More People at PKI than CP?

I found AB numbers from 1990-1993 on the old rec.roller-coaster FAQ showing that CP and PKI only were alternating the top seasonal spot even during those years, not SFGAdv as suggested above. I guess it depends on the definition of "long time" for any SFGAdv wins.

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+Danny said:
What park markets itself as being owned by the same company that owns another park anyways?
+Danny

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Six Flags, Busch Gardnes Disney, Sea World, Paramount, just to name a few.

Also note that Six Flags, Busch Gardens, and Sea World use one website for all their parks, and that Paramount Parks are all linked together which is not true of the limited partnership CF parks.

Hmm, I guess I was thinking more by way of advertising through other companies and such like newspaper, magazines, TV spots, radio spots, etc. There were season pass mentions of Geauga Lake on the CP page this season as well as articles on the CF site, so that shows were you could have found out their connection if you happened to be looking and never watched the news, listened to the radio, etc. Just finding that isn't quite an advertisement though. The overall SF, Busch, SW, PP website doesn't quite do what I was mentioning either and anymore than it being *Six Flags* Great Adventure and *Six Flags* America in the "oh, by the way, we're both SF parks". For some reason I'm recalling a mention of PKD on the PKI site that made me think "If you like Kings Island, come visit us in Virginia!", but I take things too personally. ;)

+Danny

Joe's drunk posts removed... He's gonna get a kick in his fruity pebbles for that one. ;) *** Edited 12/19/2004 2:19:48 PM UTC by Jeff***

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UdoTch said:

Also note that Six Flags, Busch Gardens, and Sea World use one website for all their parks, and that Paramount Parks are all linked together which is not true of the limited partnership CF parks.

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Not to Nitpick, But Seaworld and BuschGardens are both owned by anheuser-busch. At least I Believe that they are.

You believe correctly. With, I think, the exception of Sea World Austrailia. Is it owned by Busch? Its not on their site, and they don't list it on theirs.

Oh how the off-season is affecting you all already, except for Joe now that he lives in Orlando. ;-)

I could really care less about attendance figures. Both Cedar Point and PKI are awesome parks. Enough said.

Now back to the snow. :-(

-Tina

LOL Holiday World almost beating Geauga.

Personally I think losing the animal side was a huge mistake but IM not CF's boss and I don't make the decisions. I did consider it something that makes it different FROM THE OTHER PARKS!

Chuck

Danny: As Captain Obvious already mentioned, there's a real difference between news and marketing. News doesn't sell anything, marketing does. I live here, dude, and the marketing message was piss-poor and had nothing to do with Cedar Point. The connection wasn't even perceived. I remember my volleyball parents in the spring thinking Six Flags still owned the place!

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+Danny said:
That's what happens when you remove half a park, well-known characters (Batman, Superman, Looney Tunes, etc.), charm and great atmosphere (imho),

+Danny

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What charm and great atmosphere. SFWOA was one of the gloomiest parks I've ever been to. No welcome back riders, no thank you for buying at merchandise. None of the employees acted like they wanted to be there. The only reason I ever went was the half hour drive and the fact that they had a few decent steels and 3 good woodies (which were closed down a lot anyways.

A Pittsburgh area family we met in line for X-flight thought Six Flags still owned the park before they got there as well.

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Charles Nungester said:
PKI has a way longer operating season than CP

While it's true that PKI opens sooner and closes later than CP, CP is actually open more days that PKI. PKI - 130 days; CP - 146 days.

Mike

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Fastball, there was plenty of charm and atmosphere on the wildlife side. It's not exactly something you can bottle and take home, so sorry if you didn't "find it".

Jeff, while I know/agree that there's a difference between marketing and the news, it's hard to believe that through press releases and getting themselves on the news that they're not making some sort of effect on people. In the past week alone, I've seen things like "Tivo doesn't want to go the way of Xerox and FedEx and be used as a verb", "Time magazine issues call Bush 'Man of the Year'", "Grammy Nominations announced led by Kanye West, Green Day, Usher, and Alicia Keys", "Jim Carrey's Lemony licks competition at the Box Office",... If businesses don't at least consider that "free advertisement", I'm not sure what it is. I'm planning to major in marketing, but I haven't started major classes yet, so please correct me if my belief is wrong.

I know the marketing message was piss poor. I have a few friends that live in that area who I hang out with fairly often (you're probably familiar with a certain Kristin and Jeff), so I know what reaction they have to it and they've described the ads to me and how unaffective they were (not that the empty parking lots- way emptier than SFWOA in 03- when I went with them this year told me anything). Hopefully they'll have a good marketing campaign for the new waterpark and I *love* how their new website looks (;)), so maybe they'll have a chance to make a decent impact on the 05 attendance like PKI, HW, Silverwood, and Wild Adventures have been able to with their additions. I'm just really excited for the variety in Ohio and that they're keeping the waterpark free with admission. They have a physically good park on their hands with GL, but still a lot of work to do.

+Danny

I think that we will see attendance go through the roof. Last year there was nothing to market. As Danny said, who would go because ownership has been changed? You go for the new stuff, and there is plenty of new stuff! And I have a good zoo (Cleveland Metroparks Rock!) so Danny I tried to stay away from the wildlife show. I was also mad that Shamu was gone. :( *** Edited 12/20/2004 12:17:00 AM UTC by Fastball84***

Danny, news is free marketing, but it's not like you call up the news and tell them what to write. You can suggest things and give them interviews, but they still write on their own. In the area, Cedar Point is well known. How many people other than enthusiasts know that Cedar FAIR is a company that owns Cedar POINT? So when people hear the park was bought by Cedar Fair, they may be like "who the heck is that? (People sure did in this area way back when they bought Dorney) And by "people" I mean the gp, not enthusiasts. So, in order to make their story well rounded and answer some likely basic questions, they mention it. It's hardly being marketed in that fashion, IMHO.

Of course it's not being marketed by those places or CF through the news, but it certainly doesn't hurt if the news is positive and something you want to be known. Dragster, as a record-breaker, (along with Kingda Ka, Millennium Force, Son of Beast, etc.) was built with an expectation that it would get on national TV, radio, newspaper, and magazines. That's something that record-breakers are able to do. If CP just wanted something to regionally advertise and market or get the locals, they wouldn't have bothered to add such a record breaker (WT and the likes are a different story).

I'm sure a lot of people still think SF owns Geauga Lake, but a lot of people do know. I wouldn't expect everyone to be informed. People ask us weird questions all the time at PKI like "Why did you tear down the Beast?", "Why did you add a loop to the Beast?", "When did you guys put a loop on this thing? It wasn't on here last year", "I'm so glad you guys added the Beastie here so the kids finally have a wooden coaster to ride too", "What did you guys do with the Magnum?",... Those aren't "enthusiast in-the-know" things.

+Danny *** Edited 12/20/2004 12:26:30 AM UTC by +Danny***

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+Danny said:
...it's hard to believe that through press releases and getting themselves on the news that they're not making some sort of effect on people.... I hang out with fairly often (you're probably familiar with a certain Kristin and Jeff), so I know what reaction they have to it...

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So you're using two coaster geeks as an example, one of which works on their Web site. Not what I'd call impartial opinions.

Their PR rep is right out of school. That's not to say that she isn't qualified, but she's certainly not experienced.

The attendance at GL was horrible because the marketing message was horrible, as you said yourself. I don't understand what argument it is that you're trying to make.

I was under the assumption that his point was that the reason the marketing message was so poor is because they were trying to sell it as a "park owned by the same people that owns Cedar Point" - which wasn't true - that was just news coverage.

OK, well if that's the argument, then yeah, I don't recall it even being mentioned after the announcement of the sale. It certainly wasn't in the TV spots, and there's no doubt in my mind that to John Q. Consumer it was just another name change. I bet if you put a hundred people from Greater Cleveland in a room, 99 wouldn't make the connection, and the one that did might not even know that the company Cedar Fair exists. Most people are shocked to learn that the same company owns Knott's Berry Farm, and that the jelly people don't own it. *** Edited 12/20/2004 4:32:34 AM UTC by Jeff***

You're a coaster geek too and those coaster geeks know real people just like you do. =p

I think they/you/I have equal reason to speak about what they've heard, you guys moreso since you're from the Cleveland area.

Part of my argument that we're on now and that you chose to reply to is that when CF announced they were purchasing GL, they knew that the media in that area would probably release to the public that SFWOA/GL was being purchased by the same company that bought Cedar Point. No, they weren't marketed by this and CF probably didn't want everyone to know about the connection in order to separate the parks. I'm sure they had a certain expectation that it would meet a certain amount of ears and possibly that word of mouth might move on. It's the same way when companies merge or buy out another. They know it will probably make the news, but most of them aren't going to be like "Come back to Lazarus, we're owned by Macy's now!" or whatever.

It's not exactly like that park disappeared off the face of the planet. Several people knew the wildlife side was gone and knew it wasn't a "Six Flags" park anymore in some way. If Cedar Point changed their name to Lakey Park, people would still know the park was there and would have gone like they did in the past even without a marketing campaign. GL at least had a bad one to run off of. We never see Dollywood ads up here in Cinci, but my parents and I go every year anyways. We didn't just forget about it.

+Danny