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Hear me out: You're now a target for scare actors.

That’s a great idea. I would prefer better Halloween decor around the park than scarezones. Anyone who has been to Dollywood’s Harvest Festival can attest how well they decorate the park. Jumpscares should be left to the haunted mazes and therefore optional to folks. Like any other attraction at the park.

I know a lot of people complain about the event being “watered down” and was wondering if this be worth the experiment or would it be more trouble than it’s worth?: I’ve stated for a while that they should move all scareactors into the mazes. I have no clue what the ratio of characters assigned to mazes is to those that aren’t. We know the park won’t turn away kids if they’re with their family, because if they did that would be potential $$ lost- so why don’t they make up for that by intensifying the Haunt aspect? In theory if you had all your characters in buildings, you could add more haunted houses/mazes.

When I first read the subject line I thought maybe the park had started marketing bottled water themed after The Beast

I have been looking for a full video of this for a while and just happened to stumble across it. School of Rock was what kicked off my appreciation of Kings Island shows. Check it out:

This is just a friendly reminder for KI to order the fog juice now.

Then you loose out on the basically free revenue from the No Boo scam...er I mean necklace.

I think it’s useful to look at all of these and apply it to where we can assume the park will be for the rest of the decade. Tower coaster (shuttle Mack Xtreme spinner)- this seems too experimental for a park like KI- who never fared well in the experimental rides category to begin with. I feel like incorporating the spinning aspect on a large scale ride would limit it’s appeal- compare this to Wild Mouse at CP that’s on a smaller scale.) Giga dive coaster- this would be a move they’d make if they’re trying to get into the National/global spotlight by having a record breaking coaster. It seems like every larger coaster since Diamondback has broken some type of significant record. Would certainly put the park on a global stage, but would a 300ft drop affect the rest of the ride?: (If you have two dive coasters, both at 3,500ft in length, you might get more out of a 200ft tall coaster than you would a 300ft tall one) Family Thrill Coaster- it seems like we already have this with Adventure Express, Backlot, and Bat. While family thrill coasters are easy to market given their broad appeal, I feel like it’s easier to ask corporate for a family ride down the road after a large investment like an invert/dive/ hyper/giga/ etc. Indoor/Outdoor Coaster- this seems like a Dollywood/BGW type of attraction that would need decent theming. Would have to be on par with Verbolten or Mystery Mine but the indoor aspect might devalue existing rides like Flight of Fear and Backlot. Beast 2.0-this seems like an extreme ask. I’m not sure what the benefit of this would be over just building a new coaster. It seems like it would take a toll on maintenance staff and carpenters. I think it would be more trouble than it’s worth and people might feel cheated out of a new coaster. Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster- the capacity of these rides aren’t really on par with what Kings Island has been churning out since 2009. Currently the highest capacity Infinity train is Gold Rush at 20 people per train which is less than that of Mystic Timbers. Might be too small of a ride for KI- unless they made it a similar capacity to Vortex. Peanuts Dark Ride: This an interesting concept be based off the sheer fact that the new Six Flags chain has access to both Warner Brothers/DC IP as well as Peanuts IP. One would assume that if this concept was implemented, we would be continuing with the Peanuts brand. People might feel cheated out of a more thrilling addition considering we haven’t gotten a large coaster since 2020

It would be interesting to see other seasonal park's attendance data % compared to each other. Due to amount of operating days varying from park to park, the % increases/ decreases by year would be more "telling". CP Dollywood Hershey BGW

^They have not, seasonably that part of the park lacks hanging lights. Historically that section did have decorations, then a scare zone, then it turned into the main spider section for the park. Maybe we are finally getting a new scare zone for 24?

Ever since I've gotten a debit card and checking account, I have only used cash a handful of times. I actually prefer using a card as I don't have to go digging around and counting my money. I just slip the card in the machine and pay and I'm good to go. It's actually easier for businesses to go cashless as they can keep track of how much money they earned using the technology available instead of spending hours counting cash. I don't buy any of the conspiracy theories out there about how this is a plot by the government to track people and such that I always read about anytime a business decides to go cashless. The last I checked the government is not mandating that businesses go cashless and in fact I say if you're really that worried about being tracked, just throw away your cell phone!

The only thing that can even come close to being "statistically" demonstrated is that there is a long-term trend of attendance growth. You're trying to draw a broad conclusion (based on a clear personal bias, I would add) using a few points of data, which is not "statistics". There are a lot of variables even if we ignore the global pandemic - weather, regional economy, market competition, ticket price, season pass mix, pricing promotions, etc. - and the more variables there are, the larger your data set needs to be to be considered statistically-robust. But, and this should go without saying, but here we are, we can't ignore the global pandemic! The pandemic had profound impacts on the economy, travel, etc., that continue to affect the economy to this day, and regional amusement parks are quite obviously not immune to that impact. Also, as TombRaider points out, these numbers are not reliable. They're estimates, and "estimate" is nothing more than a fancy word for "guess". It's not what would be considered hard data. And without hard data, any detailed analysis is useless (garbage in = garbage out).

Maybe like everything else, ours will be announced weeks later

Causation and correlation are different things. Orion very likely did not cause a decrease in park attendance, that is a ridiculous claim. I'm sure you're rage baiting, but if you're not, I'll be praying for you to clear your mind.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not being serious with this claim, because it would be a really absurd argument to point to pandemic-affected attendance as evidence of what you're suggesting. Obviously no one is so incredibly obtuse that they'd make such an argument in good faith, right?

Worth noting: The Paramount years also had the highest number of comp tickets in the history of Kings Island.

Actually, quite a fitting name for Boo Blasters

Honestly, I would gladly give up a couple of early Winterfest days in favor of more night rides on The Beast and other coasters.

Unfortunately, they're not back. (I'm the oddball in red in the picture.) They had just gotten together at the park today for a mini reunion.

Plenty of non-enthusiasts were underwhelmed by the announcement, judging from social media. Anyone who is aware of Holiday World and their water coasters isn't going to be impressed by Mike's BudgetBlasters.

If they're not trying to attract visitors from outside of Cincinnati and Dayton (local market), then why are they advertising in Columbus, Indianapolis, Lexington, Louisville which is where the regional guests reside?

You, sir, clearly have never been to the circus.

Another domino falls. Have you thought the change to cashless has been good or bad for Kings Island and other parks?