Years ago Paramount had an upcharge for FF, and then did away with it. Everyone was happy.

That may have been the case most nights, but not always. One particular night comes to mind the first year of FF. The front gate area was packed with people shoulder to shoulder, with absolutely no room to move. Admissions was caught off guard, as the projection was nowhere near what the park actually got. With staff already spread thin due to it being the end of the season, full timers were called out to sell tickets out of aprons. All 16 general admission windows were open, as well as the 8 windows in the Group Sales building and all 10 season pass windows, all doing FF sales. The GM and the Marketing VP were just some of the full timers selling tickets out of aprons. With different price points for general FF admission and season pass FF admission, plus discount coupons from Taco Bell, and having to direct credit card users to the windows, it was not an easy task.

Fortunately for me, I was off having fun at my friend's bachelor party that night. I received a page at 3:45 in the morning (and I won't say where I was or what I was doing at the time; let's just leave it at that ) saying that Admissions was still counting money at that point and was nowhere near done counting. And there was no way that they were going to be able to balance anything.

After that night, ALL full timers were required to work FF nights, NO EXCEPTIONS. Any full timer that didn't already have a departmental duty those nights (such as Finance, Marketing, HR) had to report to Admissions, who would typically only need them for a few hours (or end up not needing them at all).

And I will add, many SP holders were not happy either. They were used to getting into the park for no extra charge, and many remembered the original Winterfest, when there was no extra charge. As FF went on the next couple of years, the initial novelty of the event wore off, and more people were unwilling to pay extra when they had a SP, or a daytime ticket to the park. That is what drove the decision for the no upcharge. To reintroduce it at this point (no matter how reasonable the park mgmt deems it to be, BoddaH) will not be viewed favorably by the SP holders and the GP. Sure, it WILL be nice for those who do go, but getting them in the gates in the first place will be CP's biggest challenge.

When working admissions Gatorhead, did you ever encounter anyone who was taken off guard by the original fearfest upcharge then decided to just turn around and go home?

Nah, it's going to be really different from Winterfest. Winterfest was doomed from day 1. We can assert that no one went because of the pricing, however the event cost so much to put on that they needed the revenue. It simply wasn't viable to charge $10 per head. Unfortunately, the great experiment was a failure.

If it was doomed from day one and the great experiment failed so bad, then why did CBS (Paramount) plan to bring it back for the 2006 season? Cedar Fair were the ones who cancelled it after their acquisition was completed, CBS was advertising it and even selling pre sale tickets.

It's difficult to tell what Paramount's plans were for Winterfest in 06. Maybe they were going to change the pricing, maybe they were going to downsize it, maybe they were going to make it bigger and better than ever, or of course, maybe they assumed that whoever the new owners were would have to be the ones to cancel it.

When working admissions Gatorhead, did you ever encounter anyone who was taken off guard by the original fearfest upcharge then decided to just turn around and go home?

Actually, I remember when FF did go free, people were on the message boards upset by the possibility of long lines for Halloween stuff.

When Paramount brought Winterfest back it was nothing more than window dressing for potential buyers of the parks.

If it would have worked out, just another perk to make the park more appealing. But Paramount really did it half-heartedly as far as planning went, and overpriced it.

It really is too bad. I think Winterfest could do really well.

Indeed.....Six Flags is now having Holiday in the Park at Six Flags Over Texas and at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom...and the concept is going to expand to one of that company's large northeastern US parks this coming year....

When working admissions Gatorhead, did you ever encounter anyone who was taken off guard by the original fearfest upcharge then decided to just turn around and go home?

Actually, I remember when FF did go free, people were on the message boards upset by the possibility of long lines for Halloween stuff.

Thats neat and all, and I read message boards and have heard people complain about the lines, not to mention experienced them first hand, with you but that didn't answer my question, which was posed to Gatorhead who worked admissions at the time.

^Sorry, I took a couple of days off from the forums!

We did get complaints. Marketing did their best to get the word out about the upcharge and it worked in most cases, but there was a small number of people that refused to pay and ended up leaving, and most of those people made a stop at GR before leaving. But like I said, it was a very small number of people. I think most people that didn't like it either didn't come in the first place, or did pay and complained while doing so (and there were A LOT in that category that I dealt with).

Thats right! If you buy an 08 season pass at Carowinds you get free admision to Scarowinds. Hopefully Kings Island will do the same for Halloween Haunt! Here is the link to the Carowinds website, it will say it in the red bulliten that comes up on the screen! http://www1.cedarfair.com/carowinds/#actions

What does this have to do with rumors?

Besides, it's official now, Halloween Haunt will be pay seperate. ()

^I wouldn't call it official yet. CF can always change their minds (although unlikely). This time last year, it was "official" that the 2007 Halloween event would be "Fearfest", and we know how that ended up.

This time last year we were still getting used to CF.

Besides, with Cedar Fair, You never know (that you do know)!

You just contradicted your own statement. In your earlier post, you said it was official that Halloween Haunt would be a separate charge. XGatorhead stated that while it was strongly hinted that the event would become a separate charge event, it is still too early to determine what stance Kings Island will take on this issue. Then, in your last post you stated that you can never be sure what Cedar Fair is going to do, which contradicts your earlier post.

And on the topic of getting used to Cedar Fair. Yes, last year this time there were some changes that Cedar Fair implemented, but overall I believe they were rather minor in nature. This coming season will see some significant changes at the park with some attractions loosing their Paramount branded names.

I like to condradict myself,

but I don't like swich sides.