Do hypercoasters guarantee the long term success of a park?

[adavis]

I doubt that any particular type of ride is a "guarantee" of success. It all depends on the park's audience. For example, Holiday World is very successful with three woodies and one steel coaster (and a kiddie ride, at that). Holiday Park in Germany, however, needed something like Expedition Geforce to put it on the map.

 

Not a guarantee, obviously if it were that easy than every park would just build one. I just find it curious that every park that has gone 200 plus feet is still open, and so are these rides.

[cfc]

^I don't find this "curious" at all. There are many factors that go into a park's success (or lack of it)--for example, service, appearance, perceived value to the public--rather than just the presence of a 200-foot coaster. Each park finds its own way to succeed or fail.

[robbalvey]

I should have asked this question to every single ride manufacturer at IAAPA. I'm sure that would have gone over REAL well!

 

Oh, and the answer to your question was posted on the first page:

I think the correlation that you are pointing out comes from the fact that only well-established parks have the resources to build rides that large.

Edited November 18, 2012 by robbalvey

[Chroniq]

Wow. just wow..

 

So the original poster's metric of success is that if you build a hyper coaster then your park won't close within 20 years?

How about the idea that if your park can afford a capital expense of 20-30 million dollars then they are on solid financial footing?

 

 

I'd chock this up to the simple fact that parks that can afford this type capital expenditure are either A- corporate parks or B- Were doing well enough before the coaster was built to afford the expense or C- Have owners that are in it for the long run, no matter if the park has up or down years..

[JonnyRCT3]

Using the logic of this thread, I have a question for the OP.

 

How did parks maintain success before 1989, the year of the first Hyper-coaster?

 

A Twist!

[Chroniq]

^

[cfc]

Using the logic of this thread, I have a question for the OP.

 

How did parks maintain success before 1989, the year of the first Hyper-coaster?

 

A Twist!

 

Carousels and donkey rides.

Edited November 18, 2012 by cfc

[larrygator]

Paying customers are the only guarantee of long term success!

[adavis]

I'd chock this up to the simple fact that parks that can afford this type capital expenditure are either A- corporate parks or B- Were doing well enough before the coaster was built to afford the expense or C- Have owners that are in it for the long run, no matter if the park has up or down years..

 

I agree with you completely, and even listed it as an option in the first post.

 

Or, is this more of a situation where the type of parks that build a hypercoaster are just less likely to close in the first place?

 

What say you TPR? Is this a bizarre coincidence, or a fact of numbers and not height?

 

That said, it is a fun coincidence, and very likely nothing more. I was curious a couple of days ago whether a hypercoaster had ever been moved, and it turned out that none had. A little more research, and it turned out that all the parks that had opened a closed circuit 200+ foot tall ride were still running as well.

 

There are certainly other types of great rides out there that maintain a similar across the board popularity, but these ones don't close. I'm sure the next few years will see this change, most likely sooner rather than later.

[Chroniq]

^Well said..

 

According to the "Themed Entertainment Association" (TEA), the highest attended park in 2011 that wasn't a Disney or Universal Park was Lotte World (number 11) .. Maybe an AQUATRAX is the key to long term success ? (sorry, I had to take it there)

[adavis]

^Well said..

 

According to the "Themed Entertainment Association" (TEA), the highest attended park in 2011 that wasn't a Disney or Universal Park was Lotte World (number 11) .. Maybe an AQUATRAX is the key to long term success ? (sorry, I had to take it there)

 

Damn, right in the balls.

[simon8899]

It also depends on the audience targeted by a park. Six Flags is mostly about coasters in all sizes while other parks have their coasters but also invest into family rides or flats.

 

I for one love going over the Atlantic to ride all the huge coasters located in the US - but as I also love flats I've to say that the bigger German carnivals have a way better flat collection than most US parks. Maybe due to the fact that most major flat manufacturers (Huss, KMG, Mondial, Technical Park,...) today are located in Europe.

 

Next to that I also like to visit THEME parks like Disney, Efteling, Europa-Park or Phantasialand were you'll find various rides and mostly moderate thrills but their focus is on atmosphere, theming, acceptable food offering a great overall experience which most Six Flags or Cedar Point parks totally lack.

[gisco]

Nope, maybe the questioned should be asked the other way around. Do only successful parks install hypercoasters? Maybe it is the number of Dip N Dots stands in the park the guarantee success? There is probably no one thing that guarantees a parks success.

[goatdan]

Agree with everyone hear who says that the parks that have the resources to build a hypercoaster are generally the ones that won't shut down, but a little bit of information that may be relevant...

 

- As others have mentioned, Six Flags went bankrupt. The reason that it didn't close all it's parks was, when you stripped away what they were paying in bank fees, they made enough to be worth more as operating amusement parks then they did as vacant land. The parks that closed did so because they weren't generating enough money for whomever was the owner.

 

- While parks that have hypercoasters do tend to be the more successful parks, I can tell you that just because you build a hypercoaster it is no guarantee of long term success. For one example, a park that I know of built a hyper one year, and had a good attendance year, although it really didn't increase much from the year before. The following year, they decided not to do anything major, and had the largest year to year attendance drop in the history of the park. The presence of the hyper was not enough to draw the same crowd in it's second year even.

 

As for the question of which rides do parks need to be successful, there really is no rule at all. I think that success has to do with having both a variety of things to do, and a critical mass of 'stuff' for people to want to do while they are at a park. Too little, and lines will be really long and not worth it. Too much, and you'll be paying people to staff and maintain things that aren't getting used and people won't stay long because they'll get through what they want quickly. The too little way will guarantee you people won't come back, and the too much way will make it so they don't spend any money in the park, both of which can sink a park.

 

i think the main thing when adding any new attraction to a park is that it has to be marketable. What the means exactly is more open to interpretation, as a good marketing team can make something small and simple seem amazing, but if you can sell people on WHY they want to come, then you can get them to come.

 

It's a tough industry. Building a hyper isn't the answer.

[Meteornotes]

There are many, many factors that determine whether or not a park is successful (location, attractions, customer satisfaction, and many, many others). A hyper or any other ride is not going to guarantee success. If it did, every park owner would build one.

 

dt

[Kafka]

I know its been said before, but I agree that the correlation this post is based upon is probably misdirected. It is not that hypercoasters lead to the success of a park, but rather that parks that are successful are able to build hypercoasters. I do not believe that a hypercoaster is the correct decision for a park in all instances, but I do feel that they certainly can help generate interest in the park.

 

-Kafka-