Ridership Numbers for 2007

It's official, Mavericks numbers are in.

And they are..... ::drum roll::

916,414

http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/park/rides/coasters/maverick/index.cfm

I'm kinda surprised they didn't crack 1 million. I wasn't here much of the summer, but I always heard they were running pretty efficiently. Aside from opening 3 weeks late, did they have any significant amount of downtime this summer?

^^ That's totally stunning IMO based on how fast that line moves. Maybe it's because they have someone running the crowd position at Maverick that the line moves so fast?

I'm fairly confident that had the opening not been delayed, they would have hit 1 million. Three weeks is a decent enough chunk of the season.

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere, but 2007 was the first year for Power Tower to not break a million.

It was down to 932,430 from 1,041,637 in 2006 (diff. of 109,207).

Maybe because people we're afraid of getting severed feet.

There are a lot of things that affect these numbers... just a few instances:

• Iron Dragon only ran two trains for the last 7 weeks or so of the season.
• Power Tower was often only running 2 or 3 tower many times throughout the season.
• Gemini runs only 1 side until noon or 1pm, and then goes back to one side sometime in the evening, around 7pm or 8pm.
• Disaster Transport, I believe, runs one fewer shuttle than it used to (as of 2006) Their numbers dropped from 1,118,647 in 2005 to 844,707 in 2007.
• Magnum runs 2 trains on Fridays during weekends because of staffing.
• Cedar Creek Mine Ride rarely, if ever, runs more than 2 trains anymore.
  

These are just a few examples. It's way more than rain delays and crews (although those certainly have their affects). Operating budget and staffing, in my opinion, has a huge impact as well. Rides that don't open until 11am and others that don't run at their full capacity seem to be, more often than not, due to these two factors. When you add all of these factors up over periods of days and weeks, it's perfectly clear to me how these numbers are as low as they are for some of these attractions, and they're not going to get any better until some of these things are addressed.

I think the 916,414 riders on Maverick may have contributed to the lower rider numbers of the other coasters. The hour plus they were waiting in line kept them off the other coasters. I also feel Maverick's low numbers are due to the fact the trains only hold 12 riders at a time.

Also - were the gate numbers higher or lower than last year?

That's actually an interesting point. CP keeps adding capacity but has relatively flat attendance. While I'm sure there has been some slippage in the numbers due to the factors mentioned above, it would also be interesting to compare the total number of rides given in the park across the years. I wonder what effect having nearly a million extra people effectively taken "out of action" for 60-90 minutes while waiting for Maverick is...

I see your point, but I'm not sure how big of a role it plays, other than after the ride lines close. Whether you have a 2 hour wait, or a steady trickle that fills every train, either way the trains are being filled, so your ridership should remain the same. This, of course, is with the exception of the number of people waiting in line at the end of the night which will affect the overall numbers. One has to wonder if a ride running at full capacity with a stream of people can serve more people per hour, than a ride running at a limited capacity with a full queue.

To answer that question, look at Magnum's numbers versus Millennium's. Magnum never has a line - Millennium always does.

I'm not saying it's a huge impact by any means. I'm just curious to see how overall park capacity has been doing. I'll definitely grant that new policies and other factors have had a great impact, but I'm willing to bet that added capacity isn't insignificant. I'd argue that the change works during the day, too. The wait for Maverick seemed to fluctuate between 60 and 90 minutes during the weekdays. Instead of waiting in that line (for the shiny new attraction), a rider could probably have been on 6 Magnum rides, 2 or 3 MF or TTD rides, etc. (not counting transit time between those rides). Those people have to be somewhere. Attendance was flat, so if you "scatter" those million riders around the park, I really wonder what the effect would be. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect it's not a negligible factor.

DBCP said:
I see your point, but I'm not sure how big of a role it plays, other than after the ride lines close. Whether you have a 2 hour wait, or a steady trickle that fills every train, either way the trains are being filled, so your ridership should remain the same. This, of course, is with the exception of the number of people waiting in line at the end of the night which will affect the overall numbers. One has to wonder if a ride running at full capacity with a stream of people can serve more people per hour, than a ride running at a limited capacity with a full queue.

I had this explaied to me by one of my supervisors. If you keep hitting interval and sending full trains as fast as possible you will keep your line shorter but still have high numbers due to the full trains. What Im trying to say is that guests will go to the shorter lines therefore giving that ride higher numbers.

Hitting interval at your ride will get you more riders

Im just babbling its hard to explain what I mean.

The length of the line is irrelevant as long as it has people in it, as far as total capacity goes. If a ride has 50 or 1,000 people in line all day long,
it still will serve the same number of rides (ignoring the fact that everyone in line at closing will still get to ride). The boost only comes in how fast the crew moves.

needless quotation removed -J

The bold is, however, a caveat.

Obviously on Halloweekends, the 4th of July, etc, pretty near every ride is stuffed to whatever capacity they are operating the rides at on that day--i.e 6 trains for Maverivk, 3 for Magnum, etc.

But on slower days rides like Gemini, CCMR, Blue Streak and Mean Streak are often walk ons. In those instances, people standing in line at Maverick for an hour could be riding the Mine Ride or the Streaks multiple times.

I don't know how significant a number this is--and it certainly doesn't contradict Jeff's point--but unless EVERY ride has a line ALL day, the amount of time spent standing in line does decrease the number of riders available for the rides that are walk ons.

True, but when looking at most, if not all, major attractions around the park, even on "slow" days, there's usually enough people waiting for a ride to form even a short line that will fill each cycle.

Ok, I finaly got the time to update my Ridership Graph.

Thanks Jason, your contributions with stuff like this and coverage of events like No Coaster Con help to keep my enthusiasm during the off-season. It's much appreciated!

Yeah Jason, I concur with Chuck. Since I'm the spelling Nazi though, it's "Witches' Wheel". :)

^Doh. :) I enjoy doing it. I'm glad others appretiate it too.