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Fnord
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10 Aug 2021, 1:12 pm

The dream of a Bible theme park died in Florida last week, after 20 years of innovation and renovation -- not to mention cash infusions, cost cuts, and rate hikes -- failed to make the Holy Land Experience financially sustainable.

The 14-acre park in was once conceived as Christian competition for Walt Disney World.  Evangelical visionaries imagined a family entertainment experience that could pull at least a portion of Orlando’s annual visitors from the mouse’s magic kingdom to the kingdom of God.

But it never quite worked.  The reenactments of resurrection, scale miniature model of first-century Jerusalem, animatronic John Wycliffe, and the Trin-i-tee mini golf course were never enough.  While the “living biblical museum” attracted attention, controversy, and not a few visitors willing to pay the $17, then $29, and ultimately $50 ticket prices, the Holy Land Experience couldn’t find a firm financial footing.

For the last few years of its existence, it had annual operating deficits of about $5 million, with no one willing to step up to cover that as a ministry cost. [...]


Source:
 This Christianity Today Article 

This is not surprising, since charging people $50 per person for essentially the same experience they could have in any megachurch makes very little sense.  As far as I know, there is no admission fee to enter the Grand Mosque in Mecca or to visit the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.  Yet some Christians seem to believe that they can sell G^D's word for profit.

"Den of Thieves", indeed!



Tim_Tex
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10 Aug 2021, 2:08 pm

Reminds me of Heritage USA or Praiseland (the park Flanders started on the Simpsons)


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naturalplastic
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10 Aug 2021, 3:31 pm

Well... at least the "Ark Experience" in Tennesee is hanging on. Though, as I understand it, that too is only barely hanging on.



auntblabby
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10 Aug 2021, 3:57 pm

today's fake xtians all seem to think that worshipping god and mammon are the same GD thing. are the real xtian messengers of love so outnumbered as to be drowned out by the mammon worshippers?



Last edited by auntblabby on 10 Aug 2021, 4:13 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Fnord
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10 Aug 2021, 4:08 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Well... at least the "Ark Experience" in Tennessee is hanging on. Though, as I understand it, that too is only barely hanging on.
Attendance seems to have fallen short of predictions by about 20%, although this is disputed; but it would not be the only time someone has inflated attendance numbers to make themselves look more important/popular than they really are.


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