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2-3 years? Hopefully, I have hit the jackpot by then and opened up my own park. 😀

Why do you think it will take 2-3 years? Remember; the park is now open and vaccination numbers are up. We still have big events like 4th of July and HAUNT. If the park wants to make any money, they will have to find a way to staff the park so that they can operate like they generally would. Maybe not 12 midnight; but hopefully the park can pull off an 11:00pm closing hour on Saturdays for HAUNT. As for 4th of July, we will have to see. 9pm seems safe for the park and they probably won't change it until they see otherwise.
 
2-3 years? Hopefully, I have hit the jackpot by then and opened up my own park. 😀

Why do you think it will take 2-3 years? Remember; the park is now open and vaccination numbers are up. We still have big events like 4th of July and HAUNT. If the park wants to make any money, they will have to find a way to staff the park so that they can operate like they generally would. Maybe not 12 midnight; but hopefully the park can pull off an 11:00pm closing hour on Saturdays for HAUNT. As for 4th of July, we will have to see. 9pm seems safe for the park and they probably won't change it until they see otherwise.

I'm not sure about where you live, but there's staff shortages literally everywhere at pretty much any service-based business from what I'm seeing. Anecdotally doesn't mean anything but doing a quick search will get you plenty of journalistic efforts to explain why and how nobody is wanting to go back to their old jobs.

For those that like the idea of working at a theme park, they're probably already there - for many others, though, it's another job - even if it's paying better than it used to, it's seasonal and they could be making about as much at the fast food joint up the street at this point... But they may have already found another side hustle that makes just as much or better and has the benefit of being done on their own terms.
 
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The other thing is people aren't willing to work for an employer that still thinks pizza parties are an acceptable form of employee compensation.

COVID has brought up that mindset that employers need to offer more concrete benefits in order to attract prospective employees alongside a better pay rate. $10/hour with no benefits outside of in company discounts and maybe an admission deal with other parks is not gonna cut it anymore.
 
If they added $10 to each pass sale but that in turn funded whatever raises and benefits needed to fully staff the park for standard seasonal hours, I don't think there'd be too much backlash - but that also assumes that the company would use the extra funds for employees.
 
Maybe they are saving their dollars now, so they can do HAUNT. They are probably aware that most of the park's fanatics love the late night HAUNT hours. Specifically Saturday where the park is generally open from 10:00am-10:00pm on Saturday. Staffing the park on weekends during October might be easier. Not to mention the full HAUNT set up. Who's going to staff that?
 
Yes 2-3 years.

Remember, it’s not just about pay or benefits. One area of the workforce that is majorly hurting are the part time live at home “job” type (ie they aren’t making a career or living off of this). A major factor is parents not wanting them to take the job between Covid, the way people act, and other opportunities. It will take some time for this type of employment to show they will protect the employees and compensate them as well.
 
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But that's anywhere that employs a lot of people. If you work for an essential store; potentially you risk covid. So in ways, it is no different than working at KD. The difference with an essential store is that it's open all year. KD is seasonal. As long as rides keep operating, the park should do just fine.

HAUNT operations may change just a tad bit. Maybe they don't do as many mazes and scare zones as they did before. As mentioned before; I'd rather see them operate FoF as a ride during the HAUNT duration. No need for that small maze, when you can keep a ride open and use the staff for a couple of other mazes. Quality is better than quantity. What if KD only did 5 mazes this year? Or used Volcano's spot to house a bigger maze than what KD generally does. That would make up for the loss of a couple of others.
 
Although I stand to be corrected if it doesn't pan out this way, I'd presume the park isn't going to magically fix staffing issues by Haunt.

This leads me to believe that if anything we may see that whole section of the park walled off since it still takes at least 3-4 staff for FoF, and maybe only a couple more for the house in the queue. They do that they can move their existing ops staff over to other attractions and ensure the main food/drink and merch locations are well staffed and ready to make money.
 
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Since the park usually has staffing issues during Haunt in a normal year (college workers are back in school, workers from abroad are mostly back in their home countries), I do wonder if they will actually need to make any major changes in hours and/or staffing this season. I’m sure it might be a little worse than a normal year, but I’m unsure as to what extent.
 
Something important I'd like to bring up about staffing is the park typically employs hundreds of international workers during the summer months, and those workers aren't here this year because of COVID. Those workers usually leave by late August, so Haunt is never really staffed by internationals. That's not to say the park won't struggle with staffing when Haunt rolls around, but keep in mind that staffing this summer is especially bad because of a missing workforce that's never used for Haunt anyway. So I don't think the staffing issues we're seeing now will necessarily translate over to Haunt, at least not to the same extent.
 
Something important I'd like to bring up about staffing is the park typically employs hundreds of international workers during the summer months, and those workers aren't here this year because of COVID. Those workers usually leave by late August, so Haunt is never really staffed by internationals. That's not to say the park won't struggle with staffing when Haunt rolls around, but keep in mind that staffing this summer is especially bad because of a missing workforce that's never used for Haunt anyway. So I don't think the staffing issues we're seeing now will necessarily translate over to Haunt, at least not to the same extent.
They also won't be trying to Staff Soak City at that point. It's not the least bit uncommon on a typical year to see staff in Lifeguard uniform that transition over to other duties in the fall.
 
Although I stand to be corrected if it doesn't pan out this way, I'd presume the park isn't going to magically fix staffing issues by Haunt.

This leads me to believe that if anything we may see that whole section of the park walled off since it still takes at least 3-4 staff for FoF, and maybe only a couple more for the house in the queue. They do that they can move their existing ops staff over to other attractions and ensure the main food/drink and merch locations are well staffed and ready to make money.

Most people would rather have the ride open. It's the least favorite maze in the park. Not sure why the park hasn't realized for the past umpteenth years of closing FoF. Aside from that, we don't know what Cedar Fair's policy will be with covid restrictions. For those who have not rode FoF this season; you will notice that the roof access is open during the ride. I assume this was a ventilation protocol for covid. When it comes to enclosed mazes, I assume that the protocol will have been adjusted, to where doors stay open; rather than closing behind guest.

So what does that do with the style of mazes that KD does. Well, for starters it would be rather interesting to see them go to open air mazes for this year's HAUNT. Imagine popular attractions like Corn Stalkers and the camp theme one returning. With Dinosaurs Alive being defunct, it would be rather interesting for them to use that space back there to make a LONG MAZE. Again, this goes back to my theory of a possible staffing shortage for the 2021 season. Rather than trying to pull of 10 mazes; let's just do 5 or 6 bigger ones and pack all the scare actors in there for a much better quality experience.
 
I think it's hard for us enthusiasts to truly know the actual popularity of any given attraction - just because things may not have a long line when you pass by doesn't mean anything - it could have higher capacity, a lull due to location or time of day, or literally any other reason.

We can probably agree that the purpose of any attraction is to entertain guests, which in turn encourages them to visit and spend money.

With the prediction that the park will continue to struggle hiring seasonal staff, they simply may not be able to achieve the quality standards they're aiming for including throughput which can impact in-park spending - if guests are held up in long lines, they can't buy anything.

Again, I stand to be corrected, but it's not hard for me to believe they may choose to close a relatively high-cost area of the park to concentrate on higher profitability zones such as CAG or the midway near TT.
 
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None of this has anything to do with the Operating Calendar. That said, I can’t figure out where to move any of it, since there appear to be about three conversations happening at once.

So, please continue these debates in the appropriate threads.
 
None of this has anything to do with the Operating Calendar. That said, I can’t figure out where to move any of it, since there appear to be about three conversations happening at once.

So, please continue these debates in the appropriate threads.

I apologize, guessing at least the last few could go under Haunt?

More on-topic - I'm a bit frustrated that there's not a good opportunity to head to the park after work with the current schedule.

I know it's based on staff availability among other things, but it'd be nice if they could experiment with pushing their hours back so maybe opening around 2-3 and closing around 9-10. I'd venture to guess if there is any promotion behind such hours that they'd see more guests through the gate after 5 then they may be getting through the middle of the day currently.
 
^Agreed 100%. 7pm closing time is just soft. At least BGW is really pushing on their hours but I imagine they have slightly better access to labor than KD.
 
In addition to no more reservations, the park has also slightly extended its summer calendar! Summer Bonus Days will features a select assortment of rides, food, and games from 12-5 each day.

 
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