Kings Island Yearly Attendance Since 1972

[Coasterteam]

Hayo!

I am here to present a large list of attendance figures for every season since opening for Kings Island. Some of these are estimates as the park doesn't like to official say, but I feel confident these numbers are close to the real ones based on normal attendance.
I will mark each year with their individual sources as proof of the total. The list starts at the latest known year (2023) and descends to the first season in 1972. If any of my numbers are wrong, or you know the real number in place of an estimate, please let me know! I had to do a lot of digging for this, even going through old Amusement Business magazines from the 80s.

The reason I am making this is I wasn't able to find a single place that showed all attendance figures for each operating year since 1972. So I thought it would be neat to compile one, so here we are!

("KT RTT" references the Kings Island: A Ride Through Time book by Evan Ponstingle)

The Numbers
2023 - 3,488,000 (Latest report is sourced from https://aecom.com/theme-index/)
2022 - 3,340,000 (Here to 2006 are sourced from AECOM, see https://aecom.com/theme-index/theme-index-reports-archive/ for 2022 to 2006)
2021 - 3,181,000
2020 - 1,626,000
2019 - 3,521,000
2018 - 3,486,000
2017 - 3,469,000
2016 - 3,384,000
2015 - 3,335,000
2014 - 3,238,000
2013 - 3,206,000
2012 - 3,206,000
2011 - 3,143,000
2010 - 3,112,000
2009 - 3,000,000
2008 - 3,126,000
2007 - 3,050,000
2006 - 3,050,000 (2006 to 2023 are sourced from AECOM, see https://aecom.com/theme-index/theme-index-reports-archive/ for all above years)
2005 - 3,330,000 (2005 to 1990 are sourced from an archived AECOM report that I was unable to find directly, but found a site that reported them; see https://www.theparkdb.com/results/in/name/14/view_details)
2004 - 3,510,000
2003 - 3,277,975
2002 - 3,182,500
2001 - 3,350,000
2000 - 3,200,000
1999 - 3,325,000
1998 - 3,400,000
1997 - 3,300,000
1996 - 3,600,000
1995 - 3,470,000
1994 - 3,300,000
1993 - 3,250,000
1992 - 3,260,000 (Legacy KIC Historical Facts page & https://www.theparkdb.com/results/in/name/14/view_details)
1991 - 2,850,000 (Legacy KIC Historical Facts page & https://www.theparkdb.com/results/in/name/14/view_details)
1990 - 3,200,000 (1990 to 2005 are sourced from an archived AECOM report that I was unable to find directly, but found a site that reported them; see https://www.theparkdb.com/results/in/name/14/view_details)
1989 - 3,170,000 (KI RTT pg 159, excludes WinterFest)
1988 - 2,968,294 (Amusement Business 1988 - 12/24/88 Vol 100 Iss 52)
1987 - 3,463,586 (KI RTT pg 150, note pg 144 says 3.1 million but pg 150 includes WinterFest attendance)
1986 - 2,869,669 (Amusement Business 1986 - 12/27/86 Vol 98 Iss 51)
1985 - 2,961,861 (Amusement Business 1985 - 12/28/85 Vol 97 Iss 51)
1984 - 3,200,000 (KI RTT pg 138)
1983 - 2,700,000 (estimate, Amusement Business 1983 - 12/31/83 Vol 95 Iss 52)
1982 - 2,700,000 (Amusement Business 1982 - 12/25/82 Vol 94 Iss 52)
1981 - 2,760,000 (KI RTT pg 104)
1980 - 2,475,000 (estimate, KI RTT pg 98 references a 10% drop in attendance from prev year)
1979 - 2,750,000 (KI RTT pg 96)
1978 - 2,600,000 (KI RTT pg 82)
1977 - 2,500,000 (KI RTT pg 81)
1976 - 2,525,000 (estimate, 1% increase from 1977, KI RTT pg 81)
1975 - 2,364,400 (estimate, 8% decrease from 1974 - KI RTT pg 66)
1974 - 2,570,000 (KI RTT pg 63)
1973 - 2,400,000 (KI RTT pg 58)
1972 - 2,012,000 (KI RTT pg 54)

I hope to update this yearly when AECOM, or another party, releases their yearly report. The hope is they keep including Kings Island!
Until next time, cheers!

[Tr0y]

Paramount had a higher average attendance overall during its ownership with Kings Island compared to Cedar Fair. And that’s not counting 2020 because of Covid:

 

[DonHelbig]

13 hours ago, Tr0y said:

Paramount had a higher average attendance overall during its ownership with Kings Island compared to Cedar Fair. And that’s not counting 2020 because of Covid:

 

Worth noting: The Paramount years also had the highest number of comp tickets in the history of Kings Island. 

[BeeastFarmer]

What stands out to me: generally after a major roller coaster is installed, there is no significant bump in attendance. Mystic Timbers had a slight increase, but that's also when WinterFest returned.  

I guess since the park is so heavy in passholders, they are happy with the average attendance.

OP: thanks for the data.  How hard would it be to do this for CP?

[Coasterteam]

25 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

OP: thanks for the data.  How hard would it be to do this for CP?

Up to a certain year, about the same, but since I don't think there's any record of early attendance (like you know, 100 years ago). I have data for it up to 1971, but anything before that, not sure if the park even has those figures anymore. Granted, I haven't dug for any data before that. TheParkDatabase has it already listed up to 1971 anyway, check it out here: https://www.theparkdb.com/results/in/name/3/view_details (You will need an account to view all attendance figures)

[MysticTimberwolf]

I speculate that attendance is tracked hourly through the ticket booths, (incidentally including some employee stragglers going in and out). I also speculate that data is archived as far back as said metric was tracked.

[IndyGuy4KI]

I would love to put this on the main site and reference this thread. You ok with that @Coasterteam?

[BoddaH1994]

4 hours ago, DonHelbig said:

Worth noting: The Paramount years also had the highest number of comp tickets in the history of Kings Island. 

I was gonna say, wasn’t there a large local company where the employees could get in for free with just a business card for a few years under Paramount?

[Coasterteam]

7 minutes ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

I would love to put this on the main site and reference this thread. You ok with that @Coasterteam?

Sure!

[IndyGuy4KI]

Just now, Coasterteam said:

Sure!

Cool. At CP right now, but hopefully I can get it created this week.

[DonHelbig]

7 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

I was gonna say, wasn’t there a large local company where the employees could get in for free with just a business card for a few years under Paramount?

They could get up to 10 tickets any time they wanted. 

[DispatchMaster]

On 8/17/2024 at 11:42 AM, BeeastFarmer said:

What stands out to me: generally after a major roller coaster is installed, there is no significant bump in attendance.

By all accounts the same holds true for Cedar Point. The coaster lineup is maintained and refreshed in order to maintain the park's draw, since attendance growth is finite. That's why Orion didn't need to be 13' taller, why a set of dueling water coasters is a reasonable use of cap ex, etc.

 

[Tr0y]

5 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:

By all accounts the same holds true for Cedar Point. The coaster lineup is maintained and refreshed in order to maintain the park's draw, since attendance growth is finite. That's why Orion didn't need to be 13' taller, why a set of dueling water coasters is a reasonable use of cap ex, etc.

 

Orion is the only “giga” which the attendance declined:

Before Orion:

2019 - 3,521,000

After Orion:

2021 - 3,181,000
2020 - 1,626,000
 

[Outdoor Man]

I'm sort of surprised to see the 2021 attendance numbers similar to the 2009-2016 numbers. We attended a fair amount in 2021- but until the State of Ohio dropped masking requirements in mid-June of that year the crowds seemed rather light to me.

[DispatchMaster]

33 minutes ago, Tr0y said:

Orion is the only “giga” which the attendance declined:

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not being serious with this claim, because it would be a really absurd argument to point to pandemic-affected attendance as evidence of what you're suggesting. Obviously no one is so incredibly obtuse that they'd make such an argument in good faith, right?

[TombRaiderFTW]

It's worth noting that the AECOM/TEA attendance report is an estimation and not based on figures released by parks.

I highly recommend not treating those numbers as factual. It's my opinion that AECOM/TEA does an alright job of generally tracking attendance trends (e.g. attendance is down at a given park in a year) but it's a mistake to use the attendance numbers themselves as proof of anything.

[SonofBaconator]

5 hours ago, Outdoor Man said:

I'm sort of surprised to see the 2021 attendance numbers similar to the 2009-2016 numbers. We attended a fair amount in 2021- but until the State of Ohio dropped masking requirements in mid-June of that year the crowds seemed rather light to me

 

Whether those numbers are accurate or not, I’m personally not surprised 2021 wasn’t over 3.3 mil. There were still people choosing to social distance, despite restrictions being lifted.

[Coasterteam]

1 hour ago, TombRaiderFTW said:

It's worth noting that the AECOM/TEA attendance report is an estimation and not based on figures released by parks.

I highly recommend not treating those numbers as factual. It's my opinion that AECOM/TEA does an alright job of generally tracking attendance trends (e.g. attendance is down at a given park in a year) but it's a mistake to use the attendance numbers themselves as proof of anything.

Did not know this, thanks for the information. Still keeping it as it seems like the most accurate number, despite being an estimate.

[Tr0y]

6 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not being serious with this claim, because it would be a really absurd argument to point to pandemic-affected attendance as evidence of what you're suggesting. Obviously no one is so incredibly obtuse that they'd make such an argument in good faith, right?

Statically speaking each coaster since Diamondback has on average added 179k to the attendance per season. With the exception being Orion:

Diamondback between the years 2009-2013 averaged 3,133,400 attendance per season.

Banshee between the years 2014-2016 averaged 3,319,000 attendance per season.

Mystic Timbers between the years 2017-2019 averaged 3,492,000 attendance per season.

Orion, excluding the years 2020-2022, best season in 2023, averaged 3,488,000 attendance.

 

 

Each of those coasters had the highest park attendance during the season prior to a new coaster being built:

Diamondback in 2013 the park had 3,206,000 in attendance. 

Banshee in 2016 the park had 3,384,000 in attendance.

Mystic Timbers in 2019 the park had 3,521,000 in attendnance.

Orion in 2023 the park had 3,488,000 in attendance.

 

If you include the average increase of 179,000 in attendance for each respective coaster addition since Diamondback. Orion in the year 2023 should have put the parks attendance number in the ballpark of 3,673,00 for the year prior to Snoopy’s Soap Box Racer. However that is not the case. Orion’s last season had less guest attendance than Mystic Timbers.

[ShedTreeBoi1]

6 hours ago, Tr0y said:

Orion is the only “giga” which the attendance declined:

Before Orion:

 

2019 - 3,521,000

After Orion:

2021 - 3,181,000
2020 - 1,626,000
 

Causation and correlation are different things. Orion very likely did not cause a decrease in park attendance, that is a ridiculous claim. I'm sure you're rage baiting, but if you're not, I'll be praying for you to clear your mind.

[DispatchMaster]

12 hours ago, Tr0y said:

Statically speaking

The only thing that can even come close to being "statistically" demonstrated is that there is a long-term trend of attendance growth. You're trying to draw a broad conclusion (based on a clear personal bias, I would add) using a few points of data, which is not "statistics". There are a lot of variables even if we ignore the global pandemic - weather, regional economy, market competition, ticket price, season pass mix, pricing promotions, etc. - and the more variables there are, the larger your data set needs to be to be considered statistically-robust.

But, and this should go without saying, but here we are, we can't ignore the global pandemic! The pandemic had profound impacts on the economy, travel, etc., that continue to affect the economy to this day, and regional amusement parks are quite obviously not immune to that impact.

Also, as TombRaider points out, these numbers are not reliable. They're estimates, and "estimate" is nothing more than a fancy word for "guess". It's not what would be considered hard data. And without hard data, any detailed analysis is useless (garbage in = garbage out).

[rlentless]

Assuming these numbers are close to correct.  Just curious, what could KI ever do to the break the 4 million mark?  Or is 3-3.5 million the best a seasonal park in the middle of Ohio could ever hope to achieve.  Not saying that is bad thing, those are great numbers for a seasonal amusement park.  But would an expansion, record breaker, theming, etc. ever get it past that 4mil mark?  Free ticket??

[RollerColt]

On 8/17/2024 at 2:35 PM, BoddaH1994 said:

I was gonna say, wasn’t there a large local company where the employees could get in for free with just a business card for a few years under Paramount?

The company in my hometown always had comp days. Like Don said, up to 10 per employee. It was nuts. They'd invite extended family members, friends of their kids and all sorts of other people to come along. Most years practically the entire town was at the park. 

[BeeastFarmer]

53 minutes ago, rlentless said:

Assuming these numbers are close to correct.  Just curious, what could KI ever do to the break the 4 million mark?  Or is 3-3.5 million the best a seasonal park in the middle of Ohio could ever hope to achieve.  Not saying that is bad thing, those are great numbers for a seasonal amusement park.  But would an expansion, record breaker, theming, etc. ever get it past that 4mil mark?  Free ticket??

It appears to me that the park looks at slow but steady overall growth in attendance numbers. Family additions are currently all the rage with thrill additions sprinkled in across the regional park scene...along with festivals/special events.

I'd conjecture that season pass sales are a huge part of the strategy.  When listening to the quarterly conference calls, they emphasize pass sales.  With the festivals and family additions, it seems a strategy of increasing SP visits would help to grow attendance (for a fictional example,they may say " in 2018, our average season pass holder visited 3 three times.  We would like to incrementally increase these visits to 5 by 2022 and 7 by 2025.")  In this scenario, they are counting on passholders buying extras...pins, posters, blue ice cream, tasting cards (dog!) etc.

A large thrill coaster will not be a draw unless the property is a resort, like CP.  But even there, they are trying to increase season pass sales.

[Old_Bearcat]

attendance figures ≠ season pass sales, correct?  so if the addition of Orion boosted season pass sales revenue (for X amount of years) then its measured as a success 

[DoomPlague]

6 hours ago, rlentless said:

Assuming these numbers are close to correct.  Just curious, what could KI ever do to the break the 4 million mark?  Or is 3-3.5 million the best a seasonal park in the middle of Ohio could ever hope to achieve.  Not saying that is bad thing, those are great numbers for a seasonal amusement park.  But would an expansion, record breaker, theming, etc. ever get it past that 4mil mark?  Free ticket??

I suspect the easiest would be more operating days, and I mean just more than a couple extra weekends. They potentially could experiment with some more evening-only dates, maybe with reduced operations. There are plenty of people in the area willing to show up for just a couple hours.

Otherwise, I think the park would need a serious expansion to drive up the numbers, including a parking expansion and the chain just isn't interested in that.

[Imperial79]

So adding more operating days, then the next is Planet Snoopy/Camp Snoopy and then Soak City. Has the park ever opened any earlier than what they do now?  

[DispatchMaster]

21 hours ago, rlentless said:

Just curious, what could KI ever do to the break the 4 million mark?

Probably just wait until the Cincy Metro Area population grows enough to support that level of attendance. Amusement parks are what they are, and so long as the parks maintain a certain level of cap ex to maintain their appeal relative to other forms of recreation, they will continue to be a draw. But because they're a known quantity, the idea that building a certain coaster/attraction will create a sustained jump in attendance doesn't make sense, and in fact is not supported by whatever attendance data we can get our hands on, nor is it supported by first hand accounts of the folks who work in the industry. In fact, their known quantity status likely means the most realistic way to achieve growth would be to diversify what they offer, rather than install some RCT fever dream roller coaster. That's why up in Sandusky they've been diversifying with Sports Force Park, Sawmill Creek, etc.

[rlentless]

Here’s an idea that may work to increase attendance.  Most seem to agree we need more Pass Holder visits and more family style attractions.

1.  Extend Rivertown by creating ‘The Beast’ village.  At the back end of this new village add ziplines, tree canopy tour, types of attractions you might find in Pigeon Forge.

2. Then during the Fall Season it becomes a “Renaissance Festival”.  The Renaissance Festival in Ohio draws 200,000 year.  You can be stuck for an hour or more trying to get in.  Just think how crowded all the Fall Festivals are around here . . people love them.
3. Now from Sep 20^th thru Dec 31^st you have Trick or Treats, Renaissance Festival, Halloween Haunt and Winterfest.  With that lineup offer the “Bronze” pass good for the Fall/Winter season . . just like the Silver pass is good for the Summer season. 

 

 

My wife has a Gold Pass just for Winterfest.  Otherwise she probably would not have any pass.  With an extended fall/winter lineup people may opt for it.  I don’t know, maybe a stretch.  But in my circle we are already marking our calendars and planning for these Fall festivals.

 

[Tr0y]

6 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:

Probably just wait until the Cincy Metro Area population grows enough to support that level of attendance. Amusement parks are what they are, and so long as the parks maintain a certain level of cap ex to maintain their appeal relative to other forms of recreation, they will continue to be a draw. But because they're a known quantity, the idea that building a certain coaster/attraction will create a sustained jump in attendance doesn't make sense, and in fact is not supported by whatever attendance data we can get our hands on, nor is it supported by first hand accounts of the folks who work in the industry. In fact, their known quantity status likely means the most realistic way to achieve growth would be to diversify what they offer, rather than install some RCT fever dream roller coaster. That's why up in Sandusky they've been diversifying with Sports Force Park, Sawmill Creek, etc.

The Cincinnati metro area experienced a 6% increase in population between the years 2010-2020

In the same timeframe Kings Island on the other hand between the years 2009-2019 experienced an attendance increase of 17.3%
 

If KI attendance figures followed the metro population of the area it resides in. Then the attendance number should be much lower.