Six Flags revenue, attendance down from last year

To add to Jeff's points. The flat increase year after year is the reason, though not always popular, the company either adds on to hotels/campground or builds new. The big, significant growth at CP will be in the Resort end of the company for several years to come. They may not be able to increase the 3,000,000 figure but they can put more heads in more beds.

I've already cited two examples proving that the park experience, not coasters = profits and attendance gains, so here's more...

VF's enjoyed their highest attendance in 1996 (when they introduced a hyper), but for their second-highest year, they removed a spin-and-spue and added a theater.

HW had massive attendance gains this year after introducing their new coaster....oops, waterslide...in a market where many parks where introducing much more expensive fare.

LC had big attendance gains this year after introducing a new coaster? No. Free soda and season passes? Yes.

It's the park experience that makes the difference.

-'Playa

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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

GoK, but the one of your points you make is what I'm trying to say it took a 9 million dollar investment for them to keep attendance figures and profits(so this coaster did effect the attendance it was used to maintain it)

My only question is would this have been a bad year without WT to maintain there #'s. Just a yes or no question.

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Army Rangers lead the way

The problem supermandl is that there is no way to tell what would have happened if WT had not been built. Especially since CP would probably have been used the money spent on WT to add other things to the park or improve parts of the park which are already existent. A coaster is not always the way to improve attendance, but rather focusing on the overall experience (entertainment, food, shopping, rides, cleanliness, staffing, etc.) is the true way to get that done. The question that you pose may never truly be answered.

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For at some point, there is no looking back.
-Sun-tzu Liao *** This post was edited by Glory of Kilrah on 11/14/2002. ***

Who knows? SFWOA didn't add anything new and PKI had TR:TR. Personally, I don't think they would have lost much in park attendance without WT.

A few things you're forgetting...

1) The other $3.5 million went to a family ice show. How would its absence have impacted attendance numbers or accomodations for that matter? Were people more willing to stick around, catch a show and spend another day riding coasters?

2) CP spent just as much money in cap ex last year as the year before last ($13 million), it just wasn't on a coaster.

3) You don't have to spend $9 million to build a coaster....CP simply chose to.

-'Playa

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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

The bottom line to all of this is as long as the revenue increases, who cares how many people went through the gate? As a shareholder, I could give two licks whether CP builds a new hotel, coaster, or restaurant as long as my investment remains healthy.

They do say that they will rebrand Jazzland into a Six Flags for 2003. (Conference call).

From the investor side, you have to like the way CF performs. When they purchase a new park, they don't just slap in a few new coasters and move on (as SF has done to some of their parks). When they purchased WOF in mid-95, they added a double space shot and a skycoaster for 96 (along with a number of not necessarily seen facility improvements, including bathroom & restauraunt renovations). In 97 they added a new childrens area & laser show (2 improvements the park really needed, kids areas and shows) along with more facility upgrades. They did not add a coaster until 98, Mamba. That pretty much sucked up the capital, but they continued their renovations of restrooms and shops. 99' introduced go karts, Coasters restauraunt, a new restroom by Mamba, and Hurricane falls at OOF. 2000 gave us Boomerang (yeah!)(sorry...still pissed that it took the place of Zinger), 2001 brought another childrens area, Camp Snoopy and 2002 brought a TopSpin.

My point of that breakdown was that CF focused on not only coasters, but expanding and upgrading the parks facilities. During this time they also repaved many of the lots, and each new area converted the immediate black top surrounding to concrete (which is a welcome addition to Midwest heat and humidity). Many rides were repainted and overhauled as well as many restauraunts and games/merch stores getting upgraded and redesigned.

All of this adds to the general feel of the park. If a park is dirty and rundown, guests will realize that and probably choose to not return. Just building coasters with few other improvements may cause your attendance to jump a year or two, but people will quickly realize you really don't care about your park, and will not return. Also, when you build those coasters, if you do not upgrade your capacity and facility areas, you will certainly not gain any return guests. It may be fun to ride a 200 ft tall coaster, but when it only runs two trains, and your wait for the restauraunts and shows are just as long, your guests won't be too excited to come back.

Holiday World is the best example I can refer to. They are not huge, they don't build the biggest, tallest attractions, but they continue to gain customers. They do this by guest service, atmosphere, food, and so much more. SF would be well advised to watch parks of a similar nature to maybe gain some insight into why they continue to grow and prosper, while not adding the biggest new ride.
*** This post was edited by Matt on 11/14/2002. ***

supermandl: I didn't say new attractions didn't effect attendance, I said Cedar Point isn't in a position to post significant gains anymore, and that new attractions maintain, not increase, attendance. You're taking my point out of context.

As Wahoo mentioned, this is exactly why they're pursuing the resort aspect. There's room for growth there and year-over-year it shows. Another record year for the resorts this year and they're considering expanding Lighthouse Point again in '04. They've got room for another Breakers Express if they'd like to, and I bet we'll see it in less than ten years.

Would they have maintained their attendance if they didn't add Wicked Twister? My gut feeling is that they would, or post a minor reduction, and that gut is based on the fact that lines for the ride rarely got out of control. With Halloweekends being more crowded than ever and an ice show that was "sold out" most every performance, I'm guessing attendance would still be flat.

If you listened to the conference call from Six Flags today, you'd hear Burke admit that not improving their four biggest markets (Dallas, Chicago, Jersey and LA) was a big mistake that they paid for. Yes, cap ex is necessary to get the butts. I'll buy that to a certain degree, but I still think that the guest experience is still the big incentive.

I also agree that Holiday World, perhaps more than any park in the country, proves the value of reputation. While ZOOMbabwe was certainly marketable, I wouldn't go as far as to say that it attributed the 21% increase. If you've been there, you know why.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Climbing as we fall, we dare to hold on to our fate, and steal away our destiny to catch ourselves with quiet grace" - The Stairs, INXS

I just figured I'd point out that Cedar Point's attendance was actually up almost 5% to 3.25 million this year from 3.1 million last season. I'm not saying this is a tremendous gain due to the fact that last season's number was probably a bit disappointing to the Cedar Fair people, but I've noticed Jeff and others saying CP only maintained their mark, when in fact, they had an increase when compared to last year. If you take the average of the past 10 years, I bet this season's attendance was right on par with that.

I believe if they hadn't built WT, then they would have maintained the 3.1 million park, but WT enabled them to have a slight increase to 3.25 million. I agree with everyone who says that there is more to profits than attendance and there is more to attendance than coasters. CP makes a killing on their resort hotels and bookings there were very strong this year. SFNE has probably the greatest coaster on earth and I live 2 hours from it, but I made only one trip this summer due to a very bad experience I had when I visited.

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-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

Actually, in Houston the weather was pretty dismal for October. It rained on most of the Saturdays during Fright Fest.

I definitely saw some improvements at SFA this year, and I've heard there was a significant increase in attendance. Some examples of maybe why: a) more trashcans that kept the park cleaner b) a lot more lighting making the park feel safer at night c) anywhere where I saw a box of coupons for a competitor, SFA's box was right next to it. d) faster ride ops. e) Lots of landscaping in Gotham City, including the addition of many Evergreen trees. Next year I hear we can look forward towards the elimination of some of the dead ends.-------------
Dude, you're getting an Intamin!