Volume 3, No. 13. July 11, 2003
Top
Thrill still
On the evening of
July 4, 2003, at 7:45 p.m. (19,45), a cheer rose over the Cedar Point Peninsula
in Sandusky, Ohio. People danced and high-fived neighbors. “The manager
on duty said you would have thought the Cleveland Browns had just won the Super
Bowl,” said Janice Witherow, public relations manager for Cedar Point amusement
park.
The
cause for celebration was the reopening of Top Thrill Dragster, the 420-foot
(128 meter) hydraulic launch coaster from Intamin that had been shut down 15
straight days. In fact, since June 4, Cedar Point’s $25 million investment
had been down more often than up, and even in the past week its performance
has been sporadic, though it has operated every day since Friday except Tuesday.
Traditionally
Cedar Point has shied away from prototype rides, though it was the first park
to surmount 200 feet and 300 feet with coasters, and those used new technology.
Even Top Thrill Dragster, the world’s highest and fastest coaster,
is not, by definition, a prototype because Intamin installed its first hydraulic
launch coaster using a similar top hat profile track at Cedar Point’s sister
park, Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, last year. Nevertheless,
Top Thrill Dragster represents cutting-edge technology, and its hydraulic
launch system has proven incorrigible to the park’s and manufacturer’s
technicians. Not just one element is to blame, either, but a series of failures
have occurred, all tied to the launch system.
Despite
getting the coaster running again over the weekend, park management still won’t
be satisfied until Top Thrill Dragster operates consistently, Witherow
said. “At this point our goal is to get Top Thrill Dragster operating
in a consistent manner like the rest of our rides,” she said. “We
can’t keep telling our guests it’s up, it’s down, it’s up,
it’s down. We need to get to a point of telling our guests its reliable.”
If it can’t get to that point, she said, “We will close it for the
remainder of the season for a complete review.” No timetable for such a
decision has been set, she said.
This is new territory for Cedar Point. The park has worked out bugs on new rides before, a given in the amusement industry, but never has it had an icon ride totally silenced for weeks at a time. “We are learning a lot of things as we go,” Witherow said. “We’re going on how we would want to be informed if we were visiting Cedar Point.”
The
park’s marketing team has taken the approach of unabashed publicity about
Top Thrill’s status. Five days after the ride first shut down on
June 4, Cedar Point began posting daily status reports on its web site, using
a special icon on the home page. The park also put daily updates of the ride’s
status on its telephone hotline, and both of these notices have been publicized
through local media stories whenever possible. “We feel it’s very
important to let guests know the status of the ride if it was their reason for
coming to Cedar Point,” Witherow said.
For
those guests who may not have checked the web site or called ahead of time,
the park is handing out flyers at the parking toll booth listing that day’s
Top Thrill status. Signs at all of the entrances further inform guests
of Dragster’s mood for the day. This allows guests to turn away
before paying to park or for an admissions ticket. So far, Witherow knows of
no guest turning away.
“People
have been disappointed, and we can empathize with that—nobody has been
more disappointed than us at Cedar Point who have worked so hard to get this
ride up and running consistently,” she said. “The vast majority of
guests have been very understanding.” She said the staff has received e-mails
and calls of thanks, “and people stop us on the midway thanking us for
communicating the status of the ride.”
“More than anything we’ve learned what we’ve known all along, to communicate with our guests and let them know as much as possible what is happening,” Witherow said. “We want to be up front and as honest as possible.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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