Winter Event Returning to Kings Dominion in 2026?

[guy305]

They pay less gate, but they also cost the park far, far less, they're more likely to buy addons, food, drinks, merch, etc, and they're probably more likely to come alongside a group of other non-pass-holders (who are all more likely to behave like them). That group pays less for admission, but the margin on that customer overall is far more desirable than the simple admission dollar value.

Strong pass holder bases are crucial to the health of regional parks nowadays, don't get me wrong, but non-core-season operations depend heavily on non-season-long ticket holders to justify their excess budgets.

Of course. But let’s define 1 “guest” as each unique person that enters through the gate. They can enter the gate multiple times.

1 guest is a one-time buyer that goes once or twice or infinity times.

1 guest is one season passholder.

A one-time buyer can go in the summer. But they still exist in the winter, and don’t automatically know or care enough to buy a season pass. So they could buy another ticket for Winterfest if they are enticed.

One person can be incredibly stupid and go 18 times a year, buying a gate ticket at $55 average, and they will have almost spent $1000 over the course of a year. This person is insane. Or rich.

The goal of a season pass is to maximize how much 1 guest spends per year. One passholder is 1 guest. He pays $1000 on just the yearly add-ons, so we can assign $1000 to him too.

One guest could go to Winterfest only, bring three others and provide a meal for all of them. They buy tickets online for $35, and each meal was $25. All together our primary guest has spent $240 on this visit. That’s a family.

How about another family of four, who bought season passes for everyone because they were enticed by the All-Parks deal. They don’t get meal plans, and assume they don’t buy anything extra at all during any visit. We can assign $400 to them.

It’s reasonable to assume a season-pass family will buy something additional at some point. A meal, drink, ice cream, whatever. But even if we consider the cheapest individual, who just wants the free meals for their vacations, they were still duped into giving up their money.

At minimum they want one guest who spends $40 a year. $40 or whatever the cheapest online gate ticket is. Every market is made up of individual people who can be enticed to go at any time throughout the year.

I guess my point is that often times @Thriller focuses too hard on the daily metrics with his analysis. It’s not wrong to consider the daily, but it, the quarterly, or yearly can be highlighted at any point throughout the year. Every year they want to convince a person in the market to go.

 

[GAcoaster]

Crazy thought. Make it a drive thru lights event. The paths are wide enough and the one down the street makes a boat load of money

Better idea, have a drive through light event in the parking lot as well as an in-park event. Hershey has done this and it's great-- you can do the light drive through regardless of weather so it expands the scope/dates of the event. The park can just be open weekends and peak times. There's enough space to do both at KD and many parks other parks in the chain.

 

[AmyUD06]

The goal of a season pass is to maximize how much 1 guest spends per year. One passholder is 1 guest. He pays $1000 on just the yearly add-ons, so we can assign $1000 to him too.

No, the goal of the season pass is to get them in the door as much as possible so they're spending money on the things in the park, which all have huge profit margins.

$1000 in yearly add-ons? LOL. Most people, especially locals, are not doing the All-Season Fast Lane. Probably a drink plan ($35) and a meal plan ($150). Maybe a photo pass if they're into on-ride photos. I don't know how you possibly get to $1000 for ticket prices for passholders without the All-Season Fast Lane.

 

[guy305]

No, the goal of the season pass is to get them in the door as much as possible so they're spending money on the things in the park, which all have huge profit margins.

$1000 in yearly add-ons? LOL. Most people, especially locals, are not doing the All-Season Fast Lane. Probably a drink plan ($35) and a meal plan ($150). Maybe a photo pass if they're into on-ride photos. I don't know how you possibly get to $1000 for ticket prices for passholders without the All-Season Fast Lane.

Yes. That was the example to represent the All-Season Fast Lane. Those people exist and are worth a lot of guests. But they are not common.

An All-Season Fast Lane guy is pretty careless with their money, relatively speaking to most people, so wouldn’t you say some of them might not care about how many additional things they buy when they get in the park? Why count their contributions out, maybe it’s exponential?

The whole point of everything is to convince the most persons in a market to give you the most money. All-Season Fast Lane guy, while uncommon, is worth a lot of average persons. How many people can you attract per year, what’s the $ amount you are striving for each person to spend?

 

[Thriller]

The original idea of a season pass was to give away the gate and to have people come back and spend money mainly on food and drink every time they came. That makes business sense. That’s how Busch Gardens and Herschend operate.

However, years ago, Six Flags and Cedar fair decided to start giving away that food on meal plans. Any event at the end of the year is just giving more food away. I will never understand the business logic behind this. But in my opinion, it’s one of the reasons that Six Flags is struggling as a company right now. Then add and that everything is priced sky high in the park and the season passholder is less likely to spend money on each visit if their meals and drink drinks are already covered.

If Six Flags is ever going to turn things around, they need more one time ticket buyers not seasoned passholders buying meal plans

I know personally with my season pass and meal plans. I only end up spending about $20 a visit to me that doesn’t seem like good business.

There is a fine line between giving everything away and gouging like Busch Gardens does, which is also starting to deteriorate their attendance.

In my opinion, a year-end holiday event is an excellent time to obtain new customers that don’t come during the regular season unfortunately, most of the Six Flags parks only have attractions for two groups of people thrill riders and little children. So the traditional Winterfest is an excellent time of year to get new customers.

The Carowinds type. event probably doesn’t achieve that.
I think it’s especially foolish just to basically extend the regular operating season with Winter fest offering the same exact thing that is available all summer long.

 

[AmyUD06]

The original idea of a season pass was to give away the gate and to have people come back and spend money mainly on food and drink every time they came. That makes business sense. That’s how Busch Gardens and Herschend operate.

However, years ago, Six Flags and Cedar fair decided to start giving away that food on meal plans. Any event at the end of the year is just giving more food away. I will never understand the business logic behind this. But in my opinion, it’s one of the reasons that Six Flags is struggling as a company right now. Then add and that everything is priced sky high in the park and the season passholder is less likely to spend money on each visit if their meals and drink drinks are already covered.

If Six Flags is ever going to turn things around, they need more one time ticket buyers not seasoned passholders buying meal plans

I know personally with my season pass and meal plans. I only end up spending about $20 a visit to me that doesn’t seem like good business.

There is a fine line between giving everything away and gouging like Busch Gardens does, which is also starting to deteriorate their attendance.

In my opinion, a year-end holiday event is an excellent time to obtain new customers that don’t come during the regular season unfortunately, most of the Six Flags parks only have attractions for two groups of people thrill riders and little children. So the traditional Winterfest is an excellent time of year to get new customers.

The Carowinds type. event probably doesn’t achieve that.
I think it’s especially foolish just to basically extend the regular operating season with Winter fest offering the same exact thing that is available all summer long.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[guy305]

However, years ago, Six Flags and Cedar fair decided to start giving away that food on meal plans. Any event at the end of the year is just giving more food away. I will never understand the business logic behind this.

They have to make a certain amount of food per day, if they plan for a successful day they plan to prepare a higher quantity of food.

I know personally with my season pass and meal plans. I only end up spending about $20 a visit to me that doesn’t seem like good business.

A Winterfest ticket is $35. Is that good business?

If you got two meals a visit, each meal would need to cost SF less than $10 to make, which it does. Considerably. Especially when you factor in the people paying $21 for it.

SF assumes they have to make the food anyway. In a lot of cases, a steady flow of customers ensures the food will be more hot and fresh. Or they can help fulfill the day’s quota.

Did you buy anything additional, any extra add-on or product over the course of the season? If you didn’t, you are covered by the “cheapstake” market group. But you still gave them $20 a visit.

 

[Thriller]

One can try to justify their business model because they love the economy of the cheap season pass and meal plans, but the company’s financials tell the story that this is not working.

Their stock price also reflects that investors don’t have much faith in the current model. It is $15.90 today. About half of what it was at the merger. United Parks stock price is down, but it is still over twice as much as Six Flags, even though they have significantly less properties to generate revenue. Which indicates investors have more faith in their business model (note that they need to stop the gouging because they are starting to lose customers because of it).

Plus, the experience continues to degrade because of the low revenue per person. Did anyone notice that Kings Dominion has cut hours again with most summer Fridays and Sundays closing at 9 PM when it was 10 PM last year? Not too long ago it was 10 o’clock closing every nightCarowinds is now closing at 8 PM most of the summer and a couple seasons ago.m, itwas 10 PM. The elimination and the modification of these events last year were also a result of it in my opinion.

So if one doesn’t want to see the experience continually degrade, the company needs to find a way to get different customers in the gate that are more profitable.

A $35 Winterfest ticket usually ends up with a $25 parking fee plus a $25 meal with a drink.

One can call someone a cheapskate all they want, but there’s really no reason to spend any other money at the park if one is on the meal plan. Two meals should sustain most people during the visit time. The food is not that good of quality and I honestly cannot name one thing I’ve had at any of the Six Flags parks that I absolutely crave or I’m excited to get to the park to eat. One can only buy so many souvenirs before they become absolute clutter.

I also don’t believe customers generating $20-$30 a visit are profitable. Because that is just revenue. The cost of meals and labor to prepare the meals and all of the labor throughout the park to serve each person, and the additional ride capacity operation cost eats into most of that.

For 2026 I ended up paying $265 for the all park pass, meal plan and upgrade a drink plan. So it’s most likely going to be less than $20 a visit this year……..

I personally would gladly give up the meal plan if food was a reasonable price per purchase, and it would lead to a higher quality experience. I would also personally be glad to pay more for the season pass if it led to a better experience. But if I’m going to be charitable, I’m going to donate it to people that need it and not a theme park company so I feel no obligation to spend extra money on any visit.

 

[guy305]

One can call someone a cheapskate all they want, but there’s really no reason to spend any other money at the park if one is on the meal plan.

To be clear I am usually a cheapskate.

But I don’t need an absolute need for a reason to buy a sweet treat, or something that’s not food. People’s spending habits are different and unpredictable. Mine are unpredictable across time. Sometimes I absolutely refuse to buy anything extra because I need to save money.

 

[jscll]

Their stock price also reflects that investors don’t have much faith in the current model. It is $15.90 today. About half of what it was at the merger. United Parks stock price is down, but it is still over twice as much as Six Flags, even though they have significantly less properties to generate revenue.

United Parks stock price being $34.79 and Six Flags being $15.50 does not tell us anything about which company is more valuable. Shares can be split or combined. In some cases more shares can be issued deluting the value of outstanding shares.
Six Flags currently has 101.47 million shares outstanding, and United Parks has 54.55 million shares outstanding.

 

[Mushroom]

United Parks stock price is down, but it is still over twice as much as Six Flags, even though they have significantly less properties to generate revenue. Which indicates investors have more faith in their business model (note that they need to stop the gouging because they are starting to lose customers because of it).

I’m sorry, your argument is full of logical holes, but this one definitely needs to be addressed. You cannot compare the stock price of one company to that of another and make any assumptions based on that. Stock price is a completely meaningless metric without factoring in the amount of shares outstanding, market cap, and balance sheet.

 

[Thriller]

You guys are correct, i forgot about the outstanding shares. Taking that into account their market caps are about even. That would give United Parks about $332 million more market cap than FUN on today's price. With much less revenue sources......

Regardless this stock trend tells the story of their business plan.....

 

[Mushroom]

You guys are correct, i forgot about the outstanding shares. Taking that into account their market caps are about even. That would give United Parks about $332 million more market cap than FUN on today's price. With much less revenue sources......

Regardless this stock trend tells the story of their business plan.....

That graph tells me that investors lost confidence in the company once the merger happened and turned out to be a horribly misguided decision. That's it. The season pass business model, and those meal plans you hate so much, were around well before the stock price starting diving... they were around when the stock price was strong and steady too. The cause-and-effect relationship you're implying doesn't seem to be supported by this graph.

 

[guy305]

You guys are correct, i forgot about the outstanding shares. Taking that into account their market caps are about even. That would give United Parks about $332 million more market cap than FUN on today's price. With much less revenue sources......

Regardless this stock trend tells the story of their business plan.....

Anybody who owned the stock may have jumped ship when the price plummeted. This does not automatically mean it’s because each investor doesn’t believe in SF’s park business model, and it is not a direct indication of confidence in SF’s ability to operate an amusement park.

We are on the tail-end of a very tumultuous and public merger where a lot of tough, unpopular decisions had to be made. SF has to figure out how to structure debts and liability payments and how to operate each park well at break-even. The stock price just needs to trend slightly positively, and people may invest because they believe that trend will continue for a period of time.

And I’m sorry but Busch Gardens Tampa is infamous this year for closures, restaurant violations, dirty conditions. Correct me if wrong but can’t think of any SF park in a condition that bad. Any business plan that allows for a park to operate in bad conditions is one that doesn’t instill confidence in me personally.

 

[Thriller]

That graph tells me that investors lost confidence in the company once the merger happened and turned out to be a horribly misguided decision. That's it. The season pass business model, and those meal plans you hate so much, were around well before the stock price starting diving... they were around when the stock price was strong and steady too. The cause-and-effect relationship you're implying doesn't seem to be supported by this graph.

The merger happened in '24.

The dive in price happened in '25 when they revealed attendance decreases on their financials last year. Decreases IMO coming from the reduction in the guest experience>>>Coming from budget cuts>>>Coming from lack of revenue>>>Coming from their pricing strategy IMO. Its a vicious cycle and not a good business plan. A plan that they are going to have a hard time getting out of because any significant price increases will also chase off customers. In this case, it takes time from cause to effect because it is a multi-step cycle.

What other theme park businesses are offering season-long meal plans? I am only aware of Hershey and it cuts off at Labor Day.

But back to the topic at hand. Winterfest is one of the best time to attract new customers to the park other than the 2 demographics that attend the park most of the year (thrill riders and children). Any Winterfest event should not be a continuation of the regular season (rides with light decorations) for the same people IMO.

There will be very very few people NOT renew their pass if there IS a traditional limited rides Winterfest versus the Carowinds type of event. But the chances of attracting new customers outside of those 2 demographics are greater at the traditional type of Winterfest event IMO. And the chances of selling tickets to one time ticket buyers spending money on food is greater at that type of event as well. If a non-passholder is interested in attending the park for thrill rides, etc, they are going to come when the full park and all the rides are open during the summer vs. a scaled down park operations with decorations.

KD's Winterfest had issues however. It had the best lights in the region, but the live entertainment production quality was 2nd class to BGW. Plus the lack of indoor theaters. Lack of transportation experiences like BGW. General lack of indoor attractions as most Winterfest have this issue. For the riders, they had the issue of choosing rides that close around 35-40 degrees. KI runs their Racer and Mystic Timbers in 20 degree weather, so they need rides that can function like those (which they have a Racer that could) scheduled for the event.

 

[MaxxForceFan]

The killing of WinterFest feels like it's gonna go down as one of the all-time great Kings Dominion blunders. The amount of cash and reputation they've lit on fire is truly astounding.

The CFO basically said the same thing on the earnings call. It sounds like the event could be back at some parks this year.

 

[mtorange]

To get a direct quote, when asked about the addition of operating days, the CFO said this:

“I would say that the overall operating days right now are expected to be up slightly, maybe as much as 1%. That could change as we get, you know, further into the year and the opportunity to potentially add back a winter holiday event as an example or two. Those decisions, you know, will be made, you know, in the next several weeks.”

So yes, we should get an update before the end of March. This also explains why we haven’t received an event lineup from any of the Six Flags parks yet.

 

[northdetective]

Like I said with my experience in group sales... if you make a big mistake, fixing the error makes you look like a hero. I'm not saying this is Six Flags' intentions but a sleezy sales strategy would be to intentionally make mistakes just so you can solve them in front of your clients and make the business look great as you "realize the error of your ways". It's the Jimmy Neutron style approach to things

The company philosophy. At least it involves some degree of taking responsibility this time around

 

[horsesboy]

Hearing increasing rumblings that a winter event will be announced for this year. I expect that if one returns it will. be more late afternoon to early evening more ride centered with significantly less lights and entertainment

 

[harry580]

Hearing increasing rumblings that a winter event will be announced for this year. I expect that if one returns it will. be more late afternoon to early evening more ride centered with significantly less lights and entertainment

so, basically the wonka's experience from scotland