Zombie Theme Park!?

[Ceridan]

Check this out...http://www.indiegogo.com/zworlddetroit

[Dr.Epic]

That sounds potentially awesome!

[Radar]

That sounds potentially awesome!
Indeed! It could be a massive LARP that managed to break through to the general public.

They never used LARP in their description of the project, but it totaly is one.

[Traab]

It sucks you cant REALLY fight back in this, as I have always been a proponent of, the best defense is a good offense. But I like the idea. It might be an interesting challenge to fix the abandoned areas up so they are safe, without removing the abandoned look. It would also be interesting to see how the "zombies" are setup to act. I mean, think about it. After a year or so of doing this every day, they will have seen pretty much every strategy possible and know how to counter it. Will they continue to walk mindlessly into traps or walk past little hidden areas people have setup for themselves, knowing they are there?

[Othesemo]

Ooo, sounds interesting. I'll definitely keep an eye on this.

[polity4life]

This has been in our newspapers for a couple weeks now. It will never take off and that's a good thing. I won't discuss what these monies and energies should be used for since that would delve into politics. Instead, I'll just explain why I think it won't work.

This project is asking people to voluntarily enter and temporarily occupy derelict, structurally unsound buildings that have been neglected by cheap landlords and the city. Even non-profit and publicly funded land banks don't have the money to rehabilitate these parcels. Every person from employee to customer would be at risk without radical renovations done to the property. Also, given the state of the infrastructure, repairs may be required on roads, water lines, power lines, etc. The city hasn't made those repairs since those areas are depopulated and it likely won't make those repairs to accommodate a risky business venture.

If they can bypass those hurdles and if they find their ideal location, which seems to be a large, continuous swath of abandoned buildings owned by the city, it would cost a fortune acquire and convince the city to rezone that area. Ontop of it all property taxes in Detroit are ridiculously high and the city isn't going to reduce that rate anytime soon.

The final straw is the distribution of police in Detroit. Presently, the bulk of the force patrols the commercial and cultural districts; downtown, the stadiums, midtown, Wayne State University, etc. The neighborhoods not adjacent to those districts do not sport the necessary police presence to combat crime. Mind you, a fantastic percentage of the crime in Detroit takes place in these particular neighborhoods. From the sounds of it, this idea would require a neighborhood away from one of those districts in order to have enough empty space for operations. Building this would require an already strained police force to regularly patrol a new area; this is a commitment the city may not want to make.

I hate to be a downer on this project but those are my few cents.

[Fan]

People do this all the time in abandoned factory complexes for official Airsoft tournaments. I don't see why something like a huge ass larp would be any different.

I mean it's not like you go into a zombie apocalypse survival park expecting cinnabons.:smalltongue:

[polity4life]

I mean it's not like you go into a zombie apocalypse survival park expecting cinnabons.:smalltongue:

Clearly, sir, we have differing expectations of the luxuries afforded to those willing to endure a faux undead armageddon.

I understand that other ventures re-purpose abandoned lots, but what this group is looking for are lots that likely have been gutted by scavengers and haven't had any semblance of maintenance conducted on both the private property on the land and the public property surrounding and below it. It would take a good amount of coin to bring these properties back into the world of building code compliance.

[Fan]

Clearly, sir, we have differing expectations of the luxuries afforded to those willing to endure a faux undead armageddon.

I understand that other ventures re-purpose abandoned lots, but what this group is looking for are lots that likely have been gutted by scavengers and haven't had any semblance of maintenance conducted on both the private property on the land and the public property surrounding and below it. It would take a good amount of coin to bring these properties back into the world of building code compliance.

True enough, however, most theme parks build themselves from the ground up to do stupid ridiculous things.

For instance, Legoland, etc, builds many buildings entirely out of legos. Six Flags builds Rollercoasters.

I imagine the money for that would instead go towards keeping the buildings in operable condition, and providing materials for people to build barricades with / scavenge.

Then you'd also figure that the entry into this non standard park would be somewhere in the realm of 200 dollars a person given the size of the neighborhood, and the newness of the park, and demand from the geek community.

It'd be a risky business venture, but a workable one.

[Traab]

The startup capitol would likely be rather extreme. I honestly wonder if it would be cheaper to just start from scratch. Grab a large parcel of undeveloped land and build it all from the ground up, instead of gutting and rebuilding dozens of structures that are safety hazards at best, death traps at worst. Plus, as an old industrial district, there is the further cost of cleaning up the place from chemical spills, and dangerous materials, and other hazardous waste that is likely all over the place. I know thats a running theme with a number of abandoned warehouses and factories in my state. The real cost of fixing them is is in disposing of all the asbestos, chemicals, and oil that have poisoned the ground all around them.

[Fan]

The startup capitol would likely be rather extreme. I honestly wonder if it would be cheaper to just start from scratch. Grab a large parcel of undeveloped land and build it all from the ground up, instead of gutting and rebuilding dozens of structures that are safety hazards at best, death traps at worst. Plus, as an old industrial district, there is the further cost of cleaning up the place from chemical spills, and dangerous materials, and other hazardous waste that is likely all over the place. I know thats a running theme with a number of abandoned warehouses and factories in my state. The real cost of fixing them is is in disposing of all the asbestos, chemicals, and oil that have poisoned the ground all around them.

I'd have to agree that it'd be better for Detroit as well, and for the park, the location is fine, but GETTING there well... means going through Detroit and regardless of actual circumstances.

The city has a reputation.

[Tyndmyr]

The idea is interesting, but $145k won't buy anywhere close to what they seem to expect. It might buy a couple of utterly trashed houses. They will not be getting ~200 acres, as they expect. That's...not really a thing.

[Fan]

The idea is interesting, but $145k won't buy anywhere close to what they seem to expect. It might buy a couple of utterly trashed houses. They will not be getting ~200 acres, as they expect. That's...not really a thing.

I think the 145k is the base for a loan to get the actual amount of money.

[Radar]

The idea is interesting, but $145k won't buy anywhere close to what they seem to expect. It might buy a couple of utterly trashed houses. They will not be getting ~200 acres, as they expect. That's...not really a thing.
As far as I can tell from the description of the project, the kickstarter money is for the planning part of the project and probably for some PR and marketing stuff to sell the idea to someone with a proper boatload of money.

[Reverent-One]

The idea is interesting, but $145k won't buy anywhere close to what they seem to expect. It might buy a couple of utterly trashed houses. They will not be getting ~200 acres, as they expect. That's...not really a thing.

They're not expecting that. They say several times that they're not developers, they're trying to get a grass-roots campaign started. The money is for additional design work like surveying locations, developing site designs, game pilot testing, and attracting further attention/financing.

EDIT: Double Ninja'd!

[leafman]

I don't think this is project that will ever happen. It's a neat idea, but like others have said there is a ton of work that would have to be done just to make the buildings safe. That work unfortunately will cost millions of dollars; for reference there is a building in the downtown area of my city that has been under rennovation for years and changed hands a few times and they've spent well over 1.8 million and it still isn't considered safe. Then you pile insurance on top of that. In their description of how the game works not only are customers going to be running around the park, they have to come into physical contact with the zombies to "kill" them and if the customer gets "killed" they turn into a zombie. How they going to account for non-employee zombies groping and potentially injuring others or survivors doing the same to the zombies?

To sum up: neat idea, insurance nightmare.

[Traab]

I don't think this is project that will ever happen. It's a neat idea, but like others have said there is a ton of work that would have to be done just to make the buildings safe. That work unfortunately will cost millions of dollars; for reference there is a building in the downtown area of my city that has been under rennovation for years and changed hands a few times and they've spent well over 1.8 million and it still isn't considered safe. Then you pile insurance on top of that. In their description of how the game works not only are customers going to be running around the park, they have to come into physical contact with the zombies to "kill" them and if the customer gets "killed" they turn into a zombie. How they going to account for non-employee zombies groping and potentially injuring others or survivors doing the same to the zombies?

To sum up: neat idea, insurance nightmare.

Another downside is you cant expect the players to act like appropriate zombies either. And not only that, lets say they dont actually become zombies, what then? They just spent 200 bucks to get taken out 30 minutes into the game, thats gotta suck. So either you have wild card players being zombies and likely cheating like hell, "Oh no, im not a zombie, lets stick together! YOINK! Haha! Im totally a zombie! Now you are too!" Or doing the ever fun groping that you talked about, (also a risk by accident even from employees) causing all sorts of law suits, or you have pissed off people that feel cheated because they got nailed right out of the gate and have to go home. It IS an awesome idea, and I wish it could work, but the longer I think about it, the less feasible it becomes.

*EDIT* Sexual harassment wont just be on players by players either. Hell, a disney character cant walk the length of disneyland anymore without horny guys groping hoping to find boobs under mickey mouses shirt. Expect to run very low on female zombie employees very fast.

[Tyndmyr]

I think the 145k is the base for a loan to get the actual amount of money.

For 200 acres of city? This is...wildly unreasonable.

Let alone getting 200 continuous acres. Urban blight is definitely a thing, but it's often very patchy, with one store continuing to struggle on while the one next door goes down. You need kind of a lot of money to pull anything like this off.

And yes, getting liability insurance for playing in abandoned, unsafe buildings is inherently a nightmare.

[Ceridan]

To sum up: neat idea, insurance nightmare.

Waivers to play?

[leafman]

They could make guests sign liability waivers, but what about the employees? I don't know if that would even be legal in the States to make employees sign a liability waiver for a job like that. Even if it is legal, I definately wouldn't want to work at job where I could get seriously injured, disabled for life or even die (building collapse, pushed down a flight of stairs, etc.) with zero chance of compensation.

[Tyndmyr]

Waivers to play?

Waiver's only get you so far. They can be tossed out for not accurately depicting risks, or if you're determined to be grossly negligent. These are actually a concern here.

Hell, you may not even know what all the risks are. Two hundred acres of crumbling city can have all manner of dangers. The actual zombie game playing is probably pretty safe. However, if a structurally unsound building collapses on a dozen players, the waivers may not be enough to keep you from being sued to hell.

[polity4life]

Waivers aside, imagine the insurance policy this business would have to hold to defend itself from torts visited upon harmed employees and customers alike. Contracts wouldn't mitigate all liability.