BoddaH1994

Welcome to KIC! Can you tell us more about what you remember from that day? Any photos would be nice too!

It was a matter of time until Don rose from the ashes and was interviewed about… you guessed it… his Buc-ee’s Hawaiian shirts! https://www.daytondailynews.com/business/buc-ees-aims-to-open-first-ohio-location-along-i-70/4LSLQCNHDBARZBBJM3G2IH6UZM/

I asked Peter and he denied having heard of Vekoma.

https://www.carowinds.com/blog/media-center/official-statement-fury-325

I see what you did there!!

I doubt it. This likely isn’t “that type” of capitol year.

Nah, in this reality, only the people specifically looking at Pilot’s web site today knew about the events of the early afternoon.

More of an Easter vigil.

I already preordered. I would encourage you to as well! https://amusementtoday.com/2023/08/theme-park-designer-rick-bastrup-shares-stories-behind-beloved-attractions-in-new-book/

It appears that Aerial Chase will be integrated: Look to the left. At the least, it’s getting painted. Not sure if RFYL is going to be part of it, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it is. I couldn’t be happier with this!

Woohoo! The animation makes the area look great! Let’s not forget the new kids’ play area.

Happy to: Tony Clark, Bill Mefford, Jeffrey Siebert, Lynsey Winters... again, really any credible PR person besides Selfie. I would encourage you to reach out if you are truly interested. Ask them about the importance of getting coverage outside of your park's backyard. A lot of this is like asking me to prove 2+2=4. This is 101-level PR stuff. Typically speaking, the value of PR is calculated as a function of the price of ad buys in the market. A PR hit is like getting that for free, or at least at the fixed cost of your PR program. The measurement of success for this is, when there's a hit in an outside market, is the ticket sales coming from that market following the hit. I mentioned this in the other post, but this was a meaningful metric in PR projects for which I worked. PR-specific companies will track ticket sales as a result of these stories. You're right - they're a publicly traded GLP, so we don't have their specific numbers, so I can't exactly throw revenue amounts at you, but think of it this way: if they invest in a billboard on 275 and ticket sales go up in this area then those ticket are tied back to that advertisement, and rightfully so. So if you have 3 or 4 good hits on WGN in Chicago and ticket sales go up then they are attributed to the PR hits. If I had not worked in PR then I would totally see where you are coming from. Why would someone in St. Louis care about our kids area? Why would someone in LA care about Phantom Theatre Encore. Many don't, but these stuff reaches a lot of people. A few will. And a few people multiplied a well-crafted program makes a big difference. I'm not saying a million people, but it may be enough to decide whether your park is up or down from the previous year. Most of what I learned about PR was from a guy named Bill Mefford. He was PR for KI in the 80's, VP Comms for Sydney's Wonderland (Australia), VP Comms for the grand opening of Universal Orlando, and VP Comms for Taft Broadcasting. He's an independent contractor now and took me under his wing for several years. I've been trying to find an able for him to be on the Attractions Group podcast, and I think we will do the subject of finding out-of-market PR opportunities, along with the value of doing this. He's not going to dump on another person or their work, but he will be able to add a lot more perspective on your question. Stay tuned.

He’s talking about hype for the announcement. This is things like teaser campaigns that both get people talking, and in many cases, temper expectations.

Yes. Ask any credible PR person who has ever spent 5 minutes in the role, except for Mr Selfie at KI. Getting stories locally to a bunch of people that already have season passes and/or will be targeted by advertising is good, but not the “fresh meat” that the PR needs to reach. I’ve worked in countless PR projects and one of the things that is always reported back to the sponsor is the dollar value of revenue from PR campaigns. The share from the stories in local markets is lower and it increases greatly as you travel outside of the market. This is far more true for a regional park than it is for something like an FEC. None of this stuff is super secret or anything. It’s all widely accepted across the PR field. It is proven time and time again.

Lots. Obviously one spot on one show at one time doesn’t make a big difference, but general awareness through things like that are huge revenue and attendance drivers. This is the sort of thing the parks strive for, and is a major barometer of success. Announcing new capitol (or any PR stunt) and only getting Cincinnati, Dayton, etc is a layup story. Any first year intern can do that. Having meaningful coverage in Chicago, LA, Orlando, London, etc is reaching people that you wouldn’t normally reach and truly is where a PR expert shines. Kings Island over the years has had PR experts who excelled at getting coverage outside the local market which helped increase attendance and revenue. Those years aren’t now.

So long as Nyte Walkers returns then I’ll be happy. That show was an awesome part of Haunt last year! The energy was incredible!!

Actually, beyond nation-wide. They used to get coverage in other countries. Now we high five them if they get coverage in other counties.

*IF* the Camp Snoopy rumors are true then we will soon see if the story gets out of the Cincinnati market.. and this is for at least a similarly sized project, perhaps much larger. And no, I’m not talking about affiliate articles. Those don’t count because they’re just a copy/paste to fill space if it’s needed on the web sites. Getting good, meaningful coverage way out of market comes down to your ability to tell stories. Holiday World can do this.

One thing that was unique at the time was the 10:00p announcement time. Don said that many media outlets reached out to him to inform him of his “typo.” They thought it was supposed to be 10:00a! Hear the whole story: https://linktr.ee/towertopics?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=1bdf26ff-2a63-40f0-ab10-cb96252d7a4e

Ten years ago today, Kings Island announced Banshee - the world’s longest inverted coaster. How many of you were there on this historic day?

Would love it, but the Magic Band program cost about 5x the budget. Granted, it’s been some time. Here’s the other question: if we are doing NFC, why waste time and resources on that? Run the benefits through your pass or ticket and have the NFC on your phone or watch do the functionality. Disney does both, so I suppose CF could too. Im a big fan of it at Disney and I think it could work very well at other chains.

No one here has said that the Gold pass or the Platinum/passport are a bad deal outside of Mr. “OMG thAY SAYED yOu MAybe GiT teh tHIngs adVerTIsed on teh web sight NoT dat ThEy PROMISE!!!!!” Gold/Platinum offers a package. It’s not just park entry. Part of your purchasing decision involves the benefits. To my knowledge, they’ve never been greatly out of line with this. For a major up-charge, we were sold a package including many of the things listed above. After the transaction was completed, many of the most valuable benefits were removed and the evidence removed from the web site. No option to drop down to a lower level, no communication from the park. I guess a better analogy for your buddy who allegedly thinks that a season pass is such a bad value they they won’t purchase it… yet thinks the above business practices are both acceptable and ethical, would be if you bought a TV from Best Buy. You see that it comes with a remote, power cable and HDMI cable. You buy it, take it home, and when you open the box it includes none of these. You go to return it and are told no refunds, and the associates takes a Sharpie and crosses out that list of features from the box. Bait-and-switch is what it is, and if anyone thinks that’s okay… DM me about that bridge.

Hey, you got 75% of what you paid for! Honestly, I don’t think he doesn’t care. I think he’s being fed lines from someone in hiding. Two other people have been called out for this and got real quiet, real quick. Make this three.

Getting “most” of what you paid for must be the standard for some.