redsoxnation

Nah, Roy Wally would just have the Moose out front take care of everybody!

This is more about risk management. They can run it empty or with fewer people but if a ride has a history of vallying due to a lack of weight, they are not going to take a risk of sending the train out without a certain number of rides and then having to evac potentially creating a safety hazard. It's far less of a risk to run a coaster without people than to have your paying customers stranded somewhere in an uncomfortable situation. It really is a bitch to evac a ride if it valleys, especially if it ends up coming to a stop where it's not easy to evac riders. So asking for a specific number of riders kind of kills to birds with one stone. 1. You have a better guarantee that the train will in fact come back to the station. 2. You avoid the risk of having to evac a train in an not-so-convenient spot (may even have to require cherry pickers or even worse the local fire department) and avoid having to dis-assemble the train, winch it back, or remove a piece of track in order to take the train off. (One of those three usually has to happen.) They normally figure out how much weight the train needs to make it around, let's say 2,000 pounds, and do an average weight per rider, let's say 175 and that would be 12 riders needed. Sometimes this number can change due to weather conditions. Perhaps on a day where the winds are above 20 MPH they may need 16 or 18 riders. (I'm just making these stats up as examples, I know nothing about the operations of El Toro, but I do know in general the operations of a coaster that needs x amount of weight to run.) Hope this helps explain things. --Robb Very true Robb, never been to SFGADV but I went to Vegas in January this year, pretty much entirely to hit Desperado, and that thing can be shut down at the drop of a hat, for any reason. It took a lot of careful planning, but it worked out great even got a bunch of solo rides and the ride ops were telling us that the last time it was open which was two days earlier it required 17 people, before it would leave the station due to wind. I'm not sure how many of you have been out to State Line to ride it, but there are certain days were they wont have 17 patrons buy tickets to ride desperado, in an entire day. You have to really plan, sometimes you also just have to get a little lucky too, especially when it comes to wind.

In all fairness, there are some great people associated with Haunt and they legitimately try to put on the best show possible night in, night out. People who are straight HHN to Knott's converts, I don't believe are able to completely appreciate the difference between the two, there is a very different feel to each event and that is intentional. Haunt, has long been known for the personality of it's characters and the event itself as a whole. Unfortunately, humans are creatures of habit and we tend to compare one experience in relation to how it stacks up vs another. Unfortunately for Haunt it was never intended to be and never will be HHN, it's not as "serious" an event as Universal's, the realism of the two events are light years away from one another. You really need to go to Knott's with a completely different mindset than to Universal, at Universal they will bring the scares to you, your really not going to have to do much work, at Haunt however it's kind of like the Nightmare before Christmas just a village full of crazy, creepy crawlies running around, but it's up to you, to interact and involve yourself in this world Knott's has created.

Thank you Matt, This really means a lot, and it was a very selfless thing to do, I can't find the words right now but Thank You!! TPR Rocks!!

Morning ERT on any of those coasters is gonna be amazing, just the variety of every one of the aforementioned coasters will be great.

Hey guys first time posting, it'll be really nice get a chance to be part of the discussion from here on out, so a big Hello to everyone. It'll be great to see you all Sunday, WCB sounds like it's gonna be a great one!