Annual Attendance Figures released, PKI up 7 percent

Amusement Business announced the attendance at the top 50 amusement parks in the world. Attendance was up 2.2% in 2004 compared to 2003. Also, PKI`s attendance increased 7% over 2003 to 3.5 million visitors. PKI ranked 15th on the list and was the highest ranked seasonal theme park. 16th on the list was Paramount Canada`s Wonderland with 3.4 million visitors, an increase of 30%. Cedar Point came in next in 17th, with 3.1 million visitors, a decrease of four percent. You can read more, and the list of the top 25 parks here You can also read in the article how Amusement Business calculates the attendance figures!

Way to go PKI! And I was a little surprised that Paramount Canada`s Wonderland did so well and had a 30% increase! Keep up the good work PKI and PCW! They must be doing something right if they were the #1 and #2 seasonal theme parks in North America!

Let's just see if IJ:ST brings in as many park guests as Boomerang Bay did. Hopefully it will.

Dang, Canada's Wonderland was booming this year! Paramount definitely made a great decision by placing IJ in their top two parks attendance wise.

Yeah, I was shocked that Canada`s Wonderland did so well. I guess it just goes to prove that roller coasters aren`t everything and that a well rounded collection of flat rides is popular among guests too. Although they did add the Tomb Raider Flying coaster this season.

PCW is a good park with a lot of great flats! And an Ok collection of coasters.

I'm not shocked at all to see the 30% increase at PCW this year. It was definately visible in the park every time I went this past season.

I would like to see PCW's annual attendence over the last five years to compare though. If you think back to the summer of 2003, Toronto was hit hard with the SARS crisis, which made alot of people afraid to go into public places. Every single attraction in the city was way down in tourism numbers, there was cheap deals on theatre, Blue Jays, etc etc... I would bet money that PCW's attendence from 2003 was well below the normal for the park. Therefore the 30% increase is really just bouncing back to normal from a very sub-par year.

The SARS thing is long in the past and this year there was nothing to keep people from enjoying a great day at the park. TR:TR (Zamperla Volare) could of contributed to a increase in guests of just people thinking that a flying coaster is cool. Although once they ride it they may have a different form of thinking.

One of the good things that the park did for next year is before the end of the past 2004 season they offered season passes for $50 CDN a person if two people or more purchased passes.

That's going to make crowds insane for next year, especially with the expected marking campaign that will hit the air in the spring for IJST.

Way to go PCW and PKI!

Canada's Wonderland looks like a really cool park. Is that TRTR a pay per ride? It looks like very low capacity. And how is Sledgehammer? That looks really fun.

I think youre right about the SARS connection to PCW. But Italian Job will probably increase it a good 10%.

Plus I think PKI will get a lot of people coming in for IJST. People I have talked to, and or showed the trailer to, say they will make a special trip to the park just for that ride. These are people who Im friends with, who rarely go to PKI - some of them havent been for years. But they are excited about the Italian Job. I think PKI will increase another 5-7 percent next year too.

With maXair, CP will probably gain a few percentages. They were probably on the decline cause people got so excited about TTD, but then got bored with it. maXair will not make CPs rate skyrocket though, cause people have already flocked to PKI to ride Duhlee. But Im sure that with sociopolitical things being stable, for the time being, and maXair, you will see a 3-5% increase over 2004. But thats still a net of 1% decrease over 2003.

I guess we will have to wait and see. I am by no means a business person. :P

Interesting to see Hershey go down 2% with the addition of Storm Runner.

I'm sure there are a lot of factors involved in whether a park's attendance went up or down with only part of it being the new attraction.

Well the reason I say that is because when I visited the park back in July, it wasn't bad at all. The place was clean, nice collection of rides, and the employees weren't bad either. So I'm just a little surprised to see the numbers go down when a better than average park adds a mutli-million dollar roller coaster.

Tomb Raider: The ride should be a pay per ride... and I mean PCW should pay me for riding the thing. All kidding aside it's free for all park guests, I only rode it twice last season in my 25 visits. To be honest I don't quite know about the capacity as both times I rode I did so when the queue was near empty.

However anytime I walked by all summer long there was a huge line-up that extended beyond the entrance. Whether it was due to the rides popularity among the GP or low capacity I would say both contributed. With only 4 people loading per car it's going to be slow.

Sledgehammer is a real fun ride, it's not as intense as it looks but still great to ride. It makes you lose your stomach real hard on the first two drops, and abit on the third. It's not anything like Delirium in terms of intensity but nonetheless it's a great ride.

If you want an great flat ride try out a Mondial TopScan sometime. Shockwave flings your body in every single direction, and gives you so many g's. PCW did switch the program late last season and I don't enjoy it as much as I used too however.

For some great pics and video's of PCW take a look at Kevin Reids PCW Junkies.com

Good for PKI! I am very impressed by this and I am excited to see this becasue I worked at Beast and to see this is awesome!

Anyone know if 3.5 mill is a record for PKI ?
With 3.5 mill over Cedar Points 3.1 shows you that Cedar Point Is not blowing PKI out of the water as they say. Also I would think that PKI is getting a better return on investment than Cedar Point with the amount they put in their parks.

While there may be other factors contributing to Hershey's decrease in attendance, it is becoming evident that park goers these days want something more than just the thrills. Paramount was the first to realize this, and now Six Flags is starting to jump on the wagon with this past years additons to Great America and Over Georgia.
Now everyone is jumping onto the water park thing, so that should get more people coming back to a lot of these parks that have been seeing bad attendance. (Unless the weather is bad :P )

But way to go PKI, reclaiming the rank of top seasonal park in the country!! :D :D

I believe that PKI`s record attendance was set back in 1996 when Flight of Fear opened. I believe that season the attendance was 3.6 million visitors.