BREAKING! The Bat Flies Again at Kings Island! IT IS A WING COASTER!

I don't work for free. I'd add least need it to count for community service hours for school.

I know who to hire when I need to get nothing useful done!

913girl said:

"Long time enthusiast" requires you to be 30-55 in order to fulfill the long term part.. "Either single or married" who would have guessed? "With the ability and means to pursue their hobby". Uhh, okay.

Selective reading I see. I said Majority of Long Time enthusiast are older and most don't have kids.

Big difference in someone who goes to 10-40 parks in a year and a Park Junkie. Neither is necessarily bad. All I meant was the Majority of Enthusiast isn't what a park markets too. I've been both.

As for Gonch's misuse of time and labor. I see nothing wrong with playing with the minds and tweaking interest among say 30,000 Season Pass holders that might follow along. These are the ones probably making up one third the parks business and thats a far bigger word of mouth market than say 3000 active Enthusiast.

Would the parks exist without enthusiasts? Yes.

Would enthusiasts exist without the parks? No.

Perhaps Kings Island is trying to create one of the following:

a. excited interest or attention
b. rumor; gossip
c. a vibrating, humming, or droning sound
d. a state of pleasant intoxication
e. suffix used after an amusement park-related term in one or more popular website names

2 Flyers in 2 years in the same state is not asking much after Windseeker mania a few years ago :)

What flyers?

Not that it matters since KI is getting an invert.

Tyler Boes said:
I don't work for free. I'd add least need it to count for community service hours for school.

School? Oh! I always thought when you mentioned your community service you were referring to the terms of your probation. So...rry!

I'm in no way delusional enough to think the enthusiast community is a significant contributor to the bottom line of parks, but I don't see the harm in throwing them a bone every now and then, especially because word of mouth is still an effective form of advertising (in some ways I'd say more so than other forms, depending on the demographic).

I look at it as being the equivalent of social media for adults who have better things to do than stay glued to Facebook. I get asked at work constantly about my travels and often give recommendations. I'm just one person, but hey, if my recommendation sends a family of four to a park, then me being an enthusiast is good for the park in question.

That said, again, if you look at what I contribute to a park's bottom line, I'm not the high-yield guy they love the most. I get that. That doesn't make me completely insignificant, though. I still buy souvenirs, take pictures, and drum up interest through photography and my stories, so even though it's extremely minor, I, and many enthusiasts, are still an extension of a park's marketing arm.

Ultimately, I think a lot of enthusiasts can be delusional, but I think that the level of harshness heaped upon them by some in this thread strikes me as a bit odd considering that we're as much enthusiasts as anyone else.

Also, to the point about the fake website being a waste of resources, I bet anyone with any respectable Photoshop/web development skills could have knocked that out in an hour or less. I don't get the comb and hair thing that got sent to media outlets, but even if the fake website did nothing to stir up interest, I don't think it was a particularly expensive endeavor to begin with.

Why they even cater to us is beyond me, we are the annoying ones that are low per cap, (season pass, any discount you have out there, try to avoid spending anything more then necessary to facilitate us going to as many parks as possible, thats us!) in general quick to complain, and usually do not praise enough.

Im a member of ACE and CBuzz club, but Beastbuzz will only be my 4th event Ive ever gone to. I appreciate anything that the parks do for us, while I do not expect any treatment beyond that of a normal guest, on the rare exceptions where I do get that treatment Im quick to thank them, and try to contact guest services on the way out as well. I wish more enthusiasts would do the same (generally I find Cbuzz people are like me, and ACE is getting much better as the rude ones die out, other clubs that shall not be named leave a lot to be desired and non affiliated enthusiasts are by far the rudest of them all.)

Sometimes I think we generalize about our fellow enthusiasts. I mean, I dropped the coin for Fastlane twice last year (on top of a Platinum pass), ate at the parks constantly, and bought a lot of souvenirs. I may not have been the equivalent of Mr. Moneybags, but Cedar Fair got some good cash off of me last year (and this year, too, is looking good for them). Though many of us are not big spenders, many of us are also not gravy-basted cheapskates, either.

sirloindude said:

I don't get the comb and hair thing that got sent to media outlets, but even if the fake website did nothing to stir up interest, I don't think it was a particularly expensive endeavor to begin with.

From wikipedia: "Banshees are frequently described as dressed in white or grey, often having long, pale hair which they brush with a silver comb, a detail scholar Patricia Lysaght attributes to confusion with local myths. This comb detail is also related to the centuries-old traditional romantic Irish story that, if you ever see a comb lying on the ground in Ireland, you must never pick it up, or the banshees (or mermaids — stories vary), having placed it there to lure unsuspecting humans, will spirit such gullible humans away."

Not positive, but I'd be more than a little surprised at this point if the name ends up being something else.

No, I got the connection with the name. I was just agreeing that there are probably better ways of spending money. I think toying with the enthusiast community is great for a laugh, but that one probably exceeded the cost/benefit point required for being a decent use of money.

Oh, OK. Agree about the "expense."

^^Even if we arent all super stingy, we still are among one of the worst per cap spenders. Think about the biggest cost to a day at a park: admission. How many parks have you payed anything close to a 1 day price for a ticket? Between season passes, knowing the preview deals, coupons, and the few parks that give out enthusiast discounts we pay significantly less and Joe GP who comes to the park and buys a ticket at the gate.

Ill give you fastpass, but when it comes to other costs when is the last time you ate 2 full meals in a park? Most enthusiasts I know will have 1 meal and maybe a snack, most GPers are here for their once a year trip and buy 2 meals + snacks.

Of course the biggest moneymaker parks have by far is midway games, and how many of us engage in that horrible waste of money?

That said, I would think it is safe to say that on the exception of bad weather days (where unprepared GPs gobble up ponchos/hoodies) enthusiasts buy more merchandise then a GP.

I still maintain we are at the lower end of per cap spending.

Lower end of per cap spending but also lower end of marketing price to get us going. As mentioned, it's a crumby photoshop that took 45 min to get all this buzz. The high per cap gp requires much more expensive types of advertising... I'm sure many of us pay the $1 to get soda refills in our cups too. So we are still game for the item with the best margin for them.

If they had a fast pass discount for season pass people on slower days or at slower parks that was pretty significant, or something like 5 dollars off on a normal day id drop the money on that a few times a year probably.

On the games, I'd go for that too if the prizes were better. The plinko thing for gatekeeper was good but its all crap everywhere at wof.

sirloindude said:

Ultimately, I think a lot of enthusiasts can be delusional, but I think that the level of harshness heaped upon them by some in this thread strikes me as a bit odd considering that we're as much enthusiasts as anyone else.

I see no problem in being a enthusiast and at the same time knowing where I stand in the big picture. I have no problem pointing it out either. It's like telling your friend to chill when he's being an ass. I'd love to see some level of dignity come to the community. It's time to evolve beyond the socially awkward mouth-breating, gravy drinker.

Again, there's a reason I partake here exclusively and have only attended CB events. And that's a compliment to all you lovely folks out the in CoasterBuzzland. (cheezy smile)

More to the point:

Somewhere between 3,000,000 and 3,500,000 people will visit Kings Island next year. If you think you drive business to the park or affect the bottom line in any meaningful manner or quantity by being a coaster enthusiast then - for lack of a better term - you're a moron.

(I don't mean you specifically, Justin, but rather 'you' in a generic/general sense)

I keep thinking back to Media Day to for Gatekeeper. They did not have to extend the invitation to enthusiasts but they did (and I hope they do the same for this ride next spring). The idea was to generate buzz and satisfy the enthusiast community; the same reason for the leak if it was planned. I'm sure it was not cheap to feed all those extra people for that day (more expensive that a few hours or even a day of some web developer's time).

Hard to say where we coaster nuts fall in the financial realm...

Sure, we attend the park 40x a season with a season pass and only spend $4 per visit. On a per-visit basis, that's...what...about $7 per visit, less than a family of four spends on parking for one visit.

But that's $280 in a park where the per-cap including admission and parking is around $40.

Which is better? Entertain someone once for $40, or all summer for $280? Over the course of the season, the cheap enthusiast can part with non-trivial coin.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

It had nothing to do with "satisfying" anyone but the park itself. They needed butts in seats because the ride looks better that way. They reached out to the most easily available audience.