Come One Come All For Splash Kingdoms Summer Fun Splash Kingdoms Splash Bash and Trampoline Park Splash Kingdoms W

High sun? Check. Water? Check. Music? Check. Family? Check. The second KSGN 89.7 Splash Bash turned out to be a hit this year as thousands poured into the Splash Kingdom Waterpark last month for a day of water fun and musical entertainment. For the second year in a row, the event brought together residents of all ages. “We wanted to take the opportunity to get families together for concerts and fun,” said KSGN morning host and radio station program director Bryan O’Neal of last year’s inaugural event. “We teamed up with Splash Kingdom to get more families out and make it sort of an all-day event.” This year, the aim was the same. “We want to bring nice family musical entertainment to the facility,” said Splash Kingdom Vice President/General Manager Dave Simon. “We felt that Christian music was a good fit for that.” Splash Kingdom opened in January 2010, revamped from the previous Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom water park, which closed in 2006. Christian artists performed during the Splash Bash event for spectators, with concert lineup including artists like Tenth Avenue North, Tim Timmons, Jeremy Camp and Christian rapper Propaganda. This year’s July event date was changed from the inaugural year’s September date, O’Neal noted, and the event drew a large audience of both water park visitors and concert-goers. Event planners worked for months to put the event together, O’Neal said, and the radio station used the opportunity to interact with its listeners—the station has a listener base of about 300,000 within the Inland Empire. “We really like doing interactive things with our listeners. To win tickets, we would play a splash sound effect, and callers would have to call in and guess what object they thought made the splash,” said O’Neal. “It’s kind of a fun, tongue-in-cheek thing, because no matter what they guess, they will be right. Everyone wins. Some listeners catch on so they come up with these pretty extravagant answers, and others are surprised that their guess wins,” he chuckled. Dovetailing with the event’s goal to make the event fun and family friendly, KSGN paired up with A Foundation for Kids, a Riverside-based nonprofit dedicated to serve at-risk children and those who have lived with abuse, to give away various prizes to the kids that day. Giveaway winnings included Leapfrog items and Avon products, to name a few, said O’Neal. “We did that part [the giveaways] up real big for the kids,” said O’Neal. “It was just awesome to be able to give a lot of kids something to help them learn. Part of our mission as a radio station is to bring hope and to help make a difference in our neighborhoods, and this event is one way we can do that.”