Watch the Golden Ticket Awards at 10:30p (Eastern) as they are broadcasted live from Sea World San Diego. Cheer on Kings Island as they attemp to continue their reign as the World's Best Kids Area!

http://www.amusementtoday.com/2014/09/02/seaworld-to-stream-the-2014-golden-ticket-awards/

I have to wash my hair.

Why Sea World- San Deigo?

Is it because they are celebrating there 40th or 50th anniversary ?

Let's see which ride is the Best New Ride of 2014. I'm hoping Kings Island gets two tickets this year.

Just out of curiosity, and for some of us to have a reference, who decides these awards?

I smell the Game of Favorites coming.

Just out of curiosity, and for some of us to have a reference, who decides these awards?

I smell the Game of Favorites coming.

Industry experts and some of the most well-traveled park goers in the world.

With some deviation from the mean...

Or the amount of advertising dollars given to Amusement Today magazine, depending on who you ask.

Enthusiasts and other interested parties can subscribe to Amusement Today and vote. Many do.

The subscriber base doesn't change a lot from year to year, so repeat awards are common. Sponsorship, such as that from Cedar Fair, certainly helps keep the awards (and the method of picking winners) in place.

"Best new ride" is a crowded category this year.

I think I need some long set conditioner...

Enthusiasts and other interested parties can subscribe to Amusement Today and vote. Many do.

The subscriber base doesn't change a lot from year to year, so repeat awards are common. Sponsorship, such as that from Cedar Fair, certainly helps keep the awards (and the method of picking winners) in place.

"Best new ride" is a crowded category this year.

Baloney.

I subscribed for years.

NEVER got a ballot.

Not one.

Clearly Terpy finds washing his hair more interesting than the Golden Tickets. I agree with him. The only part of the GTAs I find interesting is Best New Ride, as it's the only category that actually seems legit to me.

Yeah, I'm an Amusement Today subscriber (my subscription is probably about to expire, now that I think about it) and I haven't gotten a ballot, either.

I find it somewhat interesting....

Yes, most of the award winners are repeated, but Best New Ride is interesting to see as well as how the Top 50 Steel & Wood categories shake up each year...

Although these 2 probably aren't going win #1 steel and wood, go Bizarro and El Toro!

Last year, the top 10 contenders for 'best park in the world' included 3 Disney Parks and 1 Universal Park. Those four COMBINED had the same percentage of "votes" as Cedar Point. Put another way, if 100 people voted in 2013, 23 of them thought Cedar Point is the best park on Earth.

Disneyland Park, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo DisneySea, and Universal's Islands of Adventure would've had 23 votes COMBINED.

C'mon.

Cedar Point is a fine park and a great destination, and every year it's becoming a nicer place for a family to visit. But c'mon.

Best kid's area. Kings Island's Planet Snoopy. Really? I mean, it's great! But Seuss Landing? Fantasyland? Idlewild's Fantasy Forest? "A bug's land"? Mermaid Lagoon at DisneySea? Kings Island's is the best in the world? Really?

Most telling (and I've said this a hundred times on here) is that Cedar Point is crowned the overall best park in the world without even making the top contenders for friendliest park, best food, best funhouse, best Christmas event, best dark ride, best landscaping, cleanest park, etc... Wouldn't you expect the "best park in the world" to sweep ALL of those categories, or at least place in them? Cedar Point doesn't even come close in most of those. So how can it be the best overall? And again: better than Disneyland? Better than DisneySea? Better than Islands of Adventure? Knott's Berry Farm? Kings Island?

Or

2013

Cleanest Park

Six Flags Great America

Really?

I feel like there's a few donkeys in that brew, and probably some exclusive high paying clubs. Think about it, if I ran an enthusiast site with some thousands upon thousands of members globally, and or if I ran an enthusiast club with a grand amount of patrons, wouldn't I get a vote.

Hence why I really do not see value in some of these votes, they're rigged. Sure, now some have some merit, and this one has some interesting results; but one cannot solely place their eggs into this basket. You can tell me "hey this park has this ride and it's the best!", but that doesn't change my thoughts about whether of not I go.

But hey, it gives the parks something to brag about so they like it.

^ As far as I remember, subscribing to Amusement Today did not involve asking what coaster club(s) I affiliate with. I'm a member of ACE, which has one of the more expensive club fees... So even if specific clubs did get more say, they're certainly being awfully picky about who they're asking.

I, for one, tend to believe Terp's theory about more advertising meaning more awards.

Makes sense. Being able to advertise "The Best Kid's Area for 15 Consecutive Years!!" is something Kings Island can use. It's worth Cedar Fair's advertising investment to be able to have that title and plaster it all over brochures and commercials.

Obviously the same is true of Cedar Point being the "Best Park in the World!!"

There's mutual advertisement there. Kings Island gets its badge to share and can advertise itself with the superlative, and Amusement Today gets the Google searches and their name out there and the "thank you" tweet from Cedar Point and Kings Island and a few extra thousand clicks... It's symbiotic!

Meanwhile, if Disneyland's Fantasyland won Best Kid's Area, guess what they'd do with the award?

Nothing.

A waste of an award ceremony. I bet that no one from Disney would show up to collect. I doubt that Disney would use it on a brochure. Smaller, regional parks can really use those awards and titles. Disney and Universal probably wouldn't even waste a tweet on acknowledging a win from Amusement Today.

^^I meant those who ran the clubs themselves. They advertise, go to the parks, give them profits, give people incentives to go to the parks, the industry recognizes this, in return they get a say in the voting process.

I too agree on both your points and that the advertising and the money makes the votes come.

Last year, the top 10 contenders for 'best park in the world' included 3 Disney Parks and 1 Universal Park. Those four COMBINED had the same percentage of "votes" as Cedar Point. Put another way, if 100 people voted in 2013, 23 of them thought Cedar Point is the best park on Earth.

Disneyland Park, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo DisneySea, and Universal's Islands of Adventure would've had 23 votes COMBINED.

C'mon.

Cedar Point is a fine park and a great destination, and every year it's becoming a nicer place for a family to visit. But c'mon.

Best kid's area. Kings Island's Planet Snoopy. Really? I mean, it's great! But Seuss Landing? Fantasyland? Idlewild's Fantasy Forest? "A bug's land"? Mermaid Lagoon at DisneySea? Kings Island's is the best in the world? Really?

Most telling (and I've said this a hundred times on here) is that Cedar Point is crowned the overall best park in the world without even making the top contenders for friendliest park, best food, best funhouse, best Christmas event, best dark ride, best landscaping, cleanest park, etc... Wouldn't you expect the "best park in the world" to sweep ALL of those categories, or at least place in them? Cedar Point doesn't even come close in most of those. So how can it be the best overall? And again: better than Disneyland? Better than DisneySea? Better than Islands of Adventure? Knott's Berry Farm? Kings Island?

I almost feel like Six Flags Magic Mountain deserves a spot in the top 10 just for their coasters alone, but that would probably responded with the hackneyed cliche people use to mock SFMM being inferior to CP: "quality over quantity". Sure, a few of Magic Mountain's coasters are gimmicky but just look all the quality coasters they have. I mean come on. Tatsu, Scream!, Batman, Goliath, X2, Apocalypse, heck even Riddler's Revenge. Are those not all quality coasters that could maybe rival with Cedar Point's lineup?

Note that I don't what the overall atmosphere is like at Magic Mountain since I have never been (but want to). Let's just say a lot of the things I hear it seem to be Six Flags-type exaggerations, but that's just me...I don't really know for sure. The certain SIX park I went to in 2011 was a fantastic time...

Prioritizing quality over quantity is a hackneyed cliche?

I'm not saying Magic Mountain OR Cedar Fair deserves or doesn't deserve a place among Amusement Today's "best" or among your own personal "best" list.

To ME, coasters alone do not a great park make. I don't care if a park has 20 coasters and each is the best of its type in the whole world. If the park isn't clean, friendly, great for kids, packed with wonderful entertainment, offering high quality fairly priced food, and with at least one or two really well-done dark rides or themed attractions, I would never even begin to propose it might be the best in the world. Cedar Point and Magic Mountain are both good parks. Great even. Definitely among the best at what they do. But the best parks on Earth? Maybe in the top 10 to a specific demographic, but overall? In the whole world?

Quality over quantity is not a hackneyed cliche. Have you been to a Busch Gardens?

Ah, but when?

See the 2015 BGW addition.

It'd fit right in at SFMM.

Maybe.

I would love to see another Golden Ticket in our land! (Or should I say World). I remember watching last year's the night before KIC Revival 2K14 day!

I can watch the Golden Ticket Awards? Oh good, I've always wanted a convenient list of which parks hold the best events and give out the best freebies to enthusiasts!

That's what the Golden Tickets are, right?

It's like how certain car companies pay or give funding to certain awards. They are a jay dee award winning vehicle but don't recognize Car and Driver awards or US News and Reports.

Is anyone receiving video right now? The live stream isn't loading for me.

^^

Kind of also reminds me how many parks won't even seem to recognize polls other than the Golden Ticket Awards (unless perhaps its a big publication like USA Today). For example, the Mitch Hawker Poll I've only seen mentioned really by Six Flags Great Adventure for El Toro in either the steel or wood categories, and even then it seemed to be just a tiny blurb on the ride's page on their website.

Prioritizing quality over quantity is a hackneyed cliche?

I'm not saying Magic Mountain OR Cedar Fair deserves or doesn't deserve a place among Amusement Today's "best" or among your own personal "best" list.

To ME, coasters alone do not a great park make. I don't care if a park has 20 coasters and each is the best of its type in the whole world. If the park isn't clean, friendly, great for kids, packed with wonderful entertainment, offering high quality fairly priced food, and with at least one or two really well-done dark rides or themed attractions, I would never even begin to propose it might be the best in the world. Cedar Point and Magic Mountain are both good parks. Great even. Definitely among the best at what they do. But the best parks on Earth? Maybe in the top 10 to a specific demographic, but overall? In the whole world?

Quality over quantity is not a hackneyed cliche. Have you been to a Busch Gardens?

What I meant was that "Quality over quantity" is a hackneyed cliche just when comparing Cedar Point's coaster lineup to Six Flags Magic Mountain's. People like to assume Cedar Points is better just because it has 16 and SFMM has 19. But even when you subtract the "gimmicky" ones from the lineup. Their lineups, although not easily comparable by individual coaster, have

about the same firepower IMO. That's all I'm trying to say.

I was not objecting to anything in the your original post that I quoted. I just wanted to put Magic Mountain in the discussion. That's all.

Kings Island retained their Best Kids Area title.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Didn't realize how long this ceremony drags on for.........

EDIT: I thought Flying Turns opened in 2013?