts. I would have went if I knew it existed.
ich finde es cool, dass jemand ein richtiges erklärendes video dazu macht. 😊
Thanks so much for this video! I actually visited Bremen back in 2004 and knew about this place but ultimately didn’t visit. As a result I’m kind of obsessed with it. Unfortunately it’s incredibly difficult to find video or even just photos of this place. So I very much appreciate all the work that went into this video. I can only imagine how much time you must have spent on obscure early 2000s German websites.
Ultimately, I think the park suffered from poor marketing and charging way too much for admission. Next to nobody knew this park existed and the ones who did, prior to visiting, had no idea what kinds of attractions it offered. The descriptions were pretty vague. You wouldn’t even guess that Galaxy Express was a coaster or that Moonbase One was just a fancy playground. I can’t even recall seeing actual photos of the interior. All I’d seen at the time were concept drawings and early-2000s CG renders. With every other theme park people knew what they where getting and were much more comfortable with spending large amounts of money. Whilst 22 euros doesn’t seem that much nowadays, it certainly was at the time. For comparison: Germany‘s #1 theme park, Europa Park, charged 26 euros at the time and probably delivered a better experience, despite being a Disney knock-off.
A few other things to note: As far as German theme parks are concerned Space Park had pretty good public transport access. I think the bigger issue was its location within Germany. Bremen, Bremerhaven and Oldenburg are pretty much the only somewhat larger metropolitan areas within a 1 hr drive of this site and they’re not big enough to sustain a theme park. In order for Space Park to thrive it would have needed to attract people from the Hamburg, Hannover or Rhine-Ruhr area, which not only means longer journeys, especially on public transport, but also direct competition with other parks such as Heide Park, Hansa Park, Movie Park (back then Warner Bros. Movie World) and Phantasialand, all of which are pre-established parks with cheaper admission.
Apparently, the original plan for the park was to charge on a per-ride basis. This would have allowed for mall visitors to visit the park’s dining venues and just seems like a much smarter idea imo.
The only component that actually worked right from the get go was the adjacent multipley theater Cinespace which also took over the IMAX screen after the park closed, but discontinued the IMAX license.
That's a lot of really interesting and insightful information!
Always interesting. As someone with motion sickness the idea of a rollercoaster with pull over headpiece with screens is horrifying. Kinda like the Harry Potter ride with that kanga (sp) contraption. I rode it once with my eyes mostly closed and I was so sick I stupidly thought well how much worse could it be with eyes open and found out on second ride it COULD be even worse.
Was it my imagination or did you mention George S. Hamid in there?? I was intrigued because that was the name of the owner of steel pier in Atlantic City best remembered as the place that had the diving horses. That sent me off on memories of many many visits to that attraction during my childhood in the 50’s so you managed to send me to nostalgia land very inadvertently.
When I saw the star gate portals I was hurtled forward in time to the coming portals in epic universe . Thank you again for site with content I always look forward to and wow, you do have a great voice!
George S. Hammond is apparently a character from Stargate, but I have little context beyond that.
@@PoseidonEntertainment thanks. I did watch the stargaze show and have a vague recollection that the general may have been general Hammond but my ear heard a name I relate to the steel pier. The pier was a fascinating place but probably outside the recognition of most of your viewer demographic. It’s currently a very dinky amusement park but it really had a very storied history with a water show featuring diving horses, stage shows whose headliners ranged from John Philip Sousa to The Rolling Stones, a diving bell underwater r ride, a children’s amateur hour attraction ( “the stars of tomorrow today”, a movie theatre, a big band hall that later featured a tv teen dance show. And all that available at one time for one price. ( however enter the toilets cost 10 cents) . It was the equivalent of Disneyland in my youth for east coast kids who couldn’t even imagine ever flying to California to see Walt’s beautiful, clean park.
Man that Borg experience looks like it would have been a blast
7:45 that’s wild Tom cruise is now gonna film in space for a movie.
This is so interesting, I never knew this existed!!!
While it's a shame it went under so quickly, I totally get it. With it being (largely) indoor and focussing on just one theme, it's bound to have a limited target audience. 1,5 million visitors a year never, ever would have happened. Even large German parks these days, like Phantasialand and Heide-Park, draw only around 2 million a year.
Very nice video, it's hard to find footage and photos of some of these rides so you definitely did your research.
Edit: oh, and as for the world's coolest drop tower, my money's on Mystery Castle. Although most would probably say Tower of Terror. :)
Ah wow, I didn't know those parks could see such low attendance, or at least low compared to what a lot of U.S. parks see. That's interesting to know though.
I have yet to visit any space themed parks or exhibits, so I'll take a look at these and see what works out!
KSC really is incredible. There's something really surreal about seeing real rockets and artifacts from space
I have no connection to this beyond a family name, but couldn't think of a better engagement comment
I appreciate it. I'm surprised with how little viewership the video is getting, but I also think it's a bit too obscure to really resonate with people.
Good god the star gate attraction! Love the showm but even that 30 seconds of it nearly broke me
Where did you see it?
I've watched the show several times now. If it wasn't for the stargate at the beginning, I wouldn't have know it was related lol
The shot of the mall that never opened at 15:37 has something that looks like the Ancient Mycenae ruins in Greece. Anyone know what it was supposed to be?
It's the food court. It was stripped of all space theme decorations and later finally opened when the Waterfront shoppping centre was opened. I've been there quite a few times.
@@Quert_Zuiopue danke, such weird shapes and layout
@@Quert_Zuiopue Wait, did you change your handle? I thought it was spelled differently