DCA Numbers

[Leech]

What is the answer to this question?

What is 5.6 million divided by 365?

[LAURA]

wait....is this coming from Team America, great movie!

[mamabot]

15,342.47

What is the significance of this number?

[Leech]

15,342.47

What is the significance of this number?

5.6 million is the estimated attendance at Disney's California Adventure for 2004 and 15,342.47 is the average daily attendance at DCA.

Now who hear reads Al's column regularly?

[Dustysage]

5.6 million is the estimated attendance at Disney's California Adventure for 2004 and 15,342.47 is the average daily attendance at DCA.

Now who hear reads Al's column regularly?

Estimated by whom? Does that include people that attended both parks for the day? Something that Disney now does to inflate park numbers for DCA and Animal Kingdom. Sunday's are strong at DCA. But most of the time it is a dead zone.

Let's put it this way. Tower of Terror is usually a walk-on at DCA. That isn't ride's fault.

[AP2CM]

I can vouch that dca's average daily attendance is probably right around there (overall). Lately it's been less though.

[Monorail Man]

Remember, every DCA click counts. Even if your just using it to get to the Hotel.

[Darkbeer]

DCA = AP Zone, and guess what day the SoCal folks can go on.. Sunday...

They brought back the "Pay for Disneyland, get DCA for FREE!" promo, and that is specifically a 2 day ticket, so they get one click for each park.. now if a CM is nice enough (of course, unofficially) to let you visit both parks in the same day, well, that is 2 clicks, one for each park, on the other hand, the One Day ParkHopper, only the first park you enter gets the click....

We KNOW that attendance was "basically flat" (I read that as less than 1% decline) at the DLR in Fiscal 2004, since it was reported by the CFO Tom Staggs.

We now have the CHEAPEST 3 Day ParkHopper on record ($109) on sale! :devil:

[Blackout]

[MickeyMania]

Well, I don't think people should be banned or modded down to litter for disliking Al's rumor mill journalism. It's liberally sprinkled with his bias and I think there's some people who will never get on his good side, no matter how hard they try.

Your tone was borderline trollish, though, not so much in this thread but in others (Splash Mountain.) This is probably why you were modded down, IMO.

Dustysage's reply to you in this thread was rather logical and civilized, pointing out that even the big rides in DCA can be walk-ons. Are you sure your karma drop was because of this thread?

[Darkbeer]

But for most year round parks, about 2/3'rds of their attendance is gathered in the Peak Summer months (June thru August). Let's use the AB/ERA number of 5.6 million for DCA in 2004, so let's say we have 3.6 million during the summer, that leaves 2 million for the other 9 months, giving each month about 220,000 guests, now December is busier than some months, but DCA is not a holiday park, unlike parks like Disneyland and Knott's, who place a much stronger emphasis on the holiday in decorations and shows... but let's give DCA the benefit of the doubt, and use 310,000 guests in December, or 10,000 a day. So 15,000 is about right....

But DCA is having attendance problems, theybrought back the "Pay for Disneyland, get DCA for FREE!" which was supposely gone with the change in Management, and they tried the One Day ParkHopper instead, but it didn't sell in the numbers that Disney wanted (Many folks preferring to just buy a Disneyland only ticket).

Heck, the 3 day ParkHopper is now on sale at the lowest price ever, just $109 (advance purchase thru April 2005).

Many times in the past folks have confirmed Al's numbers. I have access to selected numbers at Theme Parks due to some of my contacts, and they seem about correct.

Al has no reason to make up numbers, in fact, if he was caught doing so, Disney could take action against him.

Also, don't forget that "official attendace" is counted as the first park you entered that day, so many AP and ParkHoppers could have started the day at Disneyland, and then move over to DCA to take a break from the crowds, and grab a bite to eat. (Disney does have additional sets of numbers they keep track of, including the ParkHopping number), but that number is not used by AB/ERA. The Industry standard (which Disney created when they opened a second park in Florida) is the First Park of the Day.

And DCA is a true Business Failure if you look at the original pricing structure, and the comments the Disney execs made, and compare it to the massive discounting and AP sales (I have heard numbers, from over 40%, to 60% of DCA's attendance is AP holders). And even with all the major discounting and pricing changes, they still haven't gotten the original priojected attendance of 7 million.

EDIT: After posting this, I realized that I said 2/3'rd for the DLR during the summer, which is actually the Industry average. After thinking about it, I am pretty sure that it is over half the attendance during the Summer period but 2/3'rds is probably too high, but Disney does get a larger percentage of off-season guests than do most other parks. (Exception would be the Orlando group, including Disney, Universal and SeaWorld/Busch, then tend to feed off each other, and have a higher percentage of visitors than local guests).

[Dustysage]

I just want to begin by saying that I got banned from posting by Dustysage because my opinion was not popular with those running the place. He claims I was banned because of my reputation.

First of all. I think you all know better. I didn't ban this user. He is subject to the reputation system like anyone else. He came to these boards with 6 posts all looking for a fight and received enough negative reputation that he was temporarly limited by the rules of the reputation system.

It is up to each member to decide if they are going to give good or negative reputation to any individual user. I explained that in my PMs to this user and that is really all that can be said at this point.

What you choose to do with his post above is really up to you, our members.

I'm sorry that you all have to read untrue statement like the one posted by "Blackout" above.

However, we now have another issue. Since we can't simply allow a user to get around our reputation system simply by starting up a new account.

Hmmm.

-The Dusty One

[MickeyMania]

Previously banned posters are an issue on any message board. You simply have to keep an eye out for them and bop them as they come.

[Fes2]

Take it from someone who's seen a lot of actual numbers over the years in SEC filings, park sale documents and elsewhere. The Amusement Business attendance is typically 20% or more from the truth. When it's said to be accurate by a park, it's by chance - list that many numbers every year and some are bound to be right.

Your defense of DCA's attendance also doesn't take into account the % of customers who aren't paying $53 to get in. True measure of its success would be if it had 5MM paying full fare, or at least paying for a park hopper at its full price. They're discounting the park because they have to. Even with the current deals at Magic Mountain and Universal, they're at least getting their customers to pay full price ONCE, rather than getting a free ticket by paying for Disneyland.

[Dustysage]

DCA's numbers are also hugely inflated by the promotion that they have twice run which gives you a second day at DCA for free if you buy a ticket to Disneyland. So does giving DCA away for free count? Why don't they just leave the gates wide open and see what they can get those attendance numbers up to.

[Mr D]

OHHHH YEAHHH, I can see it now....DCA is a free walk-in park, DL increases its admission at least 20% and then....

DCA has temporary high numbers but Disneyland still walks away with attendance figures.

The only way to beat quality is with quantity.

And BTW Dusty I think the boards are just fine, I am a poster at other boards but backed off of being an avid poster because of overstrict guidelines (like no Eisner bashing allowed) or worse yet you make or try to make a creative discussion and no less than half a dozen followup poster mock and ridicule you because they are either old time posters or tweens just getting thrills or something else.

Yes we need to moderate MiceChat I agree, keep it a friendly social gathering.

[Dustysage]

I totally agree Mr. D. People should feel free to argue and say what they want. We just don't want them to get personal or nasty in the process. With 725 members, we are bound to have a few problems.

[MiceMan]

Wow, 725 members already!?!? That's awesome! Congrats to the MiceChat/MiceAge team!

[Stare Girl]

Awesome numbers!