Another off-site rant about a CoasterBuzz thread. (smile)

I’m pretty sure I’m out of touch. I’m just not sure in which direction. Am I so right that it hurts or am I so wrong that it’s embarassing? Either way, threads that I’d traditionally jump into with claws extracted just don’t seem worth it lately – mostly because somebody doesn’t get it. That somebody might be me, I’m not sure.

Here’s the thread.

It’s not even really Jeff’s inital post, but rather the replies and overall tone. To put it bluntly, I couldn’t disagree with the masses any more than if they were saying black and I proclaimed white.

Is park food overpriced? Yup. It always has been. Is it any worse now than before? I don’t think so. Are people really paying this price or are most people like the folks that post on an enthusiast forum who avoid paying these prices at all costs? I think enough people are paying to validate the pricing…and that’s kind of all that matters.

In the short run at least.

Then again, I’m not exactly convinced that it hurts in the long run either. But I digress.

I didn’t want to post my side of things here. I’d just do that in the actual CoasterBuzz thread and get everyone riled up and the thread would go a dozen pages. I wanted to speculate on the bigger picture – the ‘out of touch’ aspect of it all.

CoasterBuzz is unique in that among enthusiast forums the business side of things get discussed more than pretty much anywhere else. The catch is that it’s a whole lot of people with little credentials for talking the business side of things. Myself included.

Any business acumen I have may have accidentally acquired has been from my wife and mostly by osmosis. :)

However, the business in question would be the hospitality industry with is like a cousin to the theme park industry (or some relative analogy).

On top of that I think I have four traits that lend creedence to my point of view:

1. I’m a regular patron of amusement parks and have been for quite a while.
2. I’m a part of a pathetically middle-class family.
3. I’m a pretty bright guy.
4. I believe I tend to see the ‘big picture’ more than most.

(Great, I just described myself like pretty much anyone would, right?)

So as someone who has a wife that runs a hotel, I don’t really think very much of the business approach that so often draws criticism is really out of line based on my second-hand, untrained, sideline observer knowledge of the hotel industry in various markets over the past 12 or 15 years. What I think the truth is, is that people don’t like to see the curtain pulled back. They don’t like knowing they’re just a number…a body to sustain the machine. It’s easier to visit the park and see the smiles and think they care. And hell, they might even care. It’s entirely possible to care and still see the customer as a number.

However you look at it, I think it’s hard for people to see that something they love so much and that plays such a big part of their lives doesn’t love them back nearly as much as they hoped.

They just want your money. They can go about getting it a number of ways…and they do.

I happen to find that side of it interesting. Perhaps it’s my nature? Perhaps it hits close to home because I hear my wife talk about work and she sounds a lot like I’d imagine the corporations behind these parks would sound if they actaully posted to the forums like the enthusiasts? (and I don’t mean park PR people – they’re essentially professional liars) Perhaps it’s both? Perhaps it’s another reason that’s not jumping to mind quickly enough for me to type here?

At any rate, I’m not naive enough to think otherwise and I’m ballsy enough to look it right in the face, tear it apart, figure it out and even celebrate it. How primal of me.

I’m not generally looking at it from the customer POV because that’d be boring and predictable. Obviosuly as a customer I want as much as I can get for as little. There’s nothing to discuss. All the entertainment comes from the business tryng to get the customer to give up more. That’s the game here.

But to read the enthusiast forums, I think I’m out of touch.

Now if I am forced to see it from the boring side, I still somehow come to the same conclusion. Probably because of my penchant for seeing it the other way first.

I visit a lot of theme parks, amusement parks, entertainment locations, fun centers – whatever you want to call them each year. I’m certainly a customer of the industry.

I visit these places with my family. My pathetically average middle class family with two kids, two cars & credit card debt. A cul-de-sacs, soccer mom neighbors, making small talk with other parents, loading up the car for vacation, playing taxi for afterschool activites, seemingly not having enough time in the day family.

Average folk living an average life. Everything I never wanted to be when I was 20. Woe is me, right?

Anyway, my sadly middle-of-the-road family visits these parks and while we occasionally might even say, “Wow. Can you believe what that costs?” we still buy it. Is it steep? Sure. Is it a deal breaker? No. Do I see other pathetically average moms and dads and kids doing the same? Yes. Do the pathetically average moms and dads and kids I talk to tend to do the same? Yes.

My experience. My tendencies. The experience and tendencies I observe. The stories I hear. The people I see. The people I know. All guilty of letting the parks do business this way.

But again, I read the forums and think I must be out of touch.

I don’t think I even have a point beyond the fact that I feel like it’s not worth jumping into the conversation most times anymore – the same kind of conversations I generally love to dig into and get a good debate and exchange of ideas and viewpoints going.

Is amusement park food generally crap? Yes.
Is it generally overpriced? Yes.

It’s always been that way. That’s pretty much the amusement park experience.