Some complain that Legoland Florida is too expensive

Exactly.

If you're paying, then it's not too expensive.

"Expensive" and "Too Expensive" are two different things.

And 'expensive' says nothing about value. Something could be too expensive for me to buy, but still be an outstanding value.

And no one seems to be mentioning the season passes. The 'plus' pass is $159 includes parking ($12) and in-park discounts. For the price of two 'regular' admissions. If the $75 ticket is too expensive and you think you'd go more than once, then here's your value.

In summary, these people need to STFU. :)

ApolloAndy said:
^^It doesn't make the complaint invalid but it sure takes away the park's motivation to change anything.

UNLESS, we are able to give criticism in a very kind and loving way. Then someone is probably really listening.

I think that my point was lost. When park admission is too expensive, people may go once in a while, instead of many times.

And so that the season pass doesn't play into my post (it IS a really good value, by the way), I am saying that instead of a yearly visit to Legoland, with prices like this, people may opt to go once every two, three, or more years.

This looks like a nice kiddy park, with nice kiddy rides. Kiddy rides are normally cheaper to purchase and install. Having not been to a Legoland park, maybe I am wrong, but a kids park should be less expensive, in my opinion.

Travis has it. Expensiveness isn't a binary trait, not an either-or proposition. It exists on a continuum (much like our illustrious Gonch). Just as there is a range extending from Much Gonch to Too Much Gonch, there is a spectrum from Expensive to Too Expensive. And at some point on that continuum, pricing begins to eat future sales.

Any price increase will decrease sales and any price decrease will increase sales (in each case in terms of volume). But the goal is to maximize profits not sales. And in the long run. There are a lot of outside factors that can impact profits so its not always easy to isolate a single pricing decision. Makes it more of an art form than science. But the park has a lot more info on its pricing decision than we do. People have been complaining about prices since the dawn of commerce. Its just that now when they do, its easier to know about it. And in all that time, people have figured out to do with prices on their own: either they pay it, do without or find a replacement. And businesses sometimes get the pricing decision wrong and need to make adjustments. That wouldn't be the case if pricing decisions were more science.

There are two questions here.

Question one: Would I rather pay more, or less, for some specific good or service?
Question two: is the Legoland Florida's price point too high, too low, or just right?

Answer one: duh.
Answer two: based on everything we are hearing, the park is an early success. That would suggest that it's not too high.

Writing an article on Question One is the lazy "journalist's" way out.

Ensign Smith said:
Just as there is a range extending from Much Gonch to Too Much Gonch, there is a spectrum from Expensive to Too Expensive. And at some point on that continuum, pricing begins to eat future sales.

Exactly. We all agree on this point.

There's also a point in the other direction where pricing begins to eat at potential profits - also known as the 'leaving money on the table' point.

I think we disagree where on the continuum these point are. And that's the crux of every pricing debate that's happened on CoasterBuzz in the past decade.

All I know is that the 'too expensive' crowd has a pretty bad track record when it comes to these things. Parking is still $15 bucks all over the place (and $25 at Six Flags), people still buy Q-bots, WDW is closing in on $100, pop is still almost $5 at the big parks.

There's no mystery here. People pay these prices.

GoBucks89 said:
Any price increase will decrease sales and any price decrease will increase sales (in each case in terms of volume). But the goal is to maximize profits not sales. And in the long run...more of an art form than science.

This is something you've always said and something I've always agreed with and said myself.

It's Enisgn Smith's continuum wordered a different way and it's 100% truth. It's not as simple as higher prices lose sales and lower prices increase them, so lower pricing is better. Not even close. That's 2nd grade economics.

There's an art. A give and take. A point where sales and profits combine to create a maximum profit point.

Brian Noble said:
Writing an article on Question One is the lazy "journalist's" way out.

Yup.

"Pareto-optimal" ... ;)

Precisely. :)

Although this is a total tangent to the discussion, there are certain cases where you can increase the price AND increase sales because human beings are not totally rational. Specifically, some studies have been done to show certain things will sell better if the price ends in a '9' than any other number, so it will sell better at $39 than $35. I wish I could find the article or book (I listened to the report on the radio) but it had something to do with "anchor prices" or some other terms I didn't quite understand.

This book?

I think the book I actually heard being promoted was:

http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decis...pd_sim_b_7

but the subject matter of your book seems more in line with what I remember than the subject matter of the above. Maybe I'm mixing up two radio reports in my memory.

I wouldn't buy that book. It costs $10.98. I don't buy anything if the price ends with and 8;)

I must be an odd bird. I buy cereal becuase I like the taste of it. I don't worry about whether the price ends in a 1 or a 5 or a 9. Either that or I make too much money to care.

And no one seems to be mentioning the season passes. The 'plus' pass is $159 includes parking ($12) and in-park discounts. For the price of two 'regular' admissions. If the $75 ticket is too expensive and you think you'd go more than once, then here's your value.

Bingo.

We got passes for Carlsbad this last year after feeling like we overpaid for a single day the year before. We've gotten a TON of value out of it. So instead of getting Disney passes this next year, I think we'll be getting Legoland passes again and just making a day trip to Disneyland/California Adventure next year. Doesn't hurt that we live less than a half an hour away and having a legomaniacal son.

^^That's what you think, which is why it works.

Why do you think every price everywhere ends in a 9? Just a coincidence? No, it's because it sells more because at the end of the day, being human, you and all of us are not rational and do not buy cereal just for the taste.

We buy it for a hugely complex set of factors that weigh value against cost and include things like advertising, packaging, familiarity, brand recognition, location in the store, how we're feeling that day and price (and not just whether it's high or low, but how it compares to what we think it should be or could be).

Whether you think you are buying that cereal because it ends in a 9 or not is irrelevant as your conscious mind is not the one making that particular decision.

I think part of it is people perceive less of a difference in the columns to the right than the ones to the left. Whether it's a box of Cocoa Puffs or a gallon of gas, people don't notice that much if the price goes from $3.40 to $3.49. But when it goes from $3.49 to $3.50, it's a bigger deal, even though it's only a penny increase.

It also explains why appliances and electronics cost $_99.99, and people who freak out at a car that costs $30,000 will look at the same model priced at $29,900.

Heck, in 2015 you'll be able to get a full hovercraft conversion for only $39,999,95.

I don't even look at the price of cereal. Couldn't tell you how much it costs. I just buy the cereal that I like.

GoBucks89 said:
I don't even look at the price of cereal. Couldn't tell you how much it costs. I just buy the cereal that I like.

+1

Although I think that, in fairness, cereal wasn't exactly the best example to start using.

I'm sure there's a certain level of psychology in pricing, but I'm not sure it readily applies to cereal. The psychology the cereal industry seems to use is to keep shrinking the box while leaving the price-per-box untouched.