25 cent Cotton Candy

It's brilliant. Much better than Holiday Worlds disasterous idea to give away their soda. For CP it's win-win. It has to be over 20 cents profit and they look like champs to the general public. Some amusement park food has the best food costs.

gener said:
Much better than Holiday Worlds disasterous idea to give away their soda.

I don't think that that's disasterous for the park financially or PR-wise. If it was a financial burden, they wouldn't still have it. As for marketing, I know I love the sound of having as much as I want to drink for free, and since the drinks are free I actually spend money on the food.

My only complaint was that I thought I'd see midway stands in more locations. I thought I read somewhere that there were three or four miday carts, but I could be wrong.
When I was in line to get mine at the Confection Connection, I heard the family behind me exclaiming how they couldn't believe how cheap it was (even the small kids knew it was a deal :)). They decided to go ahead and get a few soft pretzels since the cotton candy was "practially free". I'm sure that's exactly the kind of response Cedar Point wants to get from people.

I don't know about you, but cotton candy makes me thirsty. Because of the small price, I wouldn't mind giving up the $2.50 for a pop to help wash it down. I'm sure that the general public will have a similar reaction, just as Chris mentioned.

I have to say this is maybe the best news coming out of Cedar Point in several years. I love cotton candy and I have been discouraged by both the difficulty in finding fresh-spun candy and the ridiculous prices (given how cheap it is to make). Still, I always brought home a bag to munch on. To me, nothing says "amusement park" quite as much as a fresh-spun cotton candy.

Congratulations, CP!

Next step: Increase the availability and lower prices on French waffles. My mother is still an addict at her age (which I won't mention out of respect but let's just say she has 7 grandchildren.)

-- Harley

"This Cotton Candy from Cotton Candy Stall 1 is a really good value." ;)

Yesterday, my kid was hungry, she wanted a hot dog. We walked past one of the cotton candy stands. Guess what she had for lunch?

I'm Cheap!!

Ralph Wiggum said:
My only complaint was that I thought I'd see midway stands in more locations. I thought I read somewhere that there were three or four miday carts, but I could be wrong.

The CP blog about it a couple weeks ago mentioned something like 5 carts. They said though that not all of them would be out every day, it would depend on expected crowds. So opening day probably saw all 5 in operation, whereas on Sunday they may have only had 2 or 3 out.

yeah, I saw one on the main midway and caught another over by MF when I was on my way up the hill.

I bought our's from Spiral Candy though.

I'm glad to see the cotton candy is normal-sized, and not tiny.

:)

Yesterday I spotted floss carts on the Frontier Trail, in Frontiertown next to the Antique Cars, and in Camp Snoopy near the Lolly Swing. Those were all carts, and I am certain that their locations will be varied throughout the season.

I approached the mathematics from a different direction, operations geek that I am. There are three people working the cart. It takes about twelve seconds to build a cone of floss. The carts had almost continuous lines all day, so pretty much as soon as a cone was built it was sold.

That means that at $0.25/cone, the park is bringing in as much as $60/hour in revenue, and from the look of it, they were bringing it in consistently on a day when the park was not terribly crowded. $60 in revenue, minus the $20 in labor means that if the product cost is under $40/hour, they are still making money on it. Someone else suggested an $0.08 product cost; that works out to $19.20 per 240 servings.

That's still a $20/hour profit. Per stand. I know of at least five locations that were working yesterday (three carts and two stands).

I have to wonder if they have *ever* made $800/day *profit* ($2,400 sales volume) on cotton candy sales before.

It was a brilliant move on Cedar Point's part, and I have to wonder if they might experiment with similarly aggressive pricing on other items. $1 popcorn, anyone?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

IWantBansheeBack said:
Jason, I think anyone who has read an article about the 2006 season will know that cotton candy is 25 cents.

When I said "Other than us" I was refering to anyone who comes to these enthusiast websites. Though there are a lot of us, it pales in comparison to the number of people actualy attending the parks. Every chance I get, I try to tell people about the great things going on in the Amusement Park industry. More about Cedar Point than other parks, but when I'm talking to the GP, if I don't have something good to say about a park, I try not to say anything at all. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising.

<Begin Edit>

I supose I did neglect to think that there are still people who do read newspapers. So on that point, I would agree with you.

*** Edited 5/8/2006 2:27:09 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

$1 Popcorn.. yes.. how about $1 Dogs or Burgers? If Wendys and Burger King can do it, so can the point.

To me it doesn't really matter how many carts they had, for $.25 I am more then able to walk a little bit to get there.

I do hope the idea spreads to more food, they won't make as much per purchase, but will in the end make more because of the huge amount sold. CP demonstrating some good old GOP politics.

I think if they were to follow similar pricing structures for "simple" food (such as hot dogs, hamburgers, fries, etc.), they would experience greater returns moreso from the increased customer satisfaction than from increased sales. The overall volume would surely increase, though.

I think if you're looking for a $1 burger in the park, you're just being cheap.

I wouldn't mind being able to find a bratwurst in the park at just about any reasonable price, though. CP seems to have joined PKI in simply eliminating it from the menu. :(

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Ahh, but if they didn't remove it from the every day menu, how would they get you to come out to the park to see the Johnsonville Grill?

I never said that Holiday Worlds soda plan was a disaster for PR. Sorry for not being clear on that. But the free soda is a complete and utter incompetent brain dead move for the parks bottom line. Soda (along with other treats like Cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn and anything coming in a syrup concentrate) is the amusement parks best friend for food cost. One can probably get those percentages down in 5% or less! Now in the real world a food cost of 25% or 30% is a good goal. But because of the cheap foods (like soda and cotton candy) an amusement park can get below 20% across the board. For Holiday world to give away one of their most profitable items is a crime (from the standpoint of whoever owns the park). You have taken one of the best food items for a park profit-wise and made it a liability.

That's why CP and the cotton candy is so smart. Take a food item with little cost associated. Cut the price to a level that the GP will go nuts over. And still keep the product quite profitable. Unlike Holiday World where they now have to make up that money in other areas to PAY for cups and to PAY for Pepsi SYRUP?!?! Unthinkable for a food service manager. If i ran the park I would push the bottle prices to the level where the people would have to goto the fountain soda. At least $3.00.

It will not happen for food items like hamburgers and hot dogs. The cost is to high and the labor to intense. Although there is room for some decrease in price, just not as dramatic as the cotton candy.

Cheap is packing a lot of food in the cooler. I spent a little over $6 in the park yesterday. 1 large soda and 2 Cotton Candies.

In my cooler we had 4 sandwiches, 4 20oz bottles of kool aid, Yogurt, and snacky foods. Including the cooler the whole deal costs roughly $12 which is less than what it costs for 2 baskets and 2 drinks of any sort from inside the park.

We usually hit up Magnum before we exit, so I start the car while we are going up the hill and when we get to it, the A/C has the car cooled down and we can sit and watch Magnum, Gemini and TTD while enjoying our lunch.

Ahh, but if they didn't remove it from the every day menu, how would they get you to come out to the park to see the Johnsonville Grill?

Free Johnsonville brats? ;)

Yeah, a $1 burger at an amusement park is a stretch. However, offering a $3-$4 meal including a burger/hot dog, basket of fries and medium soft drink would sell like wildfire, in my opinion.
*** Edited 5/8/2006 2:53:03 PM UTC by djDaemon***