First off, this is an incredible opportunity for every member of the ParkFans Forum. I hope people realize the gravity of the situation at hand and act accordingly. This community has been given a chance to prove its worth in a way in which few of us ever imagined it would be. With that said...
I’m cheating a bit here. Since I knew this thread was coming, I drafted a response to it before the thread went live—both because I wanted to model adherence to the park’s proposed guidelines and, well, because I’m pretty damn passionate about my first recommendation…
By far the best season pass perk I’ve ever encountered is SeaWorld Orlando’s pass member lounge. Just having a relatively exclusive, climate-controlled place to go and hang out with some free drinks is, honestly, one of the most substantial guest experience improvements I’ve ever encountered. Though I do really enjoy the limited menu that SWO’s pass member lounge serves, I don’t think it’s essential to the overall experience.
SeaWorld Orlando’s lounge IS great, but we want to top theirs, right? So how do I picture the perfect BGW Membership Lounge?
First off, a big problem I have with SWO’s lounge is that it is just a pass member perk. I believe the perfect membership lounge can and should do a lot more than that. In fact, I think a membership lounge can make money.
Let's look at Disney for a second. Each and every Walt Disney World park has multiple Disney Vacation Club sales counters inside its gates. The only purpose of these booths is to push DVC sales. Universal Studios has something similar in their park’s as well.
Why can’t the welcome counter at a theoretical membership lounge double as a guest services counter? When guests without memberships inevitably walk up and ask what the lounge is, the guest services employee behind the counter can reply not only with “This is a lounge exclusive to park membership holders” but continue with “would you be interested in seeing how much it would cost to upgrade to one of our Membership programs today?”
For such a welcome counter to be an effective sales counter though, the lounge would need to go somewhere with a prominent entrance. I believe this is one of the shortcomings of the limited-run Pass Member Lounge BGW tested inside Das Festhaus a while back—few people walked by the entrance to the Festhaus Cafe/Brauhaus by mistake. To be a real success, I think visibility is key.
So, in light of the prominent location and climate control requirements, location ideas?
I believe Wilkommenhaus is a solid choice. Over the last few years it has been a building without much direction—during the main season it has been everything from a snack shop (right across the street from another low-trafficked snack shop) to a gift shop (within view of two of the best gift shops in the park) to an empty sitting area (right next to an existing sitting area). Another huge plus to Wilkommenhaus that the park already has experience running a guest services location out front (for the escape rooms). Theoretically they should be able to pull those temporary booths out again, give them a coat of paint, and be up and running without too much trouble.
The big drawback to Wikommenhaus? It’s seasonal. The space would be needed for escape rooms in the fall and a cookie shop in the winter.
Since I would really prefer a year-round option, Annie’s seems like an obvious choice—especially since it has only been open seasonally over the last couple years. Unfortunately, Annies lacks the bold, obvious entry that I’m imagining and I think it is probably way too small anyway. With that in mind, I think I have a better year-round option: Rhinefeld’s candy shop.
Last year the candy store in Rhinefeld was closed almost the entire season due to it simply not being profitable. Given its incredibly prominent location, it’s painfully obvious when this store sits dark. Aside from its small size, it seems like this could be a really good “tiny, first year” membership lounge option—super visible, currently vacant location that isn’t used for special events and is fully climate controlled.
If the park wanted to start off in a larger venue though and they are looking for a year-round location (as I would be), SOCO (Castle O’Sullivan) is probably the best solution. Aside from the occasional dine, the place is typically vacant. It has a fairly prominent entry area, an existing booth which can be used as a guest services counter, and even already features soda fountains. SOCO does have its drawbacks though. The fact that the stage-centric layout doesn’t ooze “lounge” being a rather major one in my opinion.
So, what would this perfect membership lounge offer to park members?
First off, let Coke sponsor the hell out of it. Don’t let them paint the building red or anything like that, but feel free to make it as Coke-branded as possible inside. Why? Free fountain drinks are a staple of the SeaWorld Orlando lounge and all of the Disney lounges. Hell, lets copy Epcot’s Club Cool—sell domestic Coca-Cola products at normal park prices and have Coke products exclusive to the countries represented by the park’s hamlets on tap for free. Ultimately, how this goes at Club Cool is that everyone realizes that good ol’ American Coca-Cola is the best and, after sampling the international flavors, just goes and buys a bottle of Coke anyway.
Other ways for the lounge to turn a profit?
Going back to SeaWorld Orlando for a moment, something their welcome desk offers are special plastic membership cards. Right now at BGW, in order to get a plastic membership card, you have to be “in the know.” The average AP holder has no idea that you can go out to the guest services building up the hill from the turnstiles, pay $5, and get a hard plastic card. I know that, right now, the profits from the plastic cards go to the Conservation Fund, but, maybe, it’s time to shake that up some.
Previously SEAS parks offered a wide variety of different cards (each for $5). I ADORED my Verbolten hard pass for years and was gutted when the park’s stock finally ran out. Not long ago guest services accidently allowed the sale of old plastic cards that were supposed to be discontinued that featured Killarney and Emerald Beat. I have a friend who was ecstatic to have scored one and, needless to say, I’m incredibly jealous of it to this day (please hook me up BGW!)
Anyway, last time I was at SeaWorld Orlando, they were selling a plastic pass featuring art from Guy Harvey (shark for the debut of Mako of course). I know BGW used to sell pink ribbon plastic cards with all the profits going to breast cancer research. Aquatica had a selection of custom ones back in the day too—featuring their various animal mascots. Maybe the solution is to have a handful of (rotating?) options—some, like the Conservation Fund card, with money going to a charity and others, like a theoretical Battle for Eire card, with money going to the park.
Something else SeaWorld’s lounge does well? AP-exclusive merchandise. Last time I was down at SWO’s lounge, I believe they had an exclusive pass member shirt, two exclusive lanyards, a few exclusive pins, and the previously mentioned exclusive hard card design from Guy Harvey. I don’t think BGW’s merch lineup needs to be quite that extensive (especially at first), but even just an exclusive shirt that only membership holders are able to buy would be a pretty big plus.
PS: As Disney shows constantly, limited run merch is the way to go for dedicated park fans. A lanyard or similar that is “1 of 2,000” is vastly more appealing than the same lanyard that’s part of a much larger batch. Limited-run merch like this would also make the Member Lounge a place pass members want to regularly check in on. It would also give the park a chance to make merchandise for some less-merchandised attractions or even reprint old, since discontinued merch (DarKastle, Ludwig and all, even now, still deserves a shirt!).
Lastly, lets talk about what I would fill the lounge with: old stuff. Retired merchandise and the thousands of old props and signs the park typically throws away—put that stuff in the member lounge. Then, keeping with the theme I’ve set forth throughout this whole post, put a price tag on it.
In effect, the decorations inside the membership lounge would always be changing as items are sold and replaced. And before someone says there isn’t enough of a market for this stuff, I have to disagree. I know a ton of people who would buy anything the park put out with a Celtic Fyre logo. I know entire clubs dedicated to people who would get into a fist fight over any piece of metal they were told came off of a coaster. Old banners? There’s a market. Howl-O-Scream decorations? Sign me up. Plus, this is stuff that is damn near 100% profit for the park. The park already got their use out of this stuff and it was heading for a dumpster.
And I get that this just sound like an enthusiast's pipe dream, but this formula is already in use at Universal Studios Orlando with Williams of Hollywood where it seems to work brilliantly.
Anyway, I think that is about it. Give people free drinks (especially unique ones they can’t get anywhere else!), some comfortable chairs, and climate control and I’ll be thrilled. That said, I think the park could really take a membership lounge the extra mile and maybe even turn an actual profit from it through exclusive plastic card and merch sales, retired prop and sign sales, drink and snack sales, and on-site ticket upgrades out front.
Frankly, even ignoring the Membership program for a second, a guest services counter somewhere inside the park would be a huge plus to me and, I have to imagine, others as well. There are times I’m in the park and want to book a dining experience or tour and, honestly, having to go all the way back up to Banbury to do so is a pretty big downer. I could see a location like this really helping sales of more spur-of-the-moment-type experiences like the long-struggling Wine on the Rhine during Food & Wine. Put out a chalkboard sign advertising it and allow people to book right there.
Hell, the park could even place one of those new, manned, map stations nearby and they will have basically created a full-service guest information center—something that seems like a pretty substantial guest experience addition by itself.