Pittsburgh area man organizes rally for Geauga Lake's Big Dipper

I'm not quite so pessimistic.

Cincinnati's population is not exactly exploding either, yet they manage to support three amusement parks -- one big and two small. If a farming family can keep a small park going for decades, I suspect that the combined power of the communities of NE Ohio could make this happen -- but only if the will is there.

I don't think the question is "could it work."

I think the question is "would it be better than the other available options for the use of that land?"

Remember: "better" here is translated as "makes more money for the investors." And, in light of that, I'm going to suspect that the answer is "no". Not the answer I like, but the one I think is likely.

Cincinnati is not Northeast Ohio. Northeast Ohio is bordered by water on one side, colder by a few weeks, shedding population, has higher unemployment... it's a crappy place to have a recreation business.

And listen to what you guys are saying. One is complaining that they didn't invest in the park while another says a "small park" could be a sustainable business.

Oh, but the animals! They admitted not having them was a mistake. Yeah? How was that working out for Busch?

I'm not being an apologist for Cedar Fair at all. I'm pissed that they ever bought the park in the first place. It was a huge mistake.

Ensign Smith said:I'm not quite so pessimistic. Cincinnati's population is not exactly exploding either, yet they manage to support three amusement parks -- one big and two small. If a farming family can keep a small park going for decades, I suspect that the combined power of the communities of NE Ohio could make this happen -- but only if the will is there.

What farming family? Ralph Stricker worked for Proctor and Gamble. LOL The original Strickers had a apple orchard as did the original Coney but I wouldn't call them farms.

It's beside the point. The point is that family owned and operated amusement park has existed for years outside Cincinnati. If they can do it, I suspect some enterprising group or other could do the same in NE Ohio.

I think Stricker's is a terrible example. Their revenue is generated by picnics and large gatherings, which is far more consistent than daily operations. For one, you always know if and when you're going to have a crowd - there's only a small handful of rides to operate on the days that they are open. #2, if there's no scheduled gathering or picnic on a given day, they don't open - so they don't have to pay employees to stand around manning empty rides, they don't use electricity running rides and lights if there's no one there.

I'm willing to bet that the 2 days a year they are open to the public are their least profitable days.

Morté615 said:

With 2 Maintenance people making $30,000 a year
With 5 Ride Ops making $7.50 an hour for 6 months
With a Manager to handle expenses and other items at $35,000 a year
And lets say maintence expenses at $25,000 a year (inlcuding new wood when needed)
Oh and we can't forget lease, and power. And health codes would require bathrooms so you have water also, lets just round all that up to $500 a month for the 6 months they are open and $250 for the months they are closed.
Thats $126,000 a year operating costs and that does not take into account loan payments, or making a profit.

So at $126,000 a year and 6 months of operating per year lets break that down.

$21,000 a month
$700 a day (averaging out to 30 days)
at $6 per ride
Thats 117 rides needed per day.

I thought I was the only one on this site that did math :)

Seriously, though. Some people have fond memories of GL. Others do not. And to others, it was just another park that we visited. ALL of those views need to be respected.

To those who equate GL with memories of their youth/past, my sympathies. I've watched vacant lots where I played baseball & football be devloped. The memories of my youth stir up nostalgia.

To those who rarely visited GL, fine. Obviously someone else's emotions do not affect you. Nothing wrong with that--when a cat or dog dies it's just a dog/cat. Unless it's YOUR pet. GL is just another business to you--live long and prosper. But others' emotions conflict with your logic. And as Spock says (in Amok Time) "It may not be logical, but you will find it is often true" IMO, both the emotional and logical views are valid

No one here is trying to invalidate or trivialize anyone's emotions here. The realists are here to combat notions of conspiracy and a fantasy environment where the park could have worked out.

I'm probably the biggest conspiracy nut here, and even I believe that Cedar Fair did everything they could to save the park. I blame Six flags for tarnishing the park's image before they sold it.

Even that might be too simple. I'm not sure any one decision doomed the park, though it's tempting to try to find one. There were at least three things that contributed:

* The economic viability (or lack thereof) of a marine park in a climate that gave six months operation, max.

* Six Flags' over-reaching in the "big upgrade" combined with some customer service issues.

* Cedar Fair's attempt to run it like a "little Cedar Point" and drop the animals entirely.

It's not clear that keeping the animals side going was viable, but having them was critical to making the rides side viable. You're pretty much stuck at that point.

Don't forget Funtime's unwillingness to sell Geauga Lake to Busch in the first place.

True. But at least Funtime knew how to grow the park at a logical place. If it weren't for them, the park wouldn't have been appealing to another company at all.

I just don’t buy the argument that Cedar Fair did everything they could to save the park. I would be interested in seeing some examples of how some of the “experts” think that they did.

What I saw was a company doing its best to make sure the park wasn’t as popular as it could have been. I do agree with Brian that Cedar Fair was not the sole reason for the parks closing, but Cedar Fair didn’t even try to make the park profitable (in case one believes it wasn’t) in the three years they operated it.

The facts I know are this: 1) SFWoA was the chains top 3 profitable parks, 2) SF's purchase of the animal side made Dick nervous, 3) Dick said at an employee meeting in the 3D theater that TTD was built to help keep people away from SFWoA. Its easy to deduct from these facts what happened. How facts like this can keep some people believing that there was a conspiracy Ill never understand.

Doing "everything" implies you can just keep spending money without consequence. That's not how business works. Frankly I'm surprised that they stayed in it as long as they did.

To suggest that they wanted to "make sure" the park wasn't popular, the very same company accuse of greed, remains the most ridiculous part of your conspiracy theory.

Your facts are ridiculous too. If SFWoA was profitable, Six Flags wouldn't have sold it. That place was bleeding cash. Listen to what you're saying. If you buy the competition out of some fear, a sale that was made possibly only because of its expensive failure, you don't run it into the ground, you make more money with it. The right thing to do would've been to let Six Flags sell it even cheaper to some non-park operator and not even get involved.

You really continue to live in a fantasy world of "facts" that don't make any sense. You'll never be convinced otherwise.

Wouldn't two parks make more money than one? It was in Cedar Fair's best interest to try to make the park profitable. Loosing some of the 14 roller coasters and other expensive-to-run rides and attractions was the only way for them to be profitable, due to a lack of visitors. My opinion is that the lack of visitors came about because the bad experiences people had at the park when SF owned the property. That's my experience anyways.

And the Sea World situation didn't help either.

Again I will ask how CF tried to make GL profitable. I am interested in knowing what others think they did to try and turn the park around. I would suspect that being a shareholder you should know the answer to that question. We saw nothing but rides and attractions removed every year CF owned GL. Sure many of these rides were expensive to maintain, and I will agree if for no other reason than to save on operating expenses they had to go. But what is the reason that nothing was installed to take their places? Not one single ride or attraction to entice people to come, and Corn Hole doesn’t count. Instead they threw together a few poorly done commercials, less then they did for CP, and very few ads in other medium.

SF sold SFWoA due to the debt they were in. I am not sure why that fact is so ridiculous. SFWoA was one of the few parks that they could be sure to make a profit on. Dick was in the right place at the right time when he asked if they would sell it. Why the heck would SF sell it cheaper when Dick already approached them, they knew they had a buyer and it was sold for way more than it was worth. There is no other reason SFWoA was sold. Dick knew that if he couldn’t turn the park around quick he had rides he could use in other parks, then he could sell off the land. Unfortunately for him he didn’t anticipate what would happen when he tried to sell it.

Two parks would make a lot of sense, but why could CF not make it work?? There was a lack of visitors the first year of CF ownership, but it picked up by 2007, the same year CF threw in the towel. SF did not make friends with their poor service, but they were able to pull in a lot more than 700,000 guests. I know that with the right ad campaign CF could have fixed that, I don’t remember seeing one.

My facts aren’t that ridiculous when local government, area residents, local groups and many people other than the ones on this board agree. I just don’t understand how one can argue that CF bought GL to try to make a go at it and within three years closed it. Especially given the fact that the CEO said “historically when we acquire a park it takes between 3 to 5 years to bring it to our standards and get the attendance levels up”. They didn’t even give it five years but quickly gve up in three. Also in the same interview the CEO states “when we removed the animals that had an impact we didn’t count on”. Those are his exact words. Tell me you believe that statement? It’s laughable just like the "facts" that CF tried to make GL work.

coasterdad! said:
Again I will ask how CF tried to make GL profitable.

That's easy, they started pulling out rides and otherwise reducing expenses. That might not be what you want, but that's what every business in the world right now is doing to insure profitability.

Your information is still a fantasy. SFWoA was not anywhere in the realm of profitability, and Six Flags said it themselves. It was the joke of the chain.

Myfacts aren’t that ridiculous when local government, area residents,local groups and many people other than the ones on this board agree. Ijust don’t understand how one can argue that CF bought GL to try tomake a go at it and within three years closed it.

That's because your facts aren't facts, and you won't listen.

CF pulled out four GL rides between 2003 and 2006. So by the 2006 season GL was saving x million in expenditures, I know this savings was a signifacant amount. That means that GL was bleeding the company by well over that amount in its previous two years under CF ownership and CF had no idea this was a problem before they purchased it?

I would think this huge cost savings would be enough to keep GL operating at least two more years like the CEO said in his interview.

Do you know? Like you "know" SFWoA was profitable?

As I noted in the Disney thread (weird analogies are my specialty), SF "raised the ante" in an attempt to compete with CP. The price of poker went up as operating expenses skyrocketed - not a problem in that first glorious year of attendance. But, as SF was kinda lax on infrastructure improvements (and staffing, operations, etc.) that first year turned into a nightmare of sorts. Left behind a park that had PO'd a lot of locals, that had high operating expenses, and was in a declining market.

The only thing CF could do to make money at GL was to cut expenses - drastically. They did do that, but it was a little too little, little too late situation. Costs needed to be at a point where a park with 1M attendance could still MAKE money.

"Building up" GL to the point where it COULD maintain all those expensive rides and all that plumbing, etc....wasn't really an option. For what purpose, to compete with the flagship park?