Golden Ticket Awards 2023

[KIghostguy]

The Golden Ticket Awards were yesterday. The full results can be found here: https://95a87e.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/issues/2023/2023gta/assets/downloads/AT-GTA-2023i.pdf

Regardless of what you think about the validity of them, I always think it's interesting to see where Kings Island is ranked. This year, they were finalists in a few categories.

• #5 Best Park
• #6 and #7 Best Wooden Coasters (The Beast and Mystic Timbers, respectively) 
• #2 Best Kid's Area
• #4 Leadership Award (Mike Koontz)

Something that I thought was interesting was that none of Kings Island's steel coasters ranked in the top 25 steel coasters list this year.

[Orion742]

20 minutes ago, KIghostguy said:

The Golden Ticket Awards were yesterday. The full results can be found here: https://95a87e.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/issues/2023/2023gta/assets/downloads/AT-GTA-2023i.pdf

Regardless of what you think about the validity of them, I always think it's interesting to see where Kings Island is ranked. This year, they were finalists in a few categories.

• #5 Best Park
• #6 and #7 Best Wooden Coasters (The Beast and Mystic Timbers, respectively) 
• #2 Best Kid's Area
• #4 Leadership Award (Mike Koontz)

Something that I thought was interesting was that none of Kings Island's steel coasters ranked in the top 25 steel coasters list this year.

Do you have the list of the top 25?

[KIghostguy]

38 minutes ago, Orion742 said:

Do you have the list of the top 25?

Page 70 for wooden coasters, page 72 for steel coasters: https://amusementtoday.com/issues/2023/2023gta/

[Tr0y]

1 hour ago, KIghostguy said:

Something that I thought was interesting was that none of Kings Island's steel coasters ranked in the top 25 steel coasters list this year.

30 million well spent. 

[BB1]

You have to remember that the Golden Tickets are voted on by people who typically have very extreme biases. I know/know of several who have very very strong tendencies to vote a certain wooden coaster off of one night a year instead of the whole year in aggregate. If you can look at me dead in the eyes and say that Guardians is a superior coaster to Diamondback, which I rank well above Orion by the way, you have to be daft. Point is that I personally see these awards as a glorified ACE poll that is skewed as not everyone is going to make it out to every park. I take every poll with a grain of salt, everyone has their own views, but when you have The Beast at 6 and Ghostrider at 9 I question if Knotts were to do a coaster event if their rankings would rise. 

 

 

[IBEW_Sparky]

Expect all CF park rankings to drop in every category next year if the budget cuts extend to periodical advertising, its not called the Golden Wallet Awards for nothing.

[Tr0y]

20 hours ago, BB1 said:

You have to remember that the Golden Tickets are voted on by people who typically have very extreme biases. I know/know of several who have very very strong tendencies to vote a certain wooden coaster off of one night a year instead of the whole year in aggregate. If you can look at me dead in the eyes and say that Guardians is a superior coaster to Diamondback, which I rank well above Orion by the way, you have to be daft. Point is that I personally see these awards as a glorified ACE poll that is skewed as not everyone is going to make it out to every park. I take every poll with a grain of salt, everyone has their own views, but when you have The Beast at 6 and Ghostrider at 9 I question if Knotts were to do a coaster event if their rankings would rise. 

 

 

But everyone has different opinions and biases? I myself prefer wooden coasters over most steel coasters. Most people would find that “daft” because a simple bump in the track to them = rough. And to most people Diamondback has gotten “rough” with age, especially after the hammerhead turn.

I think it’s too easy to claim the event is “rigged” when I believe there is a multitude of factors that go into coaster rankings. Do you think Steel Vengeance will keep its ranking if the freebie lockers remain down for a good portion of next season?

[Shaggy]

The numbers seem tend to skew towards parks that not only launch new coasters, but to those that hold popular events.

Dollywood was the primary host (and an excellent one at that) of the ACE Coaster Con (record-setting-attendance) in June.  Carowinds was secondary.  Seeing how many ballots are cast by ACE members, it seems logical they would fall towards Dollywood.

Holiday World used to gobble up the GT awards... but since the unfortunate change of hands/management - the park has not catered to the ACE community like they one did.  Hence, the virtual shut out.

I would suspect KI is banking on Camp Snoopy earning the "Best Kids Area" GT next year.  IMO -Ain't gonna happen.  Its not a large enough expansion, and outside of Coasterstock (for which a return remains to be seen - given recent developments), the park has avoided hosting a large ACE event.  They would need to overhaul the entire kids area to even begin to compete with Wildwood Grove.

Just sayin'

[FUN&ONLY!]

I would agree that Wildwood Grove is still probably going to be better than Kings Island’s kids area after Camp Snoopy opens, but we have to remember that Amusement Today’s rankings are not always the popular opinion. Even if Kings Island does not win back the title of Best Kids Area next year, the Camp Snoopy addition is certainly going to improve the kids area immensely.

I wonder how Kings Island feels about not having a single steel roller coaster crack the top 25, though. Maybe the park’s “poor” showing in that category will drive park leadership to invest in a new steel coaster that would make the list.

[Orion742]

6 hours ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

I would agree that Wildwood Grove is still probably going to be better than Kings Island’s kids area after Camp Snoopy opens, but we have to remember that Amusement Today’s rankings are not always the popular opinion. Even if Kings Island does not win back the title of Best Kids Area next year, the Camp Snoopy addition is certainly going to improve the kids area immensely.

I wonder how Kings Island feels about not having a single steel roller coaster crack the top 25, though. Maybe the park’s “poor” showing in that category will drive park leadership to invest in a new steel coaster that would make the list.

Notice Time Traveler is on that list and RTH isn’t. You don’t have to go crazy to make an extreme spinner amazing. I think most of the GP would like TT over RTH if they had the chance to ride both I think it’s only the enthusiasts who like Ride to Happiness more.

[johnjniehaus]

The Golden Tickets is always a fun thing and I've never taken them too seriously because it is voters opinions at the end of the day. I will say that last time I went to Dollywood was 2013 and every year recently I see them win a lot of the golden ticket awards. I have just found it difficult to drive 5 hours and then pay $85 plus parking to go there for what they have on paper (RMC, Arrow Looper, winged, eurofighter, wooden,  family coasters). Silver Dollar City is actually much higher on my bucket list because of time traveler and would be similar in terms of pricing (bit further drive though). I do agree that parks with more ace events usually are rewarded with higher votes and parks with more traffic are going to get more votes as well. Dollywood is huge for tourists and Cedar Point is still a heavy tourist traffic park. For me personally, I-305 is the #1 steel coaster and The Beast still holds #1 for Woodies (Pheonix being a close #2). I was happy to see that BGW took the most beautiful park back from Dollywood. As I said I've not been to Dollywood for a long time so maybe they are deserving of the award but I have high respect for BGW and their grounds and maintenance team. That park is the most picturesque I've ever visited. 

I also have never been to Holiday World so I'm going to attempt to remedy that this October. Working full time and going to college doesn't leave much time for weekend getaways so hopefully it works out. I really want to see if the Voyage can top The Beast for #1 woodie for me. 

[tks944]

19 hours ago, johnjniehaus said:

I really want to see if the Voyage can top The Beast for #1 woodie for me. 

It will. Voyage has everything you want in a woodie. 

[BeeastFarmer]

4 hours ago, tks944 said:

It will. Voyage has everything you want in a woodie. 

Some would say it's not a woodie, but a hybrid .

[IndyGuy4KI]

7 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

Some would say it's not a woodie, but a hybrid .

Yeah, I do.

[Orion-XL200]

I say Voyage is not that good.

 

[IndyGuy4KI]

37 minutes ago, Orion-XL200 said:

I say Voyage is not that good.

 

Just think if they every RMC'd Voyage. 

[Orion-XL200]

4 minutes ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

Just think if they every RMC'd Voyage. 

Would be a major improvement.

 

[Orion742]

On 9/14/2023 at 8:06 AM, tks944 said:

It will. Voyage has everything you want in a woodie. 

There is no such thing as a perfect ride but I’d say Voyage is pretty close. The slight roughness can be fixed by retrack which is what they did this past offseason. It has an insane layout that endlessly keeps coming at you. You hit the break run thinking how on earth does this thing exist…

[IBEW_Sparky]

10 minutes ago, Orion742 said:

There is no such thing as a perfect ride but I’d say Voyage is pretty close. The slight roughness can be fixed by retrack which is what they did this past offseason. It has an insane layout that endlessly keeps coming at you. You hit the break run thinking how on earth does this thing exist…

Exactly this, and I have never in my life thought that way about The Beast, even on my very first ride in 06.  Its cool for night rides, and it certainly serves its purpose well in that case.  The reality is that The Beast is like the Indianapolis 500 in that, if you are a fan of motorsports you go to the Indy 500 once for the spectacle and tradition, knowing there are many other tracks that are far better places to watch a race.  if one looks at The Beast in a completely ovjective manner, with all emotions, home park, blah blah etc etc taken out of it it is the exact same principle as IMS and the Indianapolis 500.  Voyage night rides, especially ones during HWN when I used to attend them, makes one wonder if the train is truly going to stay on the track even though we know the answer is yes.  On the subject of an RMCed Voyage, Id LOVE to see that.  I can think of at least 4 places where a 360 inversion or zero-G stall would be GREAT on that ride.

[tks944]

On 9/14/2023 at 12:41 PM, BeeastFarmer said:

Some would say it's not a woodie, but a hybrid .

I say Voyage is 100% a woodie. Wood topper track makes it a woodie. Steel support structure has minimal impact on ride experience. It is done for costs and assembly.