CF and SF passes to increase attendance

Wouldn't it make sense from a marketing standpoint to entertain the idea of accepting both Six Flags season passes and Cedar Point (Fair) season passes for the 2004 season? Here is my reasoning: Wouldn't Cedar Fair try to increase attendance for this season to bring in more revenue? Attendance irregardless of where the pass was paid for will increase revenue because people spend more money typically when they have passes because admission is already "taken care of". It just makes sense to honor CP passes at G.L. this season. Yes I may be a little selfish, but from a marketing standpoint it just makes too much sense.

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Blue people fly sideways when it rains....

From a marketing stand point it would make sense, but from a business stand point it wouldnt. I think if they accepted both passes this season the park would be extremely over crowded creating bad service and deja vu of the 2000/2001 seasons that left bad tastes in every mouths bring down the SF house.

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GL rides sup 2004

Boy does this topic sound familiar....

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2003 Season Visits: 42 Dragster: 27 Rollbacks:0

Letting people in with passes that didn't earn you a dime doesn't make sense. It's like that stupid notion in 1999 that "eyeballs" on the Internet somehow meant revenue. Even in the Six Flags era, getting people in the gate (which they gave away half the time) didn't generate revenue. Word on the street from People Who Know(TM) is that as much as 15% of admissions to SFWoA were free. That's pretty bad.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

Jeff, Far from "not making a dime" free entry or in this case Lets just allow CF passes to use GL. Gross income (sales after admission) for each person passing thru the turn stiles is pretty good. Averages about $34/ person at CF locations. If I'm looking to cover cost for the first Year you need "traffic". I'd even give very low cost admission to Senior Citizen to further encourage "family" attendance the first year. The first year can be a wash but everything should be done to gain attendance for the future.

That still doesn't make sense. SFWoA didn't rake in the bucks because they gave away the gate. If it's true that they allowed 15% in free, that's over 250,000 people that didn't shell out something between $30 and $40, depending on discounts.

Can you show me a business that would be willing to piss away $7 million+? There's no way that per capita spending at GL, especially the first year, is going to get even in the neighborhood of $34. In fact, Cedar Fair has said outright that aggressive season pass promotion last year (or the year before?) led to flat per cap spending.

As a unit holder, I'd be pretty pissed if they let tens of thousands of CP passholders in for free.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

Bob, while the "per cap spending" you refer to is about $34...Season Pass holders are notoriously CHEAP. On average Season pass holders spend WAY less per visit than the AVERAGE. Therefore it WOULD NOT make good business sense to allow the CP Pass holders entrance to GL in the 2004 season.

What I hope happens is some type of of "offer" for seasonpass holders, possibly a discounted admission price to come visit.

I'm guilty for going to the park about 20 times or so last season and not buying one thing. I brought my own food and lived off the 2 drinking fountains in the park. The only thing other than my season pass that I paid for was the parking pass and that was a heck of a deal. I agree totally with what you just said.

The only thing I ever bought last year at the park was a pair of flip-flop shoes cuz my daughter's shoe broke, and I bought a sweat shirt at the end of the season for 50% off. I always bring my own food & drinks. I had a pass and parking sticker and we visited the park so many times that I lost count.

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Loyal Mean Streak fan 4ever:)

I think it's stupid that if you have already bought a Six Flags season pass for WOA that you will have to buy a pass for GL if you have already used it at another Six Flags park. Sure, more money for Six Flags but less customer satisfaction, but I would be mad if I had to buy a new pass.

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AKA Cobraroller on Cbuzz

I don't think that is the case. If I read properly, a WOA pass can be traded for a Geauga Lake pass under any circumstance. As stated on the site, a WOA pass will not be valid at other Six Flags parks now that the acquistion is final.

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Camper Village/Sandcastle Front Desk 2004

Ah, you are right, I read it wrong. It still thinks that another purchase of a Six Flags pass at another park is needed.

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AKA Cobraroller on Cbuzz

Yes, that is true. Six Flags will not honor the WOA passes at any other park now so a pass from another Six Flags park must be purchased.

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Camper Village/Sandcastle Front Desk 2004

Jeff is absolutely right that increasing attendance through season passes does not necessarily equal an increase in revenue. In my opinion, non-passholders that are at a park for a vacation, or some other type of one-time-only occasion, are going to be the ones that spend the money. On vacation, you're more likely to eat out (in this case, at the park), spend money on clothing and souvenirs, and play games and other extra-cost activities because these things are all part of making the memories. That's what "vacationing" is all about.

Season passholders who live "right around the corner" are so used to visiting the park that -- unless they're obsessed with the park ^_~ or see a really cool item -- are not going to be spending a lot of cash on souvenirs. The park loses some of its novelty by being a regular feature on the entertainment schedule, and therefore the novelty of souvenirs dies, too. They're also more likely to pack a cooler full of food for the day ...since they're already getting in for a "free" day of fun, why spend any more cash?

In my opinion, it's the non-passholding families with small or school-age children on weekend vacations or day trips that are going to bring in the cash and plastic. That's exactly who the park is marketing toward, too...I have an inclination to trust their judgement, saying they're the experts.

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~Lee~

Group Sales ATL '01
Group Sales TL '02
Park Admissions Zone 5 Supervisor '03
Park Admissions Supervisor '04
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"The greatest leaders don't take credit for their actions; they don't have to."

Season pass holders do spend less per visit, but i argue that over the course of a season the average pass holder spends much more than a one day tripper. The average passholder doesn't power visit the park like us here. I am well aware that there are people out there, like myself, who will go to a park with a pass and spend no money. But at least we dropped the dime to get the pass. And in most cases even hard core park connoiosseur will spend more on some fattening park food or on a souvineer collection. And while i never spent more than 15 bucks in CP last year, in the 10 trips i did make i would estimate spending at least 100 dollars over all, which is MUCH more than i am willing to spend in one visit. Which is exactly why the per cap is not always the best number to look at. I may not have helped the per cap, but i definately added to the bottom line. To claim that season pass holders do nothing for the business of the park is absurd. If that was the case then no park would offer them.

Now i definately think that GLP should honor other CF park passes. Even with SFI giving away the gate for three years they saw steady declines in the annual attendance. CF needs to tap into any means possible to get the old customer base back. Remember that GLP always had a high pass rate and received much of the business from those pass holders and from catered groups.

And even if there are some who would buy the CP pass and then visit GLP and never spend a dime, there are many more who would spend money in the park. Either way, the money all goes to CF and they got the money for the pass. As a stock holder i don't care which park the money is spent at, only that it is spent in a CF park.

Cedar Point's loaf of bread is made with 3 major ingrediants: Flour, Water, and Yeast.

Flour is the admission. A loaf of bread is nothing without it. It's the most important ingrediant. If you let people past the gates without paying then on average you make next to zip. People that want to have fun without paying are the people that you are attracting. Thats one loaf that the owner won't be able to bake themselves out of.

Water is Per Capita Spending. Thi isn't too far behind flour on the importance scale. Cedar Point is in the buisness of making money, not just breaking even. You could get it to work out, but it's a dry loaf at best.

Yeast is Resorts. It makes the bread fluff up significantly. It complements flour by giving several days worth of admissions on average, it expands the water by ensuring that people eat meals in the park more on average. Families that play and stay for a couple days and nights are golden. Cedar Point is trying to answer the question "How big can you get the loaf?" Breakers Express, Lighthouse Point Expansion, and Castaway Bay are recent examples. Having trouble finding an oven to bake the bread is a good problem to have.

I am certain that Cedar Fair will take this direction to Geauga Lake. As been said before, Two days at CP packaged together with one at GL would be a great situation if it works out.

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Eddy the retard is awesome.

SteelMonsters said something so important that it is worth repeating:

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People that want to have fun without paying are the people that you are attracting.

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In other words, cheap admission encourages your guests to think about "bargains". Put another way, there is a reason that the Disney parks *never* *ever* discount a one-day admission.

Edit: now that I think about it, that's not quite entirely true. Disneyland Paris discounts based on season. Then again, DLP is the only location in the empire going broke.
*** This post was edited by Brian Noble 4/14/2004 5:14:52 PM ***

I see both sides of this point, but I think that CF season pass holders should be allowed into GL. The problems is this: Look over on CoasterBuzz at any trip report involving SFWoA. It was a joke. The longest line in the park? The complaint line at Guest Services. A lot of people end their trip report with "I'll never go back there" or something along those lines. If you can tap that base of passholders and show that you are turning the park around, they would probably return in following years. How about a compromise... Maybe have certain days when any CF pass is good at GL? Tuesdays are always slow days at amusement parks...

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But then again, what do I know?

First of all GLP has not, is not and won't be like CP for quite some time, even if CF wants to move in that direction. GLP's loaf of bread was always made with company/union picnics, season pass holders and two day trippers along with Sea World (which is the closest thing to yeast for the park). Now i know this isn't the old GLP, but even though there are new owners they still have the same old park. If i was CF i would be looking as to HOW Funtime put that park together in order to run the percentages they did. The cleintele base for GLP is quite different from CP at this time, and why should that change? That segment of the population has disposable cash to take just like anyone else.

Just because CP's model isn't based on the season pass doesn't mean that parks can't be successful if their model is. Per cap and avereage gate aren't the end all, be all for fiscal success for a park. Would you rather have a park with a 20 dollar per cap at three mil annnual attendance or a park with a 30 dollar per cap at a 1.5 million annual attendance?

Per cap spending is one of the most important metrics there is. Ask the Wall Street analysts. Let me say it again: Attendance != Revenue (that's "does not equal' in programmer speak).

Letting in CF passholders might give you a warm and fuzzy feeling, but it's not a good business decision.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?