KIRMES & Park REVUE (English) Special Ikarus (Vorschau)

Steve van den Kerkhof
(CEO of the Plopsa-Group, left)
and Patrick Elmendorff (Studio
100 Media, right) together with
the German principal performer
of the daily soap “Das Haus
Anubis”
The decades old “makeshift”
entrance will no long exist
next year
Plopsa’s Strategy in Germany
The defined goal of the Plopsa-Group is to establish
four locations in Germany by 2020, for which a total
amount of 100 million Euro has been set aside, the
half of which is for the new flagship Holiday Park
(incl. purchase). The three other locations have not
been decided but should be across the country, so
that national advertising pays off. For cost reasons
there is a look out for already existing theme parks
or indoor parks explained Steve van den Kerkhof at
the press conference at the end of June. The erection
of a new park together with a strong partner is
not out of the question however.
One could suppose that one of these strong partners
could well be the German television station
ZDF. At the very least, since the takeover of the
EM.TV licences for Maya, Wickie, Tabaluga and
other characters, there has been a stable business
relationship between ZDF and Plopsa/Studio100.
Besides that, the cooperation with the German
television station has resulted in the new version of
the Maya the Bee comic series (produced in Paris
and London), which will be aired from 2013 – and
with that actually being one year too late for the best
possible marketing – with Maya flying around looking
somewhat rounder and in rather glarier colours
in 3D optic. The bizarre aspect of the whole thing
is that of all people, the earlier Park Manager of
Holiday Park Wolfgang Schneider – together with
Fritz Wurms (Hollywood- and Safaripark Stukenbrock),
and the recently deceased Gottlieb Löffelhardt
(Phantasialand) – successfully sued against
the planned ZDF-Mediapark, and with that prevented
the construction of a theme park realized with
public monies.
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