Does anyone know what the attendance figures were in 2003? I think that they would already of been released by now. If you don't know what they were, what would be your guess? At the beginning of the season it seemed like no one was at the park at all but at the end of the season you couldn't find a day that the park wasn't packed.

This much I can tell you....no less than 3 million visitors. Specifics will have to wait until next year.

I've noticed that PKI usually releases their annual attendance numbers to The Cincinnati Enquirer (and I'm sure MANY other media outlets) every March. We'll have to wait until next year to find out how PKI fared this year.

Actually they have released their attendance numbers for 2003. I just wrote up a news story earlier today for COASTER-net about the Top 25 Amusement Parks in North America, which is rated by their attendance. Paramount's Kings Island came in at number 16 with 3.2 million, which is up 3 percent from last year. A really good year attendance wise for PKI.

They came in one spot behind Cedar Point, which finished 15th with only 3.3 million and 3 spots ahead of SFMM which was 19th with 3 million. PKI was also 1 of only 2 Paramount parks to make the list, with Canada's Wonderland coming in 21st with 2.62 million.

Here is the link to the complete top 25 list if anyone is interested.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/031219/theme_park_list_1.html

Thank you for the information. As a fellow journalist, I am greatly impressed with your collection of data.

Sincerely,

Italian Chef

:chef:

Well thank you very much for the compliment italianchef! I appreciate it. I don't know if I would call myself a journalists or not. I mainly just search around for any theme park or coaster news and add a segment to our news database at COASTER-net. I have quite a few news sites that I checked a few times everyday to see what's going on. I find some interesting stuff sometimes.

Anyways, back on topic. I thought it was very interesting that PKI was that closely ranked to Cedar Point. I'm also glad to see that PKI's attendance did go up in the 2003 season, despite the bad economic state of the country and the bad weather that we had earlier in the theme park season.

Grunts Rock beat me to it. Even though PKI's attendence has increased 3%, they still haven't topped their attendence record of 3.4 million in '98 with the HB expansion. I wonder how PKI will take having lower attendence than CP for recent years after PKI had better attendence for a couple of years before that.

I found a link to the complete top 50 that has a little more information. PKI finished 17th in 2001, 18th in 2002, and 16th in 2003. Their attendance for 2003 was 3,277,975, which is up 3% from last year. The comments that were listed for PKI says that they had "a strong response to new rides and attractions and a good gain in the travel market".

They also beat out all other Paramount parks, with PCW finishing 21st, PKD finishing tied for 28th, PGA finishing 31st, and PC finishing 33rd.

Here is the link to the top 50 in .pdf format if anyone is interested in looking at it.

http://www.amusementbusiness.com/amusement...rth-america.pdf

Thank you for posting the Top 50. It was most interesting. I think that PKI had a good year, in spite of lousy weather, because Scooby Doo & the Haunted Mansion drew in families and Delirium drew in thrill seekers. I could be wrong, but I think that Delirium exceeded people's expectations, whereas TR:TR didn't quite meet them.

Have a great day!

Italian Chef

:chef:

Sounds good for the park. Hopefully they will use that extra money to build a mega coaster

I'm not sure if that attendance would yeild that much extra money but I don't really know. Even if their attendance did go up, it still isn't where it was a few years ago. Right now people are saying that it should pick back up next year for all theme parks, but it seems that they always say that after a not so good year so it has pretty much lost all meaning.

Well, then again PKI hasnt built much to get much more than the locals to the park

I hope this isn't getting off topic but today I read something that SFMM did that I think PKI could do to really boost attendance. SFMM announced that locals will now get discount prices to get into the park. All you have to do is bring proof to the gate that shows your residency. That would be really cool for all the locals!

I don't think that PKI would give a discount to locals because compared to other parks, locals seem to make a dis-proportionately high percentage of the visitors. SFMM is in California.....which attracts MANY tourists from other states and even nations.

PKI is located in southern Ohio, which isn't a hot destination for vacation. Should PKI give a discount to locals, I think they'd lose some serious money.

That's my opinion anyway.

Merry Christmas!

Italian Chef

:chef:

How much of the PKI attendance is from the water park?

I dont know if this is true but I heard that PKI is the only theme park that went up in attenedce

That's definitely not true. Many parks went up in attendance this year, including EPCOT, Disney's CA Adventure, SeaWorld Orlando, Cedar Point, Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, SeaWorld Texas, and so on.

And as to a post eariler, I don't know if there is anyway to determine how much of the attendance is from the water park, but I'm not at all sure about that.

That's definitely not true. Many parks went up in attendance this year, including EPCOT, Disney's CA Adventure, SeaWorld Orlando, Cedar Point, Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, SeaWorld Texas, and so on.

And as to a post eariler, I don't know if there is anyway to determine how much of the attendance is from the water park, but I'm not at all sure about that.

On the contrary, PKI has a pretty good idea. Remember the survey that most of us took in 03?