Kenban

From a revenue/earnings standpoint, number 1 is Cedar Point, and number 2 is Knotts and while number 3 is Kings Island it is not even close. The last year the numbers were available was 2016 (plus this is from measuring a pie chart so the percentages are likely +/- 1 percent), Cedar Point is about 24% of the chains earnings, Knotts was about 22%, KI was 14%, Canada's Wonderland suffers from the exchange rate and is around 10% and Carowinds is somewhere around 7-8%. Although it is obvious who the flagship is with the massive investments in Cedar Point. I am surprised people think Canada's Wonderland is favored over Kings Island though, here is a list of the roller coasters at both since the purchase of the Paramount parks. 2007 - KI - Firehawk 2008 - CW - Behemoth 2009 - KI - Diamondback 2012 - CW - Leviathan 2014 - CW - Wonder Mountain's Guardian & at KI - Banshee 2017 - KI - Mystic Timbers Thats 4 at Kings Island with 3 at Canada's Wonderland, and while CW is getting a 4th next year, it appears based on fillings that KI is keeping with the 3 year cycle and getting a B&M as well in 2020 giving it five since the acquisition. I believe CW has been receiving a stronger collection of flat rides, but I have a very hard time believing that the park is really getting that much more investment than Kings Island. If anything overall I suspect the total is similar.

I was just wondering, is anyone who purchases the fright lane passes actually disappointed by this change? I see speculation as to why it is being done, but no one is actually saying that they will miss the rooms. Also this change is chain wide and not something unique to Kings Island. How many parks which are having the skeleton key rooms cut do not have a Winterfest event? I never felt like the extra rooms were must see additions and this change does not bother me. Maybe this is being driven by surveys of park guests? Might be just general cost cutting. It is very hard to pin the change down to a reason without some comment or inside source. But as someone who typically buys the fright lane pass, this change does not make me any less likely to purchase one since I buy it to bypass the lines, not for the extra room, which on its own might be a very good reason to get rid of the rooms, if the rooms do not sell more fright lane passes, why have them at all?

I have an annual pass to Kentucky Kingdom and was planning on visiting August 18th, until I noticed it was during the state fair. Because I would be required to pay for parking, and admission to the fair I changed my mind and went to Kennywood instead. These kinds of issues should have been decided between the fair and KK when the lease was signed. At this point the fair is over for the year and as long as that is the only event which is causing issues then the two sides have a long time to work out any differences.

I have no doubts on the ability to build a wheel in that amount of time. The problem is I can find you articles from 2016 which claim it will open in 2017, or 2017 articles claiming it will open in 2018. The developer has made a LOT of claims on when construction would start and when it would open, some of the issues have been time consuming, for instance the original design was rejected because of the possibility of damage to the levee. I just do not have any faith in the dates until I see construction begin.

I will make sure it make it down there to ride the wheel. Although there was an article just yesterday that makes it sounds like the permanent one across the river at Newport is finally moving forward. They have been working on it for 2 or 3 years now, so I do not trust the last line which claims "Work could begin on the project later this year with a scheduled opening in 2019.".

I think his point of a lack of name recognition and a branding problem is a good one. I do not want the parks renamed and am not a fan of how Six Flags names their parks. But the lack of cross promotion between parks and especially Kings Island and Cedar Point seems crazy to me. I do not mean ads which show both although that does make sense to me, but where are the signs in the park that advertise if you upgrade to a platinum pass you also get admission to more parks. The number of times I have spoken with guests at Kings Island while in line that have no clue Cedar Point is the same company and that you can buy a season pass to both is crazy. Maybe a map of the country with all the parks highlighted, with something like “Upgrade to a Platinum Pass to experience 13 great parks”, plus have some fold out brochures which give some basic details on all the parks.

Am I the only person who just wants to hear “Please keep moving, an operator will assist your car” on a loop again?

I believe it is not since the cemetery in the parking lot is actually clearly marked as such on the GIS information. This is just marked as being owned by the county. I should point out I have done some research in the past and my guess was it deals with the parks sewage system. A copy of the quit-claim deed is available online and it lists the Ohio Water Development Authority. But I have also found an old description of the plot of land which mentions sewage lines. The Ohio Water Development Authority being involved means it is likely utility related in someway.

There are two questions that have bugged me for a while. 1) What exactly is the water tank behind The Racer used for? 2) There is a square piece of land which is 200 ft by 200 ft and located behind Firehawk which according to the Warren County property search is owned by the county. It is parcel number 16172000020 if anyone is interested. The satellite view of the location just shows a maintenance road looks to be lined with large rocks every few feet (no other section of road I can see on property is like this. Also there is short piece of maintenance road which goes around the property. What is special about this location? Why does the county own it? This is from the Warren County GIS website

Not a chance, the cars are more then $10k each and the park is likely to get 10-12. I figured I would check used pricing and found a set of 12 sold which were listed for around $90k USD.

If you look through the fillings, the last time a similar notice was filed it lists GCI, and it was for Mystic Timbers. Personally I read this as basically a confirmation we are getting a B&M in 2020. We can argue, model, layout, height, location, etc. but in my opinion we know the year and the manufacturer of the next coaster at Kings Island.

I am expecting a lighting package on Racer, combined with some refurbishment. I have my doubts how extensive it will be but I do hope for a full retracking with new trains but that’s a lot of money. I am also expecting the return of the antique cars. Been debating with myself on where. But it feels like it will be part of Coney Mall. I actually am hopeful for new trains on Vortex. Only reason I am considering it is the pictures of Vortex in the slide shows that news outlets are receiving. But I cannot see both Vortex and Racer getting trains.

The really big announcements like a new coaster are known several weeks in advance typically. Smaller announcements like a new flat would be pretty short notice just like this.

I have heard rumors of a lighting package on the Racer and a flat ride. I could see more work being done on The Racer then just lighting but have not heard anything. Lots of options for a flat ride, one of the flats purchased in Europe was announced for Carowinds but never installed. Carowinds never reinstalled the flyers after they were removed. Could be something new even.

I have no doubt the wheel hit a brake fin and bent it but I suspect that something on the wheel assembly was broken already. The wheel was likely out of alignment which allowed it to be hit by the brake fin. Either way the ride reopened a few hours later and from reports online is operating normally.

The laws in question limit advertising not distractions. It is likely up to the local community to place restrictions on the park.

Recent interviews with representatives of the park state it will reopen soon. If I remember the statement correctly they are just waiting on inspections after modifications were made. I would not trust rumors unless you know or trust the source.

We have a luxury here, we can watch the Diamondback webcam and watch for a train on Vortex to pass the same point. Watching the webcam for about 10 minutes it looks like the current crew is getting a train out about every 110 seconds. According to RCDB the ride time is 150 seconds, I checked on a Youtube video and it was about 145 seconds when that video was filmed. Using a 145 seconds without a third train either the second train would be held for about 35 seconds or the station would be empty for close to half a minute on average right now. The third train increases capacity, it is diminishing returns but it is increasing capacity. With faster dispatches the need for the third train would increase. Right now trains are sitting in the block outside the station for about 75 seconds. I would prefer to sit in the brakes then stand in line. Using the above numbers, capacity with 2 trains is about 700 people an hour and increases to 900 with the third train. That's close to a 30% increase.

The 2nd quarter transcript is now available if anyone wants to read what was said during the conference call. Going back to what I said above, when the chain did not put the 2nd quarter information in the press release. It turns out attendance was down 5% or 363k in the 2nd quarter. Basiclly sounds like they are blaming the weather.

I would not say "cheated" to describe that. Maybe cheated is a little strong. But I checked 2nd quarter press releases from 2017 to 2013. All of them had the second quarter results, which this one failed to include. Cedar Fair decided to use a different time period which showed the chain performing better than the 2nd quarter results would have.

You might have missed it but Cedar Fair cheated. The press release is the first six months of the year instead of the typical 2nd quarter announcement. We already know in the first quarter revenue and attendance was up so it helped offset the drop in the second quarter and made the numbers look better.

Son of Beast's station was outpost 5

You are comparing different time periods, slightly at least. The Six Flags results are for the full 2nd quarter, while the Cedar Fair numbers are through July 4th weekend. The 2nd quarter results for Cedar Fair will be announced and there will be an investor conference call on Wednesday. This discussion is slightly premature, although I doubt we are going to see a huge swing in the numbers. I suspect at least in part Cedar Fair is experiencing an issue with how they divide up money towards new attractions. The chain has been focusing on the larger parks almost exclusively and mid tier and smaller parks just feel like they are getting ignored. Six Flags installed something in every park this year, mostly flat rides but at least every single park had a new attraction to market. Plus the move to 365 day a year operations at Magic Mountain is going to help drive attendance.

There is a chance that is actually a hint towards a 2019 attraction. Teaser posters have started to appear at Cedar Point. What is interesting is that they are for other parks in the chain. Several are obvious like Canada’s Wonderland. There is a teaser which references Mason so it should be for Kings Island. It says Bonifield Barrell Co., Oak Strong and Iron Bound, Since ‘93, Mason - Sandusky. Barrels for all occasions. I wish I had a photo to share but I cannot find one, the YouTube video I saw it in says it came from the CPFoodBlog. But I cannot find that specific poster on their website/Facebook/Twitter etc. Here is the video, if you skip to about 9:30 in the video you can see the poster in question.

It is not all speculation, next time you are at a park in the report, if you run across a member of upper management on a midway like Mike Koontz who is the general manager at Kings Island ask what they think of the numbers from the TEA report. Over the last several years I have asked several individuals and every single one has said the numbers are wrong. None of them will share real numbers but when I say that the order of the parks is sometimes wrong I was told that by a park GM who had access to the numbers for that chain. Large natural fluctuations are part of the reason why Cedar Fair does not release individual park attendance figures. But Cedar Fair does release chain wide attendance. That’s how we know 2017 attendance was 25.7 million and was 25.1 million in 2016. Let’s compare that growth of 600k admissions to the guesstimates in the TEA report. The report shows the growth as 596k, so I will use that. Combined the Cedar Fair parks featured in the report grew by 170k. So that’s Knott’s, CW, CP, KI, and the water parks at Knott’s and CP. The report states those parks account for 15.7 million of the entire chains 25.7 million guests. Which means using TEA’s own numbers they claim the smallest 7 Cedar Fair parks only have a combined attendance of 10 million and had a combined attendance growth of 426k or 4.5%. In a year when none of those parks opened a coaster, does that seem reasonable at all? The only new coaster in the entire chain last year was Mystic Timbers plus Kings Island was open for Winterfest which added somewhere around 20 additional operating days. Yet the claim is that attendance only went up by 85 thousand.