Any Michigan's Adventure news?

We are Platinum Pass holders and live about 2 1/2 hours away. Getting there brings out the "road rage" in me! :). 55mph speed limit (about 145 miles away) on a two laner and getting stuck behind trucks with 5 or more cars behind them that can't pass because the traffic is spaced out just right....UGH! Always telling myself that I might as well drive the extra hour and go to Cedar Point!

We went for the kids, and for me to get a couple rides in on Shivering Timbers :) (front seat kicks butt!) Also, to get the kids their platinum passes so we didn't have to mess with it at Cedar Point when we go next month. It was dead on a hot Friday. It looked like a football tailgate party in the parking lot for lunch. People setting up tents, chairs, etc. getting their eats on! Didn't see a lot of people buying food in the park, definitely not like they do at Cedar Point.

Adding a thrill ride every now and then couldn't hurt. I'm sure anything thrill ride wise will spark a little excitement in the people that attend Michigans Adventure frequently.

JW Addington said:

Adding a thrill ride every now and then couldn't hurt. I'm sure anything thrill ride wise will spark a little excitement in the people that attend Michigans Adventure frequently.

Even Timber-Rider?

bunky666 said:

All that preferred parking and FOL access probably AREN'T necessary at a park like Michigan's Adventure. Does Cedar Fair need to upcharge everything there? No.

So if they can make more money, they shouldn't? How is that in the best interest of unit holders?

If making more money were such a great idea, they'd be doing it already.

^ Ah, but they *are* doing it already! ;)

Jeff said:

bunky666 said:

All that preferred parking and FOL access probably AREN'T necessary at a park like Michigan's Adventure. Does Cedar Fair need to upcharge everything there? No.

So if they can make more money, they shouldn't? How is that in the best interest of unit holders?

It's NOT in their best interest, not exactly. However, if they ARE making the extra money, I WOULD hope they'd be spending the extra money on improvements to the park LIKE a new ride or slide or SOMETHING. I understand regular prices have to go up as inflation occurs in the market. I also get that the park IS cheaper than some of the other parks for parking, etc., but if the upcharges are all unnecessary because no one is buying them, what is the point of having them there? Because they CAN?

I don't explain financial stuff well, and don't GET financial stuff well either, so perhaps this doesn't make sense. It is quite possible. Was just trying to say I can kind of see where both sides are comin from. If I try to analyze finances of any sort too much, my head will explode.

bunky666 said:

However, if you look at it by saying all that stuff isn't necessary, then new rides certainly wouldn't be necessary either.

The difference is, marking off part of a parking lot and charging extra to park there has a small cost, whereas building a new ride has a larger cost. So in terms of creating extra revenue immediately, the parking lot probably wins out... at least, in the minds of the people who actually run/operate the park (only minds that matter?!?)

And that straight, immediate revenue leads to getting new rides sooner and more often. Just sayin'.

Right. But I think that was kind of what I was saying, albeit badly; if the upcharges are there, one would hope that the money would get put back into the park in the form of new rides and attractions.

From what I've heard, that's pretty much the plan.

See, I'm not convinced of that. If the park is making a lot of money from non-ride revenues, do they really have a huge incentive to invest in rides unless attendance starts slipping?

One could almost make the argument that Michigan's Adventure pacing themselves might be a stroke of brilliance.

Think about it: many of the greatest (or widely regarded as such) amusement parks have low coaster counts and add major installations on a rather infrequent basis. Busch Gardens Williamsburg has a mere five or so roller coasters, but each one is a really stand-out attraction. Meanwhile, you have Cedar Point that is pulling out two roller coasters in relatively short order because they simply don't have room for anything else. I know that Michigan's Adventure, being in a really small market it seems, isn't in the same situation as, say, the Orlando parks or BGW, but I'd say that saving up money to put in a ride is really worth it and well-executed is a far better approach than slapping a new ride into a park just to say you have a new ride.

ApolloAndy said:
See, I'm not convinced of that. If the park is making a lot of money from non-ride revenues, do they really have a huge incentive to invest in rides unless attendance starts slipping?

Those of you who don't understand business... read Andy's post over and over again until you get it.

Some parks need to add new rides and attractions every year to keep attendance level, like Cedar Point, and some don't, like Michigan's Adventure. That's common knowledge in the industry (and I am not "in" the industry). I wasn't aware that people here didn't know that. Now they know. :)

Unless they really feel like they could do better in the given market, but the few examples that I can think of of ride driven expansion (SFMM->the extreme park in 2001, SFO, GAdv's war on lines in the 90's) have failed miserably.

What was GAdv's war on lines?

Some years ago, GAdv declared "War On Lines" and installed more than a dozen flat rides in one season. Some were good, some not so much. I'm not sure any of them remain, but it was a failure. They were concentrated in 2 or 3 areas of the park, if I remember correctly (unlikely, I know) so that caused those areas to become heavily trafficked. Ostensibly, the idea, in a nutshell, was more rides=shorter lines at each. I want to say this was in the mid-90's, but again, my mind is like Kingda Ka..doesn't work very well some of the time.

Jackieland would have to be run by some really savvy accountants and financial wizards. This part of amusement parks just flies right over my head.

But there would be an El Toro racing coaster in my amusement park. Hee hee...Now that would be a high capacity ride too! :)

Thank you Jackie..like I don't have ENOUGH trouble sleeping. Now I'll be thinking of the ETRC (El Toro Racing Coaster) all night.

Well, one of the biggest problem with the War on Lines campaign was that (for whatever reason - staff, maintenance, demand) about half of the rides ended up being down on any given visit. I had GAdv. as my home park from '02-'05 and probably made 20 visits a year and didn't see the Huss Jump run a single time. Evolution was notoriously unreliable as well and Chaos was down as much as it was up too.