Here’s a novel use of crowdfunding: Rather than attempt to, say, revive a beloved children’s television program, or to get funding for this awesome invention (because who doesn’t love napping), thirty-year-old Jared Guynes has taken to CrowdTilt.com in an attempt to raise enough money to rent out a North Texas amusement park that, apparently for legal reasons, he can not yet name (“I think you can figure out the only place in North Texas that has the best and most amazing roller coasters!”, he writes on the campaign page.)
Guynes, who describes himself as a “social media specialist,” explains on his campaign’s page that the idea of renting out Schmix Schmags Over Schmexas for the day came about while contemplating the 1994 Richie Rich adaptation with Macauley Culkin:
One thing I have always wanted to do is create an event where people of all ages could be involved. Something you could bring your kids to if you wanted. Then it hit me. Remember that old 1994 movie “Richie Rich” where MaCaulay Culkin has his own roller-coaster in his backyard? How awesome was that? To have access to your own private theme park… to do whatever you wanted… and to have no lines.
The party that Guynes hopes to throw would, of course, have 7,000 guests, which isn’t exactly anyone’s definition of “private,” but he’s run the math, and stands by his “no lines” claim—7,000 visitors is fewer than half of the park’s capacity. “This place is huge,” Guynes writes, “And believe it or not 7,000 people would be dispersed so evenly throughout it that the majority of rides would be ‘walk on’ with the longest lines being mere minutes.”
That’s probably legit, but it hasn’t so far helped Guynes move a whole lot of tickets—at press time, “Jared’s Epic Theme Park Party” has fewer than 500 contributors, which means that the next 17 days are going to have really catch fire for him to hit his 7,000 ticket threshold.
Guynes has had success when crowdfunding before, though. The “social media specialist” title that he claims probably came about after he successfully raised enough money to hire Young MC, Tone Loc, and Vanilla Ice to play a Ninja Turtles-themed party in Dallas earlier this year. Still, while that one was full of the sort of things the Internet loves to get behind (nostalgia, irony, nineties-era rappers), it appears that this time, he’s really just selling discount tickets to “the finest theme park in North Texas” that are only good on one day in mid-November, which isn’t exactly the most exciting time of year to visit the theme park—and he’s got a lot of tickets to sell to make this happen.
It’s possible that Guynes will hit his goal in the 17 days to come, or he might be about to learn a lesson about the limits of crowdfunding.
