Originally Posted By Darkbeer In 2004, Knott's was #14 in North American Parks.. (Number 24 Worldwide) Also was #14 in 2002 and 2003, it was #13 in 2001 (North America).
Originally Posted By oc_dean Isn't reasonable to beleive many of these figures are (TO A DEGREE!) artificial ... due to AP holder clicks, discounts, and there were some discounts earlier this year, 50th celebrations with an overpacked DL "spilling" into DCA, park hoppers, etc, etc ........ And so what if DCA gets a paultry few perecentage points up this year. Grand scheme of things? .... The park is still YEARS away from being taken serious by the public at large ... I rest my case your honor. ;-)
Originally Posted By MisterToad ^^^^^^^^ So what you are saying is in 2008 DCA will be taken serious by the public at large. Great! by that time it will move to #6 on the list. ;-)
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "Shapiro did NOT take over the company, he was hired by Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, along with two other major partners, who think Six Flags is worth investing in, and think they can make a lot of money off it." He took over at the request of Snyder with the support of shareholders after they couldn't find someone to buy the company. Regardless of how the story is told the point is that the organization has hit rock bottom financially. Why? Because they overspent on new rides and then discounted the hell out of gate admissions. If such a situation were the case at Disney you'd never here the end of it around here, yet you try to present it as if it's business as usual. "When was Knott's IN the top ten? It wasn't for 2004 or 2003." No? I thought it was. You'd certainly think so from the way some folks around here rant and rave about how wonderful the place is.
Originally Posted By socalkdg <<<Isn't reasonable to beleive many of these figures are (TO A DEGREE!) artificial ... due to AP holder clicks, discounts, and there were some discounts earlier this year, 50th celebrations with an overpacked DL "spilling" into DCA, park hoppers, etc, etc>>> I'd say its more reasonable to assume DCA loses attendance due to DL opening first and getting the higher share of first entries into the park. After the doom and gloom of Al's articles so often commenting on less than 10,000 person attendance at DCA, plus the loss of Screamin, any increase was a reason to celebrate. First Darkbeer was a USH lover, now he's switched over to Six Flags. Whatever looks best for the spin, I guess.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-theme27dec27" target="_blank">http://www.latimes.com/busines s/la-fi-theme27dec27</a>,1,3023759.story?coll=la-headlines-business >>When tourism rebounded this year, both in terms of international travelers coming to the United States and Americans traveling to domestic destinations, that investment in new attractions paid off for Disney, Zoltak said. And while Universal and some other parks recorded lower attendance, the growth in tourism and investment in new attractions helped some rivals register gains. SeaWorld San Diego nudged up 2.5% to 4.1 million and Six Flags Magic Mountain rose 5% to 2.8 million. Overall, Six Flags, which poured millions of dollars into new rides at its parks nationwide, posted a 5.7% increase. Disney also juiced its attendance with heavy spending on both coasts for its 50th-anniversary celebration. Disney, however, declined to comment on the attendance estimates except to confirm that the numbers were up. "My guess is that Disneyland's numbers were even higher," said Al Lutz, who maintains the MiceAge fan website. Crowds of 60,000 to 80,000 on some days have prompted Disney to put up signs directing visitors to the California Adventure park, which fronts Disneyland. That in turn, Lutz said, has pushed the smaller park's attendance figures higher. Attendance at Knott's Berry Farm, which is within view of one of the towers of the Disneyland hotel, fell 3% to just less than 3.5%. "A lot of that decline comes from Disney cannibalizing" other parks' business this year, said Lance Hart, who operates the Screamscape amusement park information site. <<
Originally Posted By bean "Let's see, SFMM got a new version of their Batman Stunt Show, same amphitheater, minor retheming to the set, and a new script. DCA got a Brand New parade, Block Party Bash and Turtle Talk with Crush in the summer, a brand new replacement show. Also, they got Animation Academy in the early fall, another new show (though a replacement for a previous version). DCA also got a boost by holding a special event, Mickey's Halloween Treat, which added about 30,000 of the additional attendance (about 18% of the total increase)." how much of this did you see advertised all over the media. the halloween thing was an afterhours private party which usually does not help attendance counts turtle talk was not even advertised and block party bask was marketed as a celebration pack with Disneylands offerings mainly to draw tourist here. Now take in consideration that Disneyland has been openinghours earlier than DCA most of those tourist get their attednace count towards Disneyland before DCA. learn to realize when things look better than you want them to be. besides i could assure you that the numbers being given by AB are much lower than they actually are. But believe what you want
Originally Posted By Nemo88 Im sorry but there is no reason why DCA should be beating USH as badly as they are,USH has been around for decades,its built an audience,it has history,yet Disneys second gate comes along and within 5 short years it basically dropped 3 spots in attendance from DCA,when it once was higher ranked than DCA! obviously theres a problem with what USH is doing (or not doing).
Originally Posted By Nemo88 and Darkbeer,dont the Universal parks in Florida host Halloween events? and much larger in scope than the one at DCA,so if you want to discredit soem of DCAs attendence because of thier halloween event,then you hsould do the same to your little Universal parks.
Originally Posted By tangaroa >I guess Marcie isn't the only one eating >crow this Christmas. No one is eating any crow, because there's no dramatic evidence either way. You can point at the numbers and say "wow, DCA attendance increased" but that just ignores the fact that the attendance is still no where near the original estimates, and also ignores the fact that with DL's attendance skyrocketing, that DCA's increase was very mild. DCA still hasn't broken the 7 million mark. DCA hasn't even broke the 6 million mark that a few here were absolutely sure would happen last year when TOT opened. I'm sure Disney can't be all that happy that they keep spending millions upon millions on DCA and getting very little back. Funny to think about all the money they spent on the new parade and exhibits and an attendance increase so small you can't be sure if it would have happened regardless of the additions. Seems like a waste of money. But ultimately, despite what everyone here may think, it's obvious though that Disney thinks there are problems with DCA and are working still to correct those problems. They've made some progress in changing the theme and direction of the park, and they've seen a few benefits from those changes - so hopefully that will continue until DCA barely resembles the park that opened in 2001. But if Disney didn't recognize the problem, they wouldn't be making the changes they are today.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "DCA still hasn't broken the 7 million mark." And? So? That was 5 years ago. How do you know that this is what management still expects? What did Disney plan DCA to do this year?
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Let's look at the AB/ERA 2005 numbers from a Average Daily Attendance viewpoint. (I am going to the parks operating schedule to figure out the days open, and then dividing it into the year attendance, then rounding). 1. Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 44,110 2. Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. 39,725 3. Paramount Canada's Wonderland in Maple, Ontario, 28,350 (127 days) 4. Epcot at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 27,125 5. Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 23,560 6. Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 22,465 7. Paramount's Kings Island in Kings Island, Ohio, 21,855 (151 days) 8. Morey's Piers in Wildwood, N.J., 21,680 (143 days) 9. Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, 21,380 (145 days) 10. Hersheypark in Hershey, Pa., 21,260 (127 days) 11. Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill., 20,440 (137 days) 12. Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J., 17,900 (162 days) 13. Universal Studios in Orlando, 16,715 14. Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, Calif., 15,890 15. Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, Va., 15,855 (164 days) 16. Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando, 15,780 17. SeaWorld Orlando, 15,345 18. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, Calif., 14,020 (214 days) 19. Universal Studios Hollywood, 12,950 (363 days) 20. Adventuredome at Circus Circus in Las Vegas, 12,330 21. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, 11,780 22. SeaWorld San Diego, 11,235 23. Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif., 10,220 (274 days) 24. Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., 9,960 (231 days) 25. Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif., 9,535 (364 days)
Originally Posted By kmovies Wonder how Al will explain DCA's increase in attendance: lowest Summer attendance ever hardly gets over 10,000 per day DL, record Christmas, yet DCA is empty Wonder where DCA got it's increase. He sure was expecting a decrease. It's really simple: DL through a big party and increased 1.2 million people. DCA wasn't in the spotlight but increase 200,000. The resort had a very good year. But look at Marketing: Magic Kingdom increased 1 million just by riding the coat tails of the 50 million celebration. And with that, carried the other parks to increases of 400,000 - 500,000. Wouldn't USH increase? Gosh, if Mummy for 1/2 of 2004 brought in tons more people. Would having Mummy for the whole year, even having somewhat lesser impact, still drive great attendance? Just shows that USH is a good park, just not repeatable. Spend a day - get a year free isn't really giving you much because it is not a park that you would go back and back and back. If Disney ever did that - you'd never be able to get into the place.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer I quoted Al earlier (The LA Times article)... >>Disney also juiced its attendance with heavy spending on both coasts for its 50th-anniversary celebration. Disney, however, declined to comment on the attendance estimates except to confirm that the numbers were up. "My guess is that Disneyland's numbers were even higher," said Al Lutz, who maintains the MiceAge fan website. Crowds of 60,000 to 80,000 on some days have prompted Disney to put up signs directing visitors to the California Adventure park, which fronts Disneyland. That in turn, Lutz said, has pushed the smaller park's attendance figures higher.<< And the total increase for DCA per the AB/ERA numbers was 170,000, which we know over 30,000 were from the Halloween Treat event. Don't forget, DCA had some good numbers from January thru April of 2005 as they had the "Pay for Disneyland, get DCA for FREE!" offer. Interesting to see this posted at another board (MiceChat)... >>Question then really is: who's going to DCA first? I had heard of a directive by DIS to its CMs to always enter DCA first, in order to boost its attendance numbers. I don't think it was required, but heavily suggested.<<
Originally Posted By tangaroa >And? So? That was 5 years ago. How do you >know that this is what management still >expects? What did Disney plan DCA to do >this year? If you design a park, and build a park based on attracting a certain number of people, wouldn't you want to make sure that park reached that goal? Maybe you're right, and maybe Disney has totally abandoned the idea of this park ever reaching it's initial goals. That seems a little pessimistic to me, but it certainly could be true. Maybe Disney is happy with DCA being where it's at right now, and they don't really see a need for dramatic change and expansion at DCA. All those things could be true, but I seriously doubt they are. I think DCA's gains this year are 100% attributable to the 50th celebration at DL, and the fact that a few more tourists are coming out and visiting DL on parkhopper tickets. That said though, it astounds me that only 200k extra people would come through the gates. Maybe that just means the extra 1 million increase that DL saw was mostly AP clicks. Scary if true. DCA's increase was directly related to the 50th, and had it not been for the incident with Screamin, it may, and definitely SHOULD have been higher. I don't understand how DCA can only capture 200k extra clicks when over a one million more people are coming in next door. That basically means that of all the extra people coming to DL this year, less than 1 in 5 actually decided to visit DCA. Is there any other second gate setup with such a huge disparity? DCA just can't attract people, even next door to one of the world's most popular parks. And that really says something. Especially about the additions to DCA within the last five years. Although they added TOT and Flik's and some other interesting attractions, they've barely been able to make up the deficit created by the depreciation of the other attractions. Originals like Maliboomer and Mulholland Madness and of course Golden Dreams can't attract the same number of people they did that opening year. The additions they've made have offset the effects of depreciation, but they haven't worked to make any real progress at the park. And that's actually a good thing for DCA, because that means more work and attention are needed to bring this park up to it's full capacity. The park has changed a lot since Feb 2001 - which is one of the reasons I find it hilarious to see so many rabid DCA's supporters pointing to the numbers now as vindication of DCA's success. DCA's numbers are increasing now precisely because they are getting AWAY from their original model, the model so many of us were against in the first place. In short: DCA is becoming a better park because they are making the changes that the critics wanted to see from day one. You won't hear any complaints from me when DCA breaks the 7 million mark, because I know it will only be after great expansion and dramatic change. I was glad DCA was rewarded with a modest attendance increase last year for TOT, and I think Disney knows they are headed in the right direction abandoning the CA theme. I just don't know why so many people who consider themselves fans of the park can't see that, and only rely on numbers to tell them the story.
Originally Posted By tangaroa >And the total increase for DCA per the >AB/ERA numbers was 170,000, which we know >over 30,000 were from the Halloween Treat >event. I could be wrong, but wasn't that a hard ticket private party? I don't think those would be counted toward yearly attendance.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Let's do some math.... DCA's 2004 attendance per AB/ERA... 5,630,000 DCA's 2005 attendance per AB/ERA...5,800,000 <a href="http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:F97n2RbqM5UJ:gocalif.com/tourism/pdfs/FastFacts.pdf+california+adventure+attendance+2004+5" target="_blank">http://216.239.51.104/search?q =cache:F97n2RbqM5UJ:gocalif.com/tourism/pdfs/FastFacts.pdf+california+adventure+attendance+2004+5</a>,630,000&hl=en <a href="http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/ctr/ccp/ThemeParkAttendance" target="_blank">http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/d ocuments/areas/ctr/ccp/ThemeParkAttendance</a>(b&w).pdf
Originally Posted By Darkbeer >>I could be wrong, but wasn't that a hard ticket private party? I don't think those would be counted toward yearly attendance. << They count, just as much as the Knott's Halloween Haunt and USO/IOA's Halloweeen event. In fact AB/ERA talked about the change in numbers when Universal moved the event from one park to the other, it created a major shift n regards to the park attendance numbers.
