Model Railroading > Gulliver's Gate going out of business

I just heard from a friend who still works there that Gulliver's Gate in Times Square will be going out of business on Wednesday, January 22, 2020.  While I was disappointed in being fired from them back in June 2018 it is sad that they failed to succeed in business.

Stuart

It’s not easy doing business in the 212.

i did one project there, never went back for another .... life is too short to deal with that crowd.

I consider myself lucky that I was able to visit the exhibit at least once, this past December during my family's (consisting of my brother, my mom and myself). My mom and brother decided to ride a city bus, which, after driving a bus for the first half of 2019, didn't appeal to me. I took around 500+/- photos at the exhibit, which you can find here at my flickr album pertaining to my New York City visit, among many others.
 

Stephen Hjellum
Woodland, AL
Virtual CRCP Railway.

I had no idea this place existed.  Had I known about before, I certainly would have gone to Gulliver's Gate during one of my previous visits to New York City.  Below is a link to the Gulliver's Gate.  Looks like tickets are being sold for visits up to Tuesday, January 22.

https://gulliversgate.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/20 19:28 by RuleG.

Poor promotion was one of the biggest problems with Gulliver's Gate. There were many people who didn't know it even existed. The original idea was to appeal to tourist, no locals. As a result the only outside advertising was a pair of double-deck tourist buses wrapped with Gulliver's Gate promotional garb. Aside from a few magazine articles, some television propmotions, and one advertisement in Model Railroader there was no promotion. If you didn't read the magazines, or missed the TV shows you would have no idea the Gulliver's Gate existed. Finally in July 2018 they started putting posters and the trains and buses.

Also, the street entrance was so poorly setup that people would walk by and not even notice it. There were people who came in thinking that it was the National Geographic Ocean exhibit.

Another problem was crowd control. If you visited on a weekday you could almost have the entire place to yourself. But on weekends or holidays the place could be packed to the point where the staff couldn't keep the crowds moving. Also, there wer complaints from people who ordered tickets for a specific date and time, only to find that they couldn't get in, and the management wouldn't do anything to help.

Stuart

Sorry I missed this.  On our European trip I specifically stopped in Hamburg for one day to see Miniatauer Wunderworld.
Their tickets were also for specific time and when I talked to them they "assumed" that people would visit for 4 hours.  That is how they regulated the crowds.  It is huge and yes there are a lot of people but I was always able to move around at will.  They were also heavily promoted via YouTube videos.

Mike Stewart
Oakley, CA

When did Gullivers Gate first open?   Their rent must have been huge.
Unlike Miniatur Wunderland, some of the 'countries' were built off-site by
sub-contractors, dismantled and delivered to the NYC site.

One such individual gave a presentation to our RR group. They are given a diagram of the area they have
to fill and they proceed to build their assigned country. It appears that all these individual projects were
not interconnected to form one large layout?

Does anyone know if the Hamburg display allows any train  to be in any area of the whole room or do
they only use trains that would normally be seen in the country they are passing through?

Frank30

The Gulliver's Gate website has a pop-up that indicates that they are moving to an undisclosed location.  Anyone know anymore about a move?

A Ken Patterson article in the July 2019 online Model Railroad Hobbyist said that the electrical control systems were different for each of the segments built off-site for Gulliver's Gate.  Not sure whether the various segments shared a common main line.