2007 Golden Ticket Awards

Since these awards are used by American amusement parks to promote travel to U.S. amusement parks, I doubt European parks/rides would ever place that highly on the Golden Tickets. Is there an enthusiast publication based out of Europe that has a similar type of award like the Golden Tickets?

Another post I read on a different site also struck me as interesting in this debate. CP commands the respect of the American amusement industry. Cedar Fair isn't a subsidiary of a parent corporation that is involved in many other industries like dishwasher manufacturing (i.e. Disney & Six Flags), it is an independent park whose board of directors are only involved in the amusement industry.

CP is what all parks desire to become even the little ones like Indiana Beach. More money and international fame is never a bad thing for an amusement park at least the ones that are out to make big bucks, which is all of them.

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JR Villain said:
One thing that surprised me was that Griffon was ranked really low and was ranked behind SheiKra.

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It may be different next year after more people have ridden it. Even though Sheikra now has the floorless trains too, Griffon has the wider trains and another inversion. I think it all comes down to wether or not the people voting have ridden either or both.

I belive the same holds true for the rest of the voting. Just because one ride may be better than another doesn't mean it's going to get more votes. If the better ride is at a less attended park, than it will probably get less votes.

Mitch's poll may be more accurate, but how many people really have the time to deal witrh that voting process. Not me.

Just out of curiosity, because I really don't know, how many people vote in Mitch's poll? For that matter, how many people vote in the AT poll?
*** Edited 9/6/2007 12:24:39 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

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Jason Hammond said:
I don't know 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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What he said. Well, I DO actually know how I got on the ballot list originally, and it has nothing to do with financial payments or a subscription.

This is a sheer straight "popularity contest", as most ballots are. Frequently visited parks will have a distinct advantage over smaller and/or distant parks. Witness the placement of Expedition GeForce, my personal clear #1 steel coaster, on the Top 10 Steel list. I can see thinking SFNE's Superman is better, but not by THAT many places. However, between personal preferences of people who HAVE been on GeForce, and the likely far fewer riders in the polling, Superman crushes it.

Such is the way of the Awards. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you keep that perspective in mind.

That said, congratulations to Holiday World -- Voyage clearly IS an excellent ride IMHO, and obviously many voters agreed for it to overwhelm the voting by that much.

Great post, Greg.

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GregLeg said:
Such is the way of the Awards. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you keep that perspective in mind.

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Worth repeating. :)

Perspective? Hahahaha!

But yeah, Voyage simply blows the DOORS off of every other wooden coaster I've ridden. I seriously doubt another wooden coaster will come along in the next 5 years that will even challenge Voyage's top spot...then again, Gravity Group keeps on building... ;)

Greg, GeForce always has a decent shot in Mitch's poll simply because Mitch acounts for (and eliminates the bias for) sheer *numbers* of riders...I can't think of ANY other ranking that does that.

The "spiking" of the rankings of overseas coasters seems to line up pretty nicely with large groups of Americans making trips...LOL!

Again, it comes down to each person's opinion. I'm sure not everyone here believes that Voyage is the best wooden coaster ever. You have your opinion, they have theirs. Put them together, and you have an opinion poll.

When discussing amusement park preferences, there simply isn't an opinion that everyone will agree on. Naturally, there are some opinions that more people believe than not. It's kind of like politics (or VIP access :) ). "I can't understand how you could believe any differently!"

Congrats on all the winners! :)

-Tina

I don't disagree with the results, I just don't like the nature of the relationship between trade rags and their sponsors for these kinds of things. It's a symbiotic relationship, and I get that, but it muddies the integrity of the publication as a journalistic endeavor.

Which is why I have a hard time reading magazines pertaining to some of my other hobbies. One car magazine I read on a regular basis seems to offer unbiased opinions while another pretty much hypes cars by any company advertising in it. It's at the point where I don't have to read about whether they like or dislike the new Civic Si- if Honda is advertising the Civic in the magazine, it obviously got a great review. What gets me even more is a video game magazine published by a major chain of viceo game stores- I read the thing and not one game scored less than 7 out of 10. Why would a game score any lower? By telling readers a game is bad, they're going to pass on going to the store and picking up a copy!

Ha! It's coll that voyage won the award, but from the sounds of it, I doubt this coaster will be nearly as popular in about 10 years or so. It's big and intense, and wood coasters that are that big and that intense WILL end up being very rough later on. no matter how hard you try to maintain it. Having said that, I am really looking foward to making a trip upther to experience it(and the park) for myself.

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Intamin Fan said: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.

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And thus the nail has been hit on the head. Dot a few parks with tickets. When they aren't necessaraly THE BEST, Many of the awards given are well deserved, Others are way off base IMHO.

It's good for both AT and the parks but I really see no scientific or fact in the balloting results and I honestly believe a lot of it is made up or skewed by AT itself to include some FAVORITES or highest paying advertisers of theirs.

Chuck, The views are my own. They may or may not be true.

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TXRider said:Ha! It's coll that voyage won the award, but from the sounds of it, I doubt this coaster will be nearly as popular in about 10 years or so. It's big and intense, and wood coasters that are that big and that intense WILL end up being very rough later on. no matter how hard you try to maintain it. Having said that, I am really looking foward to making a trip upther to experience it(and the park) for myself.

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You obviously haven't been to HW :)

There is not one woodie in the top 10 that has a better first drop than Eltoro and if you have ridden it you would feel the same way. If HW has such great maintenance then why does Voyage never run 3 trains? If a SF park did that everyone would be bashing it but just because it is HW you all give it a pass. I'm sure they will keep Voyage running smooth but it is going to cost more than they paid fot it to do so.

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Charles Nungester said:

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TXRider said:Ha! It's coll that voyage won the award, but from the sounds of it, I doubt this coaster will be nearly as popular in about 10 years or so. It's big and intense, and wood coasters that are that big and that intense WILL end up being very rough later on. no matter how hard you try to maintain it. Having said that, I am really looking foward to making a trip upther to experience it(and the park) for myself.

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You obviously haven't been to HW

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Nope, but trust me, no amount of time and money will help this thing in the long run, I don't care if it is your precious HW

^^If I had to guess why Voyage does not run 3 trains it would be because they don't dispatch fast enough to do so. It does not matter. Capacity is high enough. Voyage is 6442' of near perfect. To top it you have to go longer. *** Edited 9/6/2007 6:54:35 PM UTC by RavenTTD***

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Ajrides said:
There is not one woodie in the top 10 that has a better first drop than Eltoro and if you have ridden it you would feel the same way.

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You assume that anyone who doesn't think ET is the best hasn't ridden it? Aren't people allowed to disagree?

We all know that Kennywood's Racer has the best first drop in the business.

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Ajrides said:There is not one woodie in the top 10 that has a better first drop than Eltoro and if you have ridden it you would feel the same way. If HW has such great maintenance then why does Voyage never run 3 trains? If a SF park did that everyone would be bashing it but just because it is HW you all give it a pass. I'm sure they will keep Voyage running smooth but it is going to cost more than they paid fot it to do so.

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Uh, Probably because 99percent of the time they don't need three trains, On busy days by 2pm it's a ten minute wait tops. The built it with extra capacity. Going from One million to two million, They will need it. The learned off of having two one train coasters that it wasn't enough for thier continuous growth.

The coasters not rough, never been rough and the fix it if it starts to get so.

Much more than I can say for about ninty percent of the parks out there.

Chuck, only defending HW there because well, In that case they deserve it. In 8 years of visiting I've had two rides that I would consider sub par. Both were on Legend and both were last year. The fixed it :)

Like I said, what actually is "best" is irrelevant. It's the situation under which it's conducted.

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Rob Ascough said:
One car magazine I read on a regular basis seems to offer unbiased opinions while another pretty much hypes cars by any company advertising in it.

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I have a friend who writes for a trade magazine covering car part OEM's. She has been deliberately asked to write features about big advertisers. That's pretty much SOP at trade rags, unfortunately.

Of course. And those features usually put a positive spin on the item or service being featured. It's why I take this kind of thing with a grain of salt. Trade rags can be very entertaining, but they are certainly far from unbiased.