The 2025 NFL Draft is headed to Green Bay, Wisconsin form April 24-26, 2025. It was also just announced from Bay Beach Facilities Supervisor, Britney Burkart-Labar that the city owned Bay Beach Amusement park will be open to coincide with the draft, operating on Wednesday, April 23 through Saturday, April 26 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m . What is Bay Beach you might ask? It’s a 100+ year old amusement park on the shore of Lake Michigan that is home to a world class wooden roller coaster that Elvis loved called Zippin Pippin and you can ride it for only $1.50!

I grew up in Wisconsin and Bay Beach was the park of my childhood. The park is owned by the city and has no charge for parking and no admission charge. Everything is done by a ticket system with tickets costing $0.25 and the most expensive ride, Zippin Pippin, requiring 6 tickets. Zippin Pippin used to only be $1, but even with the inflation it’s still a great deal. Many of the other rides at the park are still only 1, 2 or 3 tickets. Back when I was a kid, ride rickets were only $0.10 and many of the kiddie rides were indeed only a dime to ride while they’re only a quarter today. The park actually recommends only $7 in tickets per person to start, talk about cheap entertainment!

During my childhood Bay Beach had nothing like Zippin Pippin, just a bunch of flat rides. This isn’t a theme park, but more of an amusement park with mostly rides you’d find at a carnival. I don’t think the park ever got anything new, but instead almost everything is used and refurbished and signs by the ride will often even mention where a ride came from. Probably the most famous of these relocations was the roller coaster Zippin Pippin which came from LibertyLand in Memphis.

Zippin Pippin is probably best known as being Elvis’s favorite ride which makes sense being a Memphis park. LibertyLand closed in 2005 and the ride was largely left to deteriorate. There were several potential buyers that fell through until the City of Green Nay purchased it in 2010. By that point The ride was essentially unsalvageable, but the city continued with efforts to essentially build the design new with help from wooden roller coaster design firm, The Gravity Group. The ride also got some used trains from a defunct ride called Thunder Eagle from the former Race World amusement park in Pigeon Forge, TN.

All together the cost to purchase and rebuild the ride was $3.8 million and it opened on May 21, 2011. At $1.50 ride that would take ~2.5 million riders to break even and the park crossed 1 million riders just 2 years later on June 23, 2013. In the 12 years since it has become a must ride for roller coasters enthusiasts with many making the pilgrimage to Bay Beach to ride Zippin Pippin. During it’s 14 year life it has been a top 50 Golden Ticket Award winning wooden roller coaster in the world essentially every year.

To start the ride has a very friendly 48″ minimum height requirement and pretty comfortable lap bar restraints. The ride itself is way more fun than the stats would have you believe. its 63 foot drop and 42 mph top speed isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind, but the beauty is in the design, pacing, airtime and relative smoothness for a wooden coaster. This coaster also ends with a “bang” as there is a moment of ejector airtime just as you are approaching the station with forces so strong it almost feels like a mistake. I now know it’s coming and it still gets me every time as it seems to be hidden and comes out of nowhere. This one moment has become famous and infamous with enthusiasts. Coaster Studios did a great video showing this ejector moment on Zippin Pippin.

I am thrilled the park decided to open for the duration of the NFL drafy.For the last few months it seemed like the park would sadly not be open for the NFL Draft, as it’s typical operating season is May through September, making opening day the following Saturday, May 3rd. However, with hundreds of thousands of people converging on Green Bay for the draft, with many from out of town, it’s great to see the city decided to open the park so they can experience this great park. There’s of course more to Bay Beach than just Zippin Pippin including a great giant Ferris Wheel, some wonderful historic flat rides, a giant slide, bumper cars and a train ride along the lake all with some amazing views.

I really hope the park goes big in advertising for the event with things like digital billboards near Lambeau Field. The official draft website does direct people to the “Discover Green Bay” site where it’s listed as the 10th thing under “Family Fun”. However, putting it 9 places after a “Dave & Busters” really seems to shortchange this amazing place.

Zippin Pippin is a gem of a ride on a coaster island of sorts being there is probably no other coaster within 100 miles of it. However, it’s located in a beautiful place on the shore of Lake Michigan in an amusement park that is full of nostalgia that is owned by a city and run as essentially a non-profit. At only $1.50 to ride with no admission fee or parking fee it’s the bargain of the century. Bay Beach is also just 5.5 miles or 13 minutes from Lambeau Field (maybe slightly more with traffic for the draft). If you’re at all into coasters and going to the NFL draft in Green Bay this year, you need to ride this thing!