1,000-foot water slide to splash in metro Detroit

Get ready for serious sloshing down a 1,000-foot water slide that's billed as longer than three football fields and headed for metro Detroit this summer.

The traveling event is called Slide the City and it's been booked in scores of cities for its maiden cross-country tour this year — at about $15 per ride or $50 for an unlimited all-day pass, according to the Salt Lake City-based promoters.

The padded vinyl chute will likely plop down in the middle of a major street in each town for just one day of sliding, then move on to one of dozens of other cities, said David Dupaix, an accountant and spokesman for Slide the City.

"Last year was our proof of concept — we were in Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho," Dupaix said Wednesday. After throngs of sliders jammed the thrill ride, "we franchised it and it really took off from there," he said.

But Dupaix declined to name the franchisee in Detroit and was unable to say exactly where the slide would be set up — it could be in downtown Detroit but might be in suburbia, too. The website for the novelty ride — SlidetheCity.com — describes it as "a family friendly slip-and-slide water party event (with) live music, food, drinks, water, and of course the biggest slip and slide ever to hit asphalt."

The site has assurances, such as: "Don't worry, we've got it padded. This slide's got more cushion than your grandpa's orthopedic sneakers." And it encourages users to bring floatables and water guns although, sorry all you Labradors, no pets are allowed.

Users must sign a waiver that says they accept all risks, will leave if managers think they're endangering others, and grant the owners "absolutely and in perpetuity" the permission to be photographed and filmed having a wet and wild time.

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com or 313-223-4485.