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« on: September 12, 2007, 08:02:09 PM »
Since it's inception, Celebration City has been kind of a slight failure for the Herschends. The park itself is fantastic, but on the business side of things, the park failed to pull in much of a profit from 2003-2006, and during the first two years SDC's own gate was cannibalized by CC as some visitors decided they had to chose between the two parks rather than accept the two-park deal SDC had envisioned as being a success.
Even now that SDC's attendance is back on the rise again, CC hasn't apparently been doing much better. Last I heard during last season, the park was running a low, flat profit, not making much more than it's operating costs.
Several attempts to 'fix' the park have been made, but only a few bare any promise of helping CC become much of a success. CC has long abandoned it's original purpose of truly being a nighttime theme park in favor of attraction younger families which are prolific in Branson, but may not have deep enough pockets for SDC. Indeed, CC has almost become a poor man's SDC. They even tried an experiment last summer, where they lowered the price for a day pass to about $20, but that has since changed back.
So has the park gotten better yet? Did their profits go up this season? Unfortunately, they haven't participated in any of the online attendance-releases, so one can't really know how well they are doing except by word of mouth.
Hope remains though, as the park is steadily working to improve itself. Starting out is tough, especially when the situation is as picky as this one. General improvements and atmospheric additions have been a major thing so far, with the addition of new shows, the Circus Gardens, and a new marketing strategy. I expect to see the park focus almost entirely on young families for the next several season, possibly taking out some larger rides to do so. It won't stay like that forever though, as general progress in Branson is bringing exponential increases in visitors, so much so that eventually CC won't have to worry so much about competing with SDC anymore and can go back to it's original purpose.