Christmas Town 2019
- Thread starter Gavin
- Start date
In fairness, one might call it supply and demand.
The number of humans increases each year while the number that fit in the park remains the same.
Demand increasing while supply remaining steady = higher prices.
There are also secondary factors such as a strong economy resulting in more (on average) spendable income per capita.
I haven’t been as impressed the last several years with Christmastown, but omg, the crowds have been crazy. Discount days have been packed and weekends are a nightmare. Clearly, BGW doesn’t have an attendance problem for most of this event.
Doesn't explain the drop in quality. More expensive should be able to fund more innovation, shows, xmas attractions, no? That school of thought where you charge higher prices every year with no improvement doesn't work in the long run.
My statement was about the correlation between product and price not price and population/expendable income.
Last edited:
I feel like they sit behind their big desk and think, as long as the suckers keep showing up for the same crap why try to give them more. The Scrooge No More show should really be a behind the scenes of corporate BGW and Seas executives.
In fairness to BGW... that’s business for ya.
Next time I see Bob Iger, I'll ask him.
This is a fair counterpoint IMO. In theory if BGW continued to push the envelope with CT, especially to be more competitive against other events like Winterfest, the demand would be even higher, they could charge more, and they’d make even more money.
One of the downsides to capitalism, at least from a consumer perspective, is that it rewards providers who have lazy patrons. I'm not too huge a fan of capitalism as a whole, but it's hard to argue that a company should do more if people keep throwing money at them to sit on their ass and doing nothing.
If ChristmasTown isnt cutting it for you, stop rewarding BGWs bad behavior. Continually giving money to them and complaining after the fact is kind of useless. They got what they wanted out of you, so why should they care? I mean, unless you just like complaining.
And I can't see anyone one the internet complaining just for sake of complaining. That would be silly.
If ChristmasTown isnt cutting it for you, stop rewarding BGWs bad behavior. Continually giving money to them and complaining after the fact is kind of useless. They got what they wanted out of you, so why should they care? I mean, unless you just like complaining.
And I can't see anyone one the internet complaining just for sake of complaining. That would be silly.
Last edited:
Hard to protest giving money toward Christmastown when they’ve now lumped it in with the new memberships. I would say your argument would have worked when it was a separate ticketed event. Now, even if you don’t go, they still get the $$$. (FWIW, I do love Christmastown despite the gripes here that I agree with.)
FWIW I think that BGW has the most bullshit pass structure. confusing as hell and they fuck over all pass members from other parks with their nonsense exclusivity.
The other parks have events that BGW memberships aren't good for. Must notably HOS at BGT. The only difference is that BGW has opted to give members the ability to get into the park during the separate ticketed event.
Nobody gets into HoS for free; the exception is the first weekend for platinum members. Guess what? I've gotten in for free with FL, BGW, and SWT Plat. CTW is a bullshit exclusion that I'm sure barely makes any impact on the parks finance. Honestly I'm not even interested in CT anymore with the shit BGW pulls with this. BGW clearly doesnt want out of state visitors for CT and that's what they're getting from me.
I understand limiting bonuses to your home park, but this is something I see as a core benefit. Not to mention the PMP days that are now only for BGW members. You can disagree with me, and thats fine. I'm not trying to say that BGW needs to let other plat's in, I'm just saying that if they dont want to let me in to spend money at the park, I just wont go.
I kinda disagree with some of what I am reading here.
First, as people have mentioned, the price is driven by demand. Despite what some people here believe, I don’t think most people thing it is a bad event. In fact, most people I talk to still love CT. Individuals may dislike the new tree maze, but perhaps those people aren’t the target audience. I, for one, think it is charming and pretty and a perfect way to spend an evening.
Second, the park has a real problem with crowd levels. For several years they have been attempting to address that issue with ticket prices (in addition to a few other techniques). This is an industry-wide approach to managing crowds. Since the number of people on the paths and in the attractions made CT miserable fir a few years, I, personally, appreciate their attempting alleviate the problem.
Third, the revenues from CT very likely do NOT fund only CT. If they turn a profit on a special event, it might make more sense to use that money for some other attraction. Perhaps, if they really are making more money (which we have no way of verifying) those resources are being used in the construction of the two new coasters.
Fourth, they really started raising prices, when they switched to Memberships. They told us in advance that they planned to offer CT as part of a Membership, but also intended to raise the gate price. Given the number of people essentially getting in for free, I’m not convinced that they are actually making a lot more money. Regardless, we knew this was going to happen well in advance and were given the opportunity to purchase Memberships at a discount.
I see a lot of complaints about increasing costs at the park, and I see even more demands for additional attractions, better food, increased maintenance, etc. Those two objections are mutually exclusive. If the park can offset the cost of two new thrill rides (for example) by reducing costs at an event that is already lovely, I’m OK with that.
First, as people have mentioned, the price is driven by demand. Despite what some people here believe, I don’t think most people thing it is a bad event. In fact, most people I talk to still love CT. Individuals may dislike the new tree maze, but perhaps those people aren’t the target audience. I, for one, think it is charming and pretty and a perfect way to spend an evening.
Second, the park has a real problem with crowd levels. For several years they have been attempting to address that issue with ticket prices (in addition to a few other techniques). This is an industry-wide approach to managing crowds. Since the number of people on the paths and in the attractions made CT miserable fir a few years, I, personally, appreciate their attempting alleviate the problem.
Third, the revenues from CT very likely do NOT fund only CT. If they turn a profit on a special event, it might make more sense to use that money for some other attraction. Perhaps, if they really are making more money (which we have no way of verifying) those resources are being used in the construction of the two new coasters.
Fourth, they really started raising prices, when they switched to Memberships. They told us in advance that they planned to offer CT as part of a Membership, but also intended to raise the gate price. Given the number of people essentially getting in for free, I’m not convinced that they are actually making a lot more money. Regardless, we knew this was going to happen well in advance and were given the opportunity to purchase Memberships at a discount.
I see a lot of complaints about increasing costs at the park, and I see even more demands for additional attractions, better food, increased maintenance, etc. Those two objections are mutually exclusive. If the park can offset the cost of two new thrill rides (for example) by reducing costs at an event that is already lovely, I’m OK with that.
Last edited:
All the preview events are supposed to be a benefit for your home park only. It seems that BGT does a poor job enforcing policy. Why should that be on BGW?
And the fact that nobody gets into BGT outside of the first weekend for free during HOS was my point.
I think it comes down to the mix of members/passholders to regular ticket purchases. BGW has a large base of members and their attendance mix has a higher percentage of members/passholders than every other SEAS park. That was true a few years ago at least. I'm not privy to what the numbers are for 2019. So it makes sense that BGW would want to encourage it's own membership sales locally in an effort to further boost that number.