Cedar Fair: Spending Up, Attendance Down

Cedar Fair reports per capita spending is up, about 4%, and out of park goods, including hotels are already up 1%. Weather is blamed for poor attendance start, including CP, and Dorney. But, it' snice to see per capita and hotels up so far this early in the season...

http://www.cedarfair.com/public/news/story.cfm?id=138

-Mikey
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Drag Races: 5

Like the company said, 90% of their attendance comes on this side of June. I wouldn't read too much into the chain's performance through the end of May. If anything it's more of an indication of the performance at Knott's Berry Farm than the other parks just starting to gear up for the season.

If you ask me, it's the storm clouds brewing in the economy.

DP and WoF are as much waterparks as they are amusement parks--so the weather would make a huge impact there. While I'd fully expect the CP numbers to correct themselves to at least a fair increase over last year, I can't help but wonder how often the high-priced hotels will stay fully booked.

Most telling in the report is the lack of a runaway success story. We've almost always had one--DP setting records or an overall big increase or something. While VF isn't characterized as disappointing, they aren't being pronounced the smash hit of the season either. But keep in mind that Minnesotans get CP's weather two days ahead of Sandusky.

This is by no means limited to CP. Disney's had its problems this year and SF will have even more. When SFAW begins painting the town with half-price tickets and it's barely June, you know something's up.

-'Playa

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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

I wouldn't sweat it at all for CP. The "high-priced" Lighthouse Point has been booked through September for a couple of weeks. That's hardly an indicator of tough times ahead.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

And this spring really has had terrible weather. Is it June, or is it still March?

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Florida may have Disney World and Key West,
but Ohio has Cedar Point and Put-In-Bay.
It's great to live in Ohio!

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Paris said:If anything it's more of an indication of the performance at Knott's Berry Farm than the other parks just starting to gear up for the season.

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The article never really mntioned knotts attendence being down, just WOF's, CP's, and Dorney's attendence being below average. I have no clue how knott's attendence has been doing. Sundays seem more dead than usual though, however I've never seen such crowded saturdays in the non peak season..

Dorney had two record years in a row. I can't see them having another big increase. I bet they level off a little for the year.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

Speedy, the press release didn't mention Knott's, but think about it. Knott's has been open for five months through the end of May. All of the other parks have been open for a few weeks. You'd have to have huge double-digit declines at ALL of the other parks to counter a flat Knott's to arrive at a 6% decline in "combined attendance."

Again, don't read too much into the report. Now, if in the first week of July the company issues a warning that attendance over the first half of the year is still down by 6%, then you'd hear the sound of nails being chewed to the bone in Sandusky.

Here's only one data point, but I think it is an interesting one.

My family's "big trip" to CP is scheduled for June 19th-22nd. The kids are young enough that we can really only do half-day visits without a mid-day nap. Out of curiosity, I went to check the Resorts reservation page to see how full things appear. According to the online system (which has admittedly been flaky of late) Lighthouse Point, Camper Village, Sandcastle, and Breakers are all completely booked for that weekend. The only resort (other than perhaps the Radisson) with rooms left is Breakers Express.

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It's not war, famine, or pestilence; it's only downtime.