Renting A Park?

I have always wondered If Big Parks i.e.SFMM,CP,SFGadv,etc are available to be rented out by private groups. How much would it Cost. I know that longerberger baskets used to Rent out CP. But can an Individual person. Cause I was watching Fabulous life Of cecebrity Children and it said that Tom Cruise rented out Raging Waters for $70,000 that seemed pretty cheap for a whole park!

I read waht the pricing was for renting out Cedar Point for a day, and if my memory serves me, it worked out to about one million dollars. I could be (and probably am) wrong.

damn! for the price of the week you could build a racing/ dueling woody. I'd rather have the woodie

^ But the question remains... is your backyard big enough? :)

if I could afford building the woody, I could afford buying land for it, even if its the middle of nowhere

I heard that Michael Jackson rented out Cedar Point before, but I could be mistaken.

I know Elvis rented out Libertyland, and has probably rented out other parks as well.

-Tina

First you'd have to pay all the operation fees, you're talking in the thousands for rides like MF, WT, TTD, PT, and other big rides. You'd have to pay the staff. And most of all you'd have to pay them enough money for the money they'd lose by not having anyone in the park. I couldn't even imagine the profit CP makes in a single day. With the food, shops, games, admission, parking, and it continues on.

SFMM is rented out most Friday nights throughout the fall and winter. Park is often open until 6 that day, then closes and reopens for the event (seperate tickets) from 7:30 pm - 1am.

Six Flags Over Texas is rented out by private companies on Saturdays and Sundays in November before Thanksgiving.

I know that IBM and Coca Cola used to rent out Six Flags Over Georgia. I'm not sure if they still do.

Elvis renting Libertyland is a well-known story. I know Michael Jackson was scheduled to visit CP a few years ago, but he cancelled. I don't believe he ever rented the whole park.

Geauga Lake, both six flags and C Fair have rented it out. usually mid sept.
Imagine what Conneaut Lake could go for a day.
*** Edited 1/11/2005 8:20:44 PM UTC by FLYINGSCOOTER***

Just call them and ask them if you are interested. It would depend on the time of the year- Saturday in July or August would cost more than a Wednseday in May.

I know SFSTLs water park is offered for $5000 for two hours from 7pm till 9pm.

THe Jackson rumor is true. He had the park bought out for Sept. 13th, 2001. The ride op crews were hand picked by management for their proffesionalism, and knowledge of multiple rides.

Obviously, he and his rather large party were unable to make it due to the events of Sept. 11th of that year.

I know alot of the people at CP were very excited about the visit.

That makes sense.

Actually, I'd venture to say that you can't rent the park on a Saturday in the summer. When parks are rented out, it usually seems to happen during the evening, or during a day the park isn't opened to the public anyhow. I could be wrong(I probably am), but I don't see CP or any other park closing down a saturday for a private party. I guess if someone could afford to do it, but other than a few people that probably wouldn't want to, who's gonna front the $$$?

My company's annnual "company picnic" is renting out Worlds of Fun on a friday night... the whole park is open like a normal day except you have to have special tickets only. my company give 2 tickets to every employee plus one for each dependent they have. they aslo have the picnic catered for us. it is a big party every year. but they did stop paying for free beer :( recently.

It is a great time. it has gets a decnt crowd, but by the end of the night the rides are walk on. :)

When my sister-in-law worked for IBM, we went to an IBM buyout day at King's Dominion. Of course, at the time IBM probably had tens of thousands of employees in the DC/MD/VA region. So they could put 30 or 40 thousand people in the park.

When I was a kid, and my uncle worked for Ford in northern Ohio, they would have their picnics at Chippewa, then later at Geauga Lake. I went to one of them at Chippewa. I learned early "if it's for free, it's for me."

I know a regional department store would buy out Dorney Park for their company picnic. Not only did they take over the park, all their stores would be closed that day as well. Dorney still has a few days blocked out on their calendar for private events. Not sure whose they are though.

Hershey also has a few buyout days for some of the bigger companies in their area-- I think Blue Cross is one. (Look, it's OUR monorail). Wouldn't surprise me if Giant was another. (Look, that USED TO BE our ferris wheel).

Knoebel's doesn't have buyouts, but a few companies have their picnics there. They rent out a number of the pavilions and offer reduced rates for wristbands. The local PBS station even has a free day there for all of its members.

The best one I saw was when I was at Disneyland back in 1989. Some high school had rented out one of the "lands," for their prom. I'm kind of thinking it was Tomorrowland. They just had the bridge into the "land" roped off to the GP.

I think the problem is that, at least here in PA, the big industrial companies that used to sponsor the company picnics are either smaller, no longer around, or had to cut back on their employee percs.

Tekno, it's my understanding that the parks are closed to the public because the company bought them out for the day, not vice versa. As for will the park shut its operations down? If the price is right, sure. But why would a company want to go for a Saturday when they can spend half as much and go during the week, or at the beginning/end of the season when it's cheaper?

I don't know all of the companies that buy out Dorney, but I know the past couple years one was the Girl Scouts of America (my sister is in girl scouts, so we get tickets to go). Also, if Coca-Cola does buyouts of Six Flags parks, I think it'd be safe to assume that one of the private events of Dorney would involve Pepsi.

As far as the girl scouts, it's rather interesting. They use it as fund-raiser prizes. I forget how many my sister had to sell, but every girl scout got 1 free ticket to Dorney (which you can ONLY use on their day) for every so many boxes of cookies. I think it was somewhere around 25-50. Also, if you didn't sell enough cookies, you could buy additional tickets. The only requirement was that you had to sell enough cookies to earn at least 1 ticket, and then you could just pay Girl Scouts of America for all the other tickets your family needed. There may have been a family-ticket-purchase limit, but I didn't hear about it.

During the "off" season when Disneyland closes to the GP at 6:00PM, they'll sell out the park to a company from 7:00 PM to about 1:00AM. Then there are the grad nights, Armed services nights,etc. that are private affairs also.

For the right amount of dough, ANY park can be rented.....well, 'cept maybe Neverland (which you could prob. work out a deal for, but I'd hate to think of the *terms*)...;)

Do they sell season passes to Neverland? ;-)

OK, that's just wrong, I know.

-Tina