Busch Entertainment takes revenue hit

All because they closed all the Hospitality Centers.............................

^Drunk people spend more freely.... ;)

Some BEC parks did much better than others despite the lower revenue.

Nonetheless, they are and have been profitable to AB and now AB-IB.

Unfortunately doesnt stop IB from senseless budget cuts to the parks.

/rant

And a ticket to Busch Gardens remains among the most expensive day trip to a theme park in the industry (Disney and Universal even have better one-day ticket deals);Working in D.C. I realize they're by far the most expensive park in a market that includes Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens Europe, Six Flags America, Hershey Park; additionally, the other three all include free water parks and feature discounts of atleast 25% off. As much as I love BGE, their promotion in D.C.-area remains laughable in a year where everybody's pockets are thin.

Busch Gardens Tampa and Williamsburg were the only parks I could not find tickets for under $50 to this year (includes two Disney, three Cedar Fair parks, Lake Compounce, Hershey, and two Six Flags). I doubt the general public, particularly mothers planning a family trip for 4+ has had much success either. You can get just as much thrill and quality family time for under $50 at hundreds of other parks and attractions in equal distance of both BGW and BGT. I would not be suprised to see Hershey surpass Busch Gardens (VA) in attendance this year. I'm not sure that cutting Hospitality Centers and one of their five staple-coasters will help.

You would be surprised how many people still come to Busch despite your feeling of thin pockets.

In fact BGW has had record attendance numerous days this year, with the 3rd of July being an all time record attendance in Busch Williamsburg history. They are also the only park in BEC that has made budget in attendance consistently.

Also im not sure how you are having problems with tickets under $50 for BGW when they were running a promotion for at least a few weeks that adults could by 1 day park tickets at childrens pricing, $49.95 ($10 less than normal), and its still going on.

ridemcoaster said:
Also im not sure how you are having problems with tickets under $50 for BGW when they were running a promotion for at least a few weeks that adults could by 1 day park tickets at childrens pricing, $49.95 ($10 less than normal), and its still going on.

Did you really just argue that he should have no problem finding a ticket under $50 because he can currently score tickets for $49.95?

That's a technicality worthy of Gonch-like greatness. :) ;)

In Vertigo's defense, I think that was probably the ticket he was speaking of.

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Whoa whoa whoa there.... I was there with a friend on the third of July and although it was buy, we didn't find the park to be overly crowded. We only had to wait about 45 minutes for Apollo, 25 for Wolf, 45 for DarKastle, and 45 for the flume mid-day and shorter waits for the other big attractions later in the day. You're saying this very same day I was at the park happened to be the busiest day in the park's history?

Yes.. I am saying that. Now there are two statistics you have to realize:

Overall park hit 37K people. (record for the day ever).

Max at one time 29K people. (Not so much a record).

They never closed the park at all either, which is kudos to the parking folks as typically the only reason they close the park doors is if they run out of parking, but their communication was so well they never did.

Oh so you're saying it was the most attended July 3rd ever, not the most attended day ever?

No, I think he's saying that on July 3rd 37,000 people went through the gate - an all time record. But there were never more than 29,000 in the park at any given time which is not a record.

That's why it didn't seem unusually crowded to you even though it was the highest attendance day the park ever had.

37,000 people is the highest one-day attendance the park has ever had? That seems about 20,000 people short of what I would expect the all-time high to be. That is why I am puzzled. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine the park ever being too crowded, because 29,000 was hardly bad at all. I figured the park got way busier than what I experienced.

No, highest for that day of the year.

If Jeff is correct, I'm curious as to what is the highest number they've ever reached on any day in any year.

After reading through and trying to sort it out, I think you guys are right - it's the best July 3rd.

But still the original post is a bit confusing:

ridemcoaster said:
In fact BGW has had record attendance numerous days this year, with the 3rd of July being an all time record attendance in Busch Williamsburg history.

Exactly. The way it was worded and the fact that July 3rd was picked over all of the other record days implies that it was in fact the highest attendance of any day in any year. 37,000 just seems too low for the "all-time highest". Last year's Season Pass Preview Day seemed about as busy as July 3rd of this year did. I find that kind of interesting.

I don't know about that, though. I think 37,000 is a crapload of people.

Wasn't it BeastBuzz one year where KI was ridiculously crowded and the numbers being exchanged between coaster dorks put it somewhere around 35,000?

If that was the case that day, then 37,000 at BGW would be a madhouse.

Most big parks seem to average around 20,000 (give or take a few thousand) if you divide out attendance estimates. 37,000 people in one day would be pretty huge.

Perhaps. It's hard for me to tell based on what I experienced compared to what I've experienced at other parks when it was reported to be a 50-55,000 attendance day. I guess the 8,000 difference between 37,000 and 29,000 is more significant that it sounds.

Anyhow, if that day was a typical experience for the park's busiest days of the year, no one should be worried about attending the park on such a day. It wasn't too bad at all--way better than I've experienced at most other parks on a busy Saturday in peak season.

OK.. Let me end the confusion.

July 3rd is irrelevant .. It could be August 15 or May 20th. What was important to the park history was that the park has never experienced 37K people through the gates throughout any particular day before.

However the park peaked at approx 29K people that were actually in the park at one time.. This is due to the natural progression of people coming and going.

So Gonch your first interpretation was correct.

Sometimes I'm not talking out of my butt. :)