Kennywood cutting back operating days -- raising prices

This year, a gallon of Milk is about 2.39. Last year, it was about 2.35. But, a gallon is still a gallon. It's not like I'm getting more milk.

Nice, Brian. :)

Yeah, stop and think about it for a second, Arthur.

The topic of this thread is KW's gate increase. The answer is wage increases getting passed on to the consumer. In fact, stop and really think about it. Kennywood is raising the gate because PA is raising minimum wage. What other parks are in PA?

Dorney, DelGrossos, Waldameer :)

In fact, I'm not sure parks really raise their prices based on new offerings. A park like Cedar Point has added two major attractions in the past couple of seasons and their price is actually lower than it was three years ago (or is it the same?)

And of course, Brian's example. Inflation. It's the same reason I can't buy a car for $500 like my grandparents could or get a modest, decent house for $20,000 like my parents did. Don't think for a second that you'll still be paying $31 to visit KW in 10 years...even if they never did another single thing to the park.

I believe Dorney's admission was $36.95 this year. Maybe the question should be why Dorney's price should be only $2 less than CP. Is it totally an issue of the economy of the surrounding region?

I agree that new attractions should not be the only thing a park takes into account when setting its pricing for a season. There's labor, utilities, taxes, prices for food and other materials. Even building up a surplus to pay for future improvements and attractions.

I think what people fear about a minimum wage increase is that the increase comes all at once for the people paying it. It's nice to think it's only Wal-mart and McDonald's employees working for the minimum. But most minimum wage employees are working for small businesses, for whom it's harder to simply ease in a 40 percent increase in labor costs.

In a local news article, people who were managers in retail and other fields mentioned that after the PA increase, they would actually be working for only a few cents more than their employees but with much more responsibility. So should they be compensated more? And then
what about the people at the next level above that, and so on?

As far as I know, Wal-Mart pays over minimum wage, just to get people to work there. It worked on me, but that didn't last long :)

I really can't blame KW for their increase especially since the regular price has not gone up for 4 years and the park remains near the bottom for pricing in a mid-sized park. (not to mention free parking, reasonablely priced food, drink, games, etc.)

I believe that 4 year price freeze was caused by 3 factors: 1 -- the weak Pittsburgh economy. 2 -- the doing away with general admission at KW two years ago. 3 -- Geauga Lake's price cut last year.

The increase is a result of the following factors: 1 -- Higher wage requirements. 2 -- Higher West Mifflin taxes. 3 -- GL raising prices and backing off in their efforts to compete aggressively with KW

Ummm, Arthur?

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kpjb said:
The price going up has nothing to do with Geauga. The PA minimum wage is going up $2/hour by next summer. That's a terrible hit for the park to absorb, as they already absorbed the extra money going to the local amusement tax without raising prices at all.

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GregLeg said:
Sounds like I have to add to my reading list. (I'm currently reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me", which isn't the newest of tracts out there and has a definite liberal slant, but I still find it engrossing)

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Wow, great minds do think alike. That book is currently my "stationary bike riding" reading material. And since it's getting colder and I'll actually be inside more, I may actually finish it in the near future.
lata, jeremy
--F*** Columbus, he was lost! (button seen circa 1993)

It would appear likely (possible?) that on further review, Columbus may not have been lost....he seems to have been following the routes set forth by an earlier Chinese exploration...

Gavin Menzies... http://www.1421.tv/ :)