The park was opened in 1971 as 'Flevohof'. It was an educational theme park themed after agriculture and farming. Having struggled to compete with more modern family attractions, Flevohof went bankrupt in 1993, and was subsequently purchased by the
Walibi Group that autumn, who redeveloped the site as an
amusement park. After a major winter-long programme of reconstruction the park reopened as
Walibi Flevo on 7 May 1994, featuring the world's first
Vekoma suspended looping coaster (SLC),
El Condor. The park also adopted the
wallaby mascot of its sister park,
Walibi Wavre in Belgium created in 1975 by
Eddy Meeùs, a Belgian businessman. (The name 'Walibi', incidentally, is derived from the first two letters of three towns in Belgium put together to form a single word:
Wavre -
Limal -
Bierges). The Walibi parks, including
Bellewaerde in Belgium, were purchased by
Premier Parks Inc. in 1998, who subsequently overhauled the
Flevo park, removing the 'Walibi' branding and building thirty new attractions as part of its transformation into
Six Flags Holland in 2000.
Six Flags's nominal expansion into Europe saw a similar refurbishment of the Belgian Walibi theme park, which was renamed to Six Flags Belgium. Both parks benefiting from the group's rights to use
Warner Brothers characters within them, leading to the creation of a
Looney Tunes-themed area and a powered-launch coaster themed around popular comic figure
Superman, later changed to the
Xpress. In 2004,
Six Flags Holland and its sister parks were purchased by financiers Palamon Capital Partners, who grouped the attractions under the name "StarParks". The park reverted to
Walibi branding in 2005; numerous attractions having been rebranded as the sale of the parks also meant the loss of any references to Looney Tunes and
DC Comics characters rights. In the second half of 2006, the parks were sold for the second time in as many years to the French group
Grévin & Cie (Compagnie des Alpes), most notably the operators of the French themed resort
Parc Astérix, who also purchased two other Dutch attractions - the
Dolfinarium Harderwijk and . In 2011, the park was renamed as Walibi Holland, which introduced new mascots. The adjacent associated event grounds were originally developed with
Scouting Nederland for the
EuroJam 1994 and the
18th World Scout Jamboree in 1995. It is or has been the location of many festivals such as the
Lowlands music festival and the
Defqon.1 music festival. ==Attractions==