Anderswelt adventure park
| Anderswelt adventure park | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| place | Heidenreichstein | |||
| opening | 2002 | |||
| Visitors | 108,000 (2002 to 2004) | |||
| surface | 5.6 hectares | |||
| building-costs | 75 million schillings (€ 5.5 million) | |||
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Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 0 ″ N , 15 ° 7 ′ 0 ″ E
The Anderswelt in the municipality of Heidenreichstein was the first theme park in Austria and Europe with an authentic story about the Waldviertel .
Brief description
The Anderswelt adventure park was opened on March 24, 2002 and closed again in autumn 2004 due to a lack of visitors. In total, around 108,000 paying people visited the amusement park during this period.
Among the theme parks planned and existing in Austria in 2004, only the Otherworld dealt with the Celtic theme as well as with the mysticism and the phenomena of the Waldviertel.
As early as 2001, the name Ana-Park, originally chosen after the Celtic earth goddess Ana , had to be changed for copyright reasons because the international Japanese hotel chain and airline Ana threatened to file a lawsuit.
founding
The initiative to create a regional tourist highlight came from the municipality of Heidenreichstein , which, against the background of the migration tendencies from the region caused by the lack of jobs, had the concept for the Anderswelt adventure park developed together with the company settlement company of the Lower Austrian provincial government .
Regional political aspects outweighed the concerns about the location, which was conceivably unfavorable due to the lack of transport links. The operating company, Anderswelt Errichtungs- und Betriebsgesellschaft mbH, Heidenreichstein, was half owned by the municipality of Heidenreichstein and half belonged to several local entrepreneurs. The managing directors were initially Oliver Rath and then Thomas Hetzendorfer.
The visitor potential analysis was based on a circular 100 kilometers catchment area, without taking into account traffic routes, borders and other criteria that influence the catchment area. This resulted in a highly optimistic total of 5 million people within the catchment area in Austria and the Czech Republic.
The Anderswelt was opened in March 2002 and should be a tourist highlight in the upper Waldviertel. The funding agencies of the state of Lower Austria expected impulses for tourism in the Waldviertel . Alf Krauliz could be won over for the artistic design of the opening party. In June 2002 he staged a festival of fire with fire artists , dancers and musicians ( Zabine , Deishovida, Bernhard Egger Blues Band and many others).
Buildings and landscaping
The amusement park was built from 2000 to 2002 based on designs by architect Gerhard Macho from Gmünd and based on ideas from Explore Erlebnisproduktionen GmbH, Vienna, mainly with public funds of around ATS 75 million (approx.
The architecture of the building is consciously based on the aesthetics of places of worship and temples . It's a disk-shaped building, half in the water, half on land.
A view of the area from the air reveals strange surface structures. In the center of a field surrounded by an earth wall, there is a cylindrical structure, embedded in a dead straight path that is oriented exactly east-west. At the east end of the track there is a rune - the symbol of the Otherworld. To the north-east of the cylinder a raven can be seen, and a little to the south a snake crawling out of a body of water, the shape of which is clearly embryonic. Another curiously labyrinthine structure can be seen between the raven and the cylinder. An oval band runs around the field, which, if you relate it to the pentagonal structure, is reminiscent of a small crab from the waters of the northern forest .
Theme, leisure facilities
According to the information provided by the operating company, it was a multimedia and interactive theme park that took up the story of two natural scientists who disappeared in the Waldviertel and made them tangible for the visitor as part of a staging. The phenomena typical for the region such as the raised bog , will- o'-the-wisps and granite temples were incorporated into the design and thus created a strong regional reference. A mystical story from the time of the Celts was shown and told .
The Anderswelt was an indoor and outdoor adventure park on a 5.6 hectare area belonging to the municipality of Heidenreichstein with an approximately one hectare bathing pond including a lawn, a beach volleyball and skate park including a fun park and a herb and orchard with old traditional varieties . The actual adventure world only comprised around 900 m², some of which were below the surface of the earth and water. An attached shop took up about 110 m². The largest part of the facility was the outdoor facility, which was freely accessible.
Marketing, visitor numbers, bankruptcy
Marketing measures also included television films in the regional ARD programs. 120,000 visitors per year were expected, 55,000 in 2002, 30,000 in 2003 and 23,000 in 2004, which was a total of only 108,000 paying visitors in three years. Given the downward trend, the closure was unavoidable.
The insolvency proceedings opened against the operating company in 2006 due to the reclaiming of subsidies were settled in 2007 and ended in 2009. The budget of the municipality of Heidenreichstein is burdened with an annual amount of € 250,000 for years to come despite the bankruptcy.
Avalon Otherworld
In 2006, the youth and cultural association Avalon , which had existed in Allentsteig and Krems since 1992, leased the restaurant and the outdoor area and, according to its own statements, opened the largest youth cultural area in Austria, which is open all year round. Concert and party events were held. In order not to complicate the exploitation efforts for the area, the one-year lease was not extended by the municipality of Heidenreichstein.
On October 19, 2006, at the end of the newly founded literature festival Literatur im Nebel, a festive event took place in the Avalon Otherworld. It played Nim Sofyan , the winners of the Austrian World Music Awards of 2004.
After the end of the otherworld
In 2012, on the area sold in 2008 to the company Käsemacher, Waidhofen an der Thaya , the opening of a cheese adventure world planned with an investment sum of € 6.2 million, including a production facility, which is to bring 60,000 visitors to the region annually.
literature
- Paul Reuber / Peter Schnell (eds.): Postmodern leisure styles and leisure spaces, new offers in tourism , publications on tourism and leisure by the German Society for Tourism Sciences ev, in particular Part IV: Stagings and artificial worlds of experience: Birgit Pikkemaat, Mike Peters, Kerstin Schoppitsch: Success factors of adventure worlds, S 159ff, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-503093-07-6
- Information sheet from the former operator: Anderswelt Heidenreichstein , PDF
- Description of insolvency of KSV 1870: query from February 23, 2010
- The standard of August 27, 2008: The cheese makers in the witch forest PDF
Web links
- Die Käsemacher , accessed on February 27, 2010.
- Homepage of the municipality of Heidenreichstein , accessed on February 27, 2010.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Birgit Pikkemaat, Mike Peters, Kerstin Schoppitsch: Success factors of adventure worlds, in: Paul Reuber / Peter Schnell (Eds.): Postmodern leisure styles and leisure spaces, new offers in tourism, publications on tourism and leisure by the German Society for Tourism Sciences ev, p. 175 , Berlin 2006
- ↑ Cornelia Schießel: Critical success factors of the theme park industry with special consideration of the Austrian market , diploma thesis in the context of the university course Marketing and Sales, Vienna 2004, p. 23ff, case study PDF queried on February 26, 2010
- ↑ Cornelia Schießel: Critical success factors of the theme park industry with special consideration of the Austrian market , diploma thesis in the context of the university course Marketing and Sales, Vienna 2004, p 116ff, case study PDF queried on February 26, 2010
- ↑ Cornelia Schießel: Critical success factors of the theme park industry with special consideration of the Austrian market , diploma thesis in the context of the university course Marketing and Sales, Vienna 2004, p 116ff, case study PDF queried on February 26, 2010
- ↑ Österreich-Journal: Anderswelt explains phenomena in the Waldviertel Press text PDF requested on February 26, 2010
- ↑ Andreas Kornprobst, Explore, ErlebnisProduktionen GmbH, A vision becomes reality: The ANA Park in the Waldviertel , project description for ECO Plus, Niederösterreichs Regionale Entwicklungsagentur Gesellschaft mbH, Vienna, ANA Park Waldviertel queried on February 27, 2010
- ↑ Description of the event location at www.Events.at requested on February 27, 2010
- ↑ Saarländischer Rundfunk, 100% Urlaub, broadcast on May 8 and 14, 2004, query from February 23, 2010 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Der Käsemacher on RegiowikiAT accessed on December 12, 2014
