Volume 1, No. 19. October 19, 2001
Legendary
efforts
When Holiday World & Splashin' Safari broke ground on a new enclosed family
raft ride two weeks ago (THE
LOOP, October 5, 2001), the park was not finished announcing upgrades
for next year. Last week another significant capital improvement project leaked
from the Santa Claus, Indiana, park: doubling capacity on The Legend
wooden roller coaster by replacing the single Gerstlauer train with two Philadelphia
Toboggan Company trains.
While adding a train to The Legend should cut the amount of queue time
in a park that markets itself as a "no-long-lines" theme park, the choice of
two new PTC trains rather than a second Gerstlauer points to a key marketing
strategy Holiday World has used since the opening of The Raven wood coaster
in 1995. A brilliant piece of coastering by Custom Coasters International, The
Raven failed to garner appropriate appreciation among locals. The typical
comment park staff heard: "It's a great ride for a park like Holiday World,
but it's no (Disney, Busch Gardens, Paramount's, Six Flags)."
The Koch family, the park's owners, set out to prove The Raven was a
great coaster, period, and they did that by actively soliciting ridership from
coaster enthusiasts. The subsequent relationship between Holiday World and coaster
fans paid off. Television commercials show American Coaster Enthusiasts Public
Relations Director David Escalante "coming all the way from California" to ride
Holiday World's coasters, and The Raven attained the number one rating
among the world's woodies in the Amusement Today Golden Ticket Award in August.
The newspaper's editor and publisher, Gary Slade, even announced the award winners
at a press conference in Holiday World.
The Legend settled in at Number 5 on Golden Ticket's list, and Will Koch,
Holiday World's president and general manager, heard too often from enthusiasts
that it would be their favorite coaster if only it had PTC trains. That was
key to Koch's decision to take on the added expense of two PTC's versus one
more Gerstlauer, and he's unabashed in admitting that topping the rankings matters.
"It would be kind of neat to have a one-two punch in Amusement Today," he said.
"Those rankings are very important to us. We educated our local consumers about
those Amusement Today rankings and how well we do on those things."
Despite the upgrades to The Legend, Koch said the park's marketing push
for next year still will be the $1.7 million ZOOMbabwe family raft slide
in Splashin' Safari. However, you can count on Holiday World getting enthusiasts
to return to try out the "new" Legend in hopes that the park will get
a double-golden moment next August.
For a full account of Holiday World's 2002 capital improvement plans, see the
November issue of Amusement
Today.