Will Pay-to-cut come to Kennywood?

Does anyone besides me view Kennywood as a place that,.on most days, is really not all that busy? Ok, I may be used to the crowds at CP and KI, lets say, so it always astounds me that even on a "busy" day you can get on Kennywood's Thunderbolt in about a 4 or 5 train wait. Rides like Noahs Ark, Terminator, and Phantom might get longer lines, but still nothing like what we see in Ohio. My view of a bot system there is more of way to make money than to improve the customer's experience. The experience, as far as I can tell, is already good.

As far as season passes go, I remember a speaker from the park addressing that question at an ACE event, (No-Coaster or the like) some years ago. He explained that their goal was not to be a large park or a busy one, and they would be thrilled if everybody in Pittsburgh came just once a summer. I thought that sounded like an interesting approach, and they seemed to be doing fine in spite of, or, account of it. The fact that they host so many school groups, ethnic days, and such seemed like a good way to guarantee as well as promote that theory.

So I share the same fear as LK above - KW could very easily turn into a really crowded place you won't want to be, runnin with drop-offs. Then they'll HAVE to bring in the bots! Yuck.

The on most days Kennywood doesn't seem that busy statement is very correct. Especially in comparison to the Ohio parks. Just don't know enough about what they would offer in terms of a pass to know how bad of an idea it may be or if that many locals would be interested in it. Considering what the non discount daily admission is now, I wouldn't think it would be all that cheap.

...Or maybe the Lo-Q booth need more employees serving customers at the busiest times, giving the booth a higher "capacity".

I'm submitting incorporation papers for my new company, Q-box. It's the Redbox of Q-bots...and you don't have to wait in line for one (because we'll have a dozen machines). ;)

or a q-bot system that you buy for another $20 allowing you to skip the line for the q-bots you use on rides. A q-bot for q-bots its a cash cow :)

Funny. Reminds me of the world's busiest day we spent at SFOT, some spring break friday. Seeing the crowd streaming into the park at 9:30, I decided in the nick of time to invest in the bot. By the time I got out of the little building, bot in hand, the line had grown to be over an hour long! I thought wow, if they were REALLY enterprising, they could have a bot for the bots!

Then I'm just going to make the leap of faith and get rich by offering FlashPass for the q-bot line to get a q-bot for the rides.

A local news station (KDKA) was reporting some kind of pay extra to not wait in lines for coasters. Really didn't spell out any details at the end of a story mentioning Kennywood would be opening this weekend. Haven't heard it mentioned anywhere else though.

Yeah they are skimpy on the details. (I found the video in the upper right hand corner at www.kdka.com) I think it's $15 for the pass, and you get one ride on each coaster. They give you an assigned time and seat, and you get to show up and not wait in line.

If that's the case, and it absolutely has to be done for the impatient people, limiting it to one ride per coaster is the best way to do it.

If this is true, then I am thrilled to hear that they didn't give in to Lo-Q's scam. Lo-Q's system lets guests abuse the lines, by allowing riders to "virtually" stand in only line, while they actually stand in a slew of other ride lines. This causes lines to be a lot worse, thus creating a demand for the service, which is very sneaky, in my opinion.

If this is the way Kennywood is really going to do it, than it is the best way to allow people to pay them to be allowed to cut in front of everyone else. I still think that it's wrong, and wish Kennywood considered the longer wait times this may create.

Yeah, but it's still letting you stand in multiple lines at once. You're still technically waiting for those coaster reservations while you're doing other things.

Once on each 'big' coaster and that's 6 times per person per day.

It's the same end result - just a different method.

...and if the previous poster's info is true, it's just $15 a head. Hell, I'd buy two.

...which is very sneaky

How again is it sneaky when they advertise the heck out of it? I don't think you give people enough credit for being smart.

I don't see it being an issue at Kennywood as lines are never that out of control except on the busiest of days.

Just because I did not realize this was a zombie thread until half way through the first page...I read an interesting article the other day (in real life, or I would link it) which mentioned that not only is volume as a function of price not linear, it isnt monotonic. There are actually quite a few places on the price scale where you can increase price AND volume. The example given in the article was a mail order catalog that was selling the exact same product with the exact same advertisement, but sold more at $39.99 than at $36.99. Something about that extra 9 affected psychology and increased the volume of sales, even though the price was higher.

As of a couple weeks ago, it was $15. Since then, it could have gone up or down. I haven't heard anything else about the price. I was also under the assumption that they were going to start selling them tomorrow, but apparently they are waiting till Sky Rocket opens, so I was already wrong there.

We were told to expect 18 people (one full train) to come up the Jack Rabbit's exit every half hour. How they are dividing that up at the other coasters, I have no idea.

Sidebar: There are conflicting reports on Sky Rocket's opening day in the local media. Some are saying Memorial Day, and others are saying sometime in June, but with the possibility that it could be ready as early as Memorial Day.

No word on price but the news this morning called it a "coaster pass" which would let you skip the line at a designated time.

Not a negative post this time...

Wouldn't it be interesting if the "coaster pass" had time slots to fill, and riders could only ride during their scheduled times? Once they were all filled up, no more would be given out, kind of like how Disney does it.

My impression is that when you buy one of these coaster passes, you are given a certain time to show up at the ride. I don't think they even give you a 10 minute window or anything. If they tell you, "Jack Rabbit, 2:00, seat 2," then you had better be there at 2 o'clock, because once that train is ready, you aren't getting on without having to wait in line.

I'm not sure that will last though, because it seems like a really harsh policy that will just lead to a lot of fights and complaints. And if that is the policy, I wonder if a guest may spend more time waiting for his time, as opposed to simply getting in line for whatever felt like.

LostKause said:
Wouldn't it be interesting if the "coaster pass" had time slots to fill, and riders could only ride during their scheduled times?

That's exactly what it sounds like.

Once they were all filled up, no more would be given out, kind of like how Disney does it.

In the end it's all still taking capacity from those willing to stand in line and giving to people who are able to reserve a seat.

This is way unnecessary and too complicated for Kennywood