2005 SFGAm Attendance up roughly 20%

Kevin Max,

I'm not sure of your business sense, but having 40,000 people in your park spending money is certainly *not* a problem! :)

I think maybe a "staggered" RTS program would be more effective...like having different comp tickets with different expiration dates. That might solve so many people going in early Aug. They could get everybody to still go but just spread the crowds out over a longer period of time.

JC

Snowman: If anything, you'd have far, far more highly-discounted season passholder and school trip visits to the park that's already been here a few decades and more walk-up, full-price traffic to the new park folks may attend on impulse. So if anything, the average admission price scale should tip the other way.

Legendary: People are people. Plenty of parks offer bigger discounts in the early season than July 4th - August...but 'Trailer Park from Hell' days are always at the beginning of August.

-'Playa

Legendary,

My RTS post was entirely in jest, and these RTS days are obviously only a "problem" for non-RTS visitors.

Jeff: The "absurd notion" you mention is factored into both scenarios, so it's a wash. It doesn't matter what dollar amount is plugged in there, the revenue gap remains the same.

I think it makes sense to assume different prices for the new guests, since in every case I can find, a separately-gated waterpark on the same property as a theme park is always priced lower. Disney, Busch, Six Flags, Cedar Fair--they all do it that way.

I agree that the park is benefiting from good weather this year. This was the perfect summer to add a waterpark (not that one can plan for such things). And all those visitors who are coming primarily for the waterpark are paying full theme-park admission prices for the privilege.

Not sure what you're trying to say about season passholders, unless it's an in-park spending argument. The "wallet theory" still applies to them, though.

CoastaPlaya: A likely $15 posted-rate spread between the two parks as separate gates is pretty hard to ignore. Don't forget that the waterpark would have offered coupons, season passes, group rates and the like as well. A good waterpark admission per cap is in the $20 - $25 range. I'd think the theme park easily beats that number.

You aren't making any sense... you're still adding numbers that don't exist. You're also calculating a one-year gain.

If attendance going forward is essentially flat from year to year (and with most established parks, it is), then do the math. If you get 3 million people through the amusement park and 500k in the water park, and don't charge for the water park, that sure seems like missed revenue to me. It's like if Cedar Point included Soak City next year, they'd lose all of that money. It doesn't make sense.

I was wondering if it is going to be hectic as you say its going to be like the past week or cause the book thing is over should it not be as busy? im going tuesday and wednesday

Tuesday and Wednesday should be less crowded than the last couple of weeks have been. Remember that Wednesday night is Coasters After Dark.(For SF season passholders.)

I was one agreeing with Jeff from the outset that SFGAm *coulda shoulda* gotten some additional gate revenues...but it IS interesting to note that SFGAm has the highest SP prices in the chain....even GAdv passes are 80 bucks. Of course, GAdv charges extra for the waterpark *option*.

I said way back when that Ka would bring GAdv half as much gate increase as HH would for GAm....that was BEFORE Ka went bye-bye for the majority of the season though...

Next year, with new wood PLUS a functional Ka, GAdv might do some catch-up...but they STILL won't be able to replicate the success of a brand-new waterpark. Those things are WAY free money for the parks....and this last week has only convinced me even moreso... ;)

I don't think that 6 Flags will draw anywhere near to 500,000 at HH this season. I remember reading in Amusement Today that the capacity for all of HH was something like 7,000 people.

Also I plan of going there on Thursday, should it be as crowed as everyone keeps saying?

HH has nowhere near enough capacity to be a separate gate. Sure they say it has the capacity for 7100 but it does not have enough attractions to handle that many people. The lines for everything are just insane. We were there for about 4 hours and got to do 3 slides and the Lazy River. That was getting there at opening and not wating to long for the bowl slide.

If I had to pay to get in and just got to do that you can bet I would never go back. Especially when there are about 5 other water parks closer to me. Sure they are not as big but I can actually stay cool and spend some time in the water as opposed to standing in line.

There were also many people complaining that they had bought a season pass just for the water park and were not going to renew next year becaus of the waits. Now if they weren't happy with that and they could still leave and go into the park, how unhappy would they be if it was a separate gate? How many more would there be that would not return? I think they are doing the best thing from a customer service standpoint. If you had to wait 2 and a half hours in a parking lot to get in, would you ever go back?

They really need to at least double the amount of attractions before they should charge a separate gate. But for now I am very happy letting the water park make the ride lines a bit shorter during the day.

Well about not having enough attractions for 7100 people, the park I represent, Deep River Water Park in Crown Point, IN, (about 2 hours from 6 flags), we have no where near what HH has in attractions but our capacity is about 8000 people. Its all about how your rides are spaced out, not how many you can cram into an old parking lot.

Jeff: Unless I'm misreading you, your 3 million/500,000 example above seems to assume that all 500,000 waterpark visitors would have also visited the theme park. I'm of the opinion that a good portion of the waterpark visits would have cannibalized theme park visits, effectively trading down those guests to a cheaper ticket. With the current arrangement, everybody pays the higher price.

Not to mention, the waterpark would not have had 500,000 visits on its own to begin with.

sparky: You're touching on another area that supports my view. When the waterpark's full, there's a whole other park to absorb the overflow crowds. Had it been separately gated, how many people would they have turned away this summer? With the two-parks-in-one arrangement, there's plenty of room inside, so the park can keep selling tickets the whole time. Waterpark-focused guests can go ahead and buy their ticket, then use the dry park as a sort of waiting room, keeping themselves occupied with other attractions until the waterpark crowds die down a bit.

And you're right to bring up the guest service issue as well--the added value and extra options make for an overall better experience, I think.

They probably do need to increase the waterpark's attraction capacity, but I'm sure you'll never see them make it a separate gate. Once you start giving something away for "free," it's very difficult to reverse course.
*** Edited 8/8/2005 2:00:53 AM UTC by Snowman***

That's a very interesting fact DRMAN2004. Thanks for posting that.

Sparky actually makes a great case for a separate gate. Charge people to get in and you can contain crowds to the designed capacity. Get the freeloaders out.

Snowman: I still have on idea what you're talking about. The park should be doing 3.3 million on its own, or even more. Cedar Point does it, and it doesn't benefit from being neighbors to Chicago. This relentless focus on attendance doesn't equate to an increase in revenue.

I would be more than willing to bet that the vast majority of the attendance increase is season pass holders, because people aren't going to pay the gate just for the water park. In those cases, you get their money once, then you're done. You won't get cold gate traffic on that admission (which is precisely why Geauga Lake is $25).

maybe the waterpark has been busy because of the heat wave?

It would be funnier if they added a new waterpark area, included it in regular park admission, had to result to absurdly low admission prices, and still *lost* attendance. Oh wait.. ;)

+Danny,

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Snowman said:
sparky: You're touching on another area that supports my view. When the waterpark's full, there's a whole other park to absorb the overflow crowds. Had it been separately gated, how many people would they have turned away this summer? With the two-parks-in-one arrangement, there's plenty of room inside, so the park can keep selling tickets the whole time. Waterpark-focused guests can go ahead and buy their ticket, then use the dry park as a sort of waiting room, keeping themselves occupied with other attractions until the waterpark crowds die down a bit.

*** Edited 8/8/2005 2:00:53 AM UTC by Snowman***

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The problem with using the park as a "waiting room", if you really want to go to the water park, you have to wait in line. After the water park is at capacity, it's closed. As people leave the water park, they let more in. We asked the people waiting in line just to get into the water park how long they waited when we were there last weekend. The answer. 2.5 hours. 2.5 hours baking in the hot sun, not riding anything, not buying food, not playing games, not buying drinks, not buying souvenirs. Just waiting 2.5 hours, sweating their a$$e$ to get into the water park. Sounds like fun to me.

Think THEY woulda appreciated a waterpark with higher-capacity attractions?

Until someone comes up with something that can handle peeps like a wavepool or lazy river, then waterparks are just gonna have to plunk down the bucks and BUILD more...like Will did... ;)

Honestly, I'd have a family wavepool with more moderate waves and a thrillseeker wavepool with bigger waves....ditto for the "lazy" river and the "rambunctious" river.. :)

Those MUST be in place before you can even remotely consider yourself a waterpark with enough capacity to survive the throngs of people coming through the gates....THEN deal with your mat slides and tube slides and body slides, etc. Other than Canobie, EVERY other park on my trip that HAD an included waterpark, had short lines for the rides...and the waterparks were just *crammed* full of people...silly people... ;)

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+Danny said:
It would be funnier if they added a new waterpark area, included it in regular park admission, had to result to absurdly low admission prices, and still *lost* attendance. Oh wait..

+Danny,

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Shh, Danny, you might tick off the CF Fanboys... ;) LOL

I totally agree with rollergator about his theory with 2 rivers a "lazy" one and an "action"one, and then the 2 wave pools. The wave pool, and river rides, are 2 rides that increase capacity greatly, as the are usually both always filled with people. And thats exactly what were doing at Deep River, we already had a "lazy" river, and just this year built an "action" river.

Another thing that factors into capacity is the number of slide towers you actually have. HH only has something like 4 or 5 total towers for slides if I'm not mistaken. Thats not a lot for 20+ slides. If you have a tower for each slide or multiple staircases for slides on one tower, then you can put more people in lines, therefore increasing your stated capacity. I also think its better this way, as it helps you spread things out. Although it costs more to build your towers like this, its better in the long run because you can have more people in your park.