Six Flags Announces Nation's Best Theme Park VIP Program

---

matt. said:
Just to be a jerk I'm going to do SFMM vs. CP.

---

Ok, I found one that I think is most interesting. :)

KW vs HW

$31 (KW ticket) in Pittsburgh is the same as $22.65 in Evansville.

The inverse of that is:

$38 (HW ticket) in Evansville is the same as $52 in Pittsburgh.

Interesting stuff.

---

I'd hire you and those skills in a second....but obviously I couldn't afford you...

---

Oh, I come cheaper than you might think. :)

My first 500 response slot, alright!

---

My first 500 response slot, alright!

---

Except you missed by one.

Kinda like someone using a q-bot to slip in front of you at the last moment. ;)

I'd have compared Indianapolis instead.

Sorry about the snipe. Telling you, when I win the lottery, you will design and run my park. Well, unless you want to charge for parking and offer bots. ;)

---

janfrederick said:
I'd have compared Indianapolis instead.

---

I suppose an argument could be made for that, but in reality Indy is closer to KI than to HW.

But even still here's the Indianapolis numbers:

$31 (KW) is $26.14 in Indy.
$38 (HW) is $45.06 in Pitt.

Since when do Americans need exchange rates when we're only crossing state lines? ;)

I blame Canada... :)

Yeah, you're right Gonch, I never thought to just plug in the numbers. Good stuff.

It is good stuff.

There's an equation in there somewhere using median income and cost of living figures along with expected and actual park visit prices to create some kind of 'value index', but I'm just not seeing it...yet. :)

The only thing it couldn't account for are the variables of things like park offerings and personal preference. (the human factor)

If you want value, you have to include the whole enchilada (whoever's are the OFFICIAL ones of SF, of course)-- food, drink, games and souvenirs.

You're really just proving what you've said all along-- the park is charging what people will agree to or can afford to pay. Charge too little, and you leave money on the table. Charge too much, and people say no thanks. The real talent is defining who your target market is and using your resources to attract those people.

It feels like this topic is going round and round and round about 10 times now.

What happened to Coasterbuzz...ers standing in line? :)

Yeah! Standing in line ADDS to the expierence and heightens the anticipation. Plus, you can make new friends too.

---

RatherGoodBear said:
You're really just proving what you've said all along-- the park is charging what people will agree to or can afford to pay. Charge too little, and you leave money on the table. Charge too much, and people say no thanks. The real talent is defining who your target market is and using your resources to attract those people.

---

Wow!

I think there's some irony involved in RGB being the one to sum it up so nicely. :)

But you're exactly right.

Plus, I think what Shapiro is trying to do is 're-define' it in SF's case.

It would be interesting to see what certain parks would charge if circimstances were different. Imagine CP in the middle of a robust economy instead of that weak economy that prevails in northern Ohio and southern Michigan. Imagine KW with excellent road access making it easy to get there from out of town. Imagine HW in the middle of a prime tourist area with plenty of hotels in the immediate surroundings. Imagine Knoebels closer to Philly and right next to the PA Turnpike.

On the contrary, imagine SFGAdv facing competition from a a Cedar Fair park in northern NJ that was as big as CP. Imagine a much more fiercely competitive environment in Florida with Disney, Universal, Busch and other park operators scrambling to attract limited numbers of guests and all being forced to compete on price as well as other factors. Imagine major parks near all of Texas cities with only two of them being Six Flags parks.

---

Hopman said:
Yeah! Standing in line ADDS to the expierence and heightens the anticipation. Plus, you can make new friends too.

---

I've got plenty of friends. I wanna ride. Now. :)

Just a little semi-off-topic data point for those of you who don't think Fastpass rewards people getting to the park early.

Here are some return times at Soarin that were posted by someone on another board:

---

3/22 at 9:04 return time was 9:45
3/22 at 9:52 return time was 3:12

---

True, this is spring break, but we aren't quite yet in Easter Weeks, when things really heat up. Still---show up at the gates of Epcot at 10:00, only one hour after the park opens, and you'll be riding Soarin' with a fastpass around dinner time. Show up at 11:00, and you can forget riding Soarin' without waiting in the standby line.

Very true. Related arguments: ANYONE can get to the park early. People without kids usually have an easier time getting an early start (I said *usually*, I don't count myself among the early-risers though, LOL).

Should also be noted that Soarin' is especially low-capacity for a Disney ride.

Also, Disney is exceptionally adept at identifying their target market, building new rides and attractions FOR that market, directing their marketing efforts squarely on that target, and DELIVERING THE GOODS (rides open and available, running with maximal capacity *for that attraction*).

I'm also cheating a little, because Soarin's fastpass mix right now is 50/50, not the usual more-favorable-to-fastpass mix. They are replacing the tile in the pre-show areas; they've been routing fastpass guests through the exit on one theater, and the other theater is reserved entirely for standby. So, right now, standby waits are slightly lower than they normally would be, but fastpass return times are much worse than they normally would be.

However, I think it's *easier* to get there early with kids. My kids normally get up at 7:00 to be able to get to school at 8:08. Getting to a theme park by 9:00 is sleeping in by comparison.

Right...when it comes to getting up to go to a park, a kid is going to be up with the roosters and at the gate before the night watchman clocks out. ;)

We were there on Sunday- got to Epcot around 12:30 after spending a short while at Disney Studios and all the Soarin' FastPasses were gone for the day. I have a feeling the system was tweaked since last time we were there, allowing less FastPass distributions and more standby slots. That said, we still waited about an hour on a line that was posted at 75 minutes. Soarin' is a pretty low-capacity Disney E-ticket, as gator stated.

I've been away from this thread for awhile, but getting back to my original point about it not being fair to create separate waiting lines for guests when one line comes at the expense of another... just because a company finds an opportunity to make money because it knows that some people will pay for what they're selling, does that make it right? Technically, companies can make money doing a lot of things, but just because they can do those things, does that make it right? I'm sure Six Flags could find a group of people in the park to pay for exclusive ride time on one of their coasters for an hour, but should they sell it to them and close off the ride to all other guests?

Disney has the right idea, even if their system is flawed like the others- FastPass is available to all guests, free or charge. Yeah, there's the thing about it favoring people that get to the parks early, but eat least everyone has the opportunity to take full advantage of the system if they wake up early enough and get their sh*t together by the time the gates open. When you use money as a barrier, that's when things become unfair because not everyone is fortunate enough to have the spare cash, and the people that do have the spare cash shouldn't be forced to spend it to get the most out of their amusement park experience. An Acura dealership is going to treat you the same whether you bought a $28K TSX or a $50K RL- why should Six Flags treat people that spent $55 any different than they treat people that spent $250?

For me, it boils down to having enough money to "upgrade" with all the extras that are offered but feeling like I shouldn't have to in order to prevent someone from cutting me in line. It's one thing to offer something for free and then offer something more for an extra charge, but people in Six Flags already paid for something- they paid at the gate. Regular guests aren't taking advantage of a "free" system as opposed to a "pay" system because Six Flags isn't free to anyone once they ventured beyond the gate.