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DispatchMaster

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DispatchMaster last won the day on October 12 2023

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  1. OK, maybe it's just uniquely a southern Ohio thing where people are commonly both very stupid and simultaneously wealthy enough to afford large quantities of alcohol at captive audience prices? As I said, I'm making a generalization, which was in part a joke, and was not an absolute, blanket statement of fact. That you can point to anecdotal exceptions is great and all, but not a compelling counter argument to the point I was making, which is that making alcohol available at the old Subway location isn't likely to have any measurable impact on the quantity of "fights and misbehavior" exists at amusement parks.
  2. I'm generalizing here, but typically speaking there's not a lot of Venn overlap between people who would get in to a fistfight and those who can afford to get drunk at an amusement park.
  3. The way the TT2 project seems to be going, they can improve on anything Intamin has delivered in the last decade. But again, very low bar to clear.
  4. What I'm most excited about with regard to TT2 isn't the ride itself, it's that we have new major player who can competently deliver marquee, record-setting rides. And it's a low bar to set, but if this ride is more reliable than Intamin's typical dreck, it'll be exciting to see what else Zamperla can pull off.
  5. The issue is that the park didn't provide alternate low-cost housing for the 40-something year old, but the park's intent was good, in that they weren't keen on the idea of housing 40-somethings alongside 18 year old kids.
  6. The thing about alcoholic beverages at places with a captive audience is that they don't need to do much volume with those margins to be a money maker. But if the lines at other places with captive audiences are any indication, they will do a fair amount of volume as well.
  7. Not only can negative word spread faster than ever, there are also more entertainment choices now, so tougher competition.
  8. Those outdated window ordering buildings have dismal capacity, which is why parks are moving away from them and going with the more modern Harmony Hall/Grand Pavilion type eateries that can not only more efficiently handle volume, but also centralizes food service staff. So making that a specialty cocktail spot makes a lot of sense.
  9. Yeah, it appears to be in the same vein as CP's Engine Company Spirits, which sells only alcohol-based beverages.
  10. Right, and that's exactly the problem with their strategy! Pass holders do, of course, get a tremendous amount of value out of their purchase. But that's just another way of saying that pass holders produce far less profit per visit compared to the once per year (or whatever) visitor. And they are wrong to use that as their long term strategy. Matt Ouimet understood the business quite well, and the way he distilled it down was quite simple - the parks are in the business of making memories, and more broadly, leveraging those memories to create long-term, generational visitors. Many of us love going to these parks because we have great memories of visiting as kids, so we seek to recreate, relive, and share those memories and experiences with our kids, so they can share it with theirs, and so on down the line. It's a long game, not a short one. But the chain isn't making moves that indicate they are concerned with the long term vision of the parks. Decimating live entertainment, neutering operations, and especially moving their product down market price-wise are all short term moves that reek of the "must produce increased profit margin each quarter" mentality that is unavoidably a race to the bottom, because, at a certain point you've tapped out the market in terms of population, so they're beholden to generate revenue from that fixed population. Lowering ticket prices just means they're targeting customers who are seeking "value" at the expense of attracting customers who are willing to pay a premium for a more premium product. And those customers willing to pay for a more premium product will instead go create lasting memories at the chain's competition, and thus create generational visitors, none of whom will ever set foot in a CF/SF park.
  11. Anecdotally, I know a lot of people who have visited Pigeon Forge in recent years, and people that have frequented the area for many years have commented on the region's increased popularity. As word of mouth about the area continues to spread, DW will no doubt benefit. And good for them, it's nice to see well-run properties reap the rewards of wise investment and understanding that they're in the business of creating memories, rather than the current SF/CF approach, which seems purely transactional with no long term strategy. That said, DW is not going to siphon off guests from "nearby" SF/CF parks, because there really aren't any. What SF/CF should be worried about is their regional parks losing to their regional competition - other entertainment options.
  12. Individually, no. But I speak from experience that it feels good to not hand over hard-earned money to an entity that doesn't value your business. Spending that money at Dollywood is a wise choice, and I'm sure you guys will have a great time there! I'm jealous!
  13. I wouldn't expect it to change until enough people move from "hesitant to" to "unwilling to". Hard to say when things will reach that tipping point.
  14. I am deeply skeptical that this move will result in substantial growth with the existing CF management team. I mean, they've done nothing but diminish and cheapen the product for the last several years, so it seems much more likely that CF will become more like SF than the other way around. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.
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