Crowd Control

As CP decides to stick their fingers deeper into our pockets this up comming year with a admission fee of nearly $40, what, if any, types of plans do they have for crowd control. I remember last year leaving the park as early as 3 or 4 hours after entering because the volumes of people in the park was so bad. Does CP have any game plan to control the number of people they have in the park at any one particular time? Twice last year I walked out of the park very early and went home because I couldn't take the overcrowding anymore. Since I'm a pass holder I didn't mind it as much, but if I were an out of towner making my one yearly trip to the park, spending tons of money, and it was like that, I would be steamming mad.

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Vince "cpboy"Albertson
http://home.att.net/~vcalbertson/index.htm

CP does not limit the amount of people that it allows into the park. That would be almost impossible without pissing off a large number of people.

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CHECK OUT MY CP PAGE
http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/Shore/6422

Wouldn't more people be angry in the park with it over crowded, than people who would be turned away?


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Vince "cpboy"Albertson
http://home.att.net/~vcalbertson/index.htm

*** This post was edited by Vince on 1/6/00. ***

Six Flags has a policy of closing the gates when full capacity is reached...something like 25,000 people. how they determine this, i don't know...something to do with ride capacity or something...

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"I think I scrambled my brain!!"

Nah, I think people would be more angry if turned away.... People should be able to go to the park when they want to....it's their fault if the park is too overcrowded for them... but thats just my humble opinion..



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http://vms.www.uwplatt.edu/~moyerc
PetFarm/PetChek 99 *** This post was edited by AnimalsRule on 1/6/00. ***

I don't see how CP could turn people away. However, I have been to CP when the lot looked full to capacity. Do they shuttle people in then from the causeway if the lot fills up?

i was at the point last may on a sunday. its was national city bank day and the park was to close at 7pm. they had people parking in the soak city parking lot as well as some of the hotels in that same area. they also extended the hours to 9pm. we waited 2 hours for raptor, 1 1/2 hours for magnum and 1 1/2 hour for mantis. they need a limit!!!!!! specially now for the price they are charging.

As long as people will pay, they'll let people in. On some of the most crowded days this summer, the longest wait I ever had (and I was only waiting because I was with non-pass holder) was 1.5 hours.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point

2 hours for a major ride is reasonable on a summer day but when there are half hour lines to go to the bathroom or buy a burger I think something needs to be done. Heck, if there are too many people and there is some sort of diaster like fire,tornado, when it is overcrowded people could be trampled/killed if a panic started.

They should do advance sale tickets, people generally plan when they are goign to CP before the season begins but this wouldn't work well with season pass holders. Oh well, guess there is no solution.

There's nothing that can be done about crowd control. That's how things are going to be. If someone comes once a year they should plan on coming when it's not busy season.

Cedar Point shows its best when it's crowded. I remember the last weekend in 1998. The rides where not running at full capacity and they where out of everything almost and what they did have they couldn't use (no cups for the drinks, no bags). It was the worst day you could be at the park.

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AKA: bodyin thewaterball fountain.

Paddlewheel Excursions: 12
Jokes on PE: 120

Cedar Point has a very basic formula for handling big crowds, and at least in ride operations they do it remarkably well:

1. Open more rides. Anybody else remember how the Gemini line was always about 40 minutes and always extended along the fence heading off towards the Monster? That ride is just as busy as ever today, but with waits of closer to eight minutes. Why? Because Raptor, Mantis, and Magnum are each pulling 1,800 people out of the queue. The more rides that are operating, the more people the park can handle. Every time Cedar Point opens a new coaster, it pulls about 1,800 people out of the midways and away from the other rides. CP can't remove old rides; they need to keep the capacity up in order to serve the teeming millions. And if you wait more than about 75 minutes for a Cedar Poin coaster, you're probably doing something wrong.

2. Run rides at capacity. Keep the intervals short, and keep the lines moving. The queue can only hold about 1,800 people so the crews need to keep the rides moving to keep the queues from spilling onto the midway.

It is better for the park to improve its ability to handle a large crowd than it is to make the crowd smaller.

--Dave Althoff, Jr. *** This post was edited by RideMan on 1/7/00. ***

Dave, maybe you should forward that plan to Premier and Paramount :)

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Scott W. Short
sshort@mediaone.net
http://welcome.to/midwestcoastercentral

I think part of the responsibility is on Cedar Point, and partly on the guest. You, as a guest should know:

1. If you go on a warm Saturday in July or August, you get what you deserve. (I speak from experience)

2. If you try to buy your lunch from 12:00-1:30 on that Saturday, you get what you deserve.

3. If you try to ride the newest ride on that Saturday, you get what you deserve. (If you expect to ride much else that day)

3a. If you are so stubborn as to refuse to try other rides or attractions available, which are more than likely walk-ons, you have only yourself to blame.

4. If you stay for the Summer Spectacular and then try buy waffles or taffy on the way out, you get what you deserve.

Cedar Point, on the other hand:

1. Should open all food and entertainment venues as early as possible in the day, to spread the load more evenly. Believe it or not, some people like to drink beer, play games, eat frozen treats and scarf Cheese-on-a-Stick before 11:00am.

1a. It is irritating to see shutters on games and other small attractions, and umbrellas folded on kiosks and carts in the park when you are thirsty, hungry, or want to be diverted because the coaster lines are too long just now.

2. Should staff all venues as completely as possible to offer the fastest possible service.

2a. With well-trained, non-volunteer, english-speaking employees at the busiest times.

DISCLAIMER - I realize there are many logistical issues involved. I merely state what the average guest would like to see. No flames, please. :)

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Timothy A. Bretz
"Remember to pillage before you burn"
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tabretz

Great Synopsis Tim..couldn't of said it better myself

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http://www.msu.edu/~armbrus9/cp.html

Jeffrey Spartan

Of course, the big problem is staffing. Can anybody remember a time when CP's food operations were not understaffed? Last year, the situation was so bad that even ride operations was frequently understaffed. Increasing wages this season should help a little, but even at that, there is only so much help available for what is really not a particularly fun job...

I do wish that CP would do the same kind of research regarding food service that they do with ride operations. CP has the most efficient ride operations of any park I have visited, but food service is full of inefficiencies which just make things even slower...For instance, when the person running the register has to run all over the stand to collect the pieces of the customer's order, all the while trying not to get run over by other cashiers doing the same thing, there is probably room for improvement.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I agree with RideMan about the food concessions. I always go to CP during the week to avoid the big crowds. But even then, the food service can be very slow. Last year, the 2nd longest line I waited in was for a burger. Why can’t CP organize their food stands like a McDonalds and speed up the process?

The most efficient food stand I've found at CP is the Soak City refreshment stand. It's organized a lot like a McDonalds, the inside even looks somewhat like the kitchen area of McDonalds. NOTE: this is the food stand inside of Soak City, not the food stand in the Challenge Park arcade.

OH OH Food stuff let me intervene a little!! Dave, (the other one of course), as for your observation about a register person getting all the food and stuff.. well that is NOT supposed to be the way that is supposed to work. At proper staffing levels which I have only seen once (1998), there should be a register operator and a runner for each register in a stand. This way, a register person would only have to get drinks and not all the food as well. I know that this last summer working in tiny Sagebrush Sue's that it gets crowded up front with 6 people up there. Of course most of the time I didn't have 6 people on my staff which is supposed to have 10. Take Stockade for instance, to have that place run at minimum staffing would require 8 register workers, 8 runners, a cook in pizza room and a prep person in pizza room, a fryside person in burger room and a burger assembler and someone feeding the burger cooker...a dough smasher and a cooker for elephant ears. 2 supervisors, 2 patio people. That is 27 people just to run the stand, not counting the people that are needed for giving breaks, probably 5 would get you by efficently. So Stockade would take 32 people to run at BARE MINIMUM. Anyway, back on topic... the problem that I have seen is that people don't want to work and they complain when they have to. I worked probably the busiest register at Cedar Point for 2 summers (the middle register in the Burger Room at Stockade) and I know that without a runner, sometimes 2, that I wouldn't have been able to move people through at the rate I did. I had someone keep track, when we used the menu cards to move things faster and we counted 750 people in an hour. I know that everyone comes to eat at the same time and complain to me about having to stand in line for 20 minutes for food. My question is that why do you not complain when you have to stand in line for 3 hours to ride Magnum and yet rip the employees when you stand in line for more than 20 minutes to get foo? ??????? ?? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?? ??? ????? ????? ??? ??????? ?????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ??? ??? ???? ??? ???????? ?? ??? ???????????????? ?? ? ??????????????????????????????????????? ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? ??????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????

A little more than two cents Dave, but well put I think...I myself also speak from experience on this subject...as an area supervisor I got to see the best and worst of guests and employees alike. True, many times we are understaffed and the service is slow, but those who don't think that we are trying our best (well most of us that is) have no idea what it takes to work in a capacity like that. I personally happen to like the job, even with all it's setbacks. You have to understand what we go through in a normal day. You come to work, sometimes only a few hours after you went home from work, and you serve hundreds, if not thousands of people a day...it can get very tiring. I myself, as an area supervisor, do not have as much guest contact on the front lines anymore, but most of you probably saw me on a fryer, scooping ice cream, or cleaning a patio on my way to cover a break or with a four wheeler pushing 2,000 pounds of ice down the midway, or a pallet of fries! In order for any operation to run smoothly all the employees must be willing to give 100%. Unfortunately when you are hiring a huge amount of help as Cedar Point does every summer, you aren't able to have every person be an "ideal" employee. You learn to work with it though; although I know that it sometimes is no consolation to a guest. As far as the comments about the foreigners go, for those of you who read my comments about the minors on the employee page, I will say the same. We could not get by without the foreigners! Sure they may smell a little different or talk a little funny, but they really are some of the hardest workers that we have (of course there are always exceptions to that). They are the ones that frequently work every day open to close, giving up their days off. We all work together to try to make it a pleasant experience for the guests, cause if the guest is happy then we can be happy too. That may sound cheesy but if we can satisfy you then we don't have to worry????? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ?? ??????? ?????????????? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ??????? ?? ? ???????? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ????????? ????? ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ? ???????? ?????? ??? ? ??????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ????????? ??? ? ????? ????? ??? ?? ?? ? ?????? ??? ?????????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ????? ?? ? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????????? ???? ?? ??? ????? ???? ?? ??????? ???? ? ????????????? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ????????????? ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ??? ?? ??? ?????? ? ???? ????? ??? ?? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ???? ???????? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??? ????? ??? ????? ?? ??????? ???? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ? ??? ??? ???? ????? ??? ???? ?? ?? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ???? ?? ? ?????? ?????????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ? ?????? ?????????? ??? ?? ????????? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ? ???? ?? ????? ?? ? ?????? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ????? ???? ?? ?? ??? ? ????? ??????? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ???????????? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??????? ?? ?? ???? ???? ?? ??? ????? ? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ???? ? ??? ??????????? ??? ???? ?? ??????? ??????? ?? ?????? ??? ??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?????????? ????????? ??? ????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?? ??? ????? ????? ?? ???? ????????