'Star Trek: The Experience' To Close

TrekMovie says employees of the Nevada attraction are being informed about the closing by Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., which operates The Experience, this week, and that the Hilton is looking to find something that could generate more money from the space.

Negotiations between CBS, Paramount, Cedar Fair and the Hilton have been ongoing for quite some time, according to TrekMovie. Attendance at the attraction had been falling in recent years, and not even a possible boost from "Star Trek XI" seems to be enough to regain confidence in everyone involved to keep The Experience running.

Cedar Fair took control of The Experience in 2006 when it purchased Paramount Parks from the CBS Corp. The attraction originally cost $70 million to construct, and had more than 2,500 on hand for its grand opening in January 1998, according to the wiki site Memory Alpha. It was built by Landmark Entertainment and coordinated by the Paramount/Viacom licensing division.

Since its opening, Star Trek interest has waned. Only two movies have been released in the Trek universe since its opening, and had only a boost from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" for a year, "Star Trek: Voyager" for three years, and four seasons of "Star Trek: Enterprise."

Two years ago, hype began to build again for Star Trek with J.J. Abrams being brought in to reinvent the franchise. However, a Christmas 2008 release that would've meant considerable marketing over the summer was changed to a May 2009 release, which postponed a lot of the mainstream Star Trek hype for another several months, which crippled The Experience's ability to springboard from that publicity.

Robert Picardo, who spent seven years as the holographic doctor on "Star Trek: Voyager" and was part of the cast of the Borg Invasion 4-D attraction at The Experience, said he's not surprised by the news, but he'll still miss it.

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