Passengers Stranded on World’s Tallest Ferris Wheel

Over 170 passengers were trapped for hours on the 541-foot tall Singapore Flyer observation wheel last week.

A fire broke out and damaged the Flyer’s control room, trapping more than 170 people, many of them tourists, onboard.

It took about six hours to get the giant ferris wheel working again. Passengers were then evacuated and transported by ambulances.

The Singapore Flyer is the tallest ferris wheel in the world and was created in an effort to boost tourism in Singapore.

It opened in February, surpassing the height of the London Eye by 98 feet.

Since opening, the Flyer has experienced two other malfunctions.

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Sandcastles Outlawed at Popular Beach

What do you like to do when you go to the beach—swim? Fish? Play pass? Build a sandcastle? Enjoy a romantic midnight stroll?

If you’re into doing anything of the aforementioned activities, you’d better take heed if you’re planning on vacationing at the popular beaches in Benidorm, Spain, one of the most popular travel destinations for British tourists.

Officials have released a new series of rules for the beach that are intended to help prevent “misuse”.
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The Scariest High-Tech Haunted Houses in America

If you haven’t been inside a haunted house for awhile, you might be shocked to see how far they have come. The haunted houses of today have animatronics and Hollywood-quality sets and special effects designed to shock you and make you scream.

Haunted houses around America keep trying to one-up each other with the latest technology and special effects. Here are some of the most high-tech haunted houses in the nation.

The 13th gate, Baton Rouge, LA

The 13th Gate in Baton Rouge has 13 themed indoor and outdoor areas where you can crawl through an old hearse and crematory oven, get lost in dark underground tunnels and end up on a rickety bridge that overlooks hundreds of live snakes.

The haunted house is 40,000 square feet in total, and is considered to be one of the country’s top haunted attractions.

A movie industry construction crew works year-round on the Haunt and during the Halloween season over 100 professional actors along with special effects makeup and airbrush artists bring the show to life.

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B.B. King Museum Opens

B.B. King’s hometown of Indianola, Mississippi has created and dedicated a museum in honor of the legendary blues musician and his career.

The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center opened on September 13, just days before King’s 83rd birthday.

The 20,000 square foot museum cost $14.2 million to build. The people of Indianola came up with the idea for the museum and raised $1.7 million for it, with the rest of the cost coming from private donations.

The exhibits chronicle B.B. King’s life and career, as well as American history. The museum is housed partly in the restored brick cotton gin where King worked when he was a teenager. Read more

Grape Stomp Festival

At 3:00 PM on August 30th people will gather in Irvington, VA for the annual Irvington Stomp harvest festival.

The festival will be held at White Fences Vineyard, which is about three hours from Washington, D.C. and just over an hour from Richmond, VA. The “stomp” will feature both individual barrels and larger family-sized barrels.

Local officials and special guests will participate in a “stomp-off,” which will determine who gets to be the “King and Queen of the Stomp.”

There’s more than just grape-stomping at this festival, which will also feature farm animals and exhibits, a petting zoo, kite show and a corn maze.

If you decide to go, be sure to bring a blanket and chairs for the festival concert, which will have blues, rock and country music. This year’s Stomp will feature Virginia-based singer/songwriter Robbin Thompson, former lead singer for Bruce Springsteen’s band Steel Mill. Robbin also co-authored the unofficial song of Virginia, Sweet Virginia Breeze.

The event is a great chance for people of all ages to get a taste small town America. The cost is Adults $10, $5 kids 6-16, under 6 free. More details are available at www.irvingtonstomp.com.

All Points West Goes Green

The inaugural All Points West music festival concert took place last weekend, August 8-10 in Jersey City’s Liberty State Park.

Radiohead and Jack Johnson headlined the festival, which also featured performances from the Roots, Kings of Leon, Chromeo, Metric, Andrew Bird and the Virgins, just to name a few.

Over 40 acts played Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the historic 80-acre park, which offers striking views of the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty.

All Points West was the first festival of its size to come to the Tri-State area in a long time. All Points West promoted itself as a “green” festival, taking precautions to lower the carbon footprints of the festival and its attendees, promoting recycling and mass transit.

One of the most notable ways the festival encouraged attendees to be green was by taking the ferry from Pier 11 at South Street Seaport in Manhattan to get to Liberty State Park, which was how most people got to the event.

Attendees were also encouraged to ride bikes, take the light rail or PATH train. People who wanted to drive to the event had to carpool and obtain a special carpool parking pass.

Large music festivals can generate a lot of waste. With this in mind All Points West used non-disposable materials in the backstage area, per request of the artists. It was an important priority of the artists to keep the festival green.

Radiohead, who headlined the festival on Friday and Saturday, even commissioned a carbon-footprint study of their tour. Jack Johnson, Sunday’s headliner, educated attendees on the importance of going green with an interactive eco-village that he brought along to the festival.

Eco-friendly art and environmental awareness booths were scattered throughout the festival, which also featured a “recycling store” called “TRASHed.:” Attendees could go around collecting plastic bottles and turn them in to collect merchandise like t-shirts, skateboards and beach balls.

People were also able to cut down on bottle usage by bringing their own water bottle that they could fill up for free at faucets throughout the festival grounds.

As a result of the greening efforts, the festival grounds were kept especially clean and over 70,000 people were able to reach All Points West by using mass transit.

Concert Venues From Hell: Worst Tragedies of All Time

Everyone loves a good concert. Your favorite bands in town so you and a few friends grab tickets, show up early and head right for the front of the stage. This is what good times are all about, at least until something goes wrong.

Concerts are usually a great time, but things can turn bad in a heartbeat. Of course no one expects to go to a concert and actually die but it can, and does happen.

Here are some of the worst concert tragedies over the years that have rocked and shocked us.

1. Free Rolling Stones Concert at Altamont Speedway, 1969

Organized and headlined by the Rolling Stones, the Altamont Festival also featured Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The Grateful Dead were originally included in the lineup but they bailed out because the event was so disorganized.

Some heralded the event as being “Woodstock West,” with roughly 300,000 people in attendance. What started out as a good idea is best remembered as an event marred by violence and death. Read more

Rubber Ducky Race

This August 6-17, the Northern Michigan town of Bellaire is holding its Rubber Ducky Festival.

The 12-day celebration will culminate with a duck race in the Intermediate River in which 2,000 yellow rubber ducks will be competing. Thousands of spectators line the river banks to watch the quarter-mile long race.

The ducks are numbered, and spectators are allowed to place a $5 bet per duck. The person who has the first place duck is awarded $500 and cash prizes are awarded all the way up to the duck that wins 27th-place.

In 2007, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore actually chose the festival as the site for the unofficial premiere for his film “Sicko.”
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