Mr. Beast – arguably the richest YouTuber of all time – has done something huge: He’s built a theme park. Where, you ask? Well, you’d think it’d be somewhere in America, maybe squeezed into Orlando or thrown somewhere in California. Instead, it was built in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Before we get into politics, let’s take a look at this “theme park.” It seemed that it just showed up one day, with Mr. Beast announcing on his Instagram the opening of the park being the only news of its existence. Beast Land looks like a giant set for a video with only a handful of distinct rides, but from the video uploaded on the Mr. Beast 2 channel about the park, it’s definitely more challenging and game-focused to sort of put you in the place of one of his videos.
Despite this, the park looks fun. It’s no Disney World or Universal, but if you’re a fan of Mr. Beast, then this place may just become your Roman Empire if you choose to go to Saudi Arabia.
The park sold out on the first day with over 10,000 attendees, and of course, Mr. Beast couldn’t have an opening without some kind of prize involved. In the same video on his second channel, Mr. Beast announced to the crowd of people in the park that at the end of every day, whoever scored the most points (you earn points by completing challenges, playing games and riding rides) would win 7,000 Saudi Riyal, which is about $1,865.
Whoever has the most points overall after 45 days would win the contents of a large golden vault, which is filled with $1,000,000 Saudi Riyal, which equates to $266,500. Even if you don’t get the most, you can still use the points you’ve earned to trade in for real prizes, such as merch and electronic devices you’d expect to win from Mr. Beast.
Not only is that an incentive, but until the end of the year, Mr. Beast promised that at least one of the Beast members, such as Chandler Hallow, Tareq Salameh or Mr. Beast himself would be present in the park. They haven’t been the only popular influencers to be in the park, though. Because of Mr. Beast’s popularity on YouTube, many other YouTubers have taken a trip to Beast Land for their own respective content, such as Eric Decker, known as Airrack, Jack Gordon and Bennett Melt. However, just as many videos have been published that have been calling the park a scam.
Even after all the work to put the park up, it’s closing on Dec. 27 of this year. It looks like it was built in a parking lot, and apparently it must have been leased out for $85 million. That much money for a little over a month of running. The park still seems popular even after being open since Nov. 13, but I don’t know if there will be enough tickets to sell to make a profit.
Then again, why Saudi Arabia? Probably because the country wants to get more entertainment and attractions to bring in more tourists, as well as get more power among the world’s countries. Mr. Beast was probably given a cheap offer and a larger space in Saudi Arabia than anywhere else, especially in the U.S. But other YouTubers have also been getting into the theme park world, such as Dude Perfect and Unspeakable.
Let’s hope no politics get roped into this, but I wish it were more of a permanent attraction and somewhere more accessible, so that more fans could visit.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
