Annual "best guess" theme park attendance report posted for 2011

My takeaways as I read the report:

Wow, I can't believe Asian parks have that high of attendance, and on that note, I recently looked at a list of parks and coasters in Asia and I can't believe there are so many. Are many of them new, as more aspects of Western culture spread to previously impoverished locales? Or have they been around and just not been cataloged anywhere online until the past five-ish years?

How can Cedar Point have attendance only equal to that of Kings Island? Or is the more appropriate question, how can Kings Island have such a high attendance? Loyal patrons?

I'm also pretty surprised at Hersheypark's quite high numbers, given its location away from population centers. I suppose it kind of has that "destination" quality to it, going along with the big disney/universal/busch/seaworld numbers.

Kings Island has always had a high attendance. Its numbers, along with CW's, make Cedar Point's status as flagship of the chain a little debatable--or maybe a lot.

Well Cedar Point and Kings Island are technically tied.

Hersheypark has a lot of big cities nearby to draw customers from. Harrisburg is right next door. Philly and DC/Baltimore is only about two hours from the park. NYC is about three hours away. Pittsburgh is only about four hours away.

bjames said:

How can Cedar Point have attendance only equal to that of Kings Island? Or is the more appropriate question, how can Kings Island have such a high attendance? Loyal patrons?

Cincinatti metro area has over 2 million people, right next to KI. If anything, one could debate what CP's attendance numbers would look like if it wasn't always winning golden ticket awards/publicizing them.

Following LK's logic, where's Six Flags Great Adventure? I think of it as an insanely busy park, and always thought it placed near the top in seasonal attendance. Could it be (wait for it... wait...) the lack of nearby hotel rooms?

I think it's interesting that the top four North American seasonal parks belong to Cedar Fair and Six Flags has none- just the one year-round park ringing in at number nineteen. The number of properties and the overseas parks must be what puts the Six Flags chain as a whole slightly ahead of Cedar Fair.

I love statistics like this. Knowing this stuff makes me sound real smart when I discuss parks with non-enthusiasts. Or if I run into friends from other clubs.

Kings Island has a very strong Season Pass base that accounts for a lot of the turnstile clicks. In terms of revenue though, Kings Island isn't in the same league as Cedar Point.

So where are the numbers for Michigan's Adventure? I was led to believe that park had such outstanding numbers it was deserving of new attractions every year....

But seriously, I do find the contrast between Islands of Adventure vs Universal Studios Florida (29% vs 2% increases) very interesting. I would have thought Harry Potter would have likewise increased USF numbers more than 2%, since many people buy multi-park passes.

Also, Noah's Ark's numbers in the water park category are impressive since the park only operates for slightly more than 3 months of the year, compared to the nearly year round water parks of warmer states.

At the very least, the UO vs. IoA numbers shed full light on the Gringotts-to-Amity rumor.

jonnytips said:
If anything, one could debate what CP's attendance numbers would look like if it wasn't always winning golden ticket awards/publicizing them.

If you asked ten random people in Detroit or Cleveland about the Golden Ticket Awards, they'd have no idea what you were talking about. I'm sure it has zero material effect on attendance.

jonnytips said:

bjames said:

How can Cedar Point have attendance only equal to that of Kings Island? Or is the more appropriate question, how can Kings Island have such a high attendance? Loyal patrons?

Cincinatti metro area has over 2 million people, right next to KI. If anything, one could debate what CP's attendance numbers would look like if it wasn't always winning golden ticket awards/publicizing them.

Or you could debate what CP's attendance numbers would look like if they had a metro area around it with over 2 million people.

Jeff said:If you asked ten random people in Detroit or Cleveland about the Golden Ticket Awards, they'd have no idea what you were talking about. I'm sure it has zero material effect on attendance.

No doubt it's meaningless, but I've lived in both the Syracuse NY area and the Boston area and in both places I've come across a lot of average people that have not only heard of it, but have been to Cedar Point.

I don't think I've ever met any average person though that has heard of Kings Island, but if you think about it, there isn't much of a difference between a 12 hour car ride and a 14 hour car ride coming from Boston.

So that's what my original question was getting at I guess. Cedar Point and Kings Island are in about equally sized local metropolitan areas (about 2 mil each), and CP is also able to (seemingly) draw its guests from a longer distance, but it still can only match Kings Island? (Or, but Kings Island is able to match Cedar Point?)

Your assumption is based on the idea that significant portions of the customer base are from out of their core markets. They're not.

Cedar Point is in the middle of nowhere and markets itself as a destination park to a wide radius.

Kings Island is a large regional metro park that it quite popular within its region.

Most of the large regionals, while not on the list that ends at 20, would be within a couple hundred thousand of CP & KI in attendance.

I'm not sure what the mystery is here.

What's going on at Busch Gardens Europe? Did some extra research and sources point out a trend forming. I hope Verbolten lights a fire under some butts to get out to the park.

The metropolitan area of Sandusky had a population around 77,000 in 2008 and the population in the area has been decreasing annually. Far cry from 2 million. Just sayin' :)

Like Gonch said, CP markets itself as a destination and I'm sure having the "est" multiple times over the years and being featured on shows, helps get the word out.

And in addition to the 2.2 million in the immediate Cincy metro area, you can't forget that just 120 miles away are another 1.8 in the Indianapolis metro.

And the closest 'big' park for those folks? Yup. Kings Island.

Also, the 1.9 million in the Columbus Metro area are also generally closer to KI than CP - and it's a straight shot on the interstate to KI.

Then there's the 700,00 in Louisville and the 600,000 in Lexington for whom the closest 'big' park is KI still just two hours or less away.

That's over 7 million people in 5 metro areas within a two hour radius.

Hell, the truth is, it's pretty amazing that CP keeps up with KI numbers, not the other way around. They're pulling people from much further away.

And for what it's worth, each year since CF bought the Paramount parks, I generally see/hear noticably more Cedar Point advertising on TV/Radio than Kings Island advertising...and I'm in Dayton. Less than an hour to KI and three hours from CP. So there's at least some sort of conscious attempt to pull some of us up north.

(Been a while since I've been able to play with cold, hard numbers around here.)

Cleveland is about an hour from Sandusky, Akron is less than two hours away, Columbus is less than three hours away, and Pittsburgh is about three hours away.

In the other direction, Toledo is about an hour, and Detroit is about two hours away. I think that Cedar Point has it's fair share of population to draw from too.

Well, I was keeping it under two hours. Which was my whole point - CP is pulling from a much wider area.