Capacity drawdown map
How many of each arrival hour's 650 places were held by the time the hour began. Pick a study week, the seven-week average or the forecast for November 1 to 7. Hover over or tap an hour for its guests and timing.
Select an hour to see its places held, guests and timing.
When guests book
Weekends are largely booked days ahead, by birthday parties. Tickets, and with them most weekday visits, are bought in the hours before arrival.
Share of advance guests already booked
By time before the arrival hour, September 13 to October 31
Who books when
Guests by how far ahead they booked
Revenue estimate
We price each guest booked ahead at the ticket or party-package price posted for their date to estimate advance admission revenue for the seven weeks.
How we calculate it
| Week | Ticket price | Ticket guests | Party guests | Listed value |
|---|
Forecast for November 1 to 7
Day by day
Saturday, November 7 opened the week with 253 guests already booked, all of them party guests, more than any study Saturday had at the same point (the most was 204). Its forecast of 354 guests would make it the busiest Saturday of the study, ahead of 352 on September 19.
| Day | Booked by 12:30 AM Sunday | Median late tickets | Median late party guests | Forecast guests | Listed value |
|---|
How the method did on five past weeks
| Week of | Booked by Sunday | Forecast | Actual | Miss | What happened |
|---|
Observations
What seven weeks of the calendar suggest for this park, and where we would look next.
- Saturday is the business, and parties make Saturday. Saturdays brought 1,801 of the 3,383 guests booked ahead (53%) and 55% of the listed value, and 78% of Saturday guests came with a party. Leaving out Halloween, a Saturday drew 251 to 352 advance guests. Sundays drew 74 to 217, and Monday-to-Thursday afternoons averaged 7.5.
- The hourly limit never came close to binding. The fullest hour of the seven weeks, Saturday, September 19 at 1 PM, held 153 of its 650 places (24%), and advance bookings held 5% of all places offered. The limit is not what caps weekend volume. The levers are price and programming around the Saturday midday peak, where the noon hour held 88 places on average.
- Parties set the weekend a week out; ticket buyers decide on the day. 91% of party guests (2,155 of 2,366 booked) were booked at least three days before arrival, most of them before the date reached the seven-day calendar. 79% of ticket guests (917 of 1,163) bought in the six hours before their arrival hour. Saturdays were already 63% booked 6.4 days before arrival, so the week's Saturday is largely known by Sunday.
- Doubling the ticket price did not shrink ticket sales. All Day Play went from $15 to $29.99 on October 1. Advance ticket guests averaged 154 a week in the two full September weeks and 160 a week in October, leaving out Columbus Day, so the ticket line's listed value roughly doubled, from $2,303 to $4,806 a week. One month-to-month comparison does not measure price sensitivity, but it shows no sign that the higher price cost advance sales.
- School holidays and Halloween move the week. Columbus Day, a legal school holiday in Illinois, brought 102 advance guests on Monday, October 12; no other study Monday passed 13. Halloween emptied Saturday, October 31: 43 guests, down from 50 booked when the date first appeared, while the Sunday before was the busiest Sunday of the study at 217. These are the weeks the forecast missed, so a school-holiday and event calendar is the next input we would add.
Observations reflect seven weeks of public calendar data. Posted prices changed once, on October 1.