The Motley Fool Talks Wood

An article too excellent to ignore.

Well, I'll say one thing: I think a record breaker wood coaster would be fool-ish.

Interesting. The Intamin alternative will also put a new spin on certain parks decisions to add new wood coasters over the next few years, especially if El Toro becomes a monster hit. Potential records like steepest drops, most airtime and steepest turns don't sound as appealing as 400ft or 200mph, but as I've said before, ultimately to many people that equates to "most downtime", "longest wait" ect. So parks like Cedar Point, Magic Mountain and others I can only hope will be breaking away from that crap.

Put you "thing" back in your pants, and start building rides people can actually enjoy on a daily basis!

It's mostly a good article. However, I don't necessarily agree with the author's sentiment that since SF announced El Toro, that wood roller coasters have become the rage for the 2006 season.

Wood coaster construction has been up and down (no pun intended) for the past 5-10 years. Some years, there are only one or two new ones, like 2005. Other years there are as many as 6-8, like 2006 will be.

If anything, the Intamin track will be more a factor in how long the wood coaster construction "rage" lasts, and not so much the fact that GAdv decided to build one.

This guy's just now finding out what so many of us knew for a long time.

Oh well. At least no Florida parks are adding any wood coasters anytime soon.

Actually, Roasta, Cypress Gardens is rebuilding the transplanted Starliner from Miracle Strip. There is "new" wood coming to Florida in '06.

http://rcdb.com/id3075.htm

Why, Most everything in the article was true.

I don't see many more parks save for Bucsh, Disney and Universal topping the 15-20 million dollar mark for a coaster in the USA.

For 6 million, You can get a 6000ft super thrilling if the elements are laid out right wood coaster that handles 1400 pph. No matter how you slice it. That woodie in the next 100 years of maintence isn't gonna hit 25 million unless its SOB LOL.

CP for a fraction could probably use the support wood from Mean Streak and make a Lightning Racer type coaster but I doubt that will ever happen.

Chuck, who thinks its a great time for wood and only sees it getting better, at least in the short term. *** Edited 9/29/2005 10:48:51 PM UTC by Charles Nungester***

I don't agree with Rick on this one. I think building record breaking rides is not a long-term solution to growth. Cedar Fair has been smart in their resort development, and honestly that's what has kept the distribution from sliding the other way in these days of declining attendance.

However, I will say that Cedar Fair I think needs to focus on the core product and how to price it (and everything inside). They also need to be careful about operational issues, because the one-off here-and-there problems at Cedar Point have not been one-offing year after year. People remember that stuff. Gotta fix it now before it gets more serious.

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Jeff said:
I think building record breaking rides is not a long-term solution to growth.

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That's definitely fair. Top Thrill Dragster rolled out in 2003 and attendance was down 4% at Cedar Point in 2004 and has been down in 2005 too. Islands of Adventure in Florida has seen its attendance grow every single year (but one) despite not having added a single new ride since 1999.

However, the big rides create excitement in the near-term. You see it in the film crews showing up when the season starts. You see it here (where I'm sure that searching the boards would find more posts about Six Flags Great Adventure in 2005 than during the 2004 season).

It's not fair, but if you don't play the game you get left behind.

Papa John's, Domino's and Pizza Hut all hate couponing but the moment one stops while the other two are still going at it, sales slump.

If I were a betting man I would say that Holiday World and SFGA attendance will rise nicely next year -- and Cedar Point may be looking at its third year of declines. Yes, Cedar Fair has been smart about building the resort around the park. It can make more money even on falling attendance. But it's still leaving so much money on the table because the growth in per capita spending would have meant so much more if the turnstiles were clicking faster.

Even if CP does not jump on board, I think there is a great trend back towards wood right now. The best part is that they seem to be getting better and better.

I think the growth in wood will continue but not at some sort of explosive pace. A nice slow increase should happen as the next few years go.