Park Buy-outs

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R

RKRCC

Aug 9, 2016
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Virginia Beach
Sorry for the double post...

I haven’t seen BGW let a company buy out the park for a day. That’s interesting if they are allowing this... I know Kings Dominion does this a few times a year, but never recall BGW doing it (at least lately). Did they do this during the A-B days????
 
Yeah, BGW buyouts have been a thing for a while actually. Seems to happen less than at KD, but it’s not a new thing.

Anyway, thanks for posting the PDF @RKRCC! I just referenced the one you uploaded last year to see how the number of days compares. (+17* at BGW and +6 at WCUSA in 2020!)

* Not including the last minute HOS additions to 2019’s schedule.
 
BGW has often done smaller events where a company will buy out a portion of the park on a non operating day. Or they will do an event where a portion stays open later. This is the first time in a few years where I can recall a company has bought out the park on an operating day. But hey if a company is willing to pay that much money then why would BGW stop them?
 
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WDWRLD said:
I would guess much less. But who knows.
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looks like they get around 10k visitors a day, if each person spends about 30 bucks total at the park that’s around $300,000 dollars..... I’m assuming they wouldn’t want to make less than that.
 
I have no idea really how the private parties work but im sure the entire park isnt running as it would on a normal day, example 5 shows in the festhaus, maybe they only do one or two or even none who knows. Food locations, its possible they cater a lunch for x number of guests at the festhause. They may not have other food locations open that day. Again, I have no idea just guesses.
 
From what I was told back when I worked at KD is that when someone buys out the park for a day, they literally buy out (at a group rate) every available ticket. Everything about the day from an ops perspective was the same as any other day.
 
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Gavin said:
From what I was told back when I worked at KD is that when someone buys out the park for a day, they literally buy out (at a group rate) every available ticket. Everything about the day from an ops perspective was the same as any other day.
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Interesting. How do they decide how many tickets that would be? Historical average?
 
qdeathstar said:
looks like they get around 10k visitors a day, if each person spends about 30 bucks total at the park that’s around $300,000 dollars..... I’m assuming they wouldn’t want to make less than that.
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Typically when the park is bought out it only covers admission and potentially some food vouchers. Admission to the park is approximately $89 per person. Group rate I think is around $60 and then there could be food in addition.

I also think that your attendance numbers are off by a little bit. The actual number is higher. Either way they still wouldn't be factoring in for because that's a separate charge to just closing the park because they can close the park and just pay for admission.

WDWRLD said:
I have no idea really how the private parties work but im sure the entire park isnt running as it would on a normal day, example 5 shows in the festhaus, maybe they only do one or two or even none who knows. Food locations, its possible they cater a lunch for x number of guests at the festhause. They may not have other food locations open that day. Again, I have no idea just guesses.
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It all depends on how large the group is. Staffing will be based on that number. Since this group is closing the park Busch will staff and run shows based on the number of people they are bringing. If it is a group of 15,000 people then the park will staff and schedule shows for 15,000.
 
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WDWRLD said:
Interesting. How do they decide how many tickets that would be? Historical average?
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It's based on what the group wants. There is probably a base fee to cover the park not opening period and then they pay for the tickets on top of that.
 
BGWnut said:
Typically when the park is bought out it only covers admission and potentially some food vouchers. Admission to the park is approximately $89 per person. Group rate I think is around $60 and then there could be food in addition.

I also think that your attendance numbers are off by a little bit. The actual number is higher. Either way they still wouldn't be factoring in for because that's a separate charge to just closing the park because they can close the park and just pay for admission.


It all depends on how large the group is. Staffing will be based on that number. Since this group is closing the park Busch will staff and run shows based on the number of people they are bringing. If it is a group of 15,000 people then the park will staff and schedule shows for 15,000.
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To add to this, if a group needed to buy at theoretical max capacity to have the park for the day, google claims BGW's max at 38,000 people (theparkdb.com). If that's true, and it's $60 per person base, that's $2.28million to rent the park for the day. LOL.

I doubt it would be that much.

Let's say for a full park day, there's a cap to the number of people they will charge for at 20,000; and they reduce the charge to $45pp; that's still $900,000 for a single day.

So, if I had to guess, renting the park for the day likely costs about $1million.
 
I'm curious about the F&B scenario for a buyout - would guess that there'd be an upcharge to the company buying it to have catering.

They could do food stations around the park, not just the Black Forest area, given the amount of people unless a company wants to be baller and brings a much smaller amount of people than capacity, or be cheap and make their employees pay for food.
 
Jonesta6 said:
I'm curious about the F&B scenario for a buyout - would guess that there'd be an upcharge to the company buying it to have catering.

They could do food stations around the park, not just the Black Forest area, given the amount of people unless a company wants to be baller and brings a much smaller amount of people than capacity, or be cheap and make their employees pay for food.
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Getting wildly off topic here, but I would bet there's a voucher system for a snack and meal and beyond that is on each person.

Most parks make the concept of shutting down the place just absurdly expensive (especially on a weekend) to avoid things like that. Most rather host about 4-5 small company gatherings, host catered buffets at a picnic spot, and sell extra tickets on top of it. Yes it makes for a packed and miserable day at the park (been to plenty of Hershey, Dorney, Kennywood and Knoble days like that), but from the parks perspective it's much more profitable.
 
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So, bigger question - how does one work for a company that buys out a park like that?

I'd guess that with the way things are these days, the grass wouldn't be as green as you'd expect
 
Makes sense since they're much closer to KD, but I'd be curious about the price difference between the two parks for buyout
 
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