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Why are we called enthusiasts when we're anything but enthusiastic??? Stuff like "Tigris is lame someone should be fired" and "Behemoth sucks compared to Nitro they should just tear it down" has made me a lot more choosy on which enthusiast groups I spend my time in. And yes, I've seen both those takes in the last month.

I'd rather be around GP that knows nothing and is just there to have fun, than a bunch of complaining enthusiasts for whom nothing ever seems to be good enough...

Seeing the Sea World and Busch Gardens parks bouncing back makes me so happy. BGT is one of my most favorite parks!

This article honestly resonated pretty well with me. From people lashing out at others just because they like a ride they thought was horrible to talking about how "I have more credits than you, therefore I'm more of an enthusiast." Something I kinda wish the article talked about was how the hate for GP has risen drastically. I'll go into YouTube comments of a video and just see an abundance of enthusiasts chewing out someone just for being GP. Just because they didn't know everything there is to know about coasters and parks. I'll go into a "GP" YouTube video talking about Ohio coasters and the comment sections will just go all out on them because they put "The" in front of a coaster name or get some small facts wrong. Comments will be nothing but Enthusiasts complaining about GP and make fun of them. The term "GP" has just been so degraded to the point where if you just mention it among enthusiast communities, it's more than often meant as a negative connotation.

I came across this article today posted on another site. I’m not sharing this as a promotion of another site, but as a promotion of the message it conveys. I recommend everyone on here should read it. https://www.coaster-net.com/blogs/have-enthusiast-taken-the-fun-out-of-roller-coasters Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You can kind of see some of International Street when you zoom in.

^ Yikes, Shows how much enthusiasts truly are enthusiast if they're going to judge a ride before it's even completely built.

Watched Coaster Studio's video on RMC Gwazi, already enthusiasts making a big deal about how it's not dueling. One comment goes off on the ride complaining about how "RMC is stagnating" and that a Hyper RMC that goes beyond vertical is completely boring. Yikes.

^Agreed, if it weren't for the GP we wouldn't have parks to go to because the enthusiasts are such a small percentage of the overall attendance.

Yesss That is amazing!

"All we hear is radio giga, radio giga!"

Fully agree....I've even heard some folks say that as passholders they don't have the money to spend in the park because they only budgeted for the pass.

Yes, it's why 'per cap spending' is always brought up those corporate conference calls... They make a lot from passholders up front with passes for parking/admission/photos/drinks/dining but they're hoping you still get a funnel cake, shop for some merch and play a game or 5... But how profitable is a repeat visit from someone who's money they've already gotten compared to someone who shows up at the front gate to buy a ticket and also spends on parking/merch/food/drinks/games/fastpass??? My point is that it's not just about attendance...

Great news everyone. This will be the last month this year we won't be able to attend the park. We only have 7 more weeks to go.

Except they weren’t. The ride wasn’t fun, but the State investigation found that the accident was due to a design flaw.

Bodies through the front gate isn't the only metric that needs to be measured... If your attendance goes up from 50000 pass holders making an extra 2 trips from the year before how much does it add to the bottom line???

A giga would certainly be able to get the park to 3.5, I’d say 3.6 million wouldn’t be an unreasonable estimate considering giga coasters are huge draws. Kings Island is still growing and I don’t believe the market is saturated. A 13% increase over a decade is a healthy growth rate in my opinion. You can’t expect a park that already draws a large number of people to grow by 3-4%

Thanks for mentioning my articles! I'm Harry and I had the opportunity to operate Giant Wheel at Hersheypark when I worked in ride operations back in the day. Unfortunately, I never rode another double wheel (or a triple wheel) but having the chance to operate one definitely makes up for that. Operationally, it was very simple. There was just a switch that enabled which side to go up and down. It was not on a timer, so we could let it go as long as we wanted. In the last hour the park was open, there typically weren't any long lines for the ride, so we would let the ride cycle longer. I do miss Giant Wheel, though by 2004, the ride was definitely on its last legs. It was a rare ride to begin with, Intamin discontinued support years earlier, and parts were non-existent.

The driver of revenue usually isn't the 16-22 year old kids/young adults roaming KI. Mystic Timbers was a darn near perfect coaster addition to the park IMHO.

Who exactly was disappointed about Mystic Timbers? The only people I think would be disappointed are the people who thought the shed would be some sort of out of this world element. The ride is consistently popular and many consider it to be the best ride in the park. Furthermore the park got MT 2 years ago, if they’re expecting a new rollercoaster every 2 years then they’re out of luck.

I'd like to see the statistics that you have for this.

Not only do I remember it, I rode it a number of times and watched The Bat operate next to it!

I love this article and what it covers. Being a coaster enthusiast all boils down to one simple thing: sharing a love for roller coasters. I shared the link to the article on Facebook when I first found it, complete with my detailed novel on this whole thing. I copied and pasted my thoughts that I shared so you all can see it too. ”This is a very insightful article about what the coaster enthusiast community has become and what its underlying purpose should always be. I consider myself a coaster enthusiast just because I love roller coasters and know a lot about them (and even work at one)! But I also do not care about how many credits I have, nor do I rank my coasters. I have a lot of favorites so I end up “grouping” my credits into categories based on my interest in them and how often I would ride them. I take lots of pictures/videos of coasters and I share them, but I don’t widely publicize them. I enjoy coasters in the present moment and do not care to worry about any coaster rumors (specifically rumors about an operating coaster’s possible demise), which more often than not has jeopardized my enjoyment of them in the present. I have many unconventional opinions and views, as I find the fun in coasters that are often overlooked, overshadowed, and in many cases overhated. I appreciate the under appreciated rides that the most popular, attention-showered rides often steal from them. Don’t get me wrong, the highest/fastest/smoothest coasters are AMAZING too and they definitely derserve the attention they get, but I believe other coasters in their own ways deserve just as much love or at least some appreciation for especially the more historically significant coasters. I am a big fan of Arrow coasters (and proudly say that Vortex is my favorite ride) for this very reason, as I have found them to be very fun despite the infamous reputation that many of them have. They may be “too rough” or “too jerky” or “un-reridable” for a number of enthusiasts and GP alike, but there are just as many people who love them and even believe that the Arrow coasters’ characteristic jerkiness adds to the fun (and I am one of those people!). Everyone has their uniquely different opinions and preferences on different kinds of coasters and rides, and such a diverse plethora of opinions, experiences, and preferences should be embraced in the coaster enthusiast community, regardless of ratings, rankings, or whether it’s the biggest and (supposedly) the best. All that matters is that coaster enthusiasts can and should be able to call themselves so simply because of their shared love for roller coasters! Regardless of what constitutes the best kind of coaster for your liking, GET OUT THERE AND HAVE FUN!!”

I think many of us can point the finger and say "I'm not like THOSE enthusiasts." But truth be told, I think many of us can be "those" enthusiasts. For example, over the last week, I have had 4 or 5 friends post on my Facebook wall a link about Yukon Striker. My response was "meh." When asked to clarify, I responded that dive coasters are fun but boring. I base that on one ride I have been on. These people look to me as an "expert" on coasters, which I am not. But I may have steered someone away from a park because of my opinion. I have seen YouTube "stars" praise a ride when they first ride it and then berate it repeatedly. I generally pay them no mind after that because I realize that they have no inside information that makes them any better or worse than me. I have seen people belittled on this site, and I probably have contributed to it. Yet, I have made some wonderful friends on KIC and events like Coasterstock and Storm the Kingdom. Media day for Mystic Timbers was incredible. I have had many memorable times at Kings Island and other parks and usually can find an enthusiast when I visit a park like Conneaut Lake or Magic Mountain. Pre-arranged meet-ups or just random happenstance, you can usually find a friend at a park, or spot people to avoid. The industry is very subjective and I hope the people at the parks realize how much the majority of us appreciate what they do for us.

There are some toxic elements in the enthusiast community but I think that is true of every enthusiast group not just fans of amusement parks. I am also a travel enthusiast, in that community we have an issue with people who somehow think they are better than others for one reason or another, frequently because they have some level of status with the organization and we refer to them using DYKWIA. It stands for Do You Know Who I Am, mostly because when they are arguing with an employee of a hotel or airline they tend to use that phrase. Some coaster enthusiasts have a similar issue, some are just obsessed with a single manufacturer, others just want the biggest, tallest, fastest rides, etc. The amusement industry is massive and has spawned numerous fan sites, discussion forums, organizations, and many other ways to communicate with others. Plus it features almost every age group, from children, to teenagers, adults, and even seniors. This leads to massive differences in preferences and ability to communicate. I think that even the articles author has missed that amusement parks are frequently built for the whole family. We are just the obsessed fraction of the people who are willing to ride the coasters. Jason McClure stated at Winter Chill Out that only 40% of the people who visit Cedar Point ride Millenium Force, we as a community need to remember the park and it’s additions are for 100% of the people who walk through the gate and not the tiny fraction of the guests who are enthusiasts. Our collective obsession with coasters is what binds the majority of park fan sites together, which is why most of our conversations center around coasters.

I thought it was a great article. Amusement parks are supposed to be fun and a lot of time we get caught up in our personal preferences but it is good to have varying opinions on rides and manufacturers and parks. My wife doesn't ride most of the coasters with me so a lot of times as a single rider I get put with other riders. Two of my more memorable experiences last year were with younger riders. One was on Racer and one was on FOF. It was great to see the sheer joy and excitement on their faces. Sometimes as enthusiasts we forget that feeling. Every ride is probably somebody's favorite so we should just relax and enjoy it.

Definitely a nice article and read. I have literally spent more than half of my life (wow, that is crazy to think about), working at Coney Island, that doesn`t have the biggest or tallest coaster out there. We have one small coaster. Many people say that I am nuts for working here so long, but I love the little park and the thought that many locals may come out and experience their first coaster at Coney, and one day may have the same interest in amusement parks that has kept me working at Coney. Its hard to believe that I am entering my 18th season working at Coney (I am 34 years old, so over half of my life I have worked at Coney in the summers, starting when I was 17. I still remember one of the things that my manager told me towards the end of a long, hot day my first season when I was working the Scrambler. He asked me if I was having fun, and I kind of just said, yeah, I guess. He then said, well look at all the small kids that are riding your ride. Look at their smiling faces and all the excitement that you are helping them have. That has stuck with me through these years, and is part of the reason why I keep coming back. I have so much fun working at Coney (even though it is my second job). I don`t really even view it as a job.

Huh?

Somewhere in PS would be ideal IMO.