Superman Ultimate Flight opening soon at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Travisland doesn't exist because of a whole bunch of really good reasons, the biggest reason being that I was bullied as a child and lost a lot of self-confidence in the ability to create my own reality. lol

I want to point out that the only thing that I said was that people would feel disappointed if they were not able to ride the big new ride. I didn't really go as far as some are implying here.

We can undelete, Travis. And I did. :)

In regards to the 144 riders per hour number (if that's anywhere near accurate) and the talk of whether the ride should be an upcharge, consider this: A Skycoaster with two launch towers has a theoretical max capacity of 96 riders per hour. That number assumes the crew is fast and all flights are done with 3 flyers.

After thinking about that, a non-upcharge coaster that can only handle 48 more riders per hour than a Skycoaster just sounds completely absurd to me. It looks like it's going to be a fun ride, but I think there will be an awful lot of people who go to the park and choose not to wait for it, or get upset about how long they did wait for it.

^ As opposed to a "high capacity" coaster with a 2 hour wait?

Let's assume that 2 hours is the most your average guest is willing to wait for any exciting new ride. Beyond that point people will either pass on the ride entirely, making them angry that they didn't get to experience it, or they wait and get angry about how much time they spent in the line. In that case, your high capacity ride stands to make a lot fewer upset guests than the ride moving 144 people per hour.

If I understand Gonch's argument correctly (which I might not), if you increase capacity, the line will stay at 2 hours long, you'll just be able to fit a lot more people in that 2 hour long line. Which, to me, still seems like a big win - you can accommodate a lot more people at the point where they get a positive return out of the value proposition. (i.e. a lot more people will get to ride at a wait time they consider worth it).

LostKause said:

...if a ride isn't good enough, and it can't be redesigned to be good enough, it shouldn't be considered as a potential installation.

So, in order to avoid disappointing your customers with low-capacity installations, you'd disappoint them off by having a tiny selection of rides?

No. I'd look to another company who could provide a ride with a higher capacity. Look at Cedar Points Windseeker, for example. The Star Flyer wasn't going to be high enough capacity for them. They also had the issue of wind potentially closing the ride frequently. They ultimately went with another company to build a similar ride.

The goal of my fantasy amusement park would be to satisfy as many of my customer as I could, so that they feel they got a good value (even if the admission price was as high as a SF or CF park), and then they will want to return. If one of my popular coaster can only give (144 riders x 10 hours) fifteen-hundred rides each day, and my park gets fifteen or thirty-thousand customers per day, then it is a poor value.

I always thought that this kind of stuff was common sense in the amusement industry. You guys are proving that to be wrong.

With the sort of never-before-heard, industry-revolutionizing ideas you're coming up with, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before you're contacted by all the major park chains.

ApolloAndy said:

If I understand Gonch's argument correctly (which I might not), if you increase capacity, the line will stay at 2 hours long, you'll just be able to fit a lot more people in that 2 hour long line. Which, to me, still seems like a big win - you can accommodate a lot more people at the point where they get a positive return out of the value proposition. (i.e. a lot more people will get to ride at a wait time they consider worth it).

Yes, you're dead on with the theory of guest behavior. When the ride is first opened, some of that common sense goes out the window - the newness skews people's willingness to wait. It happens with every new ride.

However, I still think you guys are overestimating the effect that not getting a ride has on the guests and, in turn, your business.

It's still adding 144pph to the park's capacity. Which means it's 144pph not standing in line for something else. The other lines get shorter (even if just a little) and more rides are given over the course of the day.

I think at this point in the other capcity thread is where you and I got into the idea of the ride drawing more people than capacity it added and crap like that.

CP Chris said:

Let's assume that 2 hours is the most your average guest is willing to wait for any exciting new ride. Beyond that point people will either pass on the ride entirely, making them angry that they didn't get to experience it, or they wait and get angry about how much time they spent in the line. In that case, your high capacity ride stands to make a lot fewer upset guests than the ride moving 144 people per hour.

But people aren't looking at capacity, they're looking at the line length.

A two hour line for a coaster moving 144pph isn't going to piss anyone off more than a two hour line moving 1600pph. It's the same wait.

LostKause said:

I always thought that this kind of stuff was common sense in the amusement industry.

Depends on what you're talking about.

Satisfying the guest sufficiently? Sure. That's the point of any business. Definitely common sense.

A new ride bringing that satisfaction to a screeching halt? That's your own little ball of fantasy weirdness to play with.

Lord Gonchar said:
A two hour line for a coaster moving 144pph isn't going to piss anyone off more than a two hour line moving 1600pph. It's the same wait.

Not entirely sure I agree on that one...or that I disagree for the right reason(s). I can be indecisive like this sometimes.

I *tend* to believe that guests waiting in a long long line are more understanding when the line keeps moving. If I get into a line where there are hundreds of people in front of me, I expect to wait. But if I'm STANDING there for what seems like an eternity and the line isn't really moving, then I become less understanding. Mechanical breakdowns and protein spills notwithstanding, I expect that the line will keep moving.

I'm not entirely sure how well "the GP" grasps the potential vs. operating capacity gap...but if a ride is running at/near capacity, and there's a long line - then suck it up or find another ride. If it's running WAY below capacity due to poor operations....then I can get on board with the "complainers".

But there's a difference between poor operations, and a ride that is only designed to carry a limited amount of passengers per hour. And I can't stress enough that there isn't a park in existence that has not built at least a couple of these. Parks don't have unlimited spending budgets every time they want to open a new attraction. Sometimes for cost reasons you have to sacrifice capacity or length or theme.

Poor operations can happen on a brand new B&M.

rollergator said:

I *tend* to believe that guests waiting in a long long line are more understanding when the line keeps moving. If I get into a line where there are hundreds of people in front of me, I expect to wait. But if I'm STANDING there for what seems like an eternity and the line isn't really moving, then I become less understanding.

There's probably some truth to that.

I guess my counterargument is that lines move in two ways - frequency and distance.

There's no reason this line won't move as often as any single-cycle ride (impulses, boomerangs, etc), it just won't move as far each time it moves.

If you get into a hour-long line and get on in a hour, it's all good. The line will remain moving - even if it's only moving 12 people at a time.

Lord Gonchar said:

A two hour line for a coaster moving 144pph isn't going to piss anyone off more than a two hour line moving 1600pph. It's the same wait.
.

It IS however going to piss off at least 1456 more people per hour. ;-)

Nah, they won't be pissed. They'll just buy flash passes.

If 1456 pph hour were using flash passes on a low capacity ride, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the flash pass? Hmm...just a thought.

It might, but it wouldn't defeat the purpose of blatant sarcasm. :)

Gromithere said:

If 1456 pph hour were using flash passes on a low capacity ride, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the flash pass? Hmm...just a thought.

Monkeys could fly out of my butt, but it's unlikely to ever happen. Just a thought ;).

Vater said:

The other side of that argument is, there's a reason Six Flags went bankrupt and places like Holiday World and Dollywood continue to flourish.

I would say that relevant to today's discussion, that's a moot point. Six Flags is doing well and has ever since the company received new management. Shame on Holiday World for adding in a low capacity ride this year and NOT offering a premium service to get on quicker {/sarcasm}. I guess when they added it, they decided that guests like waiting in line.

Tekwardo said:

I would say that relevant to today's discussion, that's a moot point. Six Flags is doing well and has ever since the company received new management.

Not entirely irrelevant. What was one of the primary things that new management focused on? Improving guest satisfaction.

But guest satisfaction is so much more than ride capacity. In fact, I'd say ride capacity doesn't even directly factor in to guest satisfaction.

Indirectly, the effect may be that one cannot ride a coaster they'd hoped to. But is a missed ride really ruining most peoples' day?

I suppose the question is whether people already ride everything (or at the very least - everything they want to) in a day.

I'm guessing they don't.