After a little more than a decade, Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton shuts it’s doors. The closure comes as contract renewal talks between Paramount/CBS, Cedar Fair, and Colony Capital stalled. The main hold out was Colony Capital who owns the Las Vegas Hilton, who bought the Hilton from Caesars Entertainment (formerly Park Place Entertainment at the time Star Trek: The Experience opened) didn’t like the deal where Star Trek: The Experience was like a retailer just renting space, and not sharing in the revenue generated from the attraction. Cedar Fair, the company that bought the operations of the attraction from Paramount Parks and Paramount/CBS who owns the Star Trek franchise weren’t able to secure a renewal of the contract and as such has decided to close Star Trek: The Experience.

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HMV.com based out of the UK is one of the first online retailers to start taking pre-orders on “Mamma Mia! The Movie” with a price of £12.99 for the standard DVD and £16.99 for the Blu-Ray version. The official release date for the UK according to the HMV site is November 24, 2008. (I’m guessing that means a November 25th release date for the U.S.)

HMV is also offering a chance win a trip to the Greek Islands for UK residents who enter the contest on their website. Sounds like a great trip for two to fly from London to Greece to spend a week visiting the islands of Skiathos & Skopelos (where the movie was partially filmed) with a private cruise and a spa experience and you even get breakfasts and dinner as well as travel insurance included in the prize package. Makes me wish I lived in the UK just to enter the contest. (more…)

Last night, Dolly Parton tied with Corey Hart as big name performer/act I’ve seen the most times in concert. Her performance at Humphrey’s By The Bay in San Diego, brings the total of times I’ve seen Dolly Parton in concert up to a total of four times. While four doesn’t sound like a lot, but for me, most artists, I’m quite content to say I’ve seen them once and that’s enough.

Corey Hart is an especially significant act for me because one of his concerts was the very first time I ever went to a concert. I first got to see him way back in early 1986 when his tour of Canada promoting his “Boy In The Box” album finally hit Calgary. I loved the energy and it was just an amazing experience to see. I kind of lost touch with Corey Hart and his music after having moved to Southern California in summer of 1986 until the mid 1995 when I joined an ABBA mailing list of all things and met an Australian online, Luke Rogers, who posted a profile and stated Corey Hart was another artist he really liked and that became a catalyst to striking up a conversation with him.

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SIRIUS Satellite Radio announced that Channel 3 for a two week period beginning July 7th, 2008 will be become the ABBA Channel. To tie in with “Mamma Mia! The Movie” being released this month, SIRIUS is getting in the act in making sure you have access to an all ABBA channel to get your fix of ABBA songs as well as songs from both the original cast recording and movie cast recordings of Mamma Mia.

The limited engagement channel will also feature stories and insights from ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus about their many pop classics which have influenced recording artists for over three decades. ABBA Radio will also feature celebrity fans sharing their favorite ABBA music and personal stories, including stars from “Mamma Mia! The Movie” Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Christine Baranski, Amanda Seyfried, Dominic Cooper, Catherine Johnson, film director Phyllida Lloyd and producer Gary Goetzman, as well as Dionne Warwick, Alanis Morissette, songwriter Desmond Child, Joan Rivers, Brooke Shields, Andy Bell from Erasure, Randy Jones from the Village People, the cast of the Tony Award®-winning musical Spring Awakening, ambassador Ulf Hjertonsson, Per Gessle of Roxette, Nancy Sinatra and Martha Stewart.

Benny Andersson of ABBA in press release issued by SIRIUS said, “Thanks to ABBA Radio on SIRIUS, both new and longtime fans have a place to experience the original music of ABBA, together with the new songs produced for the soundtrack to Mamma Mia! The Movie, in a distinctively innovative way. ABBA Radio allows for our early songs to join the new ones in harmony on SIRIUS’ national platform, and engage all generations of listeners.” (more…)