Cedar Point wins Golden Tickets for best park, steel coaster again

I've been looking for a place to ask this question and didn't want to start a new post to do so, but seeing that the ride in question was on this list I'll ask it here:

Is MaXair any different at all to the dozens of other identical rides around the world such as Psyclone at PCW or Delerium (sp?) at PKI?

It seems odd that a ride that has been at other parks for years would rank so high just because it is placed in the over-rated CP.

There aren't "dozens" of Giant Frisbees around the world. There's one at PKI, I think two in Europe and maybe one in Asia? It is identical, but CP's has a few tweaks including a faster moving floor and longer ride cycle.

If you add in the *regular sized* Frisbee-type rides, I'd go with the claim of "dozens"...the difference between the two is one of degree, not of type...IMO.

Of course, NO frisbee is a KMG Afterburner... ;)

Cedar Point is the best park I visited this year. I'd have switched those top two steel coasters though.

Let me set a few things straight about the Golden Ticket Awards. First, only three of the awards are chose by Amusement Today, and those are the Publisher's Pick awards. The rest are chosen by a survey of park enthusiasts, and if you go to www.amusementtoday.com, and read the first paragraph on the homepage, you'll see how this is done. So, the awards are unrelated to advertising.

As to why ads from the winners just "happen" to appear in the magazine, it's because the winners are informed far in advance of the ceremony so they can make plans to attend. It's not like the Academy Awards in which most of the nominees live in the area where the ceremony takes place. These parks are spread all over the country, so the winners are notified in advance so that they can make travel plans to attend.

So, obviously, they take advantage of the marketing opportunity and buy an ad in the issue that will announce that they've won. This is common in both the news and trade pub industry--when a story is being done about a certain business or topic, the interested parties take the opportunity to run an ad. Nothing wrong with it, and in fact, businesses would be foolish not to do targeted marketing. These magazines aren't responding to the advertising dollars with their stories...the reverse is true: the advertisers are responding to the stories because they know about them well in advance.

Finally, a new ride will usually not debut at the top of the list--and may appear beneath rides widely considered to be superior--simply because all the voters haven't had the opportunity to ride it yet. It will rise in the rankings as more enthusiasts ride it.

Yes, we know the winners get a heads up and it's a survey. So what? Should we expect the losers to buy ad space? Don't be naive. I've worked for trade magazines. They all do this.

To the individual named Jeff, you may know that the winners get a heads up and that it's a survey, but clearly some of the others who are posting did not---I think you'd better read back over the thread. Second, I never mentioned a word about expecting what you term as "losers" to buy ad space, so I don't know what you're talking about. I was simply informing some of the readers of the misconceptions--no need to get emotional or be insulting.

Oh of course, my lack of agreement could only be because I didn't read the thread.

Let me spell it out... these surveys have absolutely no editorial value. They're a means to sell ad space.