Live concerts will return to Kings Island's Timberwolf Amphitheatre this summer, the Cincinnati-area park announced today. The five-concert line-up will be the biggest at the park's outdoor music venue since 1995. But that's not the biggest news in today's announcement.
For the first time, park admission will not be required to buy a concert ticket to a Timberwolf show. Tickets will be available to the public and include free parking after 5pm as well as direct entry to the 10,000-seat amphitheater.
Kings Island's Gold and Platinum passholders will get first access to tickets, however, with a 24-hour presale starting tomorrow at 10am. Tickets will go on sale to the public at 10am on Friday, April 29 on the park's website.
Here is the line-up for the 2022 Kings Island Concert Series at Timberwolf Amphitheatre presented by Platform Beer Company:
Gates will open one hour before each show.
"Since Timberwolf opened in 1982, some of the most popular performers of our time have taken its stage," Kings Island Vice President and General Manager Mike Koontz said. "We are excited to bring that tradition back to Kings Island this summer."
For park tickets, please visit our travel partner's Kings Island tickets page.
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You're absolutely right formeryogi, and it's not just Carowinds or Kings Island. Many regional parks around the country have some type of amphitheater or medium-sized concert venue, and throughout the 70's and 80's those were the setting for MAJOR concerts year in and year out. Bands that didn't want to play inside during the summer and weren't big enough for stadiums played regional theme park and state fair venues. However, promoters and events organizers started building amphitheaters in the suburbs of virtually every city around the country. Some cities that already had a medium-sized outdoor venue got a second one to help draw most acts from the theme park and state fair venues to locations that were under the control of the promoters (like Live Nation).
Because of the explosion of new venues around the country, most acts abandoned theme park shows. Because promoters like Live Nation owned or held significant stakes in these new venues, they forced acts to perform there even if some venues were not the right size for the act. Because the theme park venues weren't staging as many shows, they were not generating enough revenue to improve and renovate to keep up with the newer facilities, and many fell into disrepair.
Due to the pandemic and all of the shows that have been cancelled over the past 2 years, there are more acts/concerts than there are venues to stage them, so tours who are just now organizing for an already packed summer and fall season are having to grasp for whatever venues they can find to fit into the schedule. It's great to see theme park venues get a chance to shine again, but I fear that it's probably a 1-off for this year, and once the backlog of cancelled and delayed tours is cleared, these venues will go back to staging maybe 1 or 2 major acts per year at most.
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Used to be like this every summer at sister park Carowinds. Big name concerts were held almost every weekend and did NOT require a park ticket (there was a "concert" entrance). In recent years the venue has been sitting there, taking up valuable space, with almost no use (except for one or two concerts a year). In the case of Carowinds, the concerts went away when several competing outdoor concert venues opened in the Charlotte area. Going to the concerts was a big employee perk back in the day (when they were not sold out).