Ingenuity need not ever shut down for the offseason
Several regional theme parks, including California's Great America, have abandoned their year-round calendars and will return to seasonal operations. It's the latest sign of how tough it is for the alsorans in the theme park business to catch up with the leaders.
Last year, three Cedar Fair parks — California's Great America, Kings Dominion in Virginia and Carowinds in North Carolina — announced that they would join their corporate sibling Knott's Berry Farm in staying open for all 52 weeks in 2023. Now the three have announced that they will close Jan. 1 and not reopen for the season until March.
The move to year-round operation was a bold step to try to push attendance at the three parks. None of the three placed among the 20 most-visited parks in North America, according to the industry's TEA/AECOM Theme Index attendance report. Year-round parks dominate that list, claiming the top 12 spots, with Canada's Wonderland in Toronto being the most-visited park with seasonal operations.
It's easy to blame the weather for why parks outside Florida and Southern California cannot attract visitors throughout the year. But let's not forget that the Disney and Universal parks offer much more than outdoor roller coasters and carnival rides. A leading theme park needs an attraction mix that offers its visitors something to do in all types of weather.
That's becoming ever more important for Disney and Universal, too, as rising temperatures make their parks less attractive in the summer.
The three Cedar Fair parks that tried to make the jump this year lacked the dark rides and other sheltered attractions that any park needs to be competitive 52 weeks a year.
Whether it is heat in the winter or air conditioning in the summer, parks will need to provide controlled climates as our natural one changes.
But parks also need rides and shows for visitors of all ages, to appeal to the widest audience of locals while people are staying close to home.
Six Flags Magic Mountain runs all 52 weeks but closes on weekdays for much of the school year. It tried 365day operation in 2019 but returned to its traditional calendar after the lockdown ended.
With a coaster-heavy lineup, Magic Mountain's attraction mix has not proven to be diverse enough to draw the crowds it needs to stay open every day.
Kings Dominion's neighbor and competitor Busch Gardens Williamsburg will close for a couple of weeks in January, but otherwise opens throughout the year. How? That park offers what's closer to a Disney-style experience than perhaps any other American park outside California and Florida.
Theme parks always have been a capital-intensive business. But successfully running a theme park 52 weeks a year demands even more aggressive capital investment. That plays to the advantage of Disney and Universal, which are huge entertainment conglomerates with access to more capital than parks-only companies can hope to raise.
But Disney and Universal have not cornered the market on ingenuity. Companies like Cedar Fair just need a bit more of that if they want more of their parks to go year-round.