Kentucky Kingdom

[BeeastFarmer]

17 hours ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

 

The "rogue" placement is definitely a consequence of the Premier Parks-era Six Flags expansion of the park when Chang, T3, and the go karts were added in 1998. As nice as it probably was for all of those parks to receive such rapid growth at the time, it has only caused issue after issue after issue for Six Flags and almost every park that they owned.

T2 was added before Premier.  It was a Ed Hart install.  When the park expansion to "the other side of the road" happened, he said his vision was for that section of the park to emulate a boardwalk park, like rollercoasters by the sea. In a radio interview, he said Kentucky Flyer was the completion of this vision.

 

8 hours ago, Orion-XL200 said:

Wasn't Kentucky Flyer a part of the "expansion" land (acre or so) that the Fairboard gave to the park? Maybe not the whole acre used by the ride, but part of it.

In the same interview mentioned above, Ed Hart said that the entire parking lot from the berm ( which is made of Chang concrete!) to the hotels had been allocated to the park by the fair board. With Kentucky Flyer, they took a tiny morsel of that for a part of the coaster (turnaround?) and the fair board pitched a hissy fit. The governor had to intervene:)

[Imperial79]

Kentucky Kingdom posted their schedule for the year a few hours ago, and the summers hours are only till 8 pm for the whole week, only staying open 10 am - 10 pm July 3 and 4 for Independence Day. I believe the weekends at least used to close at 9 pm or 10 pm last year, so cutting back a little bit. 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

This is one of the reasons why I'm glad Kings Island has (so far) opted to keep their 10AM-10PM operating schedule for most of the summer. It's a rough time for the amusement industry right now so any changes like this have started to worry me. Hopefully Herschend — seemingly the strongest regional operator in North America — just made this decision because they think it will work better for the park and not because they needed to cut hours. 

[Shaggy]

22 hours ago, Imperial79 said:

Kentucky Kingdom posted their schedule for the year a few hours ago, and the summers hours are only till 8 pm for the whole week, only staying open 10 am - 10 pm July 3 and 4 for Independence Day. I believe the weekends at least used to close at 9 pm or 10 pm last year, so cutting back a little bit. 

I believe this to be a strategic move to further cement the changes from its past reputation as an "amusement/thrill park" to a "family theme park."  

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

Can you expand more on how changing the hours helps to define a park more as a "family theme park" as opposed to an "amusement/thrill park"? Is it in the fact that families might leave earlier in the night compared to those who go to an amusement park?

The line between "amusement park" and "theme park" is very blurry at this scale of company. The new Six Flags lists all of their parks as "theme parks", despite only having a few that could actually qualify with Canada's Wonderland, Fiesta Texas, Kings Dominion, and Kings Island. A few other SF parks could probably also qualify for the title (maybe CePo and Caro) but the Six Flags brand is pretty much "generic amusement park". Other regional parks like Dollywood and other pre-Palace Herschend parks definitely qualify because of their abundant theming, but they also have similar lineups to the Busch parks in terms of balancing theming with thrills.

[Orion-XL200]

I think a lot of the issues of security/fights/etc. happened later in the evening. While these issues could happen at any time, it seems as if the later it is, the more severe the issues become. So trying to keep it "family friendly," by reducing the risk of issues later in the evening.

[Shaggy]

14 hours ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

Can you expand more on how changing the hours helps to define a park more as a "family theme park" as opposed to an "amusement/thrill park"? Is it in the fact that families might leave earlier in the night compared to those who go to an amusement park?

The line between "amusement park" and "theme park" is very blurry at this scale of company. The new Six Flags lists all of their parks as "theme parks", despite only having a few that could actually qualify with Canada's Wonderland, Fiesta Texas, Kings Dominion, and Kings Island. A few other SF parks could probably also qualify for the title (maybe CePo and Caro) but the Six Flags brand is pretty much "generic amusement park". Other regional parks like Dollywood and other pre-Palace Herschend parks definitely qualify because of their abundant theming, but they also have similar lineups to the Busch parks in terms of balancing theming with thrills.

I think you answered your own question.  Once the waterpark closes each day, families tend to vacate KK.  In the past, that left the later hours predominantly filled by teens.  And its no secret that KK has had more than its share of "issues" with teens in the park.  I'm sure its a multi-tiered decision, but I guarantee that was a large factor.

As for "theme park" vs "amusement park" - its pretty clear what the Herschend strategy is with this park.  Just watch their latest construction video (part 1) - skip to the thirty second mark.