disco2000

Cool. I hope it is addressed some day, as do others! It might be the final straw why some people finally decide to write off the park and not renew passes (cross-threading)... Oh I know the OTD content connects with people or it wouldn't be done. I personally always enjoy seeing the clips and of the park in its infancy. But some here think the Brady Bunch filming here doesn't add any value and bringing it up every year doesn't add value or bodies thru the gate and if you can't put a tangible concrete number on it, then it isnt worth doing and further shouldn't market outside the region (again cross threading LOL)...

Sorry to hear about your mom. You are in my thoughts for a speedy recovery!

Some (maybe even the majority) might call it insanity to give up season passes simply over the ERT being devalued....you do realize a lot of people put ZERO value in ERT as they aren't early birds lol. Plus if everyone put value on it and attended, then it would be devalue the perk even more lol. Like all of us have said, just because we complain doesn't mean we still don't get value out of the park at the price point we are paying. But every person and company should strive to do better. If they continue down this path of legal bait and switch, subject to change at anytime mentality, eventually they will lose enough that write them off. Our complaints are more of constructive criticism than deal breakers at this point. But at some point, an item will be the final straw, and we are hoping it doesn't get to that point.

I didn't say it needed to be a Tower Topics podcast lol. I was simply asking here has the marketing/PR/guest relations arena changed in the days of social media and|or have some parks not made the commitment to adapt to that changing environment... Although you all did touch on the changing landscape of social media and its its influence on The Attractions Group Podcast when you had Taylor from Coaster Studios as a guest... But yes I agree, we need to be reminded yearly OTD that The Brady Bunch was recorded at KI and OTD The Cincinnati Kids aired

So instead they will continue to devalue the product to make it accessible to everyone and thus drive people away because it is always crowded, dirty, long lines, etc. Or would they be better to bite the bullet and double the price and lose the low hanging fruit that wasn't spending in the park anyway and provide an overall better product to retain and increase those that will spend in the park. As long as they wouldn't lose half the pass holders if they doubled the price, they come out ahead (which I doubt they would, especially if they make a commitment that they will not devalue the offering with reduced hours and other still legal "bait and switch" moves that fall under the subject to change...

You pay a heck of a lot more for your Dollywood and Disney AP and visit those less than CF parks with their cheaper pass and a park essentially in your backyard. So why wouldn't a higher pass price for CF properties not work?

Someone here probably wouldn't consider Dollywood a destination park cross-threading lol)....

Flavor was subject to availability caveat emptor

Let's not turn this thread into another "bait and switch" argument lol. The fact of the matter is people purchase a pass based on the offering of the previous year with anticipation/expectations that the product will be generally materially the same. And the last few years they have watered down the product even late into a season. We get it, we know you see a pass as only providing access and you spoke with your wallet when they materially changed the offering that you felt was of value. You aren't going to change the mind of folks here, just like it is painfully obvious you aren't going to change your position or even empathize with others with valid arguments. What company do you run so we can avoid it

We all know they will continue to understaff rides, attractions, and eateries as well.... You think these reduced hours means the Freestyle Machine location by the train will never be closed? They won't cut back on train hours? And of course people are going to complain regardless, isn't that what the internet and "social media" sites are all about

I guess we should be lucky they haven't cut daily hours back. I was expecting them to follow their trend at some other parks and drop weekday hours to 8 or 9pm. But it is still early and could change for the worse...or the better..... caveat emptor

And yet the ParkMap for Winterfest doesn't show either ride and shows Slingshot instead LOL

Yeah, and I would have exchanged some of the remaining events for some of the departed events.

Some highlights....um lowlights... Opening Day April 20th 10am to 9pm. May weekday hours are 10am to 6pm and 9pm weekend closes (7pm on Sundays) until Memorial Day weekend. No closing hours past 10pm during daily operation (not showing Haunt yet), but 10pm closes for 4th of July. Daily operation ends August 12th. No 8pm closes in August as they removed a week from historical operation.

https://www.visitkingsisland.com/events/winterfest/shows Unless more changes are cut or they accidently put out a placeholder, there are still 13 "shows": Tree Lighting Ceremony Wonderland Parade Swingin Into Christmas The MistleTones Songs of the Nativity Holly Holiday's String-A-Long Tinker's Toy Factory A Peanuts Guide to Christmas Cool Yule Christmas Bah Humbug...What the Dickens Ice Carvers Coca-Cola Polar Party Reindeer Roundup

^I would still consider that subtle compared to some of their other parks.

At some point KI will get Six Flags associated with it. Probably not the blatantly obvious Six Flags over Kings Island, but more subtle like Great Escape - A Six Flags Theme Park. Why else would the "majority" owner Cedar Fair take the name Six Flags? One of the "marketing" selling points of the Six Flags name is their parks have that in their name and it is easy brand recognition (even if folks seem to have a negative connotation to it). If that wasn't important, the company would be moving forward as Cedar Fair and then the Six Flags parks could have the little *A Cedar Fair Theme Park under the Six Flags branding. Nothing will change with the IPs in the short term. Those contracts typically have a lot of terms and conditions. They won't be able to slap Peanuts and Snoopy all over Six Flags without a major bump in pay to the Peanuts license holder, and the same with DC and Looney Tunes. The parks will merge and spend some time strategizing and then figure out how best to move forward and then enter into discussions with the owners of the IP.

That is sad to hear, but totally understand. Unfortunately as long as more people buy a "new" pass than the number of those "not renewing", they will unfortunately continue this trend. Once the number of people not renewing outpaces the number of new passes being sold, we will continue to see them test the waters of how much can they cut.

Or how long were they in discussions and Cedar Fair said what they heck lets try the SIX budget cuts and see what blowback we get before agreeing to the merger. Outside of the enthusiasts, not many complaints by the GP on the ride budget cuts and cuts at Haunt. Sure there was some, but the parks were busy even though it was a watered down Haunt 2019...so they agreed to combine forces and really water down the product moving forward. As long as people show up, they have no incentive to spend any more than necessary.

That's a whole lotta cutting going on... And people will still continue to show up allowing the corp folks to say "See we can cut all we want, people will still come"

This exactly. I am reminded of a quote that Jason McClure has said and I have used it on the forum frequently as to why something may or may not be said from CF: "It is important to remember that Cedar Fair is a publicly traded company and that affects the type and timing of our communication." That simple statement says it all. There are countless of real world, everyday examples demonstrating this same technique in other businesses and industries. At the end of the day, they are not under any obligation to tell us the whole truth and thus they control the narrative and how it is presented (unless of course someone leaks it out earlier). The fact of the matter is someone in the know will not officially come out and say something against the narrative the park is telling...unless they don't care about potentially losing their job LOL.

Speaking of curiosity (and ironically I had been doodling this as random thoughts prior to you being on TowerTopics LOL so the timing is good to post this), just like social media has changed the landscape of the traditional news outlet, where in the past the TV news and newspapers needed two separate sources to confirm news before they would publish it, I think it has changed the direction parks need to go. Now it’s often as simple as re-tweeting somebody else. The immediacy of X, Facebook, TikTok, and Google searches in this new 24/7 world of news has created this rush to be first, albeit now with typos, inaccuracies, and whatever else. And we know a few here are quick to point out the typo that the KI social media team put out….But we see the same issues even with the “mainstream” media as the Big 3 networks have had to adapt to the changing environment and they routinely put out stuff quickly that clearly an editor didn’t review and maybe not even a spell check LOL. Has this same immediacy phenomenon resulted in differing skillsets and has the need for the traditional top notch “marketing professionals” in amusement parks been diminished over the years as a result of social media, bloggers, influencers, etc. Let's face it - all the free publicity and answers to questions KIC provided over the years, and all of the questions fielded on your season passholder page is basically doing the job of paid employees for free! How many less positions are needed to be staffed in the call center now that many of these answers are provided by people on social media sites answering the questions for free? Would the park had been better off when you were still employed there to let you do what you did with the FB season passholder page on KI’s FB page? It is clear, as you know, people would rather go to Facebook and ask random strangers the hours of the park rather than opening a browser and finding the official park website and pulling up the hours LOL. And you are very well aware many will respond with the wrong answers as well, yet that seems to be where people are going for their information. Jim is putting out more frequent information and marketing on the FB season pass page than KI does. As such his stuff has higher visibility. Is it possible that things like the FB season passholder page and influencer channels are a better marketing tool than the official KI social media channels? Way more traffic on the passholder page or even KIC than the official KI FB and twitter pages. And then let’s not forget about the countless bloggers, influencers, channels, etc. that all have a larger audience than the official park social media sites. And many of these influencer channels do a great job of “marketing” a park and their new attraction that reaches a far broader audience that the park isn’t paying for! At what point do you let that type of marketing/Q&A be handled for “free” by overzealous employees and park fans on social media sites and eliminate a PR role and some staff in guest services and roll “marketing” up under the GM umbrella for those rare occasions something happens that a spokesperson needs to be provided to the media? Or simply hire a PR firm for the couple times a year marketing blitz on new attractions and special events or when something goes south and an incident requires damage control? Don’t get me wrong, I think there will always be a need for a guest services call center and park marketing staff as not everybody is on social media LOL, but has social media influenced the amount of money a park needs to spend on marketing and the type of professionals needed in those roles, or maybe a redirect on how that money is allocated? Maybe the park should be paying you and your admin staff for your FB page! Or put another way, should parks make an investment in being more active on their social media channels? Is the old marketing way of not over-saturating the public with constant material to the point that it becomes background noise and no longer paid attention to relevant anymore in the social media age? Just using CF as an example, it appears to me that the amount of posting and interacting by park staff is somewhat driven by CF policies. The parks generally post about the same frequency and while some of the parks interact with guests on social media, it certainly isn’t constant, and far more posts are not responded to than responded to. From a social media perspective, would a park be better off to adopt some of the social media methods that influencer sites have? Look at Don as an example – he is way more active on social media now and providing content more frequently than when he was at KI – was that CF driven or did he have so many other duties that social media was a backburner? For example, while it may hurt the FB season passholder page LOL, would KI be better off posting to their social media channels and responding to comments at the frequency Jim (and your admin crew) does on the pass holder page? And maybe that role isn’t a PR person but a guest services type person? Or would KI posting at that high level of frequency cause people to tone out and not pay attention to the official social media sites? Would daily posts by KI on park hours, if there are fireworks etc., be a good thing or should they stick to the infrequent posting and as such end up getting buried and lost amongst all the other influencer channels? I do think that even if they took a more active role and “copied” your format to some extent, there would still be a need for the passholder page to do some of the additional sharing and other things you mentioned in Tower Topics. Just a bunch of random curiosity thoughts LOL.

But CP did not need to attract and get everyone at all price points. They are just about always busy. Even prior to them selling gold passes, the Fast Lane lines were already long. Now they are longer. When they have to put a sign up in front of the Fast Lane line indicating how long the Fast Lane line is, they oversold or have too many people in the park LOL. Similar to @DispatchMaster, I swore CP off when they sold the gold passes because that October was horrible up there. Way too crowded and even folks with FL were not getting many rides in. I did take a visit this summer and it quickly reminded me why I said I wouldn't return. 45-minute plus Fast Lane lines are a waste. Letting everyone in for ERT is a waste.

I have heard many call it Invertigo without the loops or it is a kiddie ride, so maybe the new attraction isn't being marketed to the right demographics...

So you think season pass sales are down compared to prior years?