I came across two pretty interesting stories on the Chicago Tribune website in the past week that I think are worth sharing. The first one is about a promotion from Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois, and the second is about a movie theater in Hoopeston.

It seems that Great America is running a promotion in which park patrons can get four free season passes for 2007 as well as Fast Passes to popular attractions if they eat a live cockroach during the park’s Fright Fest festivities.

Beginning Oct. 7, Six Flags Great America’s annual Halloween event will pull a page from the popular NBC gross-out reality show and dare visitors to swallow a live Madagascar hissing cockroach in return for amusement park perks.

Although the Tribune mentions only a t-shirt and fast passes as prizes, the official Great America website’s info page states that four season passes are available as well. While those sound like a pretty good deal (season passes currently run about $80, so those alone would make the stunt worth at least $320), I just don’t think I would ever be able to scarf down one of those babies. Great America will be using lab-grown bugs, but that hardly cuts down on the ick factor for me. It’ll be interesting to see how many patrons actualy go through with this!

The second interesting article was posted today, and is about the Lorraine Theater in Hoopeston. According to the Tribune story, the owner of the two-screen theater decided to close down for two weeks rather than show poor Hollywood offerings such as Jackass 2 or Beerfest. I don’t know how accurate the story is, however, since the theater’s website indicates that Invincible is now showing. Still, I applaud the theater owner’s decision and wish that more businesses would be like him. Of course, that’s not likely to happen, especially with the huge movie theater chains that currently dominate the market. (Photo from LT website)

Post A Comment