Factors leading to attendance

[ATTACKHAMMER]

As I am in the middle of looking at an issue for theme park attendance what factors do you all think lead to a rise or decline in attendance? These are different questions to my survey. Here are a few of my thoughts/ questions for you:


1: How much of an effect on attendance do you think new attractions have?

2: Which sort of new attractions do you think help to raise theme park attendance? For example B&M Wing riders.

3: How important do you think location is in correlation to theme park attendance?

4: Was a lack of attendance a factor for the closure of Camelot?

I can remember reading that not every park experiences a rise in attendance because they have opened a new coaster which is surprising but maybe this is due to poor publicity of marketing.

I'm very interested to here you thoughts on this.

 

[rtotheizzo17]

As I am in the middle of looking at an issue for theme park attendance what factors do you all think lead to a rise or decline in attendance? These are different questions to my survey. Here are a few of my thoughts/ questions for you:


1: How much of an effect on attendance do you think new attractions have?

2: Which sort of new attractions do you think help to raise theme park attendance? For example B&M Wing riders.

3: How important do you think location is in correlation to theme park attendance?

4: Was a lack of attendance a factor for the closure of Camelot?

I can remember reading that not every park experiences a rise in attendance because they have opened a new coaster which is surprising but maybe this is due to poor publicity of marketing.

I'm very interested to here you thoughts on this.

1: In theory new attractions have a HUGE impact on attendance. Companies simply would not invest on new rides, shows, or attractions if they did not expect a bump in attendance, thus a great ROI. I had a discussion back in 2009 when a major ride was opening in Orlando, one of the Directors mentioned they expect a three year bump in attendance. A breakout something like 10% increase, 5% increase, 3% increase, then flatline. However, you can miss on an attraction, see #2

2: It depends on the park, and its target market. The Orlando parks tend to target the family market, and thus invest heavily on family rides and experiences. While Six Flags and Cedar Fair have made steps to get away from it, they are historically marketed to the teens/young adult audience. They can market a new coaster and get that bump. As you mentioned, you can build the right ride and market it wrong, or, miss the niche you were going after.

3: Location, location, location! Outside of the obvious tourist destinations (Orlando), the general public look for a day trip when visiting a park. That usually means no more than a 2 hour drive one way. The more people that fall within that radius, the greater your target audience is.

4: I am not familiar with the closure.

 

[Smithy]

Mintel reports can tell you loads.

Location depends greatly on each individual park and what if offers. Alton classes itself as a resort so it's target audience is nationwide regardless of their location.

Flamingo Land for example does not sell itself as a resort and so it's location leads it to only attracting an audience from a focused area.

Might be worth focusing on marketing in general as well as location and rides on offer because that'll play a big part (and took up a big chunk of my dissertation focusing on it's effects).

 

[rollermonkey]

The economic climate has an effect, too. Parks slowed down investment because they weren't getting the ROI / attendance bumps they wanted.

Another factor for consideration when considering new additions is maintenance costs. A new ride ought to have less maintenance headaches (Ignoring Intaminitis) than an older attraction, particularly if the manufacturer has gone out of business.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

These are all brilliant thank you :--D

 

[caffeine_demon]

Flamingo Land for example does not sell itself as a resort and so it's location leads it to only attracting an audience from a focused area.

a couple of bits on their website seem to say otherwise!

 

[Robbie]

As I am in the middle of looking at an issue for theme park attendance what factors do you all think lead to a rise or decline in attendance? These are different questions to my survey. Here are a few of my thoughts/ questions for you:

1: How much of an effect on attendance do you think new attractions have?

2: Which sort of new attractions do you think help to raise theme park attendance? For example B&M Wing riders.

In theory, a new ride should help attendance but note that Thorpe Park got a B&M Wing Rider last year and attendance dropped 10%!

But then look at Oakwood, who reckon they're up as much as 70% week-on-week to last year thanks to their new attractions this year.

There's always going to be many factors in why people do (or do not) go to theme parks but even if there's no immediate evidence of an uplift, new stuff still helps to make the park seem relevant and alive - which probably helps longterm.

3: How important do you think location is in correlation to theme park attendance?

I would guess places like Alton Towers are the exception, with most theme park visitors within 90 minutes of the park.

4: Was a lack of attendance a factor for the closure of Camelot?

Sort of! There was a lack of investment for several years, which saw a drop of visitors (especially as rivals such as Gullivers and Blackpool Pleasure Beach were adding stuff): Attendance in 2010 was 250,000 then 225,000 in 2011. 2012 saw a massive price rise and fewer 2-for-1 offers leading to quite a collapse and although they were still exceeding targets on sunny days the weather didn't help and owners pulled the plug.

However... the owners of the land had long planned to turn it into a housing estate so deliberately didn't invest and deliberately raised the entry price to kill it off. So although lack of attendance closed Camelot it was almost entirely of their own making.

 

[Smithy]

Flamingo Land for example does not sell itself as a resort and so it's location leads it to only attracting an audience from a focused area.

a couple of bits on their website seem to say otherwise!

Haha fair point, it's all changed since I was studying them.

 

[Gavin]

^Flamingo Land makes way more money from the holiday park than gate takings, and has done for a very long time. They absolutely sell themselves as a resort. They tend to attract people from the north east and Scotland, rather than totally nationally though.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Unfortunately there is no real answer because the factors effecting attractions of all kinds are so varied. Without the data parks research themselves we'd never know for sure and even then I think some of them like to delude themselves.

The Thorpe/Chessington comparison is one that others have hinted at, but it's a powerful demonstration of how everything is not as it seems. Only a few years ago, Chessington struggled with attendance daily even in the height of summer. But now, after doing very little to the park in terms of new attractions and their cost BECAUSE of their low attendance, they APPEAR to be significantly busier. In reality, Chessington never makes the Europe leaderboard, it's simply that the park has terrible throughputs and cannot deal with what would be average crowds anywhere else. But their attendance has clearly risen considerably, whilst Thorpe's has remained the same or even fallen despite huge investments.

I think Chessington may be experiencing a surge of traffic from parents who are in their early 30s. Those who grow up with the best Chessington and are keen for their children to experience the same they did. Perhaps this is a crazy theory?

Chessington has had a surge of "bad luck" recently, what with last years accident, this years ride closures, etc. So any increase in attendance is pretty weird. Though they do have a a new attraction, is that outweighing the negative? I doubt it. There will be some other reason.

Could it be because last year was a dud year that this year is so much busier? The olympics and weather were blamed last season, and could that theme park abstinence be making people want to visit this year? But then why has Thorpe not had crowds?

Worse still, look at Legoland Windsor - which is by all critical accounts one of the worst parks in the world, and manages to slide into the Europe top 10. Why???

There's no obvious correlation available to us.

Back to Legoland though - I believe #1 factor for attendance is branding. I don't care what argument you can present to me about Disney customer service, the reason people visit is because it's Disney. And it's the same with Legoland. Legoland is not a quality product - the attractions are all badly dressed off the shelf rubbish, their throughputs are terrible, the parks themselves are limited in theming and landscape, their massively overpriced (food costs more than at the other Merlin parks, for example), overcrowded... I could go on. But people still visit, in spite of all this, because Lego.

What kind of attractions help raise park attendance? It's not that simple. Generally speaking, it either needs branding (try marketing Harry Potter without Harry Potter, you couldn't... No one would care) or needs to be understandable as a ride experience. So, in my opinion, Zufari is a good example of a terrible ride to increase attendance (even though Chessington is up this year, it is NOT THE REASON WHY!) but a good example of a ride to increase guest experience once in the park. I have no evidence to back up this claim, it's just an educated guess based on what I see.

You'd think Location would be more important than it appears to be, but I think it's to do with how a park markets itself. As a holiday resort, Alton succeeds because it's worth the trek for a couple of days, perhaps?

Flamingoland has been brought up already, but I think half the reason that park doesn't do as well as it could is because it's got a stupid name and because it used to be disgusting. It's going to take a lot more work to get people to overlook it's history and a tonne of promoting to get people to see past it's name. They have no idea what they are doing. Think about it, it used to be promoting a Thorpe Park-like atmosphere (and zoo...) with a name promoting a bird garden. Now they're a family theme park resort with a name promoting a bird garden. If you'd never been and heard Flamingoland, you'd assume very small bird garden.

Lack of profit is the reason for any closure, and attendance is always a part of that.

Oh and by the way CUT OUT THE SPAM.

 

[bmac]

The biggest factors I've noticed with amusement parks are mainly advertising, location, and weather.

I'll take my example from Busch Gardens Willamsburg which is almost 2 years through of their biggest investment in a roller coaster to date, Verbolten. While the ride cost $54 million to build, advertising wasn't very strong for the ride outside of Eastern Virginia. For 2012's attendance report BGW reported that their attendance only increased by 140,000. Comparing this to Griffon, which was added in 2007 and brought in nearly 400,000 more visitors than the previous year alone, was highly due to the rampant advertising Busch had up and down the eastern seaboard and the fact that a coaster wasn't added in the park since 1999. Verbolten also served as a stop to the decreasing attendance numbers since 2007, whereas it is believed that the attendance numbers before 2006 were already settled down at around the 2.5 million - 2.7 million range.

Here's the TEA / AECOM attendance figures along with each addition the park has made year by year, simple math used for 2006 since BGW didn't report their attendance pre-2006.

2012: 2,854,000 ( +4%) (Verbolten)
2011: 2,744,000 ( -2%) (Mach Tower)
2010: 2,800,000 ( -3.4%) (Europe in the Air, IllumiNights)
2009: 2,900,000 ( -6.2%) (Sesame Street Forest of Fun, Christmas Town)
2008: 3,094,000 ( -2%)
2007: 3,157,000 (+12.5%) (Griffon)
2006: 2,762,000

Busch Gardens, even though it's touted as a tourist's park, has most of its visitor count derived from the local population in Norfolk, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Virginia Beach. While the park does attract outside guests from other regions (Namely: North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware), the numbers of those visitors doesn't come near as close as the local population.

Weather also plays a huge role in attendance (according to Sea World at least), due to their attendance dropping 9% for the second quarter across all 11 of their parks. You can also blame this on Spring Break falling in the first quarter, but in BGW's court nearly every major holiday this summer they could've capitalized on attendance got washed out by rain.

 

[Nic]

Dan asked me a slightly different set of questions to those posed here, but I thought I'd share my answers anyway in case anyone's vaguely interested. There's masses of it, so I'll leave it in a document and you can clicky if you're a real glutton for punishment!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RkM ... sp=sharing

 

[Hyde]

Rather than rely on anecdotal perspectives of individuals (though lot's of great input has been voiced), I would encourage us to look at theme park attendance numbers to see if it is possible to discern possible correlations and causations.

Linked below are attendance figures from 2007 to 2012, published by the Themed Entertainment Association:

http://www.teaconnect.org/sites/default ... report.pdf

http://www.org.id.tue.nl/ifip-tc14/docu ... s-2008.pdf

http://www.org.id.tue.nl/ifip-tc14/docu ... s-2009.pdf

http://www.aecom.com/deployedfiles/Inte ... 0Index.pdf

http://www.aecom.com/deployedfiles/Inte ... 202011.pdf

http://www.aecom.com/deployedfiles/Inte ... online.pdf

For this analysis, I will use North American parks.

1: How much of an effect on attendance do you think new attractions have?

It depends. That is, it is difficult to pick out large gains in attendance that would be solely due to the addition of a new attraction. Yet there is evidence to suggest new rides lead to increases in attendance, especially with the addition of new .

Let's look at some individual parks as examples:

- Cedar Point added Maverick in 2007, and saw a 1.5% increase in attendance. Cedar Point however saw a 2.5% increase in attendance in 2008, when no new rides were added to the park.

- Hersheypark saw a 6.5% increase in attendance in 2012 with the addition of Skyrush. This was a larger gain in attendance than in 2011 (2%) or 2010 (3%).

- Canada's Wonderland saw a 5% increase in 2012 with the addition of Leviathan. This was larger than the 3% increase the previous year in 2011.

2: Which sort of new attractions do you think help to raise theme park attendance? For example B&M Wing riders.

Large park expansions. California's Great Adventure saw a 22.6% increase in attendance in 2012, the same year that Cars Land opened. Islands of Adventure saw a 30.6% increase in attendance following the addition of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

3: How important do you think location is in correlation to theme park attendance?

It is pretty important. The largest amusement parks in the U.S. (Universal, Disney, SeaWorld) saw a drop in attendance during the Great Recession (2008-2009), in part because of their location. Families in the Midwest/East who lost jobs or income during the recession would have cancelled their expensive travel plans. Cedar Point actually came forward in 2009 and said they saw a boost during the recession from families looking for a cheaper vacation that was closer to home.

Overall, the biggest factor for park attendance has not been new rides, but economic activity. In 2007, 14 of the nation's top 20 amusement parks saw an increase in attendance. once the Great Recession hit in the U.S. half way through 2008, 8 of these same amusement parks saw increases. In 2009, only 7 saw an increase in attendance. 2010 marked the end of the recession and beginning of the recovery, which saw an uptick of 14 parks with increased attendance.

It is important to bear in mind that amusement parks are businesses, which are in turn vulnerable to changes in the market and economy. They can build new rides and perform good marketing to improve their performance, but are most affected by external economic factors that are out of their control. The best thing an amusement park can do is maximize profits during good economic times, and ensure average park goers can still see affordability/economic benefit when markets are down.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Thank you so much for all of the responses and for your input, it is all really interesting and a lot more I interesting than I thought it would be after beginning my investigation! There are lot of factors I hadn't thought of taking into consideration, once again thank you.

 

[Smithy]

^Flamingo Land makes way more money from the holiday park than gate takings, and has done for a very long time. They absolutely sell themselves as a resort. They tend to attract people from the north east and Scotland, rather than totally nationally though.

Would not have thought that at all. Explains why most parks are now looking to do similar though.

 

[BBH]

1: How much of an effect on attendance do you think new attractions have?

- I think new attractions will inevitably provide a boost in attendance, especially if marketed well. (The "THE ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD" Six Flags philosophy and the Herschend philosophy of "Are you ready to battle such and such?" are prime examples of excellent marketing.) If the ride is extremely well received by the general public, ie. it's fast, it breaks records, it's tall, it's powerful, then they'll keep coming back to ride it. But, even if enthusiasts really enjoy a ride, it may not be fast enough or tall enough to satisfy the GP, which may lead to them finding it "not worth it" to come back to the park. (For examples at my home park, see Raging Bull for the former and for the latter X-Flight.

2: Which sort of new attractions do you think help to raise theme park attendance? For example B&M Wing riders.

As I said, anything tall, fast, smooth, and powerful that's preferably a record-breaker. If it doesn't look fast or intense, the majority of people that come to the park for thrills won't want to ride it.

3: How important do you think location is in correlation to theme park attendance?

Obviously a park in the middle of the Field of Dreams cornfield in Iowa isn't going to get as many visitors as a park near a major city, or better yet, halfway between two large municipalities, such as SFMM for Los Angeles and SFGAm for Chicago/Milwaukee.

4: Was a lack of attendance a factor for the closure of Camelot?

I know nothing about Camelot other than Schwarzkopf went balls-out.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I saw saw Pleasurewood hills stating that their attendance has been higher this summer than for 5 years. I wonder if 5 years ago was a good summer?

Note that they got a new attraction LAST year, nothing new this summer.

It grinds my gears because I know when it comes round to deciding if Zufari is a hit at Chessington they'll just go "look, attendance was up!!!"

Yeah, because weather was up.

 

[Ian]

I saw saw Pleasurewood hills stating that their attendance has been higher this summer than for 5 years. I wonder if 5 years ago was a good summer?

Note that they got a new attraction LAST year, nothing new this summer.

It grinds my gears because I know when it comes round to deciding if Zufari is a hit at Chessington they'll just go "look, attendance was up!!!"

Yeah, because weather was up.

It was Wipeout second season, so perhaps the new attraction did have something to do with it? PWH's marketing has been excellent for the last eight months or since Ben Rowe took over the online stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if that had an impact, too.

 

[furie]

In theory, a new ride should help attendance but note that Thorpe Park got a B&M Wing Rider last year and attendance dropped 10%!

But then look at Oakwood, who reckon they're up as much as 70% week-on-week to last year thanks to their new attractions this year.

I think there may be a degree here of Thorpe reaching a maximum potential. Thorpe is a "completed park", it's mature and had enough attractions in 2011 to be satisfying. So it could never increase numbers, as the people likely to be going to Thorpe were likely to be going to Thorpe anyway. The Swarm didn't put people off, that was obviously other factors.

Of course, it may be that without The Swarm, attendance could have been down 40% and The Swarm was actually massively popular

However, I think it's quite simply that Thorpe has reached a saturation point where potential visitor numbers are static. Add in bad weather and the Olympics and you see the potential visitors turning into more no shows than usual.

Oakwood however has had no investment on top of only really being a "half day park". It's not a complete day out and there's not been anything new to drag people back. Now at least the local visitor numbers will be up to see what's new. If they've introduced enough, then gate figures will remain high, otherwise, they'll drop off rapidly.

There's always going to be many factors in why people do (or do not) go to theme parks but even if there's no immediate evidence of an uplift, new stuff still helps to make the park seem relevant and alive - which probably helps longterm.

I think part of that is the increase in PR with new stuff too though. It's much easier to gain hype if you have something new on offer and I'll bet advertising budgets are massively higher when there's a new ride in town. So the question then is, "is it the new ride that increases attendance, or the increased advertising the park pays for to make it known it exists?"

The Thorpe/Chessington comparison is one that others have hinted at, but it's a powerful demonstration of how everything is not as it seems. Only a few years ago, Chessington struggled with attendance daily even in the height of summer. [/snip] But their attendance has clearly risen considerably, whilst Thorpe's has remained the same or even fallen despite huge investments.

I think Chessington may be experiencing a surge of traffic from parents who are in their early 30s. Those who grow up with the best Chessington and are keen for their children to experience the same they did. Perhaps this is a crazy theory?

Chessington has had a surge of "bad luck" recently, what with last years accident, this years ride closures, etc. So any increase in attendance is pretty weird. Though they do have a a new attraction, is that outweighing the negative? I doubt it. There will be some other reason.

But then why has Thorpe not had crowds?

Rearranged things a bit there Joey... Can you not see anything?

Thorpe attendance figures aren't rising rapidly or are dropping and Chessingtons are gradually gaining. Both cover the same area for local visitors. Thorpe is a pathetic family park and Chessington a great one. Are we not just seeing the families stopping going to Thorpe as it's not a decent day out for a young family, and they're instead going to Chessington? Is there an upper limit on the number of people within travelling distance of both, and they're simply going to the park which best suits them?

It's another theory anyway - as Thorpe became more adult, the families shifted to Chessington.

Back to Legoland though - I believe #1 factor for attendance is branding. I don't care what argument you can present to me about Disney customer service, the reason people visit is because it's Disney.

Everything you said about branding is 100% correct I think you even see it at Thorpe with Saw: The Ride. Alton Towers was heaving last year on the Moshi Monsters days, people really do love their brands.

Legoland is awful, but both kids have always loved it because LEGO! There's massive kudos in school for having been to Legoland. Branding is definitely the way to turn turds in tenners

 

[SaiyanHajime]

In response to actual data, the problem is we don't have enough and I'm not sure the parks do, either.

There are presumptuous theories that seem obvious, such as "new attraction = increased attendance" which spark the parks to do research into that area, but they don't, say, research how to combat potentially rubbish weather, for eg. Or, at least this is how it looks to me.

Chessington doesn't make gate figures to get into Europes top whateveritis list, but the park is consistently hitting near capacity, when only a few years ago it certainly was not, and you can physically note this difference as a guest compared to years ago. But what have they added? Nothing of value, no "compelling propositions", no worlds firsts. The park going against the Merlin grain and all ounces of logic appears to have the greatest increase in attendance, but we probably won't ever know for sure.

So instead, we have to theorise and speculate based in what we know. And the top of the league parks do not really make good subjects for research, because they are all unusual for one reason or another that likley drives attendance.

I think Phil is potentially right about Thorpe, but what worries me is that, many years ago, we all pointed out how unsuccessful the "Six Flags" model is long term. How comes those in charge of marketing and new attractions did not foresee this issue? And why do they think such a sudden flip to a polar opposite, an already a saturated market (family amusements in and around London), is going to help?

I fear the answer is a lack of interest in the industry from those whos voices matter. If you've no idea how much of a disaster Six Flags have been in the past, then why worry?

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