The dream, death and second life of Evermore park

The dream, death and second life of Evermore park

Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is buying Pleasant Grove's Evermore — and he will convert the site to corporate space rather than reopen the short-lived Old World theme park.

Why it matters: Sanderson is planning to raze the site, extinguishing the last hope of success for an elaborate experimental concept once seen as a major potential innovation in themed attractions.

Catch up quick: Evermore opened in 2018 as the brainchild of Ken Bretschneider, a tech entrepreneur who envisioned an immersive theme park built around a fantasy narrative that guests could participate in by exploring a village he built.

Follow the money: Bretschneider sunk $37 million of his own fortune into the park, hiring Disney veterans and shipping crateloads of antique furnishings and building materials from Europe to Utah, including a set of 11th-century pillars.

What was inside: Actors played villagers — tavern keepers, scholars, witches — who dispensed story information to visitors, alerting them to a portal that brought magic and its assorted wielders to Evermore.

  • Music, puzzle games and archery were sprinkled around the village.

    • Flashback: When the Deseret News reported Bretschneider's plans in 2014, he promised a pirate ship, theater, hotel, caves and a mermaid pool.

    Yes, but: Many buildings remained unfinished as the park struggled to pay contractors.

  • Food and drink options were scant and usually off-theme; the tavern's meticulously crafted cupboards, for example, were bare.
  • Actors sometimes improvised "quests" for idle visitors to perform in exchange for wads of foil.

    • Meanwhile, COVID-19 began spreading barely a year after the park's launch.

    Zoom in: Theme park YouTuber Jenny Nicholson excoriated the park in a viral deep-dive into what she called dishonest marketing to customers.

  • She also raised safety concerns, noting one actor's description of a pyrotechnics mishap that set her witch costume ablaze when a child hugged her.
  • "Surely even Utahns are within their rights to file lawsuits if their children are immolated by a warlock," she said.

    • Between the lines: Sanderson himself was a regular at Evermore and already had bought adjacent land to build a bookstore, offices and other buildings for his book company, Dragonsteel.

    The park closed in 2024.

    The latest: Sanderson plans to expand that complex onto the Evermore site, he announced Tuesday on YouTube.

  • He said he hoped to keep some of the village, but the buildings aren't salvageable.

    • What's next: Demolition at the former park will begin "in the near future," Sanderson said.

    My thought bubble: If the prolific imagination of a bestselling fantasy writer can't make Evermore work as a park, the concept probably wasn't quite ready for showtime.