California's Great America will move Invertigo to another park

With all the "doom and gloom" around the net over this move, how nice would it be if this led to a great new ride finally coming to this park?

Isn't Invertigo near the sky tower? That is where the new GCI woodie was planned for. ;)

Not quite. Invertigo is closer to Demon, Drop Zone and Grizzly.

The article mentions that the 2012 attraction will NOT be the GCI wood coaster as its in limbo due to noise concerns.

A pre-fab woodie would be nice and quiet, comparatively. :)

Cedar Fair has one deposit left for those flyer rides. I am guessing it would take that spot, and if they sold the park, it would be removed and sent to MiA or something.

After removing three coasters in a row without installing one, yet another Windseeker would be like slap in the face. lol

I suspect that the wood coaster is not just on hold because of noise concerns, but also because of concern for the long-term future of the park. And there really is no telling what will happen to the place, with the whole stadium issue and the question of whether Cedar Fair will continue to operate the park. I would think that until the future of the park is more completely settled, we might see expansions limited to those attractions which could be salvaged if the park were to close, relocate, or to be sold.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I guess that's a solid long term business strategy. Unfortunately, it comes at your loyal guest's expense, as well as lost potential revenue.

That park has been a source of lost revenue longer than Cedar Fair has owned it.

Has there been an attendance figure mentioned any time in the last decade or so?

If it has been losing revenue, does that mean that Great America is a similar situation to what Kentucky Kingdom was dealing with by leasing to the fair board? I know the land that Great America sits on belongs to the city. Or has it been losing revenue due to declining patronage?

I was doing some research, and the last attendance update I could find was from 2005 when the park had 2 million guests, up from 1.9 Million in 2004. I think the waterpark opened in 2005.

Of course it has Jeff. When is the last time a major ride was added instead of removing one? That park's attendance use to be about 2 mill a year.

During that same period, SFDK has continued to perform well. You can't neglect something for years and expect growth. Although this has more to do with the way Paramount ran the park before Cedar Fair got there.

Guests could care less about what you're dealing with behind the scenes. They still expect something of value to spend their money on. With that siad I do agree that whatever they add will probably be off the shelf, and easily moved to another park if necessary.

But if they plan on running this park another 4 or 5 years, it might be a good idea not to look like there's a fire sale going on. Not unless you want a ghost town. I don't know, maybe they do. That would further justify paving the place.

Jeff said:
That park has been a source of lost revenue longer than Cedar Fair has owned it.

And just like Geauga Lake, Cedar Fair should have never gotten involved with the park. It won't be long before this park is shuttered as well and people in that community will be blaming Sandusky for shutting down another local institution.

Yes, but unlike Geauga Lake, Great America was never a stand-alone deal. Paramount only wanted to sell the entire chain and be done with it. Which doesn't impact the lingering suspect quality of Kinzel's decision to buy the whole enchilada, and certainly at a bad price.

Paramount wasn't going to let CF take all those great properties (PKI, PCW, PKD, PCar) and leave the dud behind. As expensive as the merger was, it would have prob. cost more if the dud park in NorCal had NOT been part of the package. It was an all-or-nothing deal...

Now, if CF could've traded GL for GA... Imagine what that place might've ended up looking like if Paramount had bought the whole complex from Cedar Fair... This is of course all happening in the other universe, the one where Spock is evil and has a goatee.

What everyone else said. If they wanted the Paramount Parks, they had to take them all. It's one of the reasons they SO overpaid for them. The park's failure to generate a profit has nothing to do with a lack of capital investment. PP throwing money at it didn't help either. People Who Know(TM) suggest that it's a combination of a crappy lease deal, a non-favorable tax deal and location. The last part strikes me as weird given the desire to plop a football stadium across the street, but I wouldn't know, I don't live there (let alone operate an amusement park there).

^ Well you would probably know better than me, but given the right circumstances there is no reason this shouldn't be a thriving park. The location isn't great because the park sits right dab in the middle of a business mecca, so anything built has to pass a bunch of hurdles, as we saw with the proposed wooden coaster a few years ago. It's frustrating, because the only thing this park really lacks are signature rides.