- September 18th, 2007, 1:49 pm
#22092
I was gonna post something on this when I saw mention of that press release on some other sites. It sounds like a LOT of corporate spin to me - I mean, season pass prices DID NOT really go up that much from what they were with Paramount at comparable times of the year. CF is trying to spin it that Paramount was giving away the gate, like Six Flags tended to do, which simply wasn't the case. I think CF thought Paramount wasn't charging enough for tickets and extras like food, and was spending too much on "perks". For whatever reason, they thought "Hey, we'll charge more, deliver less, and attendance will be roughly the same minus some freeloaders - what could go wrong?". Well the numbers would suggest plenty is wrong with that thinking.
The problem, as bruh points out, is that our passes have LESS VALUE now. No ERT. A season pass parking area that's further out from the one we had, and one we didn't even get until late in the season. No real discounts - yeah, we can go to GR and get the "Spongebob bucks" but I'd much rather do a "Flash your pass" thing and get a discount. Make it EASIER for ME, and I might buy something - you don't, so I don't.
I've gone far less this year due to some of that, plus the fact that operations have gotten worse with lots of one-train operation, and no urgency when they do have all the trains on. Then there's whatever maintenance issues have kept T-Road backwards down the majority of the season, forwards for a long stretch, and now Top Gun down for 2 straight weekends.
I certainly don't have access to their attendance numbers, and like I said I haven't been as much - but the times I have, it certainly seems like there are fewer people there than on comparable days in the past. I'm certain that many of the CC members aren't going as much from their comments here, and I know of several other friends that haven't gone much. There are also some "regulars" that you tend to see at the park early on a Sunday morning at TG or the Flyers - haven't seen some of them AT ALL this season. Gee, maybe ERT was a bigger deal than they thought?
CF has a problem here, and they better address it soon. They seem quite pleased with their increase in the per-capita spending that for now is masking the attendance problems chain-wide, but if they think staying down that road is the solution they're mistaken. It's somewhat like the movie theaters - they keep wondering why fewer people go to the movies, and blame it on piracy and DVDs. Uh, could be the prices you charge for tickets, the even more insane prices you charge at the concession stands, and the fact that you've diminished my experience by pestering me with commercials.
I thought CF got it last year or the year before, when they lowered some food prices and did the 25-cent cotton candy at CP. Nope - they went back to normal prices. Sure, you get some people who will pay whatever you charge for food or whatever, and you can keep raising your per-cap spending there. However, the lines I see at KFC, Wendys, etc. outside the park would suggest you're leaving a lot of money on the table. Maybe some of those people would pay $8 for a meal IN the park, but when you charge them $11 they go to Wendy's for a $5 meal. Attendance numbers would suggest that some folks decided just to skip going to the park altogether.
I know that when we used to have the Gold card at Carowinds, it cost about $100-120. That didn't bother me - I got free parking, ERT, AND 20% discounts on most food and merchandise in the park by simply showing my pass. Guess what? I ate in the park far more when they had that than I have the last several years. For one, I was AT the park - nowadays I'm not. With that discount, the price wasn't that much more than food outside, and it was more convenient to just eat there. When it's a $5-6 difference rather than $2, I tend to go outside the park. And now that that walk takes me 20 minutes instead of 2.....I often don't go at all.
They're going to have an even worse time of it if they effectively raise the season pass prices this season, take out Saturator, and don't add something significant to the park. It's starting to look a whole lot like some of those lean years under KECO - which is about the time I went from getting a pass every year to not getting one for about a decade.....
KenB
