I recently finished reading John Hildebtandt’s fantastic book, Always Cedar Point: A Memoir of the Midway. As John himself says, his book is not a history of Cedar Point nor a corporate history of the park, but rather his personal experiences from his 40 years of service from 1974 through 2014.
As general manager, John oversaw every aspect of Cedar Point, and he gives insight into all of them in his book. From design and building new rides, to trying to figure out what variables contributed to attendance the most, Always Cedar Point opened my eyes to aspects of running an amusement park I had never thought of before.
Here’s just a small tease at the incredible kind of detailed insight John offers in his book.
I found John’s thoughts on ticketing and attendance to be very enlightening.
“An extra hundred thousand in attendance can cover all kinds of mistakes.”
“We used to joke within Marketing that only a crazy person pays full price for a Cedar Point ticket.”
“The 1993 season reinforced how little we really knew, with any certainty, about the dynamics of attendance. There were so many factors at work.”
“The attendance growth in September and October was real enough. Scary sometimes. We were much better equipped to handle crowds in July in August, both in terms of guest service and revenue opportunities.”
On building and choosing the right attraction at the right time:
“You couldn’t control the weather, but you could control the right new attraction.”
“Too many Magnums was a bad thing.”
On wood vs steel coasters: “Wood was art; steel was science”
Millennium Force (Cedar Point)
I really appreciated John’s honesty in the book. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything. If a ride was a lemon, he says it was a lemon. Here’s a few examples:
“Disaster Transport was indeed a disaster. It was a dog, in fact, a barking dog.”
“Guests came off Magnum pumped and ready to go again. Guests came off Mean Streak glad they had survived the experience.”
“I don’t think anyone, in or out of the organization, ever thought Mantis was a great coaster name…It was a “B” at best.
“Maverick was great. Shoot the Rapids was not so great.”
“The first year, and even the second, Dragster had unacceptable amounts of downtime…The guest had invested a day, or more, of his life, and his money to ride Dragster; but mostly he had invested his heart, his anticipation, his bragging rights, his fear, and his love of the park into riding Dragster.”
During John’s time, Cedar Point introduced 27 major new rides (defined as costing $1 million or more). “We missed the mark with only two, Avalanche Run/Disaster Transport and Shoot the Rapids…a 97% success rate.”
Shoot the Rapids at Cedar Point
A few other quotes I found interesting:
On the Raptor roar: “I like it. I think it gave the ride power and personality.”
“In the 1970s you had to know someone to get a job at Cedar Point. In the 1990s that someone was now calling you.”
“We worried about lines but we loved them too.”
“The inability to accommodate larger guests on some of our headline rides was, and is, an ongoing problem for Cedar Point and other amusement parks.”
And for all the conspiracy theorists out there: “I don’t believe Cedar Fair purchased Six Flags Worlds of Adventure only to close it.”
This is just a small sample size of what you’ll find inside Always Cedar Point: A Memoir of the Midway. If you want to work at an amusement park at any level, from sweep to corporate engineer, I highly recommend reading John’s wonderful book.
Have you read Always Cedar Point? What did you think?
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