LEGOLAND

"On June 7, 1968, LEGOLAND finally opened. Internally, LEGO expected 250,000-300,000 visitors. 625,000 guests came in the first year. LEGO employees were asked to mobilize family members to help handle the many visitors so that the park would not collapse under the pressure."

"Kjeld Kirk supported the new ideas of a broad push into a range of new areas with the LEGO brand as the waving battle banner, making it possible to create new revenues that could replace the loss on the bricks. With growth as a guiding star, LEGO’s marketing people set out to develop a wide range of new product areas where LEGO could leverage its brand. Video games, movies, the internet, clothing, action figures - everything suddenly became relevant and was being developed for enormous amounts. One of the major decisions was to accelerate the rollout of LEGOLAND parks worldwide. Godtfred himself had been part of the decision to build the first LEGOLAND outside Denmark in London, but he wanted to see it operate for a few years before moving on – he wasn’t sure about the concept. Now the decision was to open a new LEGOLAND every three years and not wait for the experiences from London. The investment in the new parks was enormous. Most of it was done in LEGO’s own management, because it was still a LEGO value to preferably produce things themselves to have control over the quality."