SANDUSKY — Last August, Cedar Point — Ohio’s roller coaster mecca — surprised customers by announcing that it would begin selling a special $99 season pass immediately as part of its upcoming 150th-anniversary celebration in 2020.
The “Gold Pass” provides unlimited access to Cedar Point, its Cedar Point Shores water park, its October HalloWeekends event, free parking, plus many other perks. Savvy customers who recognized the dollar value of such a sweet deal — at $99, a Gold Pass and its many perks is just $4 above the 2020 daily admission price of $75 plus a $20 parking fee — quickly scooped up the promotion.
But the bargain quickly soured some park devotees put off by a sudden swell in park attendance as Gold Pass owners put the pass to use immediately.
“The gold pass has exasperated the HalloWeekends this year, you can see it on Sundays as well. The parking lot on Sundays is filled to capacity as well, though you can get into the parking lot at least, it is still jammed packed from front to back,” a poster named “Just Coasting” complained on PointBuzz.com, a website for Cedar Point fans.
Joe Strasser, of Toledo, bought two Gold Passes this fall and said he wonders if its purpose is to raise attendance, and thereby boost sales of food, beverages, souvenirs, and Fast Lane passes, which let park-goers avoid long lines for some rides.
But Jason McClure, Cedar Point’s general manager, said the Gold Pass actually is a historic, strategic move far bigger than food, drink, or Fast Lane sales.
The Gold Pass, he said, is a test to see if Cedar Point’s customer base can be moved away from its traditionally preferred one-day tickets to the season pass.
For several years now, growing season pass sales has been a key business strategy for Cedar Fair LP, the parent firm of Cedar Point and 10 other amusement parks.
“One of the cool parts about being in Cedar Fair is we have all of our sister parks that can test things out, we can watch how things work or don’t work there, and then we can implement strategies at our other parks,” Mr. McClure said.
“So [Gold Pass] was well thought out in advance, studied for a long time. [We’ve] seen the results at our sister parks. [Cedar Point] is nowhere close to the No. 1 season pass-selling Cedar Fair park yet. Maybe someday we’ll get there,” he added.
Mr. McClure, who has been at Cedar Point six seasons and previously was at Cedar Fair’s Kings Island near Cincinnati and Carowinds parks near Charlotte, said whether Cedar Point should nudge customers more toward season passes has been an annual and intense discussion among Cedar Fair executives for many years.
“Really, the majority of the Cedar Fair parks already had a Gold Pass. So we’re late to the party on having a Gold Pass in our company,” the general manager said.
Dennis Speigel, a theme park consultant, said Cedar Fair’s reluctance to tinker with the Cedar Point business model is well known in the amusement park industry.
“I know they’ve been a late adopter of this strategy. They were a late adopter of discounting in the industry, too. That’s why their margins for years were the highest [profit] margins in the industry,” Mr. Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services Inc., of Cincinnati, said.
For years, Cedar Point could get a significant attendance boost via a new roller coaster, but raising attendance has become harder as the amusement industry matured, Mr. Speigel said.
“Today with a new roller coaster, if you get 1 or 1½ percent [attendance increase], you’ve done pretty well. But 30 years ago, you could expect to get a 5 to 10 percent attendance increase,” he said.
That’s why more parks are focusing more on season pass sales, Mr. Speigel said. “And $99 for unlimited visits is, in my opinion, a super value. Super value for that park,” he said of Cedar Point.
The most recent 2017 report by AECOM/Themed Entertainment Association showed Cedar Point's attendance in both 2016 and 2017 at 3,604,000, virtually unchanged.
Rick Munarriz, a Miami investor who covers Cedar Fair and amusement/theme park companies for the Motley Fool investing website, said every park in the industry is focusing more on season passes.
“When you’re a regional park, you definitely have to do something like this to keep your best customers close. So I think it’s a good strategy,” Mr. Munarriz said of the Gold Pass. “Plus, [season passes] are addictive. Once you start using them, you’re not going to stop.”
But Mr. Munarriz said it’s likely the Gold Pass will push attendance to where some Cedar Point visitors will start to feel pinched. The strategy “does populate the park so that one-day guests will say, ‘Wow do I really want to wait two hours for this roller coaster? It’s not going to be a win-win for people buying the one-day ticket.”
But Mr. McClure said Gold Pass owners will have more options if Cedar Point gets too crowded.
“What a season pass allows — and this is what we saw at other parks — is I can come and go now. I can work it into my schedule,” he said. “… I don't have to come from open to close. I can come any day, I can come for half a day. If the weather looks good today, I’ve got my pass, and I’ve got time, I can go visit the park.”
Sales of the Gold Pass, which can be paid for in installments, have been strong at $99, a price that will increase by an unspecified amount after Jan. 5. And Cedar Point officials will closely monitor sales in 2020 to help decide if Gold Pass should be a permanent ticket option or quietly disappear.
“As we see the success other parks have had, we didn't introduce it with the thought that it would only be a one-year thing, but that we’d leave it open until we see how it impacts the parks,” Mr. McClure said.
Also, make no mistake. Cedar Point very much wants the Gold Pass to increase attendance.
“I hope more people come to the park, that’s definitely the goal. That is THE goal,” Mr. McClure said, who added that Cedar Point has the capacity to accommodate bigger crowds.
“It’s really funny. I’ve watched the sentiment out there and six months ago the prevailing online comment was how expensive Cedar Point was. So we tried to do something about that, right?” Mr. McClure said.
“We’ve got a good product, you can buy it in installments, we made it more affordable, and now it’s: Oh, it’s going to be too crowded,” he said.
First Published December 22, 2019, 12:30 p.m.
