Sesame Place considers dropping parking fee

I think it's the right thing to do regardless of the tax. Even if it's just a perception issue, "free" parking is still better.

Looks like a no-brainer to me...
1) Eliminate the separate parking fee in a revenue-neutral manner
2) Reduce own tax burden
3) Advertise heavily that the park now has *FREE PARKING*.

What makes this particularly interesting is that in a FunWorld article a few years ago, it was a Busch executive who was talking about parking, and preferred parking in particular, as a source of "free money" for the park, indicating that he Just Didn't Get It. Now it's Busch demonstrating that they *do* get it?! Nice.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yup. Bump the gate by $3 or $4 a head and sell the hell out of the new 'free parking' - that family of 4 is paying $2 to $6 more in total to get into the park, but they're happy as anything because they got free parking.

Works for the other 'free parking' parks. :)

Shhhh! The fanboys will hear you!

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Works for the other 'free parking' parks.

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WHAT!?! You mean parks offer free parking in order to BRING IN MORE attendance and make a BIGGER PROFIT? (gasp!) Oh... my delusions... my delusions... they're all being destroyed!

[/sarcasm]

"Technically, it's a tax on all parking revenue in the township but, in effect, is only a tax on Sesame Place, since the park is the only place that charges for parking in Middletown."

"The supervisors said they weren't trying to bleed Sesame Place with the vote but were simply trying to tap other sources of much-needed revenue."

Ummm, yeah right. The township has an amusement park paying over a million dollars annually. It has a rather large mall, which I'm sure has other shopping centers and businesses that sprung up all around it. How much revenue does this township need anyway? The township supervisors must need to have their chambers regilded.

^ The township was, in fact, trying to *bleed* Sesame Place as an "other source of much-needed revenue"....

Hopefully they'll feel better now that I've admitted it FOR them... :)

So let's crowd the park even more on a Saturday/Sunday during the summertime, with advertisements of "Free Parking" at Sesame...it's actually a smart move. Let's have mom and dad park the cars for free, go up to the gate, and realize the prices have gone up. But the kids, now seeing they're at Sesame Place, will not want to go home, and so the parents, in an effort to please their kids, will fork over their entire life-savings to get into the park. Could work. ;)

Yup. It's that whole notion of continually pulling out that wallet. I don't mind how much it adds up to nearly as much as the hand coming out over and over.

Plus they wouldn't have to worry about the parking booth attendants being held up. :)