Why do Amusement Parks Close Attractions? Reasons for Ride Removals

Few phrases carry more emotional weight in the amusement industry than “ride removal.”

No matter the circumstances, someone will be upset — and the PR team will feel it.

You can announce the closure of a 30-year-old attraction that rarely sees a full queue… and suddenly it becomes the most beloved ride in the park. Nostalgia is powerful. So is social media.

But behind every removal announcement is a calculation. Sometimes several.

Below are the primary criteria parks use when deciding whether to retire an attraction.

1. Service Life

Ah, yes... there's that popular word that gets thrown around a lot in the amusement industry, but what does it really mean? Service life used to be a much vaguer term, but recently it has taken more of a serious meaning. When many parks decided to retire attractions in recent years, the phrase "the attraction has outlasted its useful service life" has been a popular scapegoat. Usually this means that a major issue, or several compounding issues have led to the decision to remove an attraction. This could be caused by:

Increasing maintenance costs (parts and labor)

Limited serviceability or difficulty sourcing parts

Structural deficiencies or metal fatigue

Obsolete control systems

Single-point failure components nearing cycle limits

I know of many parks who had HUSS Top Spins, and once it was time to replace the main bearings that the gondola had mounted to, they just said to hell with it and retired the attraction. This was because of the cost and complexity of performing this job, along with the rides already being money pits.

While this isn't a comprehensive list, these factors are the usual suspects. Most rides don't have expiration dates stamped on them, such as "this product will be expected to last 25 years." I recall Arrow coasters having something along these lines printed in their service manuals, but this wasn't a black and white requirement or legal binding by any means. Back in the day, most products outlasted their expectations by far anyways.

As time went on, specific single-point failure components or heavily loaded structural parts began to obtain service lives, only being allowed to operate for a certain number of cycles or a certain amount of time, regardless of test results or wear. This was the result of not only attractions becoming more intense, but specific accidents occurring and the industry getting much more stringent. It is also a way for the manufacturers to cover themselves as they were finding out that overseas, certain parks were not performing the proper maintenance and testing that they should have.

Something that is beginning to become more popular is that manufacturers ARE beginning to put service lives on entire attractions. This doesn't mean that a park has to simply just remove an attraction at the end of its service life. Oftentimes, the manufacturer will offer a "special assessment" service for an attraction at the end of its life and perform a full inspection and provide recommendations for maintenance or upgrades to return the ride to service. At that point the manufacturer will provide an extended lifespan (usually between 5-10 years depending) before that special assessment will be required again. This covers both the park and manufacturer from a liability perspective, saying that the attraction is indeed in proper condition, and that the risks of failure have been mitigated.

Again, this is not very common just yet, but more and more manufacturers within the past few years are adopting this type of requirement for all new sales.

2. Cost per Rider or similar model

The most popular model to determine ride performance is quite simple, putting total operating and maintenance costs up against ride throughput on a graph. In the end, rides with the highest cost per rider should be evaluated more closely for possible retirement.

There are four different categories that rides may fall into:

- Low cost, low ridership- Mainly expected for smaller rides or kiddie rides. Ride throughput is not as much of a concern when costs are kept low.

- Low cost, high ridership- This is the most desirable category for parks, however it is difficult to predict rides that may be able to end up here upon initial installation. A lot of legacy rides will end up on this list, certain flat rides, and very reliable attractions that are known "people eaters"

- High cost, low ridership- The most dangerous category for attractions; these ones are most scrutinized for potential removal. Why justify keeping a costly attraction around if its popularity has waned. Many rides naturally over time will drift into this category. Believe it or not, paid upcharge attractions are commonly found here since their throughput is so low. However, in most cases the argument will be made that their ticket sales will offset the costs.

- High cost, high ridership- These attractions usually end up being the major coasters or "E-Ticket" rides. Despite their high operating costs, their popularity and importance to the park will likely justify their continued operation. In some cases, their costs will in fact exceed any sort of popularity. I believe that Kingda Ka fell into this category, as the sheer cost of maintaining the ride outweighed any bit of ridership, which indeed was starting to fall off.

For most cases, a simple division of cost over ridership is performed. I've seen major chains before essentially tell maintenance leadership to figure out their top 3 cost per rider attractions and make a decision to remove one of them. When chains start to get tight with the money flow, they want immediate results, and this simple calculation is one of the most cut-and-dry ways. There are many variables that can be added or removed from this model, including operating costs (labor, utilities, supplies, etc.), maintenance costs (labor, parts), insurance costs, as well as many more that may be considered.

That leads to the question, "Are costs fixed year-over-year?" Simply put, no that is not the case. Rides have a so-called "life cycle" where their performance and costs follow a certain sort of pattern.

A typical attraction follows a predictable arc:

1. Commissioning Phase (Years 0–2)
   High costs. Fine-tuning. Replacing early defective components. Debugging systems. Parks often absorb this under capital expenditure.

2. Stability Phase
   Predictable performance. Steady ridership. Controlled downtime.

3. Aging Phase
   Costs spike again.

   • Weld repairs

   • Fatigue cracking

   • Control system obsolescence

   • Major component replacements

This is where the retire vs. refurbish decision begins.

3. Refurbish vs. Retire?

Some parks will reach a crossroads of whether or not to throw some money at an attraction to refurbish it. Refurbishment is a gamble, because depending how large the project is, it may cost nearly as much to refurbish something as it would be to replace it. New trains, paint, special effects, among other features are not cheap, and oftentimes capital projects by themselves. Not only that, but there is no guarantee exactly how much the project will increase ridership or decrease costs.

No matter how much something may look good on paper, there's always that "what if" scenario of guests not being interested in a ride that may have been there for decades getting a new sign and coat of paint. We had one coaster where the trains had reached the end of their lifespan. The decision was to either retrofit the ride with new trains from the manufacturer, or to remove it. Since it was so popular for us, we put new trains on it and painted the ride. Feedback for this move was overwhelmingly positive.

Yes, removals always typically lead to backlash. At our park, we had a very involved person on the Facebook page who swore every time we made an announcement that he didn't like that he wouldn't come back. Yet he did, and he was seen in the park at least once a week spending major cash. Typically speaking, the effect of adding a new attraction is much more impactful positively than the few keyboard warriors who threaten to never return.

4. Land

Some parks simply run out of space.

Landlocked properties may have no choice but to remove an aging attraction to unlock higher-value real estate.

A large coaster footprint could be blocking development of:

• A full themed land

• A high-capacity family attraction

• Retail and food revenue zones

In some cases, the land itself is more valuable than the ride sitting on it.

For example, Volcano: The Blast Coaster at Kings Dominion occupied extremely valuable terrain. The coaster’s removal opened significant development potential.

5. When you just cannot replace a ride

Certain parks may not care to retire an attraction if it doesn't guarantee that attraction may be replaced by something new. I worked closely with a sister park as a maintenance consultant, as they had many attractions that were similar to ours, and we often networked to try and come up with solutions to problems. At this other park, one ride was constantly having issues. It wasn't necessarily too costly to operate, but it had extremely high downtime, over 85% one season.

This park couldn't catch a break with it. The foundation required repairs, the controls system was outdated and constantly overheating, and the hydraulics system could use a full upgrade as well. I was called down for a hydraulics issue that they couldn't figure out over several months. I asked, "what's the point of even trying to salvage this ride anymore?" Essentially, I was told that they had recently retired several rides with hopes of replacing them, and corporate would not put up the capital funding to do so. Therefore, they had to keep every attraction around, no matter how big of a headache it was, in order to ensure that the space wouldn't be left empty.