Gold pass sales.

cpki310 said:

Ahhh, I didn't realize that. I usually go to KI once a year early in the season.

So I guess CP will keep 'extending' the sale of the Gold Pass through September next year.

Extending the ability to buy passes till end of July is no big deal. The fact is Cedar Fair parks don't offer sale pricing like preseason. The best prices are from 1st availability mid August till Halloween time. The price then goes up a bit from htat time till parks open. Once seasonal parks open the price goes up significantly. Platinum at the best price for 2019 was $195 for new passes by the time CP opened in May it was $222 and stayed that way till 2020 passes started to be offered.

Tony Clark in an interview claimed that Gold Pass sale price is only guaranteed till Oct 27th. He also said CP will offer regular passes in 2020 and they will be priced higher than the current Gold Pass sale price of $99. That essentially confirms Gold Pass prices will also go up from this winter from this completely under priced level of $99

If I were CF, in hindsight, I may now be wishing that I assigned pricing for the gold pass based on different levels of quantity sold rather than a change coming at a certain date. I would imagine they had a number of gold passes they wanted sold at $99 by October 27th. Once that number was hit, whether it was the day after the gold pass was released or on December 31st, the price should have gone up to say $109 or $119 until X more were sold until the next price increase.

I think they're banking on the increase of spending per guest while at the park correlating to more income since more people will be in the park. That's only going to work if they can provide appropriate levels of service to meet the increased demand. Hour plus waits for food becoming normal is how you'll end up shooting yourself in the foot.

2020 is going to be a big, pivotal year for Cedar Point, and not just because it's their 150th. Everything so far for 2020 and the big 150 seems to be pretty lackluster. Pair that up with bigger crowds and continuing poor service levels for the given demand, they're going to be hurting.