Pay Per Ride vs. General Admission

I was just thinking about which would be better for the park.

The average park is around $30 for a ride all day pass good for all rides except for a few pay per rides.

Basicly a family of 4 would spend $120 to get in the park all day.

At a Pay per ride place. they need to pay for each ride. A $2 ride would cost the family of 4 $8.

I often wondered why more parks don't offer a pay per ride. If you only have 3 or 4 hours to visit a park would you be more likely to pay $30 for a RAD pass or fork over per ride knowing you will only be able to ride 3 or 4 rides costing $15 to $20, and a meal $15.

I think a park would make out better offering both. I think the general admission fee stops the elderly people and parents taking small kids (under 48") to parks. I think They'd see a big increase in food sales and some extra profit in the rides.

If you were 90 years old would you be riding coasters and other thrill rides. Older people love to go out and eat and watch younger people having fun. With the Pay per Ride they would be able to do this. Sure parks give a seinor discount but most still wouldn't want to pay it.

Parents with younger kids usually don't want to ride stuff. There taking their kids to have a good time. Why would two adults want to pay $60 to let there kids ride some kiddie rides for an hour or two. Most little kides a tired in a little time anyway.

I just think the general admission kills some of the park experiance. I remember my grandfather taking me to Knoebels when I was very little 3 or 4. he'd put me on the kiddie rides and ride some of the bigger rides i could get on with me, haunted Mansion, Carousel, and the Trains. I just feel that most parks are taking away this experiance away from the younger kids.

What does everyone eles think about this?

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Visits to Knoebels in 2002: 6

That makes sense... for smaller parks.

However, at a park with a daily attendance of 20,000 or so I think that would be more of a pain.

Can you imagine trying to check 20,000 people for wrsitbands, tickets, and what not...

Ouch

So basically you are talking about what Indiana Beach does right? It sounds like a good idea to me but it would be a pain at larger attendance parks.
Indiana Beach, Knoebels, Lakemont, Kennywood, most of the smaller parks do this.

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The Beast and Night, They go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly

I think the general admission is a much better investment. Paying for each ride adds up.

What Lake Compounce does will solve your problem. They offer a non-ride admission. It's 6.95 I think. Older people can get that.

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S:RoS ( SFNE ) rules!

This is why they invented season passes. Buy the pass for a pittance, and then visit the park any time, for as long as you want (even just an hour or so).
I never knew KennyWood did that. They are a pretty big park.

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-Sean

its waaaay better for parks to do one price then pay per ride. so much better.
you take going to a park like SFGRad on a friday or a sunday. you will get on about 15 decent rides in your day.(re rides on medusa and nitro and batman) plus you eat twice and take time to take pictures. a fair price would be 2 bucks a ride. thats only 30 for a hardcore rider. now what about the people who take it easy and only ride like 8 rides. they would have to charge like 5bucks a ride to make up the profits. they want to cram as many people into the park for as much as possible with waits as big as possible(so you buy more $3 pop). paramount and six flags are more like this. cedar point on the other hand is totally not like this. which is why we love them so much
SFGAdvMan, it is an option at Kennywood and it is still very reasonable if you take that route, you can do the full day pass though.

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SFNE Dude said:


What Lake Compounce does will solve your problem. They offer a non-ride admission. It's 6.95 I think. Older people can get that.



I dont get that, what stops the people who buy a non ride admission from going on th ides?

Disneyland used to do tickets and they attracted 40,000+ guests a day, so large parks could, but it needs to be well run.
One major problem with this is the labor involved. You would need to staff people specifically to take tickets, and then others to sell the tickets. This is one of the reasons that Disney dropped the ticket books.

I loved Blackpool's system. They do the "Ride All Day" wristband or ride tickets thing, much like Kennywood. The difference was that at Blackpool, each ride entrance had a barcode scanner. Scan your wristband, and the turnstyle unlocked for you to go through. If you were using ride tickets, scan the appropriate number of tickets, and in you go.

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--Greg
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That's kind of how Mall of America's Camp Snoopy works too, except with a ticket, and it deducts points each time you scan your ticket.

On the subject of senior citizens visiting parks, many of them have no desire to come to a large park, regardless of the admission prices. Many of these parks, such as the larger Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks, cater to the thrill seeking younger generation, and this has no appeal to older folks. Walking is another issue too. Look at it from their perspective. Would you rather walk around a huge park like Cedar Point or Great Adventure, or would you choose something smaller, such as Knoebels or Kennywood?

Some parks extend the free admission/pay per ride thing a little too far. We arrived at Big Chief Carts and Coasters in Wisconsin in the evening, only to find that a ride all day pass was only offered during the day and we were left with no choice but to buy a 4 rides for $20 pass. I felt very cheated, and wished there had been another option for those attending the park in the evening. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the park and what kind of guests they're trying to appeal to.

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I survived Fun Spot's "Zyclon"!

Knotts Berry farm has a lot of old tiimers. look in places like the calico saloon and the chicken dinner resturant and the snoopy show and you'll see hundreds of them, many over 70.

coasterpunk said:

If you were 90 years old would you be riding coasters and other thrill rides.

Yes

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If you ask me...I think that if NEbody is going to a certain park over twice a year then you should get a season pass...Thats just about how much it is to get a season pass(About 2 park visits)
Castles and Coasters in Phoenix uses a card system similar to that mentioned above. You pay for credits to place on the card. Each ride is a certain number of credits. You can scan the card at each ride, the scanner deducts the credits and unlocks the turnstyle.

Best thing is, their Pinball machines work off the same card.

As GregLeg said, I think Blackpool's system is by far the best.

Free Admission, so anyone can go in the park. Tickets or Wristaband for the rides.

I just got back from a visit to the park and had £107 worth of rides for a £25 wristband.

Incidentally, Blackpool Pleasure Beach gets over 7 million visitors a year, and the system works very well.

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