Kings Island confirms Starlight Experience.

The area that currently has lights on the trees is the gardens behind the Tower (inbetween the carousel, bumper cars, and BLSC.

That sounds like a pretty good location. As has been said in a previous thread, Rivertown would make sense for this sort of thing too.

I'd wager another guess and say the reason KI is getting it now (hey, they've already put it in 2 other parks away, so this isn't just at the Ohio parks) is because KI got a big new attraction last year (when CP didn't), and with the economy and the state of CFEC, they've decided to give parks that didn't get a huge capital investment this type of attraction. They may be considering it at all their parks for these 'off' years.

The reason they didn't add it to KD is that they added Boo Blasters, Planet Snoopy, and that huge piece of red and yellow metal. They didn't need anything else this year to market, but KI definitely did.

ridemcoaster said:
Wont repeat myself in what im saying as the lot arent getting it.

It's not that we aren't getting it...we just don't agree with you. ;)

I think FUN should use this as a lead-in to putting an even greater emphasis on how much fun you can have in a park on a summer night. For years, nights have been getting shorter as parks cut hours and Daylight Savings time covers ever more of the season. Promote the night, have special features like this, extend operating hours to at least 10pm...and where applicable, offer hotel deals since after staying later in the park people don't want to drive home.....

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I understands Ridem's thoughts here. People who visit KI are likely to have visited CP before, and therefore Starlight is not a new experience for some.

Less people who visit KD even know that their is a Cedar point. Starlight would be an amazing new product for them to enjoy! :)

But, Tekwardo makes a lot of sense here. That's kind of what I was thinking when I read Ridem's first comment about Starlight's location within the chain.

I was going to skip visiting KI this year, because I simply go there way too much, but this is really getting me itching to go. I haven't seen the SE at CP yet, so this is exciting to me.

Why don't parks add some creativity when they are spending their marketing budget? Rideman has some great ideas there!

Who cares if it's not a new experience? Why go to a park twice ever then? I think you also grossly overestimate the market overlap. If I were a betting man, I would doubt more than a fourth of people visiting KI go to CP in the same year.

I would bet it's substantially less than that.

As would I.

However, there are a lot of industries that tend not to build similar stuff near "itself" (franchise aside). You make this sound like its a foreign concept.

I dont think what they did was Good, Bad, or Indifferent. I just typed my first impression of, "weird.. would expect that further away".

Thats just crazy talk :)

The bottom line is that this whole show is, on the scale of what these parks do for attractions, dirt cheap to install and even cheaper to operate. But the payoff can be tremendous just because of the "wow!" factor that quite frankly has been missing from nighttime park atmosphere for about the last 30 years. As I said last year, I think the park ought to consider using the same lighting concepts expanded throughout the park. Give people a reason not just to come to the park, but to stay late so that they can see a spectacle they can't see everyday.

In the early days of Coney Island, one of the big draws of Luna Park and Dreamland was the sheer scope of nighttime illumination. Why not bring that back for today's audience? And if you can do it with LEDs, which require very little current to operate, so much the better!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Jeff said:
Who cares if it's not a new experience? ...

The chain's management should care for the simple reason that a new experience to the area is much more marketable.

I'm in the gray area about this too, just like Ridem. I really don't think it's a major debate, although I do believe that some people who see this advertised as Kings Island's new attraction will "Pppft" it off as "The same thing that Cedar point has".

On the other hand, and to show you that I really think that you are right, I haven't been to CP since SE was put in, and I consider KI to be my home park, so it *IS* new to me.

The thing is, I really don't think these nighttime shows are being used to draw first-timers to the park...

I think Kings Island is using this to provide visitors with a spectacle that they can't experience in everyday life, which gives them a reason to return.

LostKause said:
The chain's management should care for the simple reason that a new experience to the area is much more marketable.

I think your "simple reason" is completely flawed, given not only the small number of people who will also go to CP, but also because you just don't get to see a show like that much of anywhere. Ever. Not to mention the previous points that demonstrate the goal isn't simply something to market, but also a smart strategy to keep people in the park longer.

...and at Kings Island, where so much of the traffic is local, getting people to stay later is definitely an issue. As the sun goes down, that park empties out.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Apparently the nightly fireworks aren't retaining as many as they would like. Remember also that KI does not have any pathways which are heavily tree secluded like at CP. Frontier town is pretty small comparatively. But putting lights all over the tower is a different story. Heck, they've been doing it in Paris since 2000.

The chain's management should care for the simple reason that a new experience to the area is much more marketable.

Stop thinking like an enthusiast ;). The chain's management is looking at it from the perspective that the general public are: Wow! I've never seen this before, and it'd be cool to see this at nite!

Again, most of the general public likely don't know that this is at Cedar Point, a park hours away (regardless of the fact that it too is in Ohio). It's a cheap investment that will likely pay off, and I bet the park won't get any complaints along the lines of "I saws this at Cedar Point, so my whole day has now been a ripoff".

They chain doesn't care about those opinions because they're so small. They only care about the people who stay late and spend money due to this smaller capital investment.

The funny thing is .. Im not thinking like one. Im thinking from a business perspective where the management knows they have a park nearby, and they also know they have a park further away that, especially recently, has a good draw from DC/MD/VA (huge population epicenter).

I can guarantee, with the right advertising you will pull more people to KD from that epicenter than you would in OH..

Realistically, I dont see people coming to just see the lights alone anyways so generally speaking I think the importance of placement at KD or KI is not a major crisis overall, more so, which could be more a value add with best draw location.

Then I got to thinking, hey they got a new 305 footer in a park that has suffered from by passers for a few years now.. put something else new at KD that's more for families and make the DC/MD/VA high dollar spending, short commute people even more happy. Not to mention a park that has a slightly longer season to capitalize on.

That said, im sure the lights will twinkle just fine at either location.

I get it. I see all angles of the so-called "argument". I, for one, will probably make a special trip to the park because of this addition.

But the thing is, they're not trying really to pull more people in at KI. They're trying to keep them there LONGER. They're pulling in a lot of people to KD this year due to the new stuff. KI got a big boost last year, and now they put this there to keep people there longer spending money. It's that simple, and obvious from a management POV. You always want people to stay longer and spend more.