A $30 million playground featuring characters from the Peanuts cartoon strip will open in Sha Tin next month, two years after Snoopy-mania led to chaos across Hong Kong.
Snoopy World, a 40,000-square-foot theme park in New Town Plaza, will be Asia's first Peanuts outdoor playground and the only one in the world apart from Knotts Berry Farm in California.
Developer Sun Hung Kai Properties said Snoopy World could attract up to 6,000 visitors a day, including many tourists, but was not expected to draw trade from either Ocean Park or the Disneyland park planned for Lantau.
In 1998, a month-long McDonald's promotion selling plastic Snoopy figurines led to near-riots and long queues across the SAR as tens of thousands flocked to buy a new Snoopy figure in a different national costume each day. The strong local demand for Snoopy saw prices for a set of the $6 figures soar to $1,000, and fuelled plans for a Snoopy theme restaurant, Snoopy Place, to open by early next year.
Snoopy World designer Ivan Lam Chak-hin said yesterday the worldwide appeal of the Peanuts strip would attract children and adults of all ages. The strongest interest from abroad was expected to come from Taiwan, Japan and other countries in Asia. He said the aim was to give people the impression they were 'inside' the cartoon strip, surrounded by giant musical models of Snoopy, Charlie Brown and his friends.
The playground has six 'zones' - including a house at the entrance dedicated to the comic strip's creator, Charles Schulz, who died in February. Entry to Snoopy World would be free, but limited to 500 people a time. Demand would determine how long each visitor was allowed to spend in each section.