Astrodome to host world's largest indoor amusement park

Astroworld may just be a big, empty piece of real estate now, but across the street crews are busy installing the world's largest indoor amusement park at the Astrodome. We guess it's kind of the equivalent of those carnivals they're always setting up in parking lots at malls and Fiesta stores — except it's indoors. And, theoretically, larger. As organizer Jerry Murphy told KUHF, this won't be the first time to set up a temporary amusement park in a stadium:

"We've done it in the Superdome in New Orleans for about 20-years and it's been very successful. People have been able to come in out of the hot weather when it's 90-100 degrees out, come and it's cool and nice and they can ride all day long, and another thing we can give them a cheap ticket, you know, like 20 dollars for the whole day."

Murphy said his company has 100 rides; according to KTRK, less than 30 will be set up at the Dome, so if the carnival comes back next year, there's the chance for a lot of variety. This year's version will include a Ferris wheel, bumper cars and the Drop Zone, which lifts riders 119 feet in the air and then drops them — we guess that's a scaled-down version of the Skyscreamer?

The carnival will be open seven days a week from June 22 through July 4, with tickets available from Ticketmaster. (In case you wondered, yeah, Ticketmaster tacks on a $5 service charge. So much for cheap tickets!)