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Valleyfair (VF) Discussion Thread


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"Standard capex" aka $75 million.

 

A front-gate B&M would be ~$15 million.

 

Considering Talon cost $14 million in 2006 you think the park can get a front gate B&M 10 plus years later AND redesign the front gates to be integrated with it like CP or CW for $15 million in 2018? And realistically the Dino's cannot leave until 2020 at the earliest due to their contract so just add a few more dollars and keep dreaming.

 

RMC High Roller = $10 million.

 

Here's why it has to go: Same reason as Excalibur. Because they are dangerous rides. In Excalibur, there is a moment where if you fling your arm to the right it would get amputated. It's 1:15 in this video:

 

Likewise, in High Roller, the wood on the left and right of the trains is very closer (much closer than modern wooden coasters) and your arms could get amputated in High Roller as well.

 

Considering the park just added 'new' PTC trains to High Roller last year probably means the coaster isn't going anywhere for at least 10 years. If Matt Quimet was really worried about the safety of High Roller more would have been done last year to make it 'safe' than just adding new trains.

 

Considering High Roller just celebrated 40 years of operations along with Excalibur's 27 years and both coasters having ZERO amputations during that time with no other accidents there are no real safety concerns here. Only your made up hyperbole.

 

Waterpark expansion = $20 million.

 

So the park is going to add a 4000 car parking lot, move and add mileage to an existing service road vital to operations of the park, fill in wetlands that would be disturbed for this move, secure the new area's of the park that were created by the moving of the service road and the new part of the waterpark, remove a coaster (Excalibur), create a new back entrance and also add some new water slides and attractions for only $20 million? Good luck with that.

 

Flat rides = $5 million.

 

I am curious on this because I always think any park can use a new flat ride so I have to ask. What ride(s) exactly would be added? And where are you going to put them?

 

So that's $50 million over 5 years, or $10 million per year. Very doable.

 

I think your $50 million is way too small a budget to do what you want and not doable at all. Like Password121 said, 'Standard Capex' aka $75 million...or even higher if you ask me. And why would you want to RMC High Roller? If your going to dream, why not go big and remove High Roller and use all of the existing land already there with the 'new' land to the north of it that was created when they moved the old picnic area? You could even move the entrance of the coaster line queue while you were at it.

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"Standard capex" aka $75 million.

 

A front-gate B&M would be ~$15 million.

 

Considering Talon cost $14 million in 2006 you think the park can get a front gate B&M 10 plus years later AND redesign the front gates to be integrated with it like CP or CW for $15 million in 2018? And realistically the Dino's cannot leave until 2020 at the earliest due to their contract so just add a few more dollars and keep dreaming.

 

RMC High Roller = $10 million.

 

Here's why it has to go: Same reason as Excalibur. Because they are dangerous rides. In Excalibur, there is a moment where if you fling your arm to the right it would get amputated. It's 1:15 in this video:

 

Likewise, in High Roller, the wood on the left and right of the trains is very closer (much closer than modern wooden coasters) and your arms could get amputated in High Roller as well.

 

Considering the park just added 'new' PTC trains to High Roller last year probably means the coaster isn't going anywhere for at least 10 years. If Matt Quimet was really worried about the safety of High Roller more would have been done last year to make it 'safe' than just adding new trains.

 

Considering High Roller just celebrated 40 years of operations along with Excalibur's 27 years and both coasters having ZERO amputations during that time with no other accidents there are no real safety concerns here. Only your made up hyperbole.

 

Waterpark expansion = $20 million.

 

So the park is going to add a 4000 car parking lot, move and add mileage to an existing service road vital to operations of the park, fill in wetlands that would be disturbed for this move, secure the new area's of the park that were created by the moving of the service road and the new part of the waterpark, remove a coaster (Excalibur), create a new back entrance and also add some new water slides and attractions for only $20 million? Good luck with that.

 

Flat rides = $5 million.

 

I am curious on this because I always think any park can use a new flat ride so I have to ask. What ride(s) exactly would be added? And where are you going to put them?

 

So that's $50 million over 5 years, or $10 million per year. Very doable.

 

I think your $50 million is way too small a budget to do what you want and not doable at all. Like Password121 said, 'Standard Capex' aka $75 million...or even higher if you ask me. And why would you want to RMC High Roller? If your going to dream, why not go big and remove High Roller and use all of the existing land already there with the 'new' land to the north of it that was created when they moved the old picnic area? You could even move the entrance of the coaster line queue while you were at it.

 

2.2 million people live within a 50 mile radius of Carowinds. Meanwhile, 3.2 million people (45% more) live within a 50 mile radius of Valleyfair. If Carowinds gets a $30 million coaster (Fury 325) plus so much more, why doesn't Valleyfair get a major CapEx investment as well?

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"Standard capex" aka $75 million.

 

A front-gate B&M would be ~$15 million.

 

Considering Talon cost $14 million in 2006 you think the park can get a front gate B&M 10 plus years later AND redesign the front gates to be integrated with it like CP or CW for $15 million in 2018? And realistically the Dino's cannot leave until 2020 at the earliest due to their contract so just add a few more dollars and keep dreaming.

 

RMC High Roller = $10 million.

 

Here's why it has to go: Same reason as Excalibur. Because they are dangerous rides. In Excalibur, there is a moment where if you fling your arm to the right it would get amputated. It's 1:15 in this video:

 

Likewise, in High Roller, the wood on the left and right of the trains is very closer (much closer than modern wooden coasters) and your arms could get amputated in High Roller as well.

 

Considering the park just added 'new' PTC trains to High Roller last year probably means the coaster isn't going anywhere for at least 10 years. If Matt Quimet was really worried about the safety of High Roller more would have been done last year to make it 'safe' than just adding new trains.

 

Considering High Roller just celebrated 40 years of operations along with Excalibur's 27 years and both coasters having ZERO amputations during that time with no other accidents there are no real safety concerns here. Only your made up hyperbole.

 

Waterpark expansion = $20 million.

 

So the park is going to add a 4000 car parking lot, move and add mileage to an existing service road vital to operations of the park, fill in wetlands that would be disturbed for this move, secure the new area's of the park that were created by the moving of the service road and the new part of the waterpark, remove a coaster (Excalibur), create a new back entrance and also add some new water slides and attractions for only $20 million? Good luck with that.

 

Flat rides = $5 million.

 

I am curious on this because I always think any park can use a new flat ride so I have to ask. What ride(s) exactly would be added? And where are you going to put them?

 

So that's $50 million over 5 years, or $10 million per year. Very doable.

 

I think your $50 million is way too small a budget to do what you want and not doable at all. Like Password121 said, 'Standard Capex' aka $75 million...or even higher if you ask me. And why would you want to RMC High Roller? If your going to dream, why not go big and remove High Roller and use all of the existing land already there with the 'new' land to the north of it that was created when they moved the old picnic area? You could even move the entrance of the coaster line queue while you were at it.

 

2.2 million people live within a 50 mile radius of Carowinds. Meanwhile, 3.2 million people (45% more) live within a 50 mile radius of Valleyfair. If Carowinds gets a $30 million coaster (Fury 325) plus so much more, why doesn't Valleyfair get a major CapEx investment as well?

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^

While the Twin Cities are larger than Charlotte, North and South Carolina have a combined population of about 15 million, while Minnesota only has a population of 5.5 million. Add in a few million more to account for potential visitors from Wisconsin, Iowa, & the Dakotas, and VF's market is still considerably smaller than Carowinds.

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2.2 million people live within a 50 mile radius of Carowinds. Meanwhile, 3.2 million people (45% more) live within a 50 mile radius of Valleyfair. If Carowinds gets a $30 million coaster (Fury 325) plus so much more, why doesn't Valleyfair get a major CapEx investment as well?

 

Because

 

A) Charlotte is in a southern climate and has the potential of 9 month operation. Minneapolis St. Paul won't be in that position for probably 30 years, by which point food shortages will be bigger concerns to the populace.

 

B) Extending the radius to 150 miles, you find that Charlotte has 13.1 million people within that range with a projected population growth rate of 15%. Minneapolis-St. Paul has 5.7 million people in a 150 mile range with a projected population growth rate of ~7%. Even if you extend out the radius to 250 miles from Minneapolis, you have a pretty stable 7ish percent growth rate and fewer people (11 million) than Charlotte has within 150 miles.

 

C) Carowinds closest significant competition as the crow flies is 154 miles away (Dollywood). Valleyfair's most significant competition is 11 miles away. Valleyfair's most significant competition is open 365 days a year and is immune to bad weather. There's also a water park very close by to that competitor which is probably open around 250 days.

 

D) Charlotte doesn't have a giant multi-day event to siphon off tourists from Carowinds in the form of a giant fair. The North Carolina Fair does just over a million people and ranks in as the US/Canada's 17th largest, but it's all the way in Raleigh, 2 1/2 hours by car. And it's in October, when the park isn't running daily operations anyhow. Valleyfair shares a metro area with the Minnesota State Fair, which runs in late August to Labor Day, AKA peak season. The Minnesota State Fair is the most attended fair outside of Texas, ranking #4 on the continent and getting over 100,000 people a day in the turnstiles and 1.9 million over its run this year. As you might expect for such a big deal, it has its own independent midway rides and attractions and will lure people away from Valleyfair right at the time Valleyfair is most wanting those guests.

 

So basically: The demographics are bad, the location is cold, and the competition is a lot stiffer, so Cedar Fair is not going to sink millions into it the same way they do Carowinds.

 

Sorry, I'm unable to accept the crocodile tears knowing that tomorrow morning, you can drive a short distance and ride a flying theater, a dark ride, one of the top log flumes in the US, multiple adults sized roller coasters, and some fairly unique flat rides all day long if you so desired...on a Wednesday. In December. All right around the 45th Parallel.

Edited by DirkFunk
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2.2 million people live within a 50 mile radius of Carowinds. Meanwhile, 3.2 million people (45% more) live within a 50 mile radius of Valleyfair. If Carowinds gets a $30 million coaster (Fury 325) plus so much more, why doesn't Valleyfair get a major CapEx investment as well?

 

Because

 

A) Charlotte is in a southern climate and has the potential of 9 month operation. Minneapolis St. Paul won't be in that position for probably 30 years, by which point food shortages will be bigger concerns to the populace.

 

B) Extending the radius to 150 miles, you find that Charlotte has 13.1 million people within that range with a projected population growth rate of 15%. Minneapolis-St. Paul has 5.7 million people in a 150 mile range with a projected population growth rate of ~7%. Even if you extend out the radius to 250 miles from Minneapolis, you have a pretty stable 7ish percent growth rate and fewer people (11 million) than Charlotte has within 150 miles.

 

C) Carowinds closest significant competition as the crow flies is 154 miles away (Dollywood). Valleyfair's most significant competition is 11 miles away. Valleyfair's most significant competition is open 365 days a year and is immune to bad weather. There's also a water park very close by to that competitor which is probably open around 250 days.

 

D) Charlotte doesn't have a giant multi-day event to siphon off tourists from Carowinds in the form of a giant fair. The North Carolina Fair does just over a million people and ranks in as the US/Canada's 17th largest, but it's all the way in Raleigh, 2 1/2 hours by car. And it's in October, when the park isn't running daily operations anyhow. Valleyfair shares a metro area with the Minnesota State Fair, which runs in late August to Labor Day, AKA peak season. The Minnesota State Fair is the most attended fair outside of Texas, ranking #4 on the continent and getting over 100,000 people a day in the turnstiles and 1.9 million over its run this year. As you might expect for such a big deal, it has its own independent midway rides and attractions and will lure people away from Valleyfair right at the time Valleyfair is most wanting those guests.

 

So basically: The demographics are bad, the location is cold, and the competition is a lot stiffer, so Cedar Fair is not going to sink millions into it the same way they do Carowinds.

 

that's a good analysis. however, in the case of mall of america as competition, wouldn't that be incentive for valleyfair to build something distinct, i.e., a massive roller coaster, that you could never do at MoA?

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that's a good analysis. however, in the case of mall of america as competition, wouldn't that be incentive for valleyfair to build something distinct, i.e., a massive roller coaster, that you could never do at MoA?

 

Whatever they build at Valleyfair isn't something I can ride during a long layover at MSP on a weekday in February. That's inherently limiting. I haven't even been to Valleyfair itself in 12 years, but I've been to the MOA recently enough to go on Shell Shock.

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OK So then what's the point here? Are we supposed to resign ourselves to eternal mediocrity for Valleyfair?

 

I guess I don't understand the point of a company making a mediocre product. If I ran Cedar Fair I would focus in on the best properties and put all my resources toward building those. So if they don't care about Michigan's Adventure, then let it go and direct your resources to making Kings Dominion or Carowinds even better. If they don't care about Valleyfair, cut it loose. If they care about it, do something with it.

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that's a good analysis. however, in the case of mall of america as competition, wouldn't that be incentive for valleyfair to build something distinct, i.e., a massive roller coaster, that you could never do at MoA?

 

Whatever they build at Valleyfair isn't something I can ride during a long layover at MSP on a weekday in February. That's inherently limiting. I haven't even been to Valleyfair itself in 12 years, but I've been to the MOA recently enough to go on Shell Shock.

 

You all are being a bit hard on jordanwilcox11! Yes, maybe his cost number are off but his enthusiasm is spot on. Dirk, how can you even comment when you haven't even been to Valleyfair in over a decade. The park has changed immensely in the last 12 years and when you look at what they have done and are trying to do it's pretty evident that they are prepping the park for significant growth. just in the last 5 or 6 years, Cedar fair has invested 30-40 million into the park. If you go back into the archives of newsplusnotes.com and look up Cedar Fair posts you will find the Cedar Fair posts stating that Valleyfair has been marked a growth park and they see significant growth for Valleyfair, California's Great America and Carowinds. They said Carowinds will be first. The original post is on 12-11-13 with followups on 5-2-15 and 11-7-15. I also was looking for information on each parks market share but was not able to find it, but it has Valleyfair with a market of over 8 million. I believe it had Carowinds at 7 million and Canada's Wonderland at 9 million. Does someone have that info still that they can share? The point is that Valleyfair has great growth potential even with Nick U. In fact, I think having Nick U. so close is a benefit to Valleyfair. They are two completely different parks and not really fair to compare them. During Valleyfairs operating months I would chose to go there over Nick U. 100% of the time. Nick U. is cool during the winter but it just can't compare to what Valleyfair has to offer, not even close. Honestly, I would guess that most Nick U. visitors are from out of state or country and go there because they wanted to see the mall not because they wanted to visit the park. The state fair does impact attendance for Valleyfair but ValleyScare makes up for that. When the weather is nice the park has their highest attendances of the year during haunt. Valleyfair's haunt is among the top haunts of all Cedar Fair parks that have a haunt event. So jordanwilcox11....keep up the good work....just leave the cost of attractions out of it.

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Valleyfair and Nick Universe definitely do compete to some extent, though I don't think the competition is quite as fierce as some suggest. Both parks have different clientele visiting for different reasons. The vast majority of VF's visitors live in the park's primary market and are obviously going there to experience an amusement park. Meanwhile, Mall of America attracts a lot of tourists and most guests visiting Nick Universe aren't going to the mall strictly for the park (I'm sure some do, though I can't imagine it's a very high number).

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My .02 regarding the Army Corps plans:

-Valleyfair sits on semi-protected land--which attracts environmental nuts

-The submitted plans for all we know is a test of the waters seeing how much this will cost (most likely somewhere between "ouch" and "boing")

-Politics involved with the approval of the plans (even more money)

-All this money adds up quickly just to get the plans submitted and approved--before dirt starts moving.

-Minor terraforming so that the park can build on the land in question. ($$$$)

-The plans call for the removal of a major attraction, new entrance (and staff), parking lot, and employee access road BEFORE building new attractions.

-All of this requires a lot of time as well--possibly several seasons worth of dirt-pushing before Excalibur can even come down. And that infrastructure work could most likely be done only in the offseason before/after winter.

 

While yes, there would be amazing benefits to the plans

-more buildable land

-less frequent flooding

-guests don't complain about walking from the main entrance just to get to soak city

-Excalibur's demise (MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA )

 

But unless you are willing to donate your winning lottery ticket to the park, I would not recommend holding your breath.

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I think Valleyfair will be a major growth park soon, but it's not going to come around as fast as everyone wants, and too many people have "given up" on that aspect. Now that Carowinds has had it's fair share of major growth and development, the next would be CGA as is shown with their major plans for development showing a hyper coaster and other things. Once CGA is done I think is when you will start seeing more exponential growth in Valleyfair. So somewhere from 2025 to 2035 is when I would bet to see more capital expenses. Hopefully the proposal goes through to help set the foundation for that.

 

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OK So then what's the point here? Are we supposed to resign ourselves to eternal mediocrity for Valleyfair?

 

You can be mad that you have a competently run amusement park with a hyper coaster, two wood coasters, crazy unique Arrow mine train, etc. Or you can enjoy it and the fact that you're by far the northern most community in the US to have that and access to a second theme park year round and arguably the best fair in the Americas. It's up to you.

 

Dirk, how can you even comment when you haven't even been to Valleyfair in over a decade. The park has changed immensely in the last 12 years and when you look at what they have done and are trying to do it's pretty evident that they are prepping the park for significant growth.

 

Being a target for growth and being a target for a $30 million dollar roller coaster can be entirely exclusive things. The same posts you suggest linking to from the calls indicate that they were pleased with the way the market reacted to their additions in 2015, which were water park based. I'm not saying they won't get a new coaster ever; that's just not realistic. But to expect or even demand Fury 325 is even less realistic. And even if they get their Fury 325 (a result I don't expect), invariably it will "get old" to people who visit there because any ride at any park can get to feel old to someone who visits an individual park enough. "Growth" can be derived from water park expansion, after all.

 

As far as market size goes, there's a number of tools which basically work to pull data from GIS that you can play around with on the internet. Here's a pull from a different site with two radii set of 150 miles (241.401 KM) from the rough area the parks are around. Since that just fell short of Duluth from Valleyfair's location in the Minneapolis St. Paul area, I even spotted an extra 20KM on radius to give them a few more folks. Beyond just saying "statistics," look at the number of cities each radius encompasses. In fairness, more of the cities in the Carowinds radius are in competition with other amusement/theme parks than in the Valleyfair radius, but then again, most of the cities on Valleyfair's radius are tiny. So for fun, I created a freeform gigantic map that more than doubled a theoretical Valleyfair market space, and we're still millions below Carowinds in terms of population. Maybe if I could include Canada, you'd get closer, but how many are doing the 7-8 hour drive from Winnipeg?

carowinds.jpg.3571e2739c8ba43a9726ffd5252fb137.jpg

valleyfair.jpg.51f6be2fccbe59c734258e3878ca8270.jpg

valleyfair2.thumb.png.6cdc72896fd8e24f3a8301119a3ff355.png

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I think Valleyfair will be a major growth park soon, but it's not going to come around as fast as everyone wants, and too many people have "given up" on that aspect. Now that Carowinds has had it's fair share of major growth and development, the next would be CGA as is shown with their major plans for development showing a hyper coaster and other things. Once CGA is done I think is when you will start seeing more exponential growth in Valleyfair. So somewhere from 2025 to 2035 is when I would bet to see more capital expenses. Hopefully the proposal goes through to help set the foundation for that.

 

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If Adventureland in little Des Moines Iowa gets Monster, then the fact that a Cedar Fair park supposedly pegged for growth gets no new roller coaster in 10 years is nothing short of epic fail.

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I think Valleyfair will be a major growth park soon, but it's not going to come around as fast as everyone wants, and too many people have "given up" on that aspect. Now that Carowinds has had it's fair share of major growth and development, the next would be CGA as is shown with their major plans for development showing a hyper coaster and other things. Once CGA is done I think is when you will start seeing more exponential growth in Valleyfair. So somewhere from 2025 to 2035 is when I would bet to see more capital expenses. Hopefully the proposal goes through to help set the foundation for that.

 

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

If Adventureland in little Des Moines Iowa gets Monster, then the fact that a Cedar Fair park supposedly pegged for growth gets no new roller coaster in 10 years is nothing short of epic fail.

 

They also went 23 years without getting a new roller coaster (if you count Underground, then just 20) and when they did get one, it was under $10 mil.

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I think Valleyfair will be a major growth park soon, but it's not going to come around as fast as everyone wants, and too many people have "given up" on that aspect. Now that Carowinds has had it's fair share of major growth and development, the next would be CGA as is shown with their major plans for development showing a hyper coaster and other things. Once CGA is done I think is when you will start seeing more exponential growth in Valleyfair. So somewhere from 2025 to 2035 is when I would bet to see more capital expenses. Hopefully the proposal goes through to help set the foundation for that.

 

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

If Adventureland in little Des Moines Iowa gets Monster, then the fact that a Cedar Fair park supposedly pegged for growth gets no new roller coaster in 10 years is nothing short of epic fail.

 

They also went 23 years without getting a new roller coaster (if you count Underground, then just 20) and when they did get one, it was under $10 mil.

 

But that's the point. It's a beautiful coaster. And the fact that it's under $10 million for such a beautiful, epic ride, and Valleyfair gets nothing of the sort, is a disgrace. Meanwhile, the sister park Cedar Point gets ride after ride after ride. You can apply your radius analysis to Sandusky Ohio and come up short of Minneapolis population wise.

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I think Valleyfair will be a major growth park soon, but it's not going to come around as fast as everyone wants, and too many people have "given up" on that aspect. Now that Carowinds has had it's fair share of major growth and development, the next would be CGA as is shown with their major plans for development showing a hyper coaster and other things. Once CGA is done I think is when you will start seeing more exponential growth in Valleyfair. So somewhere from 2025 to 2035 is when I would bet to see more capital expenses. Hopefully the proposal goes through to help set the foundation for that.

 

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

If Adventureland in little Des Moines Iowa gets Monster, then the fact that a Cedar Fair park supposedly pegged for growth gets no new roller coaster in 10 years is nothing short of epic fail.

 

They also went 23 years without getting a new roller coaster (if you count Underground, then just 20) and when they did get one, it was under $10 mil.

 

But that's the point. It's a beautiful coaster. And the fact that it's under $10 million for such a beautiful, epic ride, and Valleyfair gets nothing of the sort, is a disgrace. Meanwhile, the sister park Cedar Point gets ride after ride after ride. You can apply your radius analysis to Sandusky Ohio and come up short of Minneapolis population wise.

 

Valleyfair got Renegade in 2007. If you don't get another coaster for a quarter century from there (so ~2030) and it turns out to be something akin to an Infinity Coaster, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you won't be happy about it.

 

The Detroit-Windsor area alone nearly matches that 150 mile radius from Minneapolis. Sandusky blows it (and Carowinds) out of the water.

1524428630_cedarpoint.jpg.ab48ed5f64d7b43417f339505ac9a163.jpg

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OK So then what's the point here? Are we supposed to resign ourselves to eternal mediocrity for Valleyfair?

 

I guess I don't understand the point of a company making a mediocre product. If I ran Cedar Fair I would focus in on the best properties and put all my resources toward building those. So if they don't care about Michigan's Adventure, then let it go and direct your resources to making Kings Dominion or Carowinds even better. If they don't care about Valleyfair, cut it loose. If they care about it, do something with it.

 

It's not that they "don't care" about Michigan's Adventure, they're just building things that fit the market. While they're all drawing from the same pool of capital, each park is viewed on an individual basis and each park gets additions that they feel will generate the best ROI. These parks aren't charity cases. They're not going to dump 25 million dollars into a coaster if they think it'll take years to pay for itself.

 

Also, (and this is important here) what everyone is forgetting in regards to Carowinds is that Cedar Fair didn't pay for this major multi-year expansion on their own. They convinced the city to pay for a major chunk of that by floating the typical bullsh*t carrot about increased tourism that sports teams use to get their respective cities to agree to atrocious new stadium deals. If the city of Minneapolis would like to spend tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to subsidize Valleyfair's next coaster I'm sure Cedar Fair would jump at that.

 

Also, when you say "Are we supposed to resign ourselves to eternal mediocrity for Valleyfair?", what are your options exactly? Isolated bitching from coaster enthusiasts isn't going to play any role in Cedar Fair's decision making process about capex... so basically you could be happy with what you have and with a series of additions that fit the market you're in, or you can complain which will get you absolutely nowhere. Whether or not you're "resigned to eternal mediocrity" has no impact on what Valleyfair does, complaining is not productive. You're not fighting the good fight by refusing to be "resigned to mediocrity".

 

But that's the point. It's a beautiful coaster. And the fact that it's under $10 million for such a beautiful, epic ride, and Valleyfair gets nothing of the sort, is a disgrace. Meanwhile, the sister park Cedar Point gets ride after ride after ride. You can apply your radius analysis to Sandusky Ohio and come up short of Minneapolis population wise.

 

Cedar Point is also a major tourist destination with on site, expensive hotels that raise guest spending on property exponentially and make it much easier for them to recover their investments in a shorter amount of time. In addition to their huge advantage in regards to per-guest spending, they also have significantly more impressive attendance numbers. Comparing them to Valleyfair makes absolutely no sense.

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I think Valleyfair will be a major growth park soon, but it's not going to come around as fast as everyone wants, and too many people have "given up" on that aspect. Now that Carowinds has had it's fair share of major growth and development, the next would be CGA as is shown with their major plans for development showing a hyper coaster and other things. Once CGA is done I think is when you will start seeing more exponential growth in Valleyfair. So somewhere from 2025 to 2035 is when I would bet to see more capital expenses. Hopefully the proposal goes through to help set the foundation for that.

 

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

If Adventureland in little Des Moines Iowa gets Monster, then the fact that a Cedar Fair park supposedly pegged for growth gets no new roller coaster in 10 years is nothing short of epic fail.

 

They also went 23 years without getting a new roller coaster (if you count Underground, then just 20) and when they did get one, it was under $10 mil.

 

But that's the point. It's a beautiful coaster. And the fact that it's under $10 million for such a beautiful, epic ride, and Valleyfair gets nothing of the sort, is a disgrace. Meanwhile, the sister park Cedar Point gets ride after ride after ride. You can apply your radius analysis to Sandusky Ohio and come up short of Minneapolis population wise.

 

Valleyfair got Renegade in 2007. If you don't get another coaster for a quarter century from there (so ~2030) and it turns out to be something akin to an Infinity Coaster, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you won't be happy about it.

 

The Detroit-Windsor area alone nearly matches that 150 mile radius from Minneapolis. Sandusky blows it (and Carowinds) out of the water.

 

Every Six Flags park feels like an adult park. Valleyfair feels like a children's park.

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