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15 Jun 2017

Crowdfunding campaign launched to revive classic British kids show Fun House as a visitor attraction

Nostalgia is likely to play a key role in determining whether or not hit 90s kids show Fun House will be resurrected as a visitor attraction, after a team including former show host Pat Sharp launched an IndieGoGo campaign to revive the show in London.

Mark Wells and Glen Middleham – who have more than 45 years of television production experience between them – are behind the project, as well as Sharp and original show producer Scott Stone.

The team are seeking £650,000 (US$825,000, €739,000) to bring a Fun House attraction to life, with fans able to pre purchase tickets as part of the fundraising effort.

Wells, who executive produced, produced and directed some of the biggest titles on British television such as Top of the Pops, The BRIT Awards and Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, alongside Middleham said the initial reaction “has been very strong”.

“There’s a big amount of social media activity running alongside it. Fun House just seems to be one of those shows that people have this incredible affection for,” he told Attractions Management.

Bring Back Fun House! from [email protected] on Vimeo.

Wells and the rest of the team are hoping that fond childhood memories of the show will encourage pledges in a similar style to the Crystal Maze live experience, another cult hit , which was turned into a visitor attraction last year following a successful crowdfunding campaign.

“There’s obviously a set demographic,” said Wells. “If you’re in your 30s then you’re likely to have watched the show at some point in your childhood. We felt from a demographic point of view it was an incredibly attractive proposition.

“It reminds people of a time in their lives where they didn’t have a care in the world. They would come home and they would turn on the TV at 4:45pm to enjoy this fantastic colorful, bright, lively, noisy show for half-an-hour. That’s what we’re tapping into – the feeling of that experience.”

Ahead of creating the fundraising campaign, Wells contacted Pat Sharp, who he had worked with earlier in his career.

“Pat was incredibly supportive from the get go,” he said. “He says there isn’t a day that goes by where somebody doesn’t come up to him on the street and talk about Fun House so he was instantly interested in what we might be able to achieve. We were absolutely sure that if we wanted to do this we had to have Pat’s support from the outset.”

If crowdfunding is successful, a senior management team will be brought in to bridge the gap between attractions and entertainment production. A couple of sites within Greater London are currently being discussed for the Fun House attraction, though those have not yet been revealed.

The experience, which will last around two hours, has been pencilled in for a launch date of early 2018.

Fun House aired on CITV from 1989 to 1999, having been adapted from a US show of the same name. On the show, two teams each consisting of a boy and girl representing schools from around the UK would compete over three rounds. Round one would typically use gunge in some form, with round two being a go-kart race. The show would culminate with a race into the Fun House, where contestants would have to race around to win prizes.

For more on the fundraising campaign, click here.