2014 Theme Park Attendance Report

[A.J.]

Crazy how regional theme parks in the U.S. haven't shown much growth in the last decade (perhaps even a decline) but Disney and Universal just keep tearing it up!! You'd think it'd be the opposite with the turn down in the economy, since regional parks are much more economical

Eh, don't be so sure that regional parks are staying still, that might not be the case. I'd like to see the top 25 amusement / theme parks in terms of percent attendance growth as opposed to just the attendance number.

[DirkFunk]

Crazy how regional theme parks in the U.S. haven't shown much growth in the last decade (perhaps even a decline) but Disney and Universal just keep tearing it up!! You'd think it'd be the opposite with the turn down in the economy, since regional parks are much more economical

 

Regional parks appeal to people regionally first, nationally far second, internationally not at all. Anyone who's been to Orlando in the last 5-6 years has seen a huge expansion in BRIC visitors - international visitors. So while prices are rising, attendance is going up because there is simply nowhere else that has the concentration and quality of theme parks as does Orlando, Florida, much less the other intangibles (i.e. cruise ports in Tampa and Canaveral being nearby, Miami and South Beach within a 4 hour drive).

 

On the other hand, while cities are increasing in size, so are the number of alternative entertainment options available to people. There's expansion of destination shopping, professional athletics, collegiate athletics, museums, movie theaters, and all sorts of competing outdoor entertainment. In most markets, there is no longer even competition among amusement or theme parks because the industry is in what you'd call a "mature market" phase. A mature market is one which has reached a state of equilibrium in which significant growth and/or innovation is no longer required or occurs. 40 years ago this was not the case, and that's when you saw suburban themers popping up like wildfire to copy the success of Six Flags Over Texas. All those theme parks "won" their battles. The wars are over. Now everyone is just gliding and trying to show growth in different ways; increasingly per capita spending via expensive food/drink is one way, for example. Queue management systems (Q-Bot/Flashpass/etc) are another.

 

(One caveat to that: The Mom-And-Pops and privately owned don't need to show continuous growth to investors. They just need to be profitable. Holiday World, the Herschend parks, Morey's Piers, Knoebel's - those are places that as long as they make money their owners are happy and will keep reinvesting. The corporately owned (Disney/Universal/Palace/Six Flags/Cedar Fair/SeaWorld) will always, ALWAYS have to not only show a profit, but show growth to make investors happy. Consider the challenge of that when you realistically can't get more people inside the park.)

[_koppen]

Awesome to see such a big lift for Liseberg with Helix! For a park with those kind of visitor numbers an 8% increase for a new coaster is quite impressive!

[blk_mamba]

 

And seeing that IOA was flat this year, while Studios saw an increase due to Potter also tells me that most people when they come to Orlando are visiting Disney as their #1 priority, and then spending ONE day at Universal. I think a lot of people were hoping to see a boost as both parks with an increase in 2-park, 2-day ticket sales, but it doesn't appear as though that is happening.

 

I went to Orlando this December and you basically described my trip. We were there for 6 days we did everything Disney before we even thought about US or IOA even though I liked both parks! It looks like with the new water park Universal is trying to capture more Disney people but that won't really detract from the major parks. At best it will just be a battle between Blizzard Beach and the new park. This past year was my first time in a while going to Orlando and Universal Studios has expanded a lot since I went in 1995 as a child.

[LiftThrill]

Any park with no Vekoma boomerangs or SLCs is good enough in my book.

[Password121]

It is interesting that all of the regional park's attached waterparks on this list (Hurricane Harbor, Soak City, Busch waterparks) are separate gate. I'd be curious if the included SF waterparks just didn't make this list, or weren't included as attendance is combined (and can't be separately counted) with the theme parks'. Assuming they are separate from this list, I'd be interested I seeing how they stack up/if this would look different.

[gp1086]

Hershey higher attendance than Great Adventure is pretty surprising to me.

[robbalvey]

Hershey higher attendance than Great Adventure is pretty surprising to me.

Doesn't Hershey have a longer season with all their spring, fall, and winter seasonal events? And I think they open daily sooner than SFGAdv does, too.

[gp1086]

Hershey higher attendance than Great Adventure is pretty surprising to me.

Doesn't Hershey have a longer season with all their spring, fall, and winter seasonal events? And I think they open daily sooner than SFGAdv does, too.

Perhaps that's part of it. SFGadv is doing holiday in the park this year, which might help it (believe Hershey did that last year).

 

Still though, SFGadv has benefit of being pretty easily accessible from both NYC area and Philly, while Hershey is a bit of a stretch for NYC folks and more rural land in general surrounding it.

[CedarFair1]

and yet again this reiterates why Canada's Wonderland has become the spoiled child of the Cedar Fair chain. Strong attendance numbers and always holding it's title for #1 attended seasonal theme park.

[Password121]

^There are other things to do at Hershey and in the surrounding area than there are in Jackson, NJ. If coasters aren't your thing, you're pretty limited at Gadv (not to say you can't enjoy a day there, but Hershey in general seems to have more appeal).

[gp1086]

^There are other things to do at Hershey and in the surrounding area than there are in Jackson, NJ. If coasters aren't your thing, you're pretty limited at Gadv (not to say you can't enjoy a day there, but Hershey in general seems to have more appeal).

Fair enough. Admittedly I've never been to Hershey (someday soon hopefully).

[A.J.]

^There are other things to do at Hershey and in the surrounding area than there are in Jackson, NJ. If coasters aren't your thing, you're pretty limited at Gadv (not to say you can't enjoy a day there, but Hershey in general seems to have more appeal).

Bingo. Hersheypark has several resort hotels to stay at, too.

[gp1086]

Sounds like I need to make a PA trip soon for Hershey (and hit up Knoebels again along the way).

[Superbatboy]

Glad to see Raging Waters in the top 20 U.S. water parks, grew up going there as a kid

[Garet]

It'll be interesting to see if Korea's park and water park numbers drop next year compared to the ones in this report. With MERs panic across Korea right now, parks are apparently walk-on on a saturday with their rides right now whereas normally with the start of the summer season, lines would be an hour long for a lot of the rides.

 

Although both Caribbean Bay (Everland's water park) and Lotte Water Park are opening pretty big new flumes this month and Everland has it's major new water ride scheduled for next month which might counter-act that.