1,000 Foot Water Slide Never Came to Cleveland This Summer

A rep at Slide the City, the Salt Lake City-based company dedicated to bringing the 'family friendly slip-and-slide water party event" to towns across America, said the company couldn't "find the right type of street and secure the permit in time to market the event properly," in Cleveland this summer.

Though the 1,000 foot water slide made stops in Youngstown (in June) and Akron (in August), the expected Cleveland date was never announced. With September upon us, it's unlikely that Slide the City will manage to come back to Northeast Ohio in 2015, especially with stops in Utah, Alabama, Arizona and Georgia in the next few weeks.

"We are working to do an event in Cleveland next year," the rep wrote Scene in an email. 

Slide the City canceled its stop in Rockford, IL, this coming weekend due to low ticket sales — CEO Spencer Hunn said his company needed to sell 3,000 tickets to make it financially worthwhile — and canceled stops in Seattle and Spokane earlier this summer due to permitting issues in those cities.

In Flint, Mich., in July, Slide the City canceled its event nine days out. At the time, a guy from Flint's Downtown Development Authority, which had been coordinating the event with Slide the City, called the cancellation a "blessing in disguise." He was worried after hearing of long lines and a lack of water at the event in Ann Arbor July 4th Weekend. One official there called it a public health issue because of the dehydration and crowding downtown.  

In Akron, early this month, the event was by all accounts (or at least by the Akron Beacon Journal's) a huge success, despite ticket prices in the $15-$60 range.

A City of Cleveland spokesperson told Scene by phone that he didn't know what happened locally, and said he'd get back to us once he checked whether or not Slide the City even pulled a permit.