Halloweekends: How to fix the poor guest experience.

As for Cedar Point being prepared for the Saturday crowd, I think the did the best that they could. The night before I was talking to an employee that I've got to know from my visits. He works a counter near the front of the park. He said they expected a huge crowd Saturday. He told me they were going to have supervisors and other personel working jobs that they normally not be doing to help out. Take that for what it's worth, but that's what he said.

I did go that Saturday. I knew the rides would be impossible. I did go to people watch which is quite entertaining. I had a great time with my son. After dark we did all of the walk throughs.

There are many pass holders that we've got to know that go every weekend regardless of the crowd. They know what to expect and adjust their expectations accordingly. Most of these people are a little older, so for them it isn't all about the rides. Being part of the huge crowd has a certain excitement factor. Some may not care for that, but I like it.

If that was your one day at CP and you went for the rides of course you weren't happy. Just about any Saturday is crowded enough to limit the number of rides you'll get on, especially the major coasters.

As for starting HW sooner, well I think they are already stretching it. I'm not really ready for Halloween in mid September. I still go because it CP. I do the HW things, but the "spirit" doesn't really hit me until the last 3 weeks of October.

Ffej said:
Jeff, while you occasionally make some good points, I've become convinced over the years that many of your posts aren't created to add to the discussion.

Don't make it about me because you can't defend your point. You said they do a crappy job of "balancing attendance," so what is it you expect them to do? Tell people to stay home and not take money from customers?

djDaemon said:
I think you're being a tad melodramatic, Ffej.

+1

Ffej said:
To me, a few hundred people to 60,000+ a few weekends later with equally-beautiful weather is an epic failure in balancing attendance.

So that non-holiday weekend that bridges that gap between the end of the daily operating season and the start of HalloWeekends did not have strong attendance? But the holiday weekend during HalloWeekends did? And that doesn't make sense because the only variable -- weather -- was the same?

If they figure out the solution to that, maybe they can sell it to movie theaters.Those guys are scratching their heads trying to balance attendance between Saturday evenings and Wednesday afternoon.

Just like they do in May, the park offered some pretty nice incentives for that weekend. But there's only so much you can do with an ugly dog.

Woof, indeed.

djDaemon said:
Remember - our attitude toward a park visit (which for many is essentially "ride! ride! ride!!!") doesn't necessarily translate to the greater public. In other words, maybe most people don't care that the park is that busy, and actually enjoy the day regardless of the crowd.

I agree with the first part - I am a ride, ride, ride guy so maybe that clouds my opinion. But at what point do people who are not going to the park to ride stop enjoying it if they have to wait in line for 20 minutes to go to the bathroom, standing the reported 15-20 deep to get food, and sitting in traffic for two hours to get in to the park? At some point it is just doesn't make sense to do that year after year.

Well, the 4th of July has always been a jam packed affair, year after year. And it's a reasonable assumption that a large number of them make that trip an annual tradition.

Similarly, we've seen the crazy Columbus day weekend crowds year after year. I would think it's also a reasonable assumption that many of those folks make that trip every year.

You're probably to right to some extent - some people probably do not enjoy the massive crowds and don't return the same weekend(s) the following year. But it would seem that those losses are more than made up for by additional guests.

just dont go that weekend then :)

Jeff said:

Don't make it about me because you can't defend your point. You said they do a crappy job of "balancing attendance," so what is it you expect them to do? Tell people to stay home and not take money from customers?

Actually, if you read my posts, I had thorough reasoning and defense to my point, with ideas that have been proven for all businesses. Your posts did not; they were simply attempts to stupefy my posts by repeatedly saying "What did you expect, CP to tell customers to go home?" Again, no I did not. Anyone that read my posts could see what I had in mind...

Walt, there's no doubt that holidays bring in more people. In fact, nearly every business has to deal with this. But, you can certainly improve the situation, and I don't think CP is trying hard enough. With my own business, balancing customers/sales is an art that I've never stopped trying to master since inception. But if I look at my business 10 years ago when nearly all sales occurred between 11-25 and 12-15, the change I've caused today is night and day, which has lead to tremendous growth.

But with CP balancing attendance, I'm not talking about a 30k/30k split here. If CP could have shaved off 5-10k from Columbus Day weekend Saturday with incentives for customers to go other days/weekends, it would have not only increased guest satisfaction, but improved CP's sustainability & growth long-term.

As for the incentives CP threw out this year for the weekend after Labor Day... I called it a fail as soon as they announced it 2-3 days before; I went and it was confirmed. What CP did was juvenile. They decreased the price drastically basically without letting anyone know in advance. I personally tried teaming with 5 different friends on the short notice, and they all had previous plans. Hopefully they catch on eventually, as this has been a repeated mistake.

Ffej said:
...it would have not only increased guest satisfaction...

Do you anything beyond anecdotal nonsense that a significant number of guests weren't satisfied, or were so unsatisfied that they won't return to the park?

...but improved CP's sustainability & growth long-term.

Sustainability & growth? You mean, like increased attendance and revenue in all but one year over the last half-decade? During the worst economic period in nearly 100 years, no less? Can I pretty please have a hit of whatever you're smoking? :)

What works for retail doesn't necessarily work for entertainment (see Walt's post above regarding movie theaters, for example).

DJ, first off, the key word I used was "improved." Park A might be improving/increasing at a rate of 5%, but park B might be improving/increasing at a rate of 20%... You always want to improve as much as possible. Again, a day of a few hundred guests to 60,000+ shows room for improvement to me.

The same proven techniques that work for retail can work for entertainment, food, etc. In fact, CP has improved dishing out discount tickets during the down times this year, and I've noticed that the park in May/June is often not as dead as it used to be. So, I would say they're trying to balance. But, my point is that they're not trying hard enough when you compare the weekend after Labor Day with Columbus Day weekend. If I uploaded the empty pictures I took from the weekend following Labor Day and someone did from Columbus Day weekend, I think people would understand my point better...

I think everyone fully understands that the park was nearly empty one weekend, and overflowing Columbus Day weekend. Pictures aren't necessary, and really won't help your argument.

To Walt's theater point above... Ever go to a movie theater on Thanksgiving night? It's usually absolutely, positively INSANE. Contrast that to a run-of-the-mill Wednesday afternoon, and you'll see an enormous disparity. Tickets for a matinee often cost a fraction compared to weekend evenings, yet the theater will still be dead on Wednesday (or even Saturday) at noon. And people will literally line up around the block to catch a movie on a Saturday/holiday night. Theaters could probably give tickets away for midweek matinees and still have almost no one show up. Again, there's only so much that can be done to spread out business.

But this is all moot, of course. I'm still waiting to hear why it's so critical that CP spread out attendance between these two weekends. So far, you've offered nothing substantial to suggest there's any negative impact with having such an attendance disparity. You're making a mountain of a mole hill, man.

I suspect that normal weather in Ohio during September and October would have knocked 5,000 to 10,000 people from the Saturday crowd during Columbus Day weekend. Weather the two weekends before that weekend was lousy which meant that some of the folks who would have gone those weekends went on Columbus Day weekend instead. From what I have seen and heard talking with people who go to HW, if the weather is good during the first few weekends of HW, the crowds at HW later in October will be less (because a lot of people want to go once or twice not every weekend possible). And if the early part of the HW season has bad weather, more folks will be there later in October because they didn't get their trip or two in before then. There isn't anything CP can do about that. And when the stars align with several other factors pointing towards higher attendance, you get a record crowd.

And I think the weekend after Labor Day is going to have light crowds no matter what CP does. Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer with people doing a lot of outdoor things that weekend with less interest to do anything the following weekend. Kids in Michigan go back to school after Labor Day (and Ohio kids are already in school) and that brings a share of other distractions. HW has not yet started the weekend after Labor Day so its just the rides. Price incentives won't bring people to the park who are looking for the HW stuff. Those looking for the rides only likely have already been there.

I have a solution - Cancel the holiday and make people work on Monday. Problem solved :)

How many people don't work on that Monday as it is? Other than banks and government workers, who had the day off (I didn't and no one I work with did)? And how many schools have that Monday off (my kids didn't and none of the other area schools did to my knowledge)?

I think everywhere was packed that weekend. Phantom Fright Nights at Kennywood, Haunt at Dorney, and Knoebels.

Even small parks like Idlewild where packing them in.

(As for the season pass thing, do what Kennywood doses with fright nights. On select nights you get a "Discount." Fright nights are not included with season passes.)

I still don't understand the whole premise of the thread, which I personally think is off base. By the numbers, it appears the majority are not experiencing a poor guest experience. I still have to come across one (non-enthusiast) human who has a complaint about it, including those who were there during the "crazy" weekend.

What if it's just simply not broken?

I actually worked at a movie theater in high school. The worst day? Christmas day. Insane, jam-packed, hot, smelly, borderline fire-code breaking conditions...yet we did "all we could" to prepare. And despite the "poor guest experience", people had a good time. And came back the next year. And the next. Etc.

I think they're doing a fine job.

I just love that this thread is peppered with the apparent assumption that in a Cedar Fair boardroom somewhere, some junior executive is getting his ass handed to him because the park drew a capacity crowd and essentially became a currency-printing machine for 48 hours.

Actually, the discussion seems to be indicating exactly the opposite of that. I think those of us who are being critical of the park are suggesting that perhaps attendance/demand SHOULD be scrutinized. Of course it's a good thing for the park that attendance is up. Most of what's being considered falls into 2 categories:

1) Whether the park is fully capitalizing on the obvious high level of demand for their Halloween attractions, with the view that increasing revenue would allow them to allocate more money to things like maintenance/capacity, aesthetics, future attractions, etc.

2) Can the park take any measures not to lower demand, but to even it out. The idea is that it's probably better operationally for the park to have 3 days of 40,000 guests each vs. one day of 70,000, one day of 35,000, and one day of 15,000. This is the more the theoretical topic, since as people have correctly pointed out, demand is shaped by a lot of factors that are completely outside the park's control.

Ffej said:
Actually, if you read my posts...

Stopped reading there, because now you're making it about my reading comprehension instead of any real point. You kinda suck at this. Your post had no ideas beyond "advertise a different weekend," which does not represent any effective way to "balance attendance" in light of good weather and when people have off of work and/or school.

Im confused... In point #2, are you saying that Season Pass holders should not be allowed to enter the park on a Saturday? Or are you saying that they should already understand that the park will be crowded that day and if they choose to go, they should understand what they are getting themselves into and not complain about it.