Is it possible SDC could ever have lifetime passes?

[pintrader]

Over the years I have wondered about this from time to time.  It would without a doubt bring in a lot of short term income to the park.  The long term income would be shaky to say the least.  I am sure at one time or another HFE has thought about this or crunched the numbers and found it not feasible.  I have not really researched to see if any other parks are doing this or have tried to do this, especially one as big as SDC.  I guess the major question would be how much would the pass be.  Maybe they could do it by age group, like 0 to 10, 11 to 20 and so on.  The younger the person is, the higher the pass.  I just thought it would be interesting to see what everyone else thought about this (smart, stupid, feasible, not feasible, etc)

[Ozark Outlaw]

Well let's do some hypothetical math here (although bare with me because I always goofed off in math class). Suppose a season pass cost exactly $100. Then suppose that a person bought a season pass every year from the age of 20 to the age of 90. That's $7,000!

In reality however, I am sure it would be a flat one time price. How much that price would be is anyone’s guess. Okay now time for the real mathematicians to chime in

[pintrader]

Well let's just say a lifetime pass costs a person 20 years old $1,000.  Would this be a better deal for a customer or HFE.  I guess it depends upon how long the person would live.  But HFE would be getting 10 years of season passes in one shot, which ain't bad for them either.  Maybe it would be a good deal for both?

[rubedugans]

I think about it much like a lottery, is it all in a lump at one time, or is it in smaller yearly payments? The benefit to the company-or the lottery, would be the passing of the guests at an early age. THEN the company would have X amount of $$ that if the person would have paid for the long term pass, and well is now dead. HOWEVER if you live a long time, you would reap the benefits and get by paying for ...say 20 years worth of passes, and everything after that would be free. I don't think they would offer the pass myself.

[Ozark Outlaw]

Plus, let’s say you purchase your life time membership today, and then 20 years down the road Silver Dollar City decides to shut down the park, and close their doors for good. So therefore you will not be able to fulfill your life time membership. Do they reimburse you, or are you just tough out of luck?

The idea of a life time membership is great! However, there sure would be a lot of legal stipulations, and red tape to ever make it a reality.

[pintrader]

Like any good business the stipulations for refunds would be your just tough out of luck, and would say so in very fine print on the bottom of the page  .

[betamike]

I think what might be a more logical solution to this idea would be to have a "grandfathering" policy on ticket prices.  Instead of say, buying a lifetime pass at a calculated rate (which could be astronomical), you purchase your pass at the price you bought it TODAY and each year the rate never changes.

In these economic times, it would be the "same as" a lifetime pass because most everyone who opted into this type of program would assuredly want to continue buying a pass at whatever lower rate they got.  If you miss your renewal (+ or - 30 days from the expiration) then you are out of luck.  

[rubedugans]

I would lock-in wouldn't you? It would save a HUGE amount of $$ from inflation alone, and I would be sure to get one. Some people would buy them to keep the option of visiting, and might only go once, but I, like my current pass, would use every bit of that thing! This would have to be Adult passes.

I kid of thought that they would have 1 day this year where guests would pay the anniversary price for the park (This would have to be the 1968 price seeing that the park was free in 1960). But I thought it would be a nice novelty. Granted the park would have been FULL that day. Maybe we have this to look forward to it in 2018 for one day huh?

[How-doFolks]

JMO here. Life time pass makes no sense to me. Like someone said - what if somethin' happens.. But, a 5 year pass sounds more resoneable.

[MissinTheGreenTrams]

so say you can "lock in" your price, you buy 2 adult 2 child and when the child becomes the adult do they get to keep the child price or would their "lock in" price go up 10$? I would so do the lock in deal.