Howl-O-Scream during the week?

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Shafor

Nov 14, 2009
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Williamsburg, VA
This is a topic that comes up on Facebook alot. Just curious as to other people's thoughts.

I guess the theory would be that if HOS was open Mon-Thurs it would alleviate some of the Saturday crowd (preventing over-capacity issues and what-not).

I don't subscribe to that theory, but was interested in hearing what others on this forum thought.

My guess is that the vast majority of Saturday crowds are comprised of 1) out-of-towners and 2) teenagers on a weekend night out with their friends. I don't see how opening M-Th would affect either of those groups. They would still go on Saturdays. I would also imagine locals stick mainly to Fri and Sun, which aren't really crowded at all.

Anybody else have thoughts?
 
I agree that it won't cut down on crowds much, but the park will still be raking in the dough- hey, if they aren't loosing money, why not? I imagine we'll see the park doing a little experimenting next year with the idea.
 
Would they be raking in the dough, though? I can't fathom how much extra operational/logistical costs there are on a HOS day vs a regular season day (scareactors, attendants, security, make-up people, etc). They may be losing money at the end of the day? Oh well, I know I certainly be there during the week if they opened up :)
 
This past Friday and Sunday were dead for the most part. I don't think the Saturday crowd would change in the slightest
 
The question is whether or not they could hold the same crowds on a Thursday afternoon as they can on a Friday afternoon.
 
there are so many factors involved with this....but the demand is not there for the park to be open during the week. kids are in school, adults at work. and if the park is only pulling in like 5,000 people its losing money in a big way
 
Yeah, last time i went as i was leaving the traffic to get in was all the way to the hill on the way in, it also said park was nearing capacity, does anyone know the max capacity of bgw?
 
Something tells me you are just posting random numbers. :rolleyes: If you have a reason to believe that it is "around 40,000" or exactly 36,000, please make your case known.
 
Swiftman said:
Something tells me you are just posting random numbers. :rolleyes: If you have a reason to believe that it is "around 40,000" or exactly 36,000, please make your case known.
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It is more or so when the parking spaces fill up and how many people ride in the vehicles.

Austin's numbers are fairly ballpark
 
the real capacity seems to be when the lots are full meaning that the actual cap. could be twice the number of actual occupants. Given that most cars can carry up to 5 people, the actual reason for the park being "at capacity" can differ. For instance, you would get more people per car during Christmas town than HoS because it is more family focused. I'm sure that the park has a maximum safe capacity, but after what I've seen, I'd say that all this HoS stuff is from the lot filling up. I could be wrong, but thats my hunch.
 
While I agree with a body count cap in the park, I am sure that Busch has it down to a science with using parking spaces to regulate it. They probably averaged 4-5 bodies per car then divided that into the park capacity to create the number of parking spaces we now see, or something along those lines.
 
I did a tour and asked that question a few weeks ago. I have since forgotten, but It was around the mid 30s if I remember correctly. I believe with the turnstiles they use, they should be able to find out how many people they have in the park at any given time. Therefore they can predict when they need to start denying entry to the park.
 
pandorazboxx said:
I did a tour and asked that question a few weeks ago. I have since forgotten, but It was around the mid 30s if I remember correctly. I believe with the turnstiles they use, they should be able to find out how many people they have in the park at any given time. Therefore they can predict when they need to start denying entry to the park.
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That's deff. how they count people. I was just saying that being there on a capped Saturday, it wasn't that full, i.e. they ran out of parking before they filled the legal limit(If it is even a legal limit, it might be self imposed. Afterall, it is hard to say how many people can be in such an open area.).
 
heres some info to help in this debate

days and weeks before a certain date BGW projects the number of people they expect to come to the park on that day based on the time of year, different events going on, and the weather. they then use this number to determine how many employees need to be at the park that day. like will AC need 5 people to run 2 trains or 6 to 7 to run three. same thing goes for the other departments in the park . they bring in the amount of employees needed to satisfy the demand in the park that given day.

next the park counts and releases every hour the current amount of people in the park and the total amount for the day up to that hour.

now i know that the park can hold more than 36,000 simply because i worked at the park on days where the projected attendance was very close to that number if not over.

hope this helps
 
well an easy way to see if the park is packed is just look at how ant trains are running. 1 is a low nmber of people. 2 is the average amount. 3 is packed.
 
To reiterate my original point: A friend of mine just texted me (5pm Sat) and said BG was packed. He's a season pass holder, lives in Hampton 30 mins from the park, and when did he chose to go....Saturday night. Ugh.

(BTW, I was there last night, Friday, and again, it was dead.)
 
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