Tuesday, May. 19, 2009

Freestyle Music Park manager ready to ride

Theme park professional tackles lots of pieces

05-15-09 Work continues on the Time Machine roller coaster at Freestyle Music Park. Photos by Tom Murray / tmurray@thesunnews.com

Myrtle Beach | John Fitzgerald's theme park career started when he was a teenager working as a ride operator for a Six Flags park in New Jersey. It has taken him to top positions at theme parks in Germany and Spain.

Now, he's landed in Myrtle Beach, where the new owners of Freestyle Music Park, the former Hard Rock Park, have tapped him to be the park's general manager.

"I've set myself up as a guy who does start-up projects and sort of saves distressed properties," Fitzgerald said recently as he sat in the park's offices. "I guess it's what I like to do. I like the challenge."

Whether Fitzgerald is the right man for the job, and whether the park will be successful remains to be seen. He spent seven years as the general manager of Terra Mitica, a theme park in the beach resort town of Benidorm, Spain. Despite some good years, the park's performance was certainly not flawless.

Fitzgerald comes to the former Hard Rock Park at a crucial time. The $400 million park, which debuted in April 2008, filed for bankruptcy in September and was purchased for $25 million by FPI MB Entertainment in February.

It reopens Saturday under the new ownership, which dropped the Hard Rock name after failing to come to an agreement with Hard Rock International, which owns the brand.

"It was the poster child for theme park failures last year," Fitzgerald said. "Assembling a good team and making it work is certainly a challenge."

Fitzgerald, 45, grew up in the New York City and Boston areas. He was attracted to the theme park business because of the puzzles that it poses. Few other enterprises, he said, have so many working parts - stores, rides, security, shows and restaurants.

And there's nothing better than being in the business of fun, said Fitzgerald, who served as director of operations at Movie Park Germany when it operated under Warner Bros. in the late 1990s. He was also director of operations at Terra Mitica from 1998 to 2000, he said.

Fitzgerald's tenure as general manager at Terra Mitica, a joint venture between the regional government in Valencia, Spain, and private business, had its ups and downs. The park, which cost about $510 million in today's dollars, opened in 2000 but filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004.

Paramount Parks ran the attraction from 2002 to 2004 with Fitzgerald as its general manager, but he stayed on after Paramount withdrew. Fitzgerald said he sought to cut costs, and under his leadership, Terra Mitica emerged from bankruptcy in 2006 when it sold land to a developer for about $115 million in today's dollars.

It had two profitable years before posting another loss in 2008, which Fitzgerald attributes to the poor global economy. According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, the park lost 15 million euros, or about $20 million in today's dollars, and its attendance dropped 10 percent from 2007 to about 1 million visitors.

Steve Baker, the president of Baker Leisure Group, which is a partner in FPI MBE and is managing the park, said Fitzgerald's experience at turning a profit at a previously bankrupt park would be helpful as he manages Freestyle Music Park.

"He had to learn how to function under duress as far as the park was concerned, and then bring it up to success," Baker said, noting that Fitzgerald was his top choice for the job. "And he did that."

Aside from a simple name change, the park has tried to rebrand itself as more family friendly by adding a new kids' area this year. Next year, Fitzgerald said improvements could include something geared toward a teen or young adult demographic. A water thrill ride, he said, would make sense.

Tickets were not yet on sale as of Monday, but they should be available for purchase soon, Fitzgerald said.

Dennis Speigel, the president of International Theme Park Services, a consulting firm based in Ohio, said Fitzgerald appeared to be a good fit for the job. Like the former Hard Rock Park, Terra Mitica filed for bankruptcy and is in a beach tourist town.

"Lots of similarities exist between Terra Mitica and Myrtle Beach," Speigel said. "I'd rather have a pilot in there like [Fitzgerald] who's been through some of this. He will certainly know better the difficulties which are facing the park ... than somebody who's just coming in green."

But Speigel said the rebranded Freestyle Music Park will invariably face the same problems as Terra Mitica - both are directly competing with the beach for visitors, many of whom have big theme parks back at home.

"It's even going to be more difficult this year," Speigel said. "The Hard Rock name last year at least had some identification and branding. Freestyle doesn't mean anything, really. It's an uphill battle."