Official Press release from Plopsa Media Center:

Unique cooperation between Center Parcs and Studio 100/Plopsa

Kabouter Plop (a gnome) will be opening a theme park in the Netherlands...

Plopsa, the themepark division of Studio 100 will build a new Plopsa-park in the Netherlands, in cooperation with Center Parcs. The new theme park will arise next to Center Parcs De Huttenheugte, close to Coevorden. This will be the first Plopsa-park which will be realized in the Netherlands. In Belgium there are already three very successful parks in De Panne, Hasselt and Coo.
The famous characters from Studio 100 are also very popular in the Netherlands and the three Belgian parks are attracting several people from over the border. Because of these reasons, Plopsa has been looking since two years for a perfect location in the Netherlands. Several conversations have been made with 35 different parties, but in the end only two candidates remained: Center Parcs and Ahoy in Rotterdam. With Ahoy conversations are still ongoing, and if they lead to a positive result, then a second park in the Netherlands might be a fact for 2010.

Center Parcs
In a first phase, Plopsa will initiate the cooperation with Center parks to build a Plopsa-park in Center Parcs De Huttenheugte. Following reasons can be brought up:
• De Huttenheugte is one of the Center Parcs ‘Family’ parks, where everything is oriented to families with children. That is also why De Huttenheugte is a perfect location to have a Plopsa-park, where also the audience are mainly families with children. This way, both entities will perfectly match to each other. In De Huttenheugte there are about 200.000 guests per year (about 800.000 nights in total).
• Center Parcs De Huttenheugte is situated in the northern part of the Netherlands, far away from the Belgian parks, which will enforce a very good geographical spread-out.
• Within one hour drive, 4 million people are living in the area. Together with the 200.000 guests of Center Parcs, there is a lot of potential present.
• Both Center Parcs and Plopsa are well known brands in Belgium and the Netherlands, offering high quality.
• The city of Coevorden and the province of Drenthe are looking forward to the comming of Plopsa in their region.


Indoor amusement park
An indoor theme park will be constructed next to Center Parcs De Huttenheugte. The surface in totall will be 15.000 m², where 10.000 m² will be indoor, and 5000 m² will be outdoors. The theming of the park will be based on the different popular characters of Studio 100: Kabouter Plop, Samson & Gert, Bumba, Piet Piraat, Mega Mindy and the House of Anubis. They will all have their own themed area in this park. The attractions will be suited for children between 4 and 11 years. Every day, there will be a show, with one of these heroes.
The capacity of the park is set to 3500 people. The expectations of the park is to receive 300.000 people on a yearly base. The park will also be offering jobs for at least 50 people. The construction of the park will cost about 15 million Euro. The goal is to start the first construction work in January 2008. The hope is to open the park around Christmas 2008.

"The arrival of Plopsa Indoor Coevorden will be a huge impulse for dayrecreation, but also for longer periods." according to Peter Snijders. "Almost 25% of all tourists in Drenthe are already staing in our town. Tourists are already spending about 37.000.000 Euro when being on holiday in our region. We hope to see an increase of about 1,6 million Euro in the upcomming years."


About Studio 100
Studio 100 has been founded in 1996 by the producers of the popular television programm Samson & Gert. Throughout the years the production house became a media-and entertainment company that not only produces several televisionshows, but also actively produces theatershows and movies and besides that Studio 100 became a very important player in the amusement park industry. Famous series Studio 100 launched after Samson & Gert are: Kabouter Plop, Wizzy & Woppy, Big & Betsy, Piet Piraat, Bumba, Mega Mindy, the House of Anubis and also the very popular group K3.


About Plopsa
Plopsa is the themeparkdivision in Studio 100. They have currently three parks in Belgium: Plopsaland De Panne, which was their first park and former Meli-Park, the new indoor themepark Plopsa Indoor Hasselt and the touristic site Plopsa Coo, formerly known as TéléCoo. These parks are combining the magic of the Studio100-charachters with the fun and pleasure of the many toprides in an unique environment. All 3 parks together welcomed 1.250.000 visitors last year.


About Center Parcs
Almost 40 years now Center Parks is market leader for short vacations. The company is continuously investing to renew their parks so they can keep on offering the quality that the visitors are seeking. Center Parcs is owner of 16
topparks, where 8 can are located in the Netherlands, 2 in Belgium, 2 in France and 4 in Germany. Three million people are visiting Center Parcs every year.

(source: Plopsa Official Press Release - July, 16 - 2007)

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