FOX 8 NEWS story about Read to Succeed Passes

Fox 8 just gave Geauga Lake some bad PR, doing a story on how kids are pissed at the park for not honoring the free Six Flags tickets.

This pisses me off because the park doesn't need any bad PR right now, and the park is doing NOTHING WRONG (please pardon my yelling) by not honoring these tickets.

These tickets are good for SFI parks. Yet the news story seemed to try to blame Geauga Lake for not honoring the tickets. They were issued by Six Flags, Inc., not Cedar Fair. Cedar Fair has no obligation to accept these tickets.

Anyway, enough of my rant for now. Now I see why I don't normally watch local television news.

-Sam
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Avalanche Run - My first Roller Coaster.
Magnum XL-200 - The BEST Roller Coaster!

There was some question before about whose decision it was. If SF is not allowing CF to use their program, then the news agency needs to report that. If CF has the option and is choosing not to honor the program, then they have that right but the story is still fair game.

And the promo during Idol says footage will be shown of the animals leaving. Now I have to watch (well, want to), even though they will probably air crap.

-Sam

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Avalanche Run - My first Roller Coaster.
Magnum XL-200 - The BEST Roller Coaster!

Shouka the whale left around 12:30 this afternoon. Sad day :(

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GL rides sup 2004
"The Fun is Back!"

I cannot imagine Cedar Fair not honoring these passes without a legitiment reason. There must be something more to it that has not been reported.

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Beer and golf Thursday thru Monday, Cedar Point & beer, Tuesday and Wednesday.

What legit reason do you need other than they had nothing to do with the tickets being issued? Not only that, but if they're just generic Six Flags tickets, for use at any park, then they're certainly not going to accept them. We've been over all of this before.

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

What really pisses me off is the children saying that a promise was broken. It was Six Flags Inc. that ran the program, not Cedar Fair. These kids need to learn that Cedar Fair promised them NOTHING, and I doubt Six Flags Inc. promised them tickets to SFWoA. I bet they promised Generic Six Flags tickets.

Nobody broke a promise, and I hate how FOX 8 is putting this crap on the air. Yet they still air kids basically saying they were lied to (by having a promise broken) WHICH ISN'T THE CASE!

I apologize for yelling, but it pisses me off. Cedar Fair obviously has a good reason for not accepting these tickets, and I can think of reasons myself, including what has already been mentioned on here and/or Coasterbuzz.

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Avalanche Run - My first Roller Coaster.
Magnum XL-200 - The BEST Roller Coaster!

Well if they were told they cold use them at any SF park including WOA then they were lied to. However I can see why CF wouldn't accept them if they were generic SF tickets. But if they were some how different it could be a great oppurtunity to showcase the park to a free audience that will bring a paying adult (possibly). But CF really has no obligation to accept the tickets one way or another. This was discussed over at CB as well.
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*** This post was edited by newt 4/19/2004 10:52:23 PM ***

How many tickets are we talking about here? A couple hundred? Would it kill us to meet them halfway, even though GL is not obligated too? I suppose we could offer half off, or two-for-one admissions in exchange for those "tickets".

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Jes
JesLive.Com
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew & ATL 2002-2003!
Cedar Point Raptor Crew 2004! (Find me, and win a prize!)

Unless the ticktets are not generic SF tickets, there would be no way to determine if they are legit Read to Succeed passes or just generic passes given out for whatever reason. I suspect they are generic SF passes, good at any SF park. That is why they are not being honored.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead
http://www.webtechnik.com/ebony/CPLady.htm

Cedar Fair is a multi-million dollar company that was able to build a $20 million dollar 400 foot rollercoaster.

They could have figured out a way to make this work...and they should have. Years ago either Honda or Saturn...I can't remember which, had a park buyout that had miserable weather. They ended up giving away thousands of tickets to those people to come back later in the season.

This is bad PR that didn't need to happen had they only been a little creative about the situation. Will it kill them? No. But it could have gone a little way toward showing how Cedar Fair was going to operate the park differently and in the big scheme of things would not have cost much.

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"You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world...but it requires people to make the dreams a reality."

I don't think we can really decide that without knowing how many tickets were issued and what they were valid for. If it was a thousand tickets, do you honor those? That's revenue that could've paid for an entire ride crew the entire summer.

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

My girlfriends little brother received a few of these tickets last year, and its not a generic ticket(yes it doesnt say which park, or that it can only be used at this park or that park) but they actually say "read to succeed" on them. So somebody cant just come up saying this ticket is a read to succeed ticket if its not an actual ticket. Personally I think they should just say okay we'll honor them. Most of these kids arent full adult admission anyways, or even have season passes and dont use the tickets. Like I said my girlfriends brother received a few of these and never used them because of a season pass. Let the kids in, its just this one season anyways.

Why dont these news companies ever mention that SF pulled out and therefore CF doesnt have to honor these coupons? Would there be such a big deal if McDonalds gave out coupons for free happy meals, pulled out of a city, a Burger King came in and refused to honor the tickets? Wierd example but I think not.

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GL rides sup 2004
"The Fun is Back!"
*** This post was edited by XFlight 4/20/2004 10:48:15 AM ***
*** This post was edited by XFlight 4/20/2004 10:48:52 AM ***

Okay, so you allow them in this year, then what? If they allow these tickets this year and then have no read to succeed program next year, then they have to endure complaints about Cedar Fair not maintaining a program that was not theirs to begin with. Cedar Fair obviously does not want to get caught in that type of situation. Who is also to say that Six Flags will pull out of the read to succeed program in the Cleveland area? If they can generate customers to either of the other two parks and choose to continue the program in the area for 2005, then of course it makes sense that Cedar Fair will not admit these tickets this year.

All PR is not going to be positive no matter what a park may attempt to do.

I think it's a bad move on CP's part. They should of honored them this year (being the transitional year). Sure, you can use these tickets at other SF parks, but when the Read to Success program was going on this year, the nearest SF park was roughly 1/2 hour from Cleveland. Now the nearest SF park is roughly 2 hours from Cleveland.

Having a 7 year old daughter that participated in the program, I think it's pretty crappy to have your hopes set on going to that particular park, only to find out that she can't use the tickets now because CP/Geauga Lake wouldn't honor them.

Obviously, CP doesn't see the extra income that would be generated by concession sales, games, etc. Plus, the kids can't get in by themselves, so tack on another $75 to $100 bucks for the rest of the family to get in in ticket sales.

If they're trying to re-brand Geauga Lake and give it a new image, they're sure starting off on the wrong foot by pissing off the kids that have worked hard at trying to achieve those tickets plus the families that encouraged this program.

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Jeff said:
I don't think we can really decide that without knowing how many tickets were issued and what they were valid for. If it was a thousand tickets, do you honor those? That's revenue that could've paid for an entire ride crew the entire summer.

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According to FOX 8, about 3,500,000 tickets. Yes, the zeros are correct, three and a half million nationwide. So unless there is a way to differenciate between tickets given out in the Cleveland area from others, I doubt you will see Geauga Lake taking these tickets. Three and a half million is at least one and a half times the total admission of the park for last year, and there is the possibility of these tickets being abused, and enthusiasts from other parts of the country using these Six Flags tickets to get into Geauga Lake.

But if FOX 8 was a little less anti-Geauga Lake in their reporting, this wouldn't be such a big deal.

-Sam

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Avalanche Run - My first Roller Coaster.
Magnum XL-200 - The BEST Roller Coaster!

Well, I am not really arguing either side here. I see no reason why they should have to accept them. However, it seems like allowing kids from the Cleveland area that bring documentation - i.e. parent's driver license that - that shows they are from the Cleveland area could be allowed in. Basically the kids that would use them would be ones that dont have season passes already and thus they would be bringing other nonpassholders with them most likely. Seems like there is some money to be made with these.

Call me old-schooled but reading should be a reward in and of itself. If you are proud of your daughter for what she has accomplished, then you should attempt to take her to the park anyways.

A clear example I would use is the Book It program from Pizza Hut where you would receive a free pizza for reading X amount of books. Now, if all the local Pizza Hut's in the area were bought out by Donatos (or other chain), would you expect the Donatos to honor that coupon? I think what has people up in arms is the relative value gained by having such a free item. As the value of a free item goes up, the more likely we are to be upset when we cannot use it anymore.

Yes, it would be 'nice' if GL accepted the tickets, but it doesn't make sense. Six Flags was in charge of the program, if anyone SHOULD be getting bad PR it should be Six Flags. If they cared what people in Ohio thought of their brand, they should have bought the kids CF GL tickets to replace the SF tickets. It was their deal that was broken, not CF's. Either way, it's sad the children have had their hopes up. The best solution is for the companies to work together. Perhaps SF reimburses the tickets that actually came through the gate at GL, or even reimburse half. Like it was said before, If they don't allow children in alone, then there is going to be a whole family of $$$ coming in with the free tickets.

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Rides 2001
Guest Services 2002
www.veronicaspreciousgifts.com

I agree the park has no reason to take these tickets since they were issued by Six Flags and not Cedar Fair. Also, just from working at the park for so long and any of you who have worked at a park would agree, if CF were to honor these passes at GL there would be at least a handful of people who would want these passes honored at Cedar Point. Those people would argue that CF honored the passes at one park but not all and that's not fair. It would happen and CF knows that and is trying to avoid that situation along with several others.

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booya