The park just extended their regular season by one day on September 11th and they’re extending haunt to Sundays. Could we possibly see the park operate every weekend from September- October in the future? Southern Ohio fall is pretty warm which wouldn’t hinder anything from an weather standpoint.

The only reason they are typically closed those weekends in September are due to private parties.  Usually when a company backs out, the day would be added to the operating calendar.  So if GE, P&G, Toyota, etc. decide not to host events for their employees at the park, then yes we could see that happen.  But I suspect the park would prefer the guarantee income from the private party and would push for those to continue and not try to force those companies out simply to add public operating days to the schedule.

The bigger question will be do we see them extend operating days and offerings in some form or fashion in the historical true "off-season" of January thru April, along with the weekends in November before Winterfest starts....

^You're really going to risk the park's reputation by forcing out those type of companies, subtly or otherwise?  

They use those events for a lot of reasons- recruiting, retaining employees, international relations (ESPECIALLY in P&G's case), etc. 

Also, a lot of people in those companies are KI's main season pass buyers and spend tons of money those weekends.  They get some ridiculous discounts for passes those weekends.

11 hours ago, disco2000 said:

The only reason they are typically closed those weekends in September are due to private parties.  Usually when a company backs out, the day would be added to the operating calendar.  So if GE, P&G, Toyota, etc. decide not to host events for their employees at the park, then yes we could see that happen.  But I suspect the park would prefer the guarantee income from the private party and would push for those to continue and not try to force those companies out simply to add public operating days to the schedule.

The bigger question will be do we see them extend operating days and offerings in some form or fashion in the historical true "off-season" of January thru April....

I’d say the much bigger question is about weekends in November, since many of the other seasonal Winterfest parks have added them, often using them as the Peanuts Celebration. 

The Peanuts Celebration was a pleasant low-key event. It would be nice to see those offerings return, especially if that meant having something special in the shoulder seasons of either April or November.

I want to see us get something like Frontier Festival or State Line Celebration in like April/May. Mike Koontz himself was actually asked about an event like that during Coasterstock and he liked the idea. Imagine something like that with all the area breweries and BBQ/wing joints.