by William Trollinger
Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis (AiG) are busy promoting the idea that the “Ark Encounter and Creation Museum Are Groaning” under the weight of “record crowds” flooding into these tourist sites, sites that are devoted to making the case that the universe was created in six 24-hour days 6000 years ago and to celebrating the watery slaughter of up to (according to AiG) twenty billion human beings.
Record crowds? As is often the case with Ham, the facts just don’t add up.
Regarding Ark Encounter, every month the intrepid Dan Phelps (president and founder of the Kentucky Paleontological Society) requests the “safety assessment form” – the total amount raised that month from the 50 cent “safety fee” added to each Ark Encounter ticket — from the city of Williamstown. What this means is that we don’t have to rely on the unreliable Ken Ham. We can check Ham’s claim of record crowds at the Ark against actual numbers.
And here’s what we see when it comes to Ark attendance (and note that we don’t have the numbers for 2016, which is the year the Ark opened):
- Summer 2017 248,787 (note: these numbers are for July/August)
- Summer 2018 347,929
- Summer 2019 388,704
- Summer 2020 144,628 (note: COVID impact)
- Summer 2021 328,465
- AG 2017 106,161
- AG 2018 98,106
- AG 2019 104,350
- AG 2020 46,452 (note: COVID impact)
- AG 2021 83,826
One does not have to look very hard to see that, whatever the AiG fog machine might be spewing, Ark Encounter is not experiencing record crowds. In fact, this past August saw the lowest attendance in the Ark’s history (save for the COVID year).
But I can assure you that these numbers – these facts – will not stop Ken Ham from telling untruths. This is what he does. For example, in a successful effort to convince Williamstown to issue $62m of junk bonds to get the Ark project started – a nice deal made even nicer by stipulating that 75% of what the Ark would have paid in property taxes would instead go to paying off the loan – Ham and company promised attendance numbers that Ark Encounter has never, ever come close to reaching.
With each passing year the projected numbers become even more ludicrous, given that the AiG promoters assured the town leaders that the Ark would enjoy a 7% annual attendance increase for the first decade of the big boat’s existence.
Ham and AiG apparently do not mind in the least that they have not come anywhere near the attendance they promised Williamstown. They certainly have never lamented this shortcoming. But why would they? They had their $62m worth of bonds, and they have and will have their very substantial tax forgiveness. That is, they have their money.
So they have moved on. With their stories of “record crowds” bursting the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, they are now seeking – as the attached image indicates – to secure $17 million in donations to expand both sites.
Ken Ham. Ever the huckster.
Kenny boy maybe the only person to build a boat that will sink on dry land.
I’m clutching my pearls that a business can’t measure up to the production they “promised” in order to get tax breaks and incentives. This is par for the course in CT if you are a favored industry, which in KY, ark-building-creationist-museums are. At least they are doing something to share the Gospel. Spoiler alert . . . Jesus likes that.
Hi Leslie. Thanks for your response. I will leave aside the question of whether Ark Encounter — which has very little Jesus, and which celebrates the fact that (according to their own numbers) perhaps 20 BILLION people (not to mention millions of fetuses) were drowned in the Flood — is really presenting the Gospel. Instead, I am struck by the fact that what you are suggesting is that any sort of deception — be it the claim of “record breaking” crowds or the absurd claims of projected Ark attendance presented to the little town of Williamstown — is justified by the fact that this is a “Christian” enterprise. Does Jesus like this sort of deception?