Decoding 2020

[Codyfryguy]

According to coaster kings on Facebook it looks like Cedar Fair has trademarked the names Polaris and Orion.. if it's going to sit in X-Base these names could fit extremely well

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[Benjamin22]

Oooo I really like both those names! Polaris is my favorite of the two.

[FirefighterENG44]

Definitely different than the normal “Goliath” or overused name for a large coaster.  Orion: constellation named after a Greek mythology hunter.  Polaris: a star at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper.  Definitely both fit for X-Base.  Another clue for what we all think were getting.  Definitely getting interesting around here

Spoiler

 

 

[FirefighterENG44]

The spoiler above is nothing...not sure why it’s there.  My apologies 

[kirbias1]

The Christmas posters in FoF during Winterfest had an astral type of theme and hinted at 2020 and 355. 

[Benjamin22]

1 minute ago, kirbias1 said:

The Christmas posters in FoF during Winterfest had an astral type of theme and hinted at 2020 and 355. 

Are you serious? Please tell me someone has photos. 

[kirbias1]

5 minutes ago, Ben43065 said:

Are you serious? Please tell me someone has photos. 

Yes, I saw the pic on here, I believe. It had the 2020 calendar, and had the number 355 on it. I think a lot of people on here saw it too. Hopefully, someone can reference the Winterfest pics and post it. I know it was the one with Santa C on it. 

[Benjamin22]

4 minutes ago, kirbias1 said:

Yes, I saw the pic on here, I believe. It had the 2020 calendar, and had the number 355 on it. I think a lot of people on here saw it too.

Are you referring to this? Credit goes to https://www.themeparkarchive.com/parks/kings-island/flight-of-fear

[kirbias1]

5 minutes ago, Ben43065 said:

Are you referring to this? Credit goes to https://www.themeparkarchive.com/parks/kings-island/flight-of-fear

Yes, if you look at the dates the day of the weeks fall on, that is a 2020 calendar and behind the rocket looking coffee pot is a number on that calendar that looks to read "355".

 

[BeastlyKI]

Here’s an idea. Maybe the words “Polaris” and “Orion” are the names of the trains for the new coaster. Is there a third name trademarked too?

[FirefighterENG44]

Are there any coasters out there that have actually named their trains before?  Definitely a different idea to do but I wouldn’t think they would trademark names for trains.  Then again I’m surprised every day of my life it seems like haha

[BeastlyKI]

7 minutes ago, FirefighterENG44 said:

Are there any coasters out there that have actually named their trains before?  Definitely a different idea to do but I wouldn’t think they would trademark names for trains.  Then again I’m surprised every day of my life it seems like haha

Steel Vengeance and Maverick for sure 

[LovinMeSomeBanshee]

Technically “Blue Racer” and “Red Racer” are official names for coaster trains too, right?

[JCoaster25]

So, if this supposed new coaster’s lift hill happens to head past Flight of Fear toward Son of Beast’s old plot, it would be headed north.

Polaris is the North Star.

Just a thought.

[FirefighterENG44]

7 minutes ago, LovinMeSomeBanshee said:

Technically “Blue Racer” and “Red Racer” are official names for coaster trains too, right?

Haha...that’s a stretch but touché!

[sixohdieselrage]

Orion could give nods to the old Shooting Star...

Polaris would be great for a Polar Coaster. 

[Turtlepower]

The Zodiac name would fit in with this theme as well.

[CoasterMyths79]

Never noticed it, but that logo on the calendar on top of what I believe is Firehawk is pretty cool looking.  

Here is what the original photo looks like before it was edited, so you can see what CF messed with. (Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/138204282288950590/)

[Rockfrog33]

1 hour ago, Ben43065 said:

Are you referring to this? Credit goes to https://www.themeparkarchive.com/parks/kings-island/flight-of-fear

Hey, look at the words at the bottom of the bottom of the poster and the name of the books. And can someone at the park get some zoomed in pictures of where they are digging? 

 Thanks

[BeastForever]

On 4/28/2019 at 2:39 PM, MIAParkman said:

The ROI for Diamondback and Banshee was very weak and for MT, a family thrill ride, a huge success.

As a follow-up to my comments expressed many pages back, I will say that using 2009 as a datapoint would be incredibly misleading, as that was the season directly following the Great Recession (with the Midwest hit especially hard). So its not surprising that attendance was so underwhelming for DB's debut season, where there had even been a decrease from the year prior...

I would bet you that Cedar Fair took this into consideration when looking at the results from that year. And rest assured, as the economy recovered and people again had money to spend we saw surge in attendance in the years following 2010-2012 (gained +206,000 visitors over that span)

One thing I think also needs mentioning is that there is another reason to install a big coaster besides just drawing in guests - a reason which I don't believed has been mentioned once thus far...

That is, increasing the overall capacity of the park. While its great that relatively inexpensive family attractions such as Antique Cars and Flying Scooter rides garner such and appeal from families, and the marginal dollars spent on these perhaps stretch further than expensive thrill rides at bringing in guests, those rides typically leave much to be desired in terms of capacity...

That is where the coasters and large flat rides come in....

Banshee gave 2 MILLION rides in 2014 and 1.66 million rides in 2015. We don't have publicly available ridership numbers past 2015, but I'd be surprised if its not still the most ridden ride on the park.  Diamondback, even in spite of its bin and seatbelt hindrance, still remains a people eater albeit not as high capacity as Banshee. I'd imagine ridership is a critical variable that goes into the equation of evaluating the returns of a new attraction, an area where all coasters put in since 2009 have demonstrsably excelled at.

When you have the attendance of KI, CP or CW etc. you can use as much capacity as you can get. So forget for a second what guests Banshee drew or supposedly didn't draw in its debut year. I think we could we agree that Action Zone was in desperate need of a headlining attraction to fill the void left by SOB and re-establish itself as a complete area of the park. The 2014 season may have seen only a modest increase in attendance (0.9%), but as @McSalsa wisely points out in this post, that year just so happened to coincide with the long-awaited re-opening of Kentucky Kingdom 2 hrs down the road, and thus may have temporarily siphoned off some of the guests from KI. Once again a confounding factor arises in the same year a $20+ million B&M is installed , misleading some to the tenuous conclusion that KI is ill-capable at turning the gates off thrills...

Overall from 2014-2016, attendance climbed +178,000 guests. Granted, other additions were made in this span - most notably Woodstock Gliders and Tropical Plunge.

How much of those guests were returning to ride Banshee for the first time? And how many of those guests consisted of families coming through the gates for the aformentioned scooter and brand new waterslides?

We can't know for sure. But going off what I said earlier, more guests calls for more capacity, and a couple of kiddie/family rides and a slide complex is not really going move the needle in that realm.

Enter Mystic Timbers. Another three train (thank you #shed) coaster which can accomodate overflow from Beast and DB...

Putting in a non-flying B&M (on the former site of Vekoma flyer, fittingly enough) will be yet another marked improvement in capacity, and will give guests more than one reason to make the trek out to the area other than just FOF...

----

Finally, one caveat I would like to attach onto a lot of the things said above (as well as, virtually all speculation with regards to "returns" on major investments) is that we don't know all the of relevant and critical information needed to truly determine how well or not well an investment did. Only the park and corporate knows that (and those know do not say!)...

Even numbers from TEA, might not necessarily be the best measure, as a lot of it, particularly for parks that don't release attendance numbers such as Cedar Fair, is based heavily on "professional estimation". There are some years where it shows a "net-zero" change in attendance at some parks. (KI 2012-13 ; CP 2016-176). Now what are the odds of that?

So to make broad, unnuanced, claims such as "the ROI for Diamondback and Bashee was very weak" is rather irresponsible as you are making an overly declarative statement on something for which you probably don't have the insider information, and if you do,  shouldn't be sharing it here...

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What we CAN do however (and this is what I recommend) is approach these things more inductively and infer from what investments do or don't happen the success or lack thereof a park.

For example, KD went eight years in between coasters and the drought was broken merely by a conversion/replacement of an existing coaster in Hurler. From that, I would surmise that it was I305 that indeed did have a relatively weak ROI. Or at least, it must not have been strong enough to warrant a big follow-up coaster like we've seen at KI, CW, and Carowinds.

Also, KD already had a comparable ride collection to the aformentioned parks depsite having something like a million less visitors per year (?) I've heard. So not only did I305 not bring in the crowds they were hoping, but there's also not any strong urge or need to increase capacity.

As for KI, I'm willing to give Cedar Fair benefit of the doubt and presume that results of the many investments they've made throughout their ownership have positive enough to warrant investing more. Like I've said before, if DB and Banshee weren't successful enough, then I guarantee they would not be going out of their way to put in yet another giant B&M, by which even if not a giga, we're still talking well over $20 million....

And finally finally (this is the end I promise) no one is saying CW, Carowinds, CGA, don't warrant the investments they are getting, but I believe your analysis of KI of rather short-sighted, and does not fully fo justice to their great strides that have been made (and might continue to be made). 

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Note: Most of whats written above is not necessarily a response to MiA Parkman per se, but more so the recurring narrative that I've come across through many areas of the interwebs in the past few months or so.

[sixohdieselrage]

Regards to the poster. 

"XBASE Tactical and Experimental Stratospheric Technologies"

Also...

Polaris : A star located at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper, in the constellation Ursa Minor, approximately 408 light years from Earth, and almost at the north celestial pole. 

408' lift hill?

 

I'm know. I'm stretching. Rollercoaster Expedition and I were talking about that. Lol

[Creed Bratton]

11 hours ago, XBeastGirlX said:

I’m going to CP next weekend for two days and was wondering how likely it is to see teasers for the KI new ride there? I can’t remember if they have done teasers at other parks in the past or not. 

Cedar Fair is not going to tease a ride at a park that it’s not intended for. 

All of those references at CP last year will still be there this year...as will the references to other rides in the chain at Carowinds. 

 

 

[fryoj]

4 hours ago, kirbias1 said:

After looking at waltny's pic from the ET, you can see the digging. If that is for the transfer track, that should give us an idea of where the station is going to go.

I see no signs of digging in those pics. I see some lines but they were there last week and are either tire tracks or just a result of how they graded. They are just more pronounced from the rain and runoff. 

[XBeastGirlX]

13 hours ago, Turtlepower said:

So after today I'm not sure what's going on. One person says they saw a tree physically falling, while others say nothing is different from last week.

I feel the same lol I have no idea what is going on. I was there for only an hour yesterday morning and am 100% sure there were to yellow earth movers in the clearing by Beast and a large tree fell as we went past but now people are saying there is no more clearing? 

 

Im starting to think maybe what i seen was them cutting down/removing the large trees that couldn't just be bulldozed like some of the smaller ones. Any update on the clearing today? 

 

3 hours ago, Creed Bratton said:

Cedar Fair is not going to tease a ride at a park that it’s not intended for. 

All of those references at CP last year will still be there this year...as will the references to other rides in the chain at Carowinds. 

 

 

Good to know. I will just enjoy the rides instead of looking for teasers then 

[DonkeyKong]

The Christmas posters in FoF during Winterfest had an astral type of theme and hinted at 2020 and 355. 

Didn’t someone on here say it would have to be roughly 355 ft to achieve 100+ mph?


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[riptombraider]

21 minutes ago, fryoj said:

I see no signs of digging in those pics. I see some lines but they were there last week and are either tire tracks or just a result of how they graded. They are just more pronounced from the rain and runoff. 

I don’t see anything either. But I did notice all the cones are gone, I know someone mentioned they were marking drains. Does it mean anything that they’re gone? 

[ohiocoasterfan]

Any reason they have left DAs path completely intact? I thought they would have ripped those up while clearing and cleaning the site.

[upstop]

1 hour ago, CoasterMyths79 said:

 

Why does Santa have four arms and hands?

[XBeastGirlX]

That poster was from the cover of Galaxy magazine in 1956. I don't think it has anything to do with the coaster 

[Zayzayd13]

Are you referring to this? Credit goes to https://www.themeparkarchive.com/parks/kings-island/flight-of-fear

There’s a lot you can take out of this picture


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