Declining attendance at Cedar Point leads to admission price cuts

Cedar Fair sucks. So do Six Flags, Paramount, Busch, Disney and any other company that owns more than one park. YAY for the independents!

If it isn't Williams Grove, It sucks :)

Half true. If millrace is reading this, I'm sure he'll toss Guntown Mountain into the conversation!

I think more of it is a value & perception (or lack of). The thing the park is lacking for big families is alot of kids areas. Their last main kiddie addition was camp snoopy. I see it as there are two main parks in ohio. KI and CP. Both in the last 5-10 years have gone in entirely different directions. K.I. more toward the family and value with kiddie rides, no real big record breakers. (SOB exception). C.P. basically has a mindset of record breaking rides everytime, thinking they have enough for the kids. I would bet that if they had installed more kiddie/family attractions in the last few years attendance wouldn't be down as much as it is. Why haven't we seen a new coaster?? Because Kinzel is most likely in the process of getting his record breaker retirement coaster....Which won't help bring in big families.

Not true. It will bring in a large groop of coaster lovers AND yes, it will bring in familys. My cousen has 4 kids ages from 8-17....and all of them love coasters. They are always asking me what the next big coaster at cp is going to be(like I know). There are a lot of familys out there that come to ride the coasters.....thats what cp is. If familys want attractions for kids, than they go to disney or a place like kings island. Cp has done just fine while building the biggest and best, if you have not watched the news latley you should. A war....high gas prices and hurricanes. Do you think any of this has anything to do with it?

And what do you mean the coaster wars are over??? In the last few years we have had more recard breaking coasters built than I can remember being built. Dragster, shikra, kingda ka, el toro, steel dragon, millennium force, and I believe the patriot is breaking some as well.

I belive it was busch gardens who said that since they built there new coaster, that attendance has gone thrue the roof.

Coaster wars will never be over....lets face it. People want the biggest and fastest coasters, thats has been bringing people in the gates at cp since they built gemini.....thats what cp is.

I never said anything about the coaster wars being over. What I said was I think bigger families prefer K.I. instead of C.P for more family attractions and if C.P added more family attractions perhaps their attendance wouldn't be down as much this year or last. Tear it apart if you want, I don't really care. That's just one of the opinions I have. For example my brother is married he visited C.P with me for the first time this year since 1997. He has a family with two kids. He said, "Look at all the concrete" (which is why it's referred to as concrete point at times). And he also said "Are there more kiddie rides here?" And yes big coasters bring in more crowds, but I don't think you can only keep putting them in and keep attractring families in the long run.

Busch Gardens Tampa isn't the best example. Yes, they did build a coaster recently that has been successful but A...Florida isn't exactly coaster saturated and B...BGT had quite a mix of "family" attractions...not the least of which are the animals.

Oh, don't foget the water park is a separate gate.

Crazy Horse, you speak like a person that doesn't have any children. How many potential customers to you think are in Cedar Point's market that have children less than 8 years old? Answer: A bunch. Those are the demographics that have been overlooked.

Um...Millennium Force and Steel Dragon were build back in 2000, almost 6 years ago. Most parks (the smart ones) have bowed out of any silly coaster wars because guess what? People do not just want coasters, as is evidence by the declining attendance at CP, yet higher attendance at their neighbor's PKI house.

Of course coasters will never be completely over, but how many are opening next year compared with 6 years ago. Open you eyes and stop being such a fanboy. It's *becuase* of hurricanes, soaring gas prices and so forth that parks have to give people a reason *other* than gimmicky coasters to shell out their hard earned cash. There's more to life than rollercoasters, as much as I love them. There are 5 other people in my family that *don't* ride them. They also get a vote, and your right, they choose more well rounded parks like Disney, Busch or Holiday World to spend their time.

We only need to watch PKI build anything BUT a record-setting coaster in four years, yet continue to outdraw CP to figure that out.

-'Playa

I'm sorry crazy horse but you really need to check your spelling if you expect anyone around here to take you seriously. I can see one or two words but cousen? familys? groop?

Besides, you're wrong about the coaster wars still going strong. Exactly two parks have been fighting the coaster wars since the dawn of the new millennium- Cedar Point and Great Adventure- and both of those parks are now starting to take a long, hard look at why their numbers are down while those at other parks are up. Parks like Lake Compounce, PKI and Holiday World are seeing their numbers increase because they are making yearly additions that appeal to families and not just thrill-seekers.

Take a look at a small park in Winter Haven, FL that was left for dead just a few years ago. The park installed dozens of rides- all of them family-friendly, none of them record-breakers- and they are almost at the point where they have more business than they can handle. Cypress Gardens is probably the greatest amusement industry success story in the past decade and there isn't a big coaster to be found. Right now, the park's premier attraction is a Zamperla Crazy Mouse- next year, it will be a 60 foot tall John Allen out-and-back. Not the kind of stuff Cedar Point focuses on but I'm sure a number of Cedar Point execs would love to have some of Cypress Gardens' percentages to call their own right now.

A number of parks in the country should pay attention to what Cypress Gardens is doing... it would serve them well.

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Cp has done just fine while building the biggest and best,

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You aren't doing "just fine" when your CEO publicly states that you may be priced too high.

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if you have not watched the news latley you should. A war....high gas prices and hurricanes. Do you think any of this has anything to do with it?

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PKI is also in the United States, which as you so helpfully point out is at war. Residents of southern Ohio pay just about as much for gas as those from northern Ohio. PKI is closer to people affected by the hurricanes, and so is more likely to have its attendance negatively impacted by them. Yet, PKI is showing increased attendance, while CP is not.

So, no, I do not believe that war, gas prices, and hurricanes explain away the problem.

Exactly right. But sadly, that won't ever stop execs that have made mistakes from blaming their woes on international conflicts, the economy and the weather,

Geography may have an impact. Cedar Point is 100 miles from Columbus, 80 miles from Cleveland and Toledo.

Kings Island is 80 miles from Columbus and 20 miles from (practically in, actually) Cincinnati and probably only about 30 miles from Dayton. Fewer coasters, better kids attraction, "free" waterpark, less driving to get there from the closest major markets. As the price of gas goes up, Kings Island looks better to its market than Cedar Point does to its market.

As for Cedar Point installing coasters...there is an important thing to remember about roller coasters (besides the fact that they are roller coasters) that you need to remember. A roller coaster can carry about 30 riders at a time, and it dispatches those thirty riders every minute or so for a 3-minute ride. By comparison, a flat ride can carry about 30 riders at a time, but it carries those riders at about a 3-minute interval for a 1-minute ride. If you're interested in moving people, which ride makes more sense?

Especially when the flat ride is trying to mimic the ride experience you get on the coaster!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Brian, I do think you need to take into account that the average CP visitor has roughly a 1+ hour drive. I don't think the same could be said for the average Kings Island visitor. Gas prices probably play SOME role in the decrease attendance, though not likely as much as Mr. Kinzel et al would have us believe.

I doubt CF wants to delve into animatronics but I think you could do a great dark ride with the Peanuts characters and I think their potential hasn't been fully developed as of yet. If not the Red Baron ride I conjured up before I could see something with the Great Pumpkin that would be a good dark ride, particularly around Halloweekends.

Oops, Dave stole some of the thunder out of my first paragraph. *** Edited 9/29/2005 7:05:28 PM UTC by wahoo skipper***

^Drat you beat me to it. Who wants to take wagers that the "WEATHER" was the reason why the park did poorly this year? The weather has been pretty nice here in the Midwest all season long. A tad hot there for awhile, but other than that it was fine.

OT: Honestly I will probably not go back to CP next year as we were a little bored by our last trip. I'm not sure if it is because we have been there the last 3 years and the new (well new to Missy) has worn off or what... I keep telling her its because we go to so many parks each year, you are bound to get jadded after awhile. To think she only because a coaster nut 4 years ago and she has already been on over 300 coasters. :) Yep, she's a keeper!

Possibly, but I'm a bit skeptical---a 2 hour drive is about 100 miles. A car gets about 20mpg. That's ten gallons round trip. Let's say gas is $1.00 per gallon over what people are "used to".

Ten extra dollars on a $220 day is the marginal tipping point with regard to whether Dad decides to pack up the family truckster or not?

Granted, people aren't that rational about gas issues and commuting, but still. Add to that the hypothesis that high gas prices are actually good for regional attractions---rather than go to a farther-flung vacation destination, a family decides to stay closer to home instead.

Finally, some of the other parks mentioned---Holiday World and Michigan's Adventure---is even farther from any appreciable population center, yet both are doing well this year.

Ok, you might be making a good argument here.

But, airline prices were pretty reasonable this summer and I understand WDW had a pretty darn good year thus far.

I doubt that anyone taking their family to an amusement park for the day is going to make a big deal over the cost of the gas needed to get there. While people like to cite rising fuel costs as a reason for a decrease in tourism, I highly doubt that is often the case. Seems to me that most people don't care too much to the cost of a gallon of gas, even if it's 50% higher than it was this time last year.

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Brian Noble said:
Possibly, but I'm a bit skeptical---a 2 hour drive is about 100 miles. A car gets about 20mpg. That's ten gallons round trip. Let's say gas is $1.00 per gallon over what people are "used to".

Ten extra dollars on a $220 day is the marginal tipping point with regard to whether Dad decides to pack up the family truckster or not?

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I think it's hilarious that's there's now a small group of us who think this way and are more than willing to whip out the math at every chance. :)

And while I agree with that response 100%, I think it still may be the problem. Just because we do the math and realize that the difference is negligible, I'd bet that most people don't. They just see big scary gas prices and call the trip off.

Heck, every time the gas bumps a little higher there's always a thread here discussing how it will affect everyone's park trips. (and that's when we get to whip out the example math :) )

More likely, the increase in gas prices has affected the entire family budget (been to the grocery store lately?)....the trip, whether it costs 200 or 220, just isn't as feasible as it was when there was more of an "entertainment budget" available...

How DO you people afford having 2,3, or even 4 kids? Then again, how did my parents handle *seven*? LOL!

It's easy to get caught up in the "price of gas" argument, but the increasing fuel prices eat away at us financially in MANY different ways, often hard to detect....it's more insidious than just taking into account the price of gas for that one day travelling TO the park...

P.S. Just curious: My nearest parks are IoA/WA at just about 100 miles...do most people live THAT much closer...for me to go to the park, even in my "fuel-sipper" car, it's a minimum of 20 bucks in gas. Since it's FL though, I wouldn't have bothered to go to the parks that much this summer anyway...I save my trips for when the parks are empty... ;)
*** Edited 9/29/2005 7:59:49 PM UTC by rollergator***