2007 Golden Ticket Awards

^^^ I don't kow how they choose the voters, but I was one of them, I was given no money, and I have no subscription to Amusement Today.

Added Carrot. *** Edited 9/5/2007 10:44:45 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

I voted.

I sent an email to Amusement Today, told them I wanted to vote, they asked how many parks I'd been to nationwide, and a ballot showed up in my mail.

Never got a cent from any park, never purchased anything from AT.

So I would say the voting IS open to anybody if you get up off your lazy arse and ASK.

Maybe your Splish Splosh or whatever the heck it's called isn't on the list because it isn't as good as the others on the list. Have you been to them all so you can make a valid comparison? Or have you only been to that park, and you're basing your "award winning" park on some local source that ALSO doesn't know about Splashin' Safari, Shlitterbhan, etc.

Now who's whinning?
And because you asked and got one, Doesn't exactly make it RANDOM now does it? *** Edited 9/5/2007 11:23:31 PM UTC by Charles Nungester***

Never said it was random. If you actually READ majortom's post/argument, he said:

Who gets these invitations to vote? Why not open the voting to everybody?

Go ahead bash me if you like but these awards dont show anything. I wouldnt be compalining if the voting was open to everybody.

So, I said what I said.

Do you see the words "random" in there anywhere? No, the argument was over the openness of the voting, not the randomness of it. You twisted and spun that one so quick you could work for the Republican National Committee.

Do you hate freedom?

-Brett, who remembers a time when Chuck was a respected, knowledgable, sensible poster on this site, not a blindly anti-corporate, illogical, reactionary, whiner that would give a 6 year old who doesn't want a bath a run for his money ...

^At least for Impulse-ive, its as random as Mitch's poll. Kind of hard to do a random survey anyways when so few of us go to multiple parks.

Besides who really cares about polls anyways, the only ones I take stock in are my own personal ones. As for what steers me to new parks, that a combination of: location, word of mouth, price, and how much the park/coaster line up excites me.

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Impulse-ive said:Never said it was random. If you actually READ majortom's post/argument, he said:Who gets these invitations to vote? Why not open the voting to everybody? Go ahead bash me if you like but these awards dont show anything. I wouldnt be compalining if the voting was open to everybody. So, I said what I said.Do you see the words "random" in there anywhere? No, the argument was over the openness of the voting, not the randomness of it. You twisted and spun that one so quick you could work for the Republican National Committee. Do you hate freedom?-Brett, who remembers a time when Chuck was a respected, knowledgable, sensible poster on this site, not a blindly anti-corporate, illogical, reactionary, whiner that would give a 6 year old who doesn't want a bath a run for his money ...

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What are you talking about? now you want to get personal and attack?

I suppose thats within the TOS but you mention whinning first. I was discussing my disspleasure with the way this whole award is given, You mentioned WHINNING.

Freedom would be everybody getting a vote that wanted it, Not some controled and biased outcome as obviously some of this AWARD IS.

This poll, Award, or whatever you want to call it, A REWARD FOR ADVERTISING SALES IMHO DOES NOT CONSIDER ALL PARKS, MAKES NEW CATAGORIES EVERY YEAR AND DISCARDS THEM AS IT FEELS NECESSARY and is mainly a MOST VISITED VS WHAT IS ACTUALLY THE BEST and I GAVE MANY EXAMPLES.

I was in ACE, I've asked for a ballot, I've been in several clubs and never go a ballot in 7 years now yet I know people who've gotten them five years running.

So lets get personal shall we?
My views are what I believe to be true, If thats hurtful to you. IM SORRY but I call it as I see it. Sure sometimes I stir a pot or two but INSULTS are something I don't normally engage in, As for your anti corporate ect B.S. There are several large parks I ABSOLUTELY LOVE and have been done right without taking the charm out of them as they've changed over the years and there are those that CLEARLY HAVE BEEN MISSMANAGED with no clear plan.

OK, Im done now.
Fire away.

Directly from the AT website.

"Any well-traveled enthusiasts who wish to be considered for the 2008 survey can contact us by email at tbaldwin@amusementtoday.com or by postal mail. Amusement Today is eagerly interested in expanding our international participants."

So now the voting has changed, It used to be Randomly chosen from four regions,

Im sorry about the random part of my thread. But thats how the participants were chosen in the past.

Chuck

I looked at the previous results, and the same offer was available in 2006 and 2007. So if you didn't vote, you can't complain. :) Though I know me saying that will only instigate people more.

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Raven Maven said:
Well...since you brought it up ... I dug around in our archival copies and the best I can tell, it *is* a record number of points.

Paula

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Well then, congratulations are in order. I knew from the moment you posted that pic of the barrel full of those metal braces that you all were trying to build the number one woodie. Well done.

So much anger. Everyone, have a Coke and a smile.® :)

I don't know why people get so bent out of shape about this every year. Like clockwork, the results are announced and the conspiracies of fanboys and parks buying votes come pouring in. As if Cedar Point is a traveling carnival and it's just too far fetched to believe. And it seems that the people who yell the loudest are the first to complain about not getting a vote, or pointing out how awesome it is that (insert enthusiast favorite here) is finally getting recognition.

The cool thing these days is to just blow it off as a way to sell advertising. I'm certainly not going to try to tell anyone there are no ads, but how does that change what it is? Most magazines exist only to sell advertising. Does that mean there are never any good articles in GQ or Time?

So, who cares if Cedar Point wins best park every year? Just because you don't agree doesn't mean you're right. Like I said, it's not exactly out of left field. Who won best park when CoasterBuzz had its survey? Didn't the same crowd grumbling here vote in that poll?

It's a fun poll, the collective opinion of a selected group of people. While it's not a scientific analysis, it's not void of insight either.

Maybe it's just me, but I see similarities to the "gravy" thread. Belonging to ACE or voting for Cedar Point doesn't make you an inferior enthusiast.

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Charles Nungester said:
Well 3 million visit CP and 800,000 visit IB.

So which park will get more votes?
Chuck

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It's not the ultimate statistic, but certainly the attendance difference says something?

I think that these awards are focused more on American theme parks and attractions because the parks that are consistently awarded Golden Tickets use these awards as part of their promotions to entice the regular American family or Joe Smith to visit their parks.

Most American families and individuals that aren't coaster enthusiasts (which is pretty much 99.999% of people) aren't willing to go out of the country to merely ride coasters like Goliath in the Netherlands (4th best steel in the world according to Mitch Hawker's poll) or Katun in Italy (5th best steel). It's nice to know that a small minority of coaster geeks feel this way but Amusement Today's results are actually used on a mainstream basis by American parks for advertising their parks.

Golden Tickets don't mean anymore than the Oscars or Emmy Awards do for their respective industries except for advertising ala "XYZ Movie, winner of 3 Academy Awards, is being released on DVD..." They're just really well hyped-up awards based in the U.S. that are used for parks to create advertising to attract Americans for the most part.

Sure, one of the factors in the results includes voting but the more important part of the Golden Tickets is park exposure since most American parks seem to have the belief that Amusement Today is the magazine of choice to be featured on and desire to appear as successful as possible on its annual rankings.

^Fantastic point, and may I just add this entusiast has no desire to travel abroad to do coasters. I just cant see myself taking time out of my expensive, possibly once in a lifetime visit to Country X to ride coasters when there is so much there that I could never come remotely close to doing/seeing here in the US.

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Jason Hammond said:^^^ I don't kow how they choose the voters, but I was one of them, I was given no money, and I have no subscription to Amusement Today.

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I had to buy the AT t-shirt, hat, and thong. It came as a set, but it was a bargain considering it came with a GT ballot. Do I really need to include this? ;) Gonch says no. I wish I could believe him... :)

I don't know AT's "criteria" specifically, but they do state that they try to generate a sample representative across regions of the US, and that they look for more "travelled" enthusiasts.

It's easy to say that Mitch's is a more "scientific" appraoch, and I doubt that AT would argue otherwise. Then again, anyone seen figures on Mitch's ad revenue? ;)

Um. Ew.

;)

Congrats of Voyage being number one and receiving a record points total. One thing that surprised me was that Griffon was ranked really low and was ranked behind SheiKra.

To me, the whole publication just seems like a bunch of people patting each other on the backs through advertising. It seems fairly meaningless.

It's like those guitar and drum magazines where the featured artist on the front cover is interviewed. All throughout the interview, we get to see every item that said artist is endorsing.

Cedar Point beating Magic Kingdom's "Wishes"? Are you nuts? El Toro only number 9? Knoebles beating Epcot for food? MAGNUM NUMBER 5?!?!?!

Ha. These awards are a joke, one day the travel industry will notice this. On second thought, they probably won't with CP's wonderful donations to Amusement Today.

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Ajrides said:
^ who cares i didnt think Voyage was all that great and in no way does it compare to SROS or even Eltoro the real #1 woodie and Mitchs poll will tell the truth. They should have deducted points for the BS of 24 sec of airtime on it because i didnt feel it.

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Wow, what a jack--- you are. People like you are the reason parks hate enthusiasts.

And Toro? Haha... I'll indeed wait for Mitch's poll (since your so keen on thinking it's going to change something), because Toro isn't going to take the lead anytime soon.

Congratulations to all the winners of this years North American Golden Ticket Awards.

Apparently nobody went to the European parks this year, and this left all the true, honest votes to North American parks.

Now, I wonder when AT will start doing a strictly European Golden Ticket Awards. This way real recognition can be given to those parks that are much better then those which won Best in Category votes this year.