WonderWorks Opens - Pigeon Forge

PIGEON FORGE - Click here for the complete Mountain Press article - The topsy-turvy WonderWorks attraction officially opened with a ribbon cutting Thursday. Finally complete, the building now sports an upside-down facade that looks like an 82-foot-tall laboratory building crashed on the site.

"Who knew so much construction could cause so much destruction?" General Manager Sande Weiss said to the crowd of about 1,000 who had gathered for the ceremony. Although the attraction has been open for business since earlier in the month, work crews from Denark Construction have been racing to finish a $9 million renovation of the former Music Mansion on the Parkway.

"I can't believe how much they've pulled off," said Allison Teeters, who runs Keep Sevier Beautiful.

"I like it. They could have turned it back upright and made it a beautiful building."

WonderWorks is an interactive entertainment center featuring a variety of educational hands-on activities.

Mike Oakley of Gatlinburg wandered the attraction with his family, trying out the Quake Cafe and Hurricane Hole exhibits.

"It's pretty awesome to get to experience a lot of things you'll never get to," he said.

Erica McFalls tried out a pedal-powered ride that let her do complete 360-degree loops."

It was great," she said. "I loved it. It wasn't hard to do, but it was scary."

"More like terrifying, don't you think?" her mother, Caroline McFalls said. "You screamed the whole time."

Eli Cockrum tried out a literal bed of nails exhibit. He stretched out on a platform that consisted of 3,497 individual (and pointy) nails without injury."That was pretty neat," he said. "That was very interesting. You could feel the nails, but then you kind of couldn't."

The science behind a bed of nails is that the body's weight is spread out over so many nails that not enough pressure is generated to actually pierce the skin.

The attraction is approximately 55,000 square feet larger than the flagship Orlando location.

The local version features a 300-seat dinner theater.Owner Robin Turner purchased the former Music Mansion building for $7.25 million in mid 2005.


Gatlinburg , Pigeon Forge , ttractions , Entertainment , Children