Geauga Lake 2007 Opening Date May 27th

I think Chuck just wanted to see cheerleader days. But, otherwise, he just got owned.

Right...If you can call that "owned"...

I've been a very big advocate of removal of rides from GL for a long time now. I thought nobody agreed with me.

Most of the time I just get yelled at by coaster kiddies who are spouting things like "yea rite, geogga lake needs more coasterz!" and it's pretty irritating. GL needs to get back to its roots.

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X Factor said:

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Charles Nungester said:They could have CHEELEADER DAYS, Scout days, A event, Half price for honor student days, Grad nights ect. ect.

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They had those.

Aug 21-27 and Sept 2-4 were Military Appreciation Days

Aug. 21-25 was Home School Celebration

Aug. 20 was the park's 3rd annual Cheerfest celebration (cheerleader competition)

June 19-23 was Scout Week

June 26-30 was a new Day Care/Day Camp Week.

They also had a new birthday party program for kids 3-11 years old which I have heard was somewhat a success.

Opening weekend is usually when school bands have award presentations.

Of course there was Oktoberfest which had very large crowds all weekend.

So what else could they do? It seems they've attempted to attract different groups all summer. There seemed to be quite a few company picnics this year.

X Factor

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What Im saying is they could have those in May and start early, Meaning making a profit without the GP being the sole support.

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Raven-Phile said:I've been a very big advocate of removal of rides from GL for a long time now. I thought nobody agreed with me.

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I got on the "removal bandwagon" probably on the day it was announced that CF took over the park...coasters on the scale that there are at GL only creates a bad situation where CP has "competition"...not the stiffest of competition by any stretch of the imagination...but why compete with yourself?

Dark rides, music festivals, waterpark, company picnics, family outings, etc. GL has ALOT of space to create its own niche...but it needs to steer well clear of CP's niche...that market is "occupied". ;)

^ I always knew I liked you for some reason, Bill. :)

You've basically hit the nail right on the head. There was a time when I looked forward to the annual Geauga Lake trip for the company picnic. Unfortunately, that was a long while ago.

The whole collection is just too -mediocre-. It either needs way more, or it needs less. Where it's at right now is just a state of "WTF do we wanna do with it?" There's so much crammed into one small space that I get bored very easily.

I love seeing snoopy everywhere, and I know there's a definite change coming, I just hope it starts with the removal of some big rides, and the addition of some more "family friendly" rides. A Gobbler Getaway-esque ride would do wonders in the western area.

-Josh

I'd say Swap out a 52-54" height restriction ride (X-Flight, Superman), and build something like Mr. Six's Pandemonium

Pull out Time Warp as no-one rides it.
And I'd love to see a petting-zoo, too!
and Tea Cups!

We'll if their attendance is down, Addmissions price is down, and their operating cost are up.

I support a move.

Dominator to PKI, Thunderhawk to MIA. Face off to Geauga and Villain to WOF.

Chuck, just thinkin out loud.

As I said before, Lake Compounce would be a good model for what this park should be.

Chuck, interesting choice of locations or should I say relocations.

Dominator to PKI - makes sense

Thunderhawk - MiAdv - makes sense

Face/Off - GL has Head Spin though I'd take Face/Off as a replacement. Head Spin - MiAdv

Steel Venom - Carowinds (they don't have a launched coaster)

X Flight - WOF

That leaves GL with at least six coasters.

I fail to see what the big deal is. GL is only loosing 4 or so operating days, they were only open on weekends before Memorial Day last year anyway.

^I don't think it's so much about this year (for those of us who call ourselves "reasonable", anyway). ;)

Really, it's more about the TREND that is being established...and the *direction* that GL is heading...

So, riddle me this? How will removing rides increase attendance? I'm lost on that one.

Then the guests would probably see less of a "bargain" (for lack of a better term). So I fail to see how that will help the park.

Aha, but what you're NOT considering is the shows and attractions (note the lack of the word RIDES) that will be *replacing* those that are lost.... ;)

Diversification from CP's offerings...that's where the future of GL lies (if any)...

Oh, stating that it's pretty much the waterpark that gives the park it's (CROWD)

The park has several rides that I would guess cost thousands a day to operate (Steel Venom, Dominator, X FLight being three of them.

Removal of a couple of those isn't going to hurt the bottom line in attendance and help the park in it's operating cost.

The fact taht CP is a little over a hour up the street means if they are going for TOP THRILL rides they go to CP. If they wanna quality day with lots of rides and atmosphere they go to Geauga.

Well, my opinion would be to remove similar coasters to Cedar Point and leave the ones that are quite different; i.e. X-Flight, Thunderhawk, and Dominator. And, I also think it would hurt their attendance. Those three I mentioned plus Villain and Big Dipper are the star coasters. The others you could do without. If you leave all the coasters similar to CP and eliminate the others, then that's even more of a reason to drive past GL.

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Coasterbuzzer said:
So, riddle me this? How will removing rides increase attendance? I'm lost on that one.

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It's not the actual removing of rides, per se. It's the rethemeing of the park to something that doesn't overlap your target demographic with Cedar Point.

Kennywood and Idlewild are a good example... they could have never survived if each were building the same type of rides.

Kennywood and Sandcastle are the teens and adult parks with separate gates as are CP and Soak City. Idlewild is the family park with the one price gate for the amusement and water parks, as Geauga once primarily was and now probably should be again.

There is no way that Geauga can ever directly compete with the point. They need to enhance each other for them both to survive.

*** Edited 10/21/2006 6:16:48 AM UTC by kpjb***

When you have two parks in the same market, they really do need to have differences. Hersheypark and Dutch Wonderland is another example of this. Hershey park is the big park with lots of coasters while Dutch Wonderland is a kid oriented park with more attractions designed for the little ones.

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Agent Johnson said:They did not ruin Geauga Lake, Premier Parks did. It started with the name change, then carried over when Sea World closed, and a chain of events made a mid sized picnic park into a mega-themer, which it never was built to be.

It will take years to rebuild the business into profit. Now they are trying to control losses, and rebuild a tarnished reputation.

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This was not totally Six Flags Fault, stop with the bashing and look at the realities.

Kinzel admitted that the animal park was a bigger draw than he had thought.

When the park was a Six Flags park people came to the park and it was busy ALOT! When Cedar Fair took over it was a ghost town. That shows me that the best operations in the world can't make people come to a park.

The blame easily lies somewhere evenly between the two chains.

They should do what they do with Dorney Park, charge about a 1/3 less than regular admission and only open one side til waterpark time.

What got people from all over to SFWOA was the Six Flags name and not much else.

Try this: Walk into a restaurant or bar and ask people if they've heard of Six Flags. Then ask the same people if they've heard of Cedar Fair. Most will respond they've heard of Six Flags. Some might say they've heard of Cedar Point, but not Cedar Fair.

Maybe what Cedar Fair needs to do is market themselves as the next (please don't lynch me) Six Flags-type chain.

We're Cedar Fair, and like Beatrice, you've known us for years!

SFWOA was mobbed before they acquired SeaWorld, but adding the animals really helped.