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WPCNR PLAYLAND-GO-ROUND. By John F. Bailey. August 31, 2016:
Playland attendance for the 2015 summer season is down 8% according to Westchester County figures going into last weekend.
A total of 400,057 admissions have attended through August 26 compared to 436,010 in 2015 at the same date. The decline has resulted in a $546,570 dollars less revenue than last year at this time: $7,761,159 through last Friday compared to $8,307,729 the same time in 2015.
Despite this Parking Revenues were up by 1/3: $1,064,029 to $798,246. This could be due to the higher $10 parking fee, which WPCNR was not in effect at the beginning of the season.
The hottest summer ever in Westchester County accounted for sharply increased pool and beach admission revenue—up 22% — $401,504 to $329,133, even though attendance at the pool and beach was down 9,580 compared to 2015. This summer through last Thursday, the pool and beach attracted 61,549 compared to 71,129, a 13% drop.
A Westchester Crowd
Who goes to Playland? County Executive Robert Astorino when he first came to office expressed the feeling that Playland had to appeal more to Westchester residents.
This year attendance figures show 197,834 of the 400,057 admissions up to last Friday were residents of Westchester County (50%)
Non-resident admissions including Riders only, Spectators, and Non-Resident Junior Admissions, and Non Resident Spectator Senior Passes numbers accounted for 120,017 or 30% of admissions.
Group admissions (65,105) made up 16% of the total admissions and Promotion admissions 4.2% (16,867).
Trends
Senior admissions both resident and non-resident made up 14,000 or 4% of the total admissions. It would seem this is an underserved market. Either the reduced Playland admissions prices for seniors are not low enough, or the Parking is too high for the seniors’ wallets.
Group admissions seem to be not exploited enough as a growth market, but perhaps are given too much a revenue break. One also does not know if the park is given over to groups exclusively. It’s an item that Standard Amusements the new manager of Playland has to look at.
The graduated admissions policy does not seem to hurt the interest in riding the rides. Half the attendance 198,888 rode the rides, 74,435 were spectators (non-riders). Riding Juniors (Kids) numbered 30,640, but oddly maybe 16,909 non resident juniors rode compared to 13,731.
There were 5,039 Season Pass Sales sold of varying price levels, and 14,122 visits from those holders of season passes, an average use of 3 visits per season pass.
Concessions
The county paid $734,578.42 cents in revenues to concessions based on the weekly usage against revenue from licensing fees paid by concession licensees (food, games, arcades, lake boating rentals) . The County receives $638,851.30 in concession license fees, the difference between license fees and 60% revenues paid to the concession licensees was $95,727.03.
10 Days to go
The biggest days of the summer so far, no surprise: Memorial Day weekend and July 4th weekend.
Memorial Day saw 15,295 admissions.
The July 4th weekend drew 7,969 on Saturday, 11,337 on Sunday and 14,646 on Independence Day
Special Days the last 10 days
Tonight, Wednesday and on Thursday there are $15 Admission from 5 PM to close.
September 2nd, Friday is Fireworks night.
On Labor Day, there is $15 Rides Admission all day
On September 10 and 11, the last weekend of the Playland Season Grandparents’s Weekend will let Grandparents ride the rides for free, with $15 admissions all day for everyone else.