Sunday, April 25, 2004
So Cedar Fair bought Six Flags Worlds of Adventure.
They changed its name back to Geauga Lake after just a few years of operating under the Six Flags name.
Cedar Fair also owns Cedar Point (their flagship park) which is only an hour or so away from Geauga Lake. The only other major amusement park in Ohio is now Kings Island, in the very south. I don't really care about the "monopoly" issues because Ohio parks is hardly something you can take over the industry with.
BUT! That does mean some interesting marketing to been seen from the parks in the future. According to the press releases they will be promoting Geauga as a small, one day, family park and Cedar Point as the giant resort. Maybe even offering combo discounts in the future.
They also are not honoring Cedar Fair season passes (which I have) at Geauga Lake. One could argue that the "cheap" price of the Cedar Fair pass never included Geauga and that they would lose money. However, when they bought Michigan's Adventure the passes were good at all parks. I even had a Michigan's Adventure pass that year, which I got for really cheap, and it was good at all the other parks.
They also choose not to honor a promotion Six Flags held, the "Read to Succeed" program, which gave free tickets to kids who met reading goals in school. The tickets were good at all Six Flags parks but for the people in the Ohio area, Geauga Lake was the only one close to them. There was much backlash and even some local news stories about it.
Some people on coaster websites argued that it could cost Cedar Fair millions in lost admissions. However, at most there might be 100,000 (and most likely closer to 50,000) free tickets in the local area (face it, families with kids who did this program and not coming from accross the country to get one person into Geauga Lake for free) and these kids would not be entering the park alone. They would come with their families who would all buy tickets and other park items.
In the end, Cedar Fair announced they would honor the tickets between May 1 and June 25 only. A wise compromise.
There is plenty of other news and "drama" about Geauga Lake but I will save that for next time.
