Don’t plan to visit KISS World
Hold up a lighter in memorial: The dream of KISS World is dead.
KISS World was to be a gleaming, 10,000-square-foot building in Melbourne, Australia, but more than nine months after it had been scheduled to open, the retail and fan hub for the band KISS is officially dead. The site was envisioned as a place where fans could sit in a mini-theater and watch concert footage of the band belting out arena hits like “Rock ‘n’ Roll All Nite” and also buy KISS merchandise.
A vague message was posted on the KISS World site in recent weeks (“after many months of discussions and negotiations, the store will no longer be proceeding as was originally envisaged”). At the International Comic-Con in San Diego last weekend, the band’s bassist and founding member Gene Simmons curtly deemed the store a misfire.
“It was autonomous, so it was their deal,” Simmons said. “It is what it is. There’s plenty of stuff to keep me busy.”
Simmons was at the pop-culture conclave to promote several projects, including a comic book and an animated television series.
Geoff Boucher
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