COVID-19 Impacts on Kings Dominion
- Thread starter belsaas
- Start date
KD's max capacity is between 45000 and 48000 (Source: http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/resources/analysis.pdf). 11-12k isn't a terrible daily attendance number for KD and would be more than a lot of their weekdays and early season weekends have for attendance. My assumption is those lower attendance days aren't open as loss leaders and that they do make an operating profit those days, likely by opening less eateries and such. The challenge is can an 11-12k attendance cap support bigger events and shows, which is where I think you'd run into issues.
This is just my opinion on it:
I would doubt at those times they care as much about the day to day, because the early months have special groups, then summer weekends with 35,000-40,000 people in the park make the week/month profitable. There's a big difference between 2-3 weeks of it, then 3-4 days a week than it is for potentially 2-3 or more months of operating that.
Also remember that we expect operating costs to be significantly higher than normal thanks to health monitoring, PPE, training, hugely increased sanitation, etc. Comparing the break even point post-COVID to that point pre-COVID is apples to oranges.
They would most likely scale the park back to look like the early season low attendance days and make their profit that way. That likely means closing eateries, rides, shops, etc. that have too high a marginal cost to operate. Operating the park at higher capacity takes a lot more staff than a light day, though it's surely more profitable than a light attendance day.
The additional operating needs will probably have dis-economies of scale beyond certain points. With large crowds, social distancing becomes exponentially more difficult to manage and ride sanitation will create exponentially longer queues that will have to be managed. A lighter crowd can largely social distance on their own and queues can be manageable with between ride sanitation and limited seating that will be needed.
All of those things are great to say in theory, but in practice we don't know if they will be true or not. It's hard enough to maintain social distancing going something as "simple" as grocery shopping or getting a prescription. Who knows what it will look like in an amusement park.
Let’s not forget about those people who seem to think nothing is going on and invade your space while yelling to someone three isles over in the queue. Yea....those people will still be out and about. They are in the grocery stores as I write this. Completely oblivious to the gigantic stickers on the floor that say ‘Hey, stay the hell away from me!’.
The question (beyond is it a good idea from a virus-spreading standpoint), is will they lose less money If they open then if they don’t. They don’t need to make money, they just need to lose less money. But I don’t know that losing less is a given
Kings Dominion has posted a new update regarding the impact of COVID-19 on park operations. Here are the highlights pulled right from the announcement.
- We continue to update and enhance our park with a reimagined area in Soak City, Coconut Shores, which will feature an all-new multi-level aqua play structure, a mini wave pool for kids, and a new dining experience
- Our Run & Ride event will now take place virtually
- This year’s Memorial Weekend Salute is unfortunately cancelled but will return in 2021
- Grand Carnivale, our immersive evening parade and international street festival, will be postponed to 2021.
If KD and Cedar Fair parks in general can't drive revenue, or at least see a path forward to needed target revenues, I'd say it's more likely than not this project gets cancelled. Cedar Fair took on a lot of debt to get cash on hand for surviving through the crisis and if they have to draw down that cash a lot of capital projects are going to get cut left and right.
Last edited:
I just did this last week for the Marine Corps Half Marathon that was supposed to run in Fredericksburg on May 17th... you run the distance and then upload your proof to the website -- proof for most being a record of your activity on your fitness account (Garmin or FItbit or other) and then they mail you the finisher medal and race shirt. I don't know if they use those results to actually award prizes, I have as much chance of winning a prize as I do getting one last ride on Volcano.
You know what I am really looking forward to? Not having to fight a swarm of bees for my drink refills. Please, please, please, KD, get rid of the self-service drink machines!
Double post, but this actually might be a bit more serious. I noticed that on KD's website, wherever it used to say Coconut Shores is "Coming in 2020," the text has been changed to "Coming Soon." With talk of water parks possibly being even more difficult to open than dry parks, the fact they've removed any reference to the area opening this year doesn't seem like a great sign.
Before:
Now:
I definitely don't think we should interpret this as a sure sign that Soak City won't open this year, but it might suggest the park doesn't really know. It doesn't seem like a change the park would make just for the heck of it.
Before:
Now:
I definitely don't think we should interpret this as a sure sign that Soak City won't open this year, but it might suggest the park doesn't really know. It doesn't seem like a change the park would make just for the heck of it.