toledoblade.com --

SANDUSKY - Hurt by two years of sagging attendance at its flagship Cedar Point amusement park here, Cedar Fair LP said it may lower admission prices for 2006.

A decision on prices - including the bellwether $45 gate admission for visitors age 3 and over - hasn't been made. But Stacy Frole, head of investor relations, said the company is studying the matter and will decide within two months.

"Gas prices and the economy have become a problem," she said. "We can't do anything about that but we can help people in other ways."

Robert Routh, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. in New York and a Cedar Fair stockholder, said lower admission prices may be best for the company, its shareholders, and customers.

What Cedar Point loses in gate admission could be made up in volume and in spending for food, concessions, or at the firm's hotels and other out-of-park sites, he said.

"This makes a tremendous amount of sense to do," he added.

The admission-price issue arises after years of insistence by company officials that the park is recession-proof, that people on tight budgets would forgo longer vacations but still would visit a place like Cedar Point that is within a day's drive or less.

Also, Richard Kinzel, chief executive officer of Cedar Fair, told The Blade in August that admission prices at the company's amusement and water parks nationwide were not too high despite lagging attendance this year.

But last month, he told another newspaper the company "might have out-priced ourselves in the marketplace'' and needed to take steps to halt further decreases in attendance.

Cedar Fair, which raised its admission price by $1 this year, has said its attendance at Cedar Point was down 2 percent in August from last year and was down 4 percent in July from last year.

Visitor numbers were off 4 percent last year from the year before at the park on Lake Erie in Erie County.

Company officials have blamed the drop in visitors patrons this year in part on the hot weather, which made for unpleasant conditions for waiting in line for rides. Mr. Routh, the analyst, said the weather may have played into it, as well as the proliferation of video games and other leisure activities for children.

But surveys done in the past few weeks indicate that gas prices and the economy have become an issue for park-goers, a reversal of findings in earlier surveys, Ms. Frole said.

Cedar Point has a general admission price, special pricing for active military members, and a half-price admission beginning at 5 p.m.

In mid-August, the park priced admission for the rest of the season at $10 for people age 62 and older and for children at least age 3 but less than 48 inches tall.

"What we're finding is with the seniors and juniors is there are a lot of grandparents who want to take their kids to the park and they enjoy the shows and the park but they are there mainly to enjoy spending time with the family," Ms. Frole said.

Contact Jon Chavez at:
jchavez@theblade.com
or 419-724-6128.

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