Red Cross Auction for maXair

Just received an e-mail from the Firelands Red Cross that bidding for the first ride (50 seats) on opening day on maXair would begin on April 15.

KayG

I want to start the bid at a buck o' five.

Try $75.

The web page with information will launch on Monday.

*** Edited 4/7/2005 7:56:45 PM UTC by Walt***

How do you think the price will go?

ummm??? just maybe up.

TTD was up to over $2000, I think.

I think the front seats on TTD went for $1,501 and $1500. Also the last of the seats were in the $200 dollar range, but there were 96 seats up for auction in 2003.

Maxair will have 50 so who knows the bidding could be tighter or maybe since the ride isn't very ground breaking they might go cheap. I know I wouldn't pay $1500 to ride on opening day but some crazy person out there probably would.

I was lucky enough to have one of the winning bids for Top Thrill Dragster's auction ride and remember that the two highest bidders were a man and his son. Their bids were $1504 and $1503. He also had the top two bids for the Millennium Force auction, also.

KayG

^

What did you pay for your ride and what seat number (1-96)?

Coaster Freak, I paid $263 (bidder #53) and ended up riding out on the third train-four rows back-left side. It was fun and I plan to bid again this year.

KayG

With PKI so close (and already open!) and this ride nothing more than a knock-off, I wouldn't expect very high bids.

TTD was a world record-breaking coaster. There's a logical explanation for the high bids.

MaXair bids could be more along the lines of what the people would have otherwise donated to the charity. The fanatics have already ridden this ride somewhere else, and won't assign too much premium to being first to ride it at CP.

Uh, it's not about bragging rights, it's about donating to charity.

What??!! It's not about bragging rights?! Well then, just forget the whole thing! I'll just have to bid on KK at Six Flags where it is still about the brag! :-)

TTD is sinking too! said:
With PKI so close (and already open!) and this ride nothing more than a knock-off

PKI isn't open yet. Doesn't open until tomorrow. Also, maXair isn't a knock off of Delirium. Delirium is a flat ride, which means there's no way of altering the structure unless they come out with the different version.

And who cares? The moment I got off Delirium, I thought, "I wish Cedar Point had one of these." Now I don't need to drive three hours to ride it.

PKI was open April 2-3 to seasons pass holders, but everyone else will have to wait until April 9.

Jeff, I don't recall anyone mentioning "bragging rights," but I think it's logical to assume the bid breaks down into two components: What they'd normally donate + what "premium" they'd pay for the ride itself. People will pay a big premium for the first ride on Dragster. They won't pay as much for the first ride on MaXair.

It might be interesting to compare the average bid/seat in the Wicked Twister auction to that of the Dragster auction. While Wicked Twister wasn't an exact copy like MaXair will be, it was similar to SFWoA's. Walt (or anyone,) do you have the final bid data handy for those two auctions?

No. The auction is mostly about donating to charity. When I bid on the Dragster auction, it was mostly about donating to charity. When I didn't win, I ended up donating what I bid to a local charity anyway.

bholcomb, if what you say is true, then the average bid per seat will be approximately the same for the Wicked Twister auction and the Top Thrill Dragster auction (actually, Wicked Twister should be higher since fewer seats were auctioned, i.e., only the bigger givers would end up winning a seat, hence a higher average.)

A large component of the bid is charitable giving, but an important portion relates to the ride itself IMHO. My guess is that the TTD bids are statistically higher than the Wicked Twister bids, directly the result of WT being "almost" a knock-off of SFWoA's ride (and therefore receiving little or no "ride premium".)

Does anyone have the bid data for those two auctions? I'm eager to test my hypothesis, but couldn't find the auction results. My guess would be that the average TTD seat might be as much as $100 higher than a WT seat (a very significant "ride premium"!)

I think the lowest Dragster auction bid was around $200 and the highest was $1503.

My guess (just from memory) is that the average Dragster seat was probably $350, whereas the average Wicked Twister seat was probably more like $250.