But it's a long standing BGW tradition to remove vowels!
They aren't though. The park has a significant level of fixed costs that they pay no matter what they do. This is actually where most of the costs come from associated with operating the park There doesn't need to be a large amount of attendance and spend for this to be offset by a little bit. I can assure you that it's very possible that with the level of attendance and spend they have they are financially viable.
I don’t think people understand in how many businesses, for a few months a year often the goal is to break even. So in a month of expected losses (I went through this at green grass golf facilities) if you can even reduce those losses by 15% overall, you are a hero.
Exactly, it's incredibly common. When I was in school (I have a dual degree in accounting and finance) I took an entire class specifically focused on different strategies like this. Any business that is more seasonally/weather focused is much the same way. The idea isn't to make a profit every month, but to reduce the losses. If you will lose less by being open than your fixed costs that you lose no matter what, then it makes financial sense to be open. It doesn't matter if that is as little as a $1 on some days. That's still saving you money, even if you have to spend more money during that time. We interact with a lot of businesses that operate this way or at least should.
Oscar's was open, Elmo's spire was not. Bug a dug was open as well. After the ridiculous crowds and lines of December my family had a great time. You had space, could do rides, stay on the sky ride forever and didn't feel like your children would be lost in a crowd or stolen. I felt like for a low 30s day the crowds were decent. Animal show was fantastic. Band in festhaus sounded good too. I really do think there is great potential for year round ops.
Seems to be that this opinion is very divided. People are either pro-year round or the vice versa. With the way the park has been handling these smaller events, I’m hoping to stay year round. Also love being able to go to Busch for my bday now so…
I have seen qiote a few musical acts there on the stage and it seems to work fine to me. As for the other local venues, many are not as family friendly as BGW so I think they could tap a diffrent audience. Not many play mid afternoons on weekends where they can bring kids to run around. As far as expense, many venues either charge a cover charge or expect you will be buying enough food and drink to cover your table for the cost of the entertainment. At BGW some people will spend more on food and drinks....beer....and some will just buy a snack or something but it all works out and its more for everybody. You wont have a server at your table every 5 minutes pushing more drinks. They could really draw more people if they offered some special foods certain weekends. Bring in a country band, and have specialty burgers, bring in a Mariachi band and have a taco weekend. Its the off season so I think it would be fun to see then go outside thw Festhaus box and change things up. Then when Spring break gets here and the traditional opening date hits go back to the normal menus and themes.
I can confirm that there was supposed to be more to this event than we got, but several groups didn't work out. This is based on what I've heard from people at the park. Haven't seen any actual evidence but I trust the people who told me this. Don't know the scope of what didn't happen, but there was at least supposed to be more than we got.
Thanks for at least a partial confirmation. My gut was the story sounded likely but I hadn't heard anything from anyone I personally knew
Possible but on the other hand was that the goal for those groups or did they see it as part of their education outreach?
