I understand the feeling, but to be frank, the fact that consumers are willing to look the other way because they *really* want it is the reason we have companies like EA out there railroading customers at every turn. I'm afraid that only a very sharp downturn will correct the course SEAS is on and hear stuff like this, while also seeing the tourist crowd that heavily frequents the Florida parks, I'm just not optimistic that people have the willpower to affect change.
The State of the Park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg
- Thread starter CoasterTalkBob
- Start date
It's a shame that so much push was put on top thrills over family friendly. Feels like family friendly has been getting cut out with no replacing. Kinda makes me question....is SPW on the way and they are trying to prep BGW to have a chunk cut out.
Using your EA example:
Microtransactions were brought under congressional review, and they determined there was nothing wrong with it and consumers needed to understand what they were spending money on.
Basically, the government view of micro transactions was don't be stupid.
As a military retiree, I can get my family 5 Gold season passes at a rapidly improving Kings Dominion s for $445. For 5 of the equivalent -level pass at a continuously downhill BGW, I would pay $1140. I also would have to pass KD to get to BGW. It's no contest. BGW used to be amazing. It's just not anymore. You can't expect people who remember how it was to accept how it now is.
Not sure there was anyone indicating the government needed to be involved with SEAS' pricing vs offerings as they have stated pretty much everything somewhere (minus the 'mop your own stall' bathroom adventure), guessing I missed your point?
I was pointing out that what leads to this stuff is the stupidity of consumers. I said it way back when SEAS started jacking prices. If people pay, there's no reason for them to stop. Sept-Dec, which it prime renewal season, will be telling. If memberships significantly drop, they will feel it; if it doesn't, they'll have no reason to change.
22Q4/23Q1 earnings calls is where that will really come to light.
I mean there are certainly thresholds to make me stop going to BGW entirely. I have been mulling downgrading my membership due to the overall shittiness of SeaWorld Entertainment and this incident more or less is contributing to that decision. I also no longer want to spend money in the park on food or merchandise knowing some internal accountant was like "hey let's increase merch and food sales by 5% with small print *evil smile.*" The roller coasters themselves give me a hell of a rush though and it's fun to split sundays at KD and BGW (though I tend to go to KD more, the whole not needing to spend money on food at all thing but receiving 2 meals a visit is nice plus 80 minutes less of driving and gas). I mean honestly it's tough to remove the "European beer garden with several great roller coasters" from my life entirely.
I struggle to understand this strategy as families tend to spend quite a bit in park and your typical family attraction is cheaper to procure and operate than a major roller coaster. There definitely needs to be a balance of sorts, but going entirely thrills focused leads to a lot of guests who dont spend much as they are just going on big rides most their visit.
Right, but that statement is only "everyone would take that, it is just capitalism" if you hold every other variable the same throughout the process. Assuming you can increase rate of sales relies on there being a higher demand to fuel those sales to begin with. Cutting costs will help maximize profits as long as those cost cutting measures do not jeopardize the ability to get revenue in the first place. We are in a time where Americans prefer quality more than ever, I think it is a matter of time until these measures catch up to them. Non-isolated to Les Frites.
Hell, someone else observed they aren't even speeding up the process, still just slow as dirt with one basket ops. At that point you are waiting long for a shit product at crazy prices, that isn't a long term business strategy.
BGW honestly has the opportunity to go back to their culinary wins of a time past and use that as an extreme marketing tool given how much people value healthy, fresh, quality food for their money now. In an age where all theme park food is pretty shit, a huge portion don't even eat at the parks. in 5-10 years when all the 20-25 year olds who prioritize these standards now in the food industry have families of their own, they won't be lining up in droves at Festhaus for dogshit.
Oh I don’t disagree at all, and would love a better balance. Hell there’s plenty of family friendly rides BGW is straight up missing like you said. I was just pontificating that maybe they are going to do SPW like they laid out, and they are making an effort to boost the “thrills” of BGW so there’s a reason to go into both parks.
@Ice this is great to say….any thoughts as to how much it would cost or what the rollout for that would look like while the park continues to make a profit?
I think the point is that KD has done it, no?
That was the point.
They managed to improve their food quality, continue to provide it at a very affordable price and presumably still run a profit doing so.
Ok. But that doesn't help me understand with what I asked of how BGW would get it done. Just gives me a point of 1 thing KD has as a price point of the meal plan. It's been one small step per eatery a year for KD in terms of improvement from what I take away from your reporting. Yet the sense I get is BGW should change everything at once.
To best express my frustration around this whole conversation at the moment:
I feel like half the answers I'm getting is "KD did it" or "they should just spend more money". I don't feel that's an answer. I had typed up this question, then decided not to ask it, but I'll post the question to you directly (and @Nicole as well because I feel I tend to get answer to my questions from both of you): if SEAS was as bad financially as many made them out to be right before the pandemic, should we be surprised at all the profits mean more than guest experience to get out of that financial hole? Like, to me, if they are still working out of that, making moves that cut into profits right now isn't a great idea.
All of that being said, yes I understand there's a balance between guest satisfaction and making money. That's why I'd argue, BGW hasn't seen the dip in profits to understand how low the guest satisfaction has been. People are still spending money with them. Based on what I took away from the reporting on the last call the number of memberships was up.
I think without us seeing the advanced numbers behind the scenes none of us can answer that. However, I have a theory that I have had running for a while.
SEAS parks always have charged a premium price compared to competitors. 5+ years ago you got a premium product, now I'm not so sure. When SEAS' numbers werent so hot, I believe the two issues that stood out to upper management were annual new guests and costs. I think they werent reaching a new audience very much and they were operating with high costs. Now, the quick and first base solution for both of those is 1. Introduce ticket deals to lure people through the gates, get new people in there through that and redirecting budget towards large ticket marketable rides and 2. Slash costs where we can (food, overhead costs on employee training hours and management rigor, show budgets, etc). To those who took business 101 as an elective in college, these are the reasonable responses. The problem is these moves treat the short term symptoms they were aimed at while creating new symptoms elsewhere and not addressing the overarching issue.
Compare it to the restaurant industry, restaurants that are struggling often cut back on product costs through switching to lower quality food. Universally, experts recommend against this, as it further fuels the beast of people not wanting to go there. Issues like needing to cut back on cost areas that don't show huge margins like food product and time spent investing into the employees are a symptom of bad upper management of resources. My bet is if we could see all the documentation, money is being used extremely inefficiently and instead of deep diving into the issue they just decided to trim off fat.
The reason people keep bringing up KD as a response is because it is a perfect example of why BGW's actions shouldn't be necessary to redeem the business. KD is in a situation where they can easily charge less for more and aren't suffering for it, we can reasonably assume it is a viable option for operating a park.
I think they tackled something like four eateries this season for the record.
I don't think anyone has said this? Honestly, personally, I don't think we're even close to thinking about improvement—we need to see the constant ongoing hemorrhaging stop first.
SEAS was breaking every company profit record imaginable pre-COVID and has subsequently broken all of those records again post-COVID.
I wholeheartedly agree—but I think that's a testiment to the incompetency of current leadership. Good leadership with the company's long-term interests in mind will moderate their base profit/stock value-seaking impulses. Every company could exchange a bunch of good will for cash in the short term, but in all but times of extreme crisis, when has that ever been the correct move?
Once your park's reputation is lost, it's lost. It can take decades and untold millions of dollars to heal those wounds—and SEAS has been stabbing BGW—a park with a once GLOWING reputation—at a pretty astonishing rate over the last couple years. There are times when cashing in on goodwill is a financial necessity. Cashing in on goodwill for stock buybacks is very much not necessary.
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What are you talking about? The grandfathered pass system? If so I'm not sure how that's a counter to what I said, that is pretty much universally agreed upon to be a major issue that probably contributed to tremendous losses.