Halloweekends: How to fix the poor guest experience.

Frito Joe said:
Raise the Platinum pass price to help staff the park for larger crowds? Is that how CP should reward those who put up their cash to become patrons next year?

Raising the price of the passes, which currently are an excellent (almost absurd) value, in addition to raising the gate price is perfectly logical. It's clear that CP is struggling to employ enough maintenance staff to maintain the highest-possible overall park capacity throughout the season. That's not to say the current maintenance folk aren't kicking ass. It's just that they can only do so much with what they have.

Sorry, but I totally disagree with these concepts.

Well, then, you're in the wrong country. :) In a capitalist system, businesses should be charging as much as the market will bear. I think it's arguable that CP isn't charging enough, at least for Halloweekends.

Cater to those who show up once or twice a year? Wow, please explain to me how we have become the bad guys.

Those people who show up once or twice a year likely spend as much as, if not more, in the park than you and other pass holders. It's no secret that pass holder per-caps are lower than that of non-pass holders. You're getting a spectacular value with your season pass. Getting a slightly less spectacular value for that pass isn't punishment. The mere suggestion that you're being punished is just silly.

While confusing, perhaps a 3-tier pass system would work. The "Basic" pass provides admission on non-Halloweekend days. The "Platinum" pass becomes the "Gold" pass, its only new limitation being that it doesn't provide access to Halloweekends. The new "Platinum" pass provides everything the old PP did, with the added benefit of allowing access to HW.

People, People, People,

Average CP crowd 20 to 30K / day. Columbus day weekend 10-8-11, 60K. Perfect storm is correct. Bye week in Cleveland, Detroit Playing Monday night, Perfect weather that one could plan for, the list goes on.

60K still a problem. Here is what I believe to be a pretty good solution.

1. Determine a guest threshold, for example, where a guests ability to ride the rides, or visit the attractions during Halloweekends, (that they would prefer to), diminishes significantly. I reckon this treshold would be quite high. Below 60K for sure.

2. Once this threshold is reached, reduce the price of admission citing the excess capacity of people, and diminished ability to ride, or visit attractions. Advertise this with signs before the entry gate. NOW, those people who still decide to stay, can spend their money on other profit centers for CP, such as Games, Souvenirs, or in my case, FOOD. LOL!

Some Cautions

2. DO NOT turn ANYONE away, or give incentives for people to stay away. The people that stay away, could very well be the ones that never return.

3. Do not penalize season pass holders. Simple math will tell you, keeping ALL season pass holders out, will not reduce attendance by 20K people. Personally, I think it's less than 10K. Further, what if most season pass holders just decide to pay and enter, crowd issue NOT addressed.

If you are a season pass holder, I'm shocked you would state something like penalizing ourselves. If you are not a season pass holder, it is not our fault we live close enough to CP to take advantage of it, as often as we would like, don't take it out on us.

I was there on Saturday 10-8-2011. I can say it. I witnessed the capacity crowd, and it was both exciting, and disappointing. No one was seriously hurt, (as far as I've heard so far), we got food, visited a few haunted houses, got on a few rides, but left entertained. I did not get home until 3:00am as we had a friend who payed full price for the ticket.

Had my friend payed less for her ticket, I would not have felt bad, or would she of, about leaving early, and at least reducting the back end capacity.

Happy Thrill Seeking!!

I can say that if they cut the Halloweekends out of season passes, it probably wouldn't be worth it for me to buy. One of my trips yearly is going to be closing weekend, or at least somewhere during Halloweekends so I can go see a Michigan game. I might make it for 1-2 other trips yearly but it would definitely make me think twice about shelling out $150 for a pass compared to discounted 2-day tickets or something.

I'm not sure what people want the park to do on days like this past weekend. It's Columbus Day weekend, it was apparently nice outside and people flocked to the park. It'd be stupid to turn people away. The fact people were willingly parking their cars in the grass should have tipped those attending off that "Hey, maybe it will be busier than normal today since I can't park in a real parking spot"

Of course, let's just play the blame game. That's what we're good at in this country right? Have a poor experience? Blame someone else. Don't get what you want? Blame someone else.

Also, park hours were increased on Sunday evening of Columbus Day weekend on the schedule published back in the spring. That seems like a red flag right there saying 'Hey, we expect more crowds, so we're open later'

Just an example of how much a $150.00 Platinum pass saved me this year...

15 visits (savings $150.00 parking) - enough said ..

15 visits (savings $570.00 individual ticket prices at 38.00)

visit other cedar fair parks (parking, ticket prices) (savings $125.00) carowinds, and kings dominion, and michigan's adventure

That was just a quick example.. leaving because crowds are big, and returning on other day is another perk...

(but please don't raise the prices, I love the savings)

I'm not going to do much more than break even on mine. 5 days in the park * 38 = $190 plus $50 parking. Granted I didn't make it to Worlds of Fun like I had planned, but that's my fault.

Still a decent deal to me because of the convenience, but jacking the price up much more will make it less of a deal to me.

bholcomb said:
Also, park hours were increased on Sunday evening of Columbus Day weekend on the schedule published back in the spring. That seems like a red flag right there saying 'Hey, we expect more crowds, so we're open later'

I am not sure the average person looks at it that way. I suspect it is more along the lines of "Awesome - the park is open longer. That means we get more for our money. Let's go that day!"

djDaemon said:

You're getting a spectacular value with your season pass. Getting a slightly less spectacular value for that pass isn't punishment. The mere suggestion that you're being punished is just silly.

Agreed on the spectacular value. The problem is that we have gotten used to that value and have grown to expect it. Making a change that reduces the value, while it isn't punishment, is frowned upon by most people.

BayernKurve said:]
Are you new to America and only beginning to learn the English language?

I could do without the douchebaggery, and you need to not quote an entire previous quote.

I read on pointpixels that the park no longer has ride hosts at entrances. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Also, having grown up going to Cedar Point, and now a Florida resident with passes to Disney, I'd like to give my two cents. I've been to Disney World in upwards of 30 times this past year and can confirm there were many times guests were unhappy. Just recently my wife and I took our daughter to Mickey's not so scary Halloween party. It took two hours to leave the park because they shut down the monorail at 8 pm forcing all guests to wait for the boats. People weren't happy.

The bottom line- amusement parks get packed, the parks do the best they can. Most days at the Magic Kingdom feel like he'll due to the crowds. I think most of you have just gotten spoiled to lighter crowds at the point in recent years.

The entrance spot position for ride hosts were eliminated in 2009. I agree with Cedar Point getting rid of that position for most of the rides which had that position. However, rides like Millennium, Maverick, TTD, Mantis, Raptor, and Magnum-Xl-200 all really need this position. Those rides always have overflowing queues, problems with loose articles, and test seat issues. If the entrance position were never to come back, there needs to be an auto-spiel playing at the entrance of the ride stating the requirements and restrictions to go on the ride.

As a previous ride host, I somewhat agree with you coolkid. I don't think Cedar Point should have gotten rid of entrance at all! It creates such an annoyance for ride hosts to walk to queues when it would be simple for them just to be there at the entrance waiting. What I do agree with, is that they should bring back that position to all of the major rides...INCLUDING WICKED TWISTER! It would save the guests some time who have over sized stuffed animal, basketballs (even though starting July basketballs are allowed on WT's platform), Large guests who need to try the test seat, and guests trying to enter the line when they go down for mechanical or weather!

I get where you are coming from with the basketballs. The park really should give them to people dis-inflated; then have a machine outside the park that would fill them up for 10 cents.

If Cedar Point installed auto-spiels, signs, and a couple of height checks throughout the queues, there wouldn't be a big need for the entrance position as there is now.

^

Which in turn would save guests who did not bring stuff into the line time, making it a win-win.

I still don't get all the fuss over C-Day weekend. You made a choice to go on the busiest day of the year, the knowledge of which is not a secret, and easily ascertainable with little to modest effort.

The season-pass factor is a non-issue IMO. I could be way off, but I would guess the following:

1) MOST season passers are locals

2) Those locals would know to not go on C-Day weekend

3) Therefore, excluding season-passers would have little to no effect on numbers.

I have to agree, and always have, that a modest increase in cost for a PP is well justified. Of course I am not complaining, as I will happy pay the current price, but if the price was somewhere around 200 I would still not even question its value.

While Columbus Day weekend has been known to be a big one in the past, I think it needs to be considered that just about any Saturday in mid-late HalloWeekends time can be just as bad. I think the big problem this year was that the two or three Saturdays before this past weekend had poor weather, which probably built up a large base of guests who held off on a trip.

Last year, I remember three Saturdays in a row starting around the beginning of October that had what I would call a huge crowd. Not quite the 60,000 that everyone is tossing around from this past weekend, but I would say definitely around 50,000 or more. I know those three weekends they were parking people on the grass near the tollbooths with the temporary lights out there, but definitely not on the little "island" down the causeway. These crowds seemed much more manageable, still with very long lines, but I definitely do not remember nearly as many complaints.

I think it's just basically unfortunate that so many people decided to go on one day and no one is going to get anywhere complaining about it. While I do not think that they should turn anyone away from the park, I do think it could be a courtesy to send out a message on FB or Twitter warning of the large crowds and maybe remind people of other days to visit. However, I think that it would be hard to get that concept past current management seeing how driven they are on the attendance numbers. I have seen on Facebook that Busch Gardens does have a capacity during their halloween events and they send out similar messages informing guests of any capacity issues. This past Saturday, CP's Facebook around 8pm informed guests that the park is open and it's a beautiful night for HalloWeekends... which seemed to set some people off who saw that the day after they visited. While that status update was certainly a mistake on their part, it could have been replaced with some kind of crowd message or just nothing that would encourage more visitors for the evening.

*Edit: I see that they did recently make a post on FB advertising the Sunday night outdoor attractions being open and hinting at that being a better day to go... which is a good start.

Overall, this is a difficult but interesting topic with no right or wrong answer really. There's definitely some room for improvement with the way they handle these Saturdays in the future, but just unfortunate for some that everything lined up for an exceptional crowd this time.

coolkid said:
I get where you are coming from with the basketballs. The park really should give them to people dis-inflated; then have a machine outside the park that would fill them up for 10 cents.

Speaking of basketballs, on one of our trips this year I witnessed someone losing control of a basketball. The ball bounced over the guards on skyhawk promptly drilling a poor girl in the face while the ride was in full swing. Leaving the balls full is all about advertising the games but it is dangerous not to mention annoying.

In addition to entrance hosts, CP seems to run many of the flat rides with only one ride host. This really slows down loading and unloading and is most annoying. Especially on a ride like Witches Wheel where they used to fill a staging area with guests and then let them all out at once. Really made the line move. Granted, Witches Wheel probably never has much of a line now except maybe on Saturdays, but it is just an example of how cost cutting has damaged the guest experience.

Well Kings Island used to put up signs that said "Sold Out" when they reached the max capacity. They were permanent signs on the highway they could fold in half when not needed. But as for packed days as a passholder, yep, if we see it crazy we just keep on driving. That is a perk of a passholder. So for Columbus day on Monday, did schools get the day off? We dont around here and just wondering.

three7five said:
While I do not think that they should turn anyone away from the park, I do think it could be a courtesy to send out a message on FB or Twitter warning of the large crowds and maybe remind people of other days to visit.

Kennywood does this for their Phantom Fright Nights - on the event web page it lists about 5 or 6 nights (mostly saturdays) that they anticipate being very busy and encourage people to visit other nights they are open.

three7five said:
While Columbus Day weekend has been known to be a big one in the past, I think it needs to be considered that just about any Saturday in mid-late HalloWeekends time can be just as bad.

This. I'd also include late July/early-mid August Saturdays where they they have a very heavy load of group sales (Cleveland Clinic is/was the big one). If the 4th falls on or next to a weekend, that will slam the park, too. The point is, better crowd management by the park is not solely useful for one weekend out of the year. There are several times when better tactics might benefit not only the guest, but the park.

I'd be very curious to see their per-cap numbers for this weekend. If the reports of 20-30 minute food lines are accurate, how many people went to find another option? How many left the park to find food and then simply decided not to return? I imagine people standing in 2-hour lines don't spend much money. At what point does attendance outreach the park's ability to collect money? Given the slow counter-service the park is already notorious for, I'd say significantly less than what they had last Saturday.

To illustrate, I seem to remember one quarterly statement giving an average per-cap in the low-mid $40s. For the sake of argument, lets be conservative and call the average $40. Likewise, a conservative attendance estimate for the park that day would be 60,000. Under those conditions, the park "should" make $2.4m. But let's say, for the reasons listed above, guests could only or would only spend 75% of what they normally would ($30). The park made $1.8m, or the equivalent of the revenue they'd normally make off 45,000 people, which is a crowded but by no means "park 'em out on the island" day.

But that's only half the equation. You still have 60,000 people from whom you're only making 45,000 people's worth of money. BUT, they're still doing 60,000 people's worth of wear and tear on the park facilities, more or less. In fact, boredom from waiting in long lines seems to lead to more of the graffiti and vandalism that soaks up money and maintenance time. Money and time that might otherwise be used for some of the other aesthetic improvements we've wished the park would make.

Obviously, those numbers and really that whole scenario are just generalities and guesswork. Maybe I'm completely wrong (would be neither the first nor the last time). Maybe guests played more midway or arcade games because they didn't want to tolerate the attraction lines.

It's easy to sit here and be an armchair manager when it's not our millions of dollars on the line. But I just wish I could see SOME evidence of the park trying to think outside the box, or even just a little progressively. Especially if it stands to make them more money. They have clearly cut their budget to the point where they are having difficulty adequately maintaining the park. Rides open late in the season or late in the day, or at less then full capacity. Or, in the case of Mean Streak (1000+ actual capacity with 3 trains), close early. Maintenance and investment extends to human resources as well. How much capacity was lost at rides, concessions, parking, cleaning, and games with the park's heavy (and increasing) reliance on minimally trained and inexperienced volunteer groups for weekend staffing? By the time weekends hit, the park is expecting its heaviest crowds while it is simultaneously, outside of perhaps opening week, in the worst position to deal with them. That attendance has not fallen off or dissatisfaction is not more vocal is, I believe, a testament to just how great an attraction Halloweekends are. Like I said earlier, though, I honestly believe it's a matter of good --> better --> best, with all sides winning some.