Amusement park company Palace Entertainment, a subsidiary of leading global operator Parques Reunidos, is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and hosts millions of visitors annually at 21 locations across the US.
John Reilly, managing director, talked blooloop through the history and ethos of Palace Entertainment, its journey so far, and recent developments at the parks.
“We’re really proud to have America’s first amusement park, Lake Compounce, the oldest continuously operating park in the United States, which goes all the way back to 1846,” he says of the company‘s portfolio. “We have a collection of historic amusement parks; really fun, classic parks that we’re honoured to cherish and grow into the future with.”
In addition to Lake Compounce, historic parks owned by the company include Kennywood (1898), and Idlewild (1878). It also operates Adventureland, Castle Park, Dutch Wonderland, Noah’s Ark, Storyland, Sandcastle, three Raging Waters sites, Wet ‘n Wild NC, Sea Life Park Hawaii and many more.
The evolution of Palace Entertainment
“A pivotal time for this company was when we joined Grupo Parques Reunidos in 2007,” says Reilly. “A lot of the growth and acquisition of those parks has occurred since then. Over the last couple of years, one pivotal growth point in our history has been relocating our office.”
The US region for Parques Reunidos was based in Newport Beach, California. Palace Entertainment is now in Pittsburgh, closer to the centre of its business in the Northeast US, where its team members and more of its guests are located.
One particular area of growth he is excited about is the recent expansion strategy. He says:
“We acquired the Adventureland Resort in Iowa, which we operated for the first time last season, in 2022. We are now getting ready to add our 10th and 11th new attractions to the park.”
Other developments include the first Cartoon Network Hotel in the United States, which Palace Entertainment opened in January 2020.
“It’s a long and storied history,” Reilly comments. “But we have made a lot of acquisitions, and have seen a lot of growth, and see a great future ahead.”
An active growth strategy
Describing Palace Entertainment’s growth strategy and vision in terms of building, he says:
“The company has been very active and has achieved its growth through acquisitions. We haven’t built parks, we’ve acquired parks. When we do it, we respect their unique regional identities and brands, and we foster those qualities, while simultaneously enriching them with global expertise that helps them grow.
“That is the principal strategy of growth behind the company. Of course, we have a whole host of new attractions coming in this year, as well as new events, and a renewed focus on food and beverage transformation as well.”
Palace Entertainment’s portfolio
In terms of the portfolio, he adds:
“Our portfolio is unique, but it’s also diverse. We have a collection of historic amusement parks and specific expertise in caring for these national treasures. Kennywood, for example, is a national historic landmark.
“Secondly, we have very strong competence in children’s parks. Dutch Wonderland has been awarded Best Family Park in the World multiple times. Idlewild has been named Best Children’s Park numerous times. We also have Storyland in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, which is a stunning children’s park, and Castle Park on the West Coast in Riverside.
“Our portfolio consists of the historic amusement component, the children’s component, and then we also have a very strong water park component: Parques Reunidos is the largest water park operator in the world, and in the US and Australia we have eight standalone water parks, as well.”
This diversity affords a broad-brush approach, he says:
“There are a lot of optionalities when you have competency in those distinct clusters of parks. We’ve had recent expansion in lodging, as well.”
Learning from success
Regarding concept development, he explains:
“We benefit from a global network of parks. As we deploy a concept in any of the 10 countries where we operate in the United States or Australia or elsewhere, we can learn from that experience and then deploy that concept again.”
As an example, he adds:
“Last year, we opened Hyperlight at Splish Splash, our water park in New York, and a Storm Surge at Lake Compounce Water Park in Connecticut. They performed very well: effects, music, just a lot of fun on a water park slide attraction. Because of that success, we will now deploy that concept in three new markets this year, in North Carolina at Wet’n’Wild, at Noah’s Ark in Wisconsin, and at Water Country in the greater Boston area.”
Development at Palace Entertainment parks is driven by visitor expectations
The emphasis, he explains, is on using technology to support the attraction, rather than making technology the point of the attraction.
“The water, the slide and the fun are still the main events, but we have found that our visitors respond really well to the enhancements of light, sound, and story,” he says.
To an extent, he feels development is driven by visitor expectations:
“The spirit with which we approach new attractions is to try them out, whether that be with new technology or new elements in an attraction. We test them out firstly with consumer research, and then test them out in a market or two, as we did last year with the water park attractions, and then expand the concept more fully. Essentially, we are willing to learn from our visitors.”
The company’s ethos
Describing the company ethos, he says:
“The underlying idea for us, in terms of what we do every day, is providing memorable experiences and happiness to our guests. I think what makes us successful behind that is that we don’t have a common brand; we have a portfolio of acquired brands.
“The ethos behind our approach with all of those brands is to respect the unique regional identity and traditions of each of those brands in the markets where they live, and then to nurture them and help them grow.”
Addressing the elements that differentiate the parks from competitors in the space, he adds:
“One of the exciting things is that we have a global portfolio of nearly 60 parks, and then a regional portfolio of 26 venues here in the United States, and also in Australia, from which we can learn.
This scale allows us to draw on technical resources and expertise globally and regionally, and to deploy those resources across all those markets. It’s a strong advantage we have in the organisation.”
F&B at Palace Entertainment
Palace Entertainment is currently working on refining its F&B offering. He elaborates on this:
“We have some concepts that are famous in our regional markets, and that we have worked on to expand and improve across other markets. For example, we have the Potato Patch at Kennywood.” Kennywood is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year:
“If you ask anybody in the region about Kennywood in Pittsburgh, they can tell you about Potato Patch fries. We are leveraging that by doing an expansion at Lake Compounce to enhance the Potato Patch fry concept there.”
More broadly:
“We have some really special traditions with food and beverage that we’re launching across the portfolio, and we are also further developing new concepts where there is consumer demand.”
He lists examples:
“We are opening a coffee and sweet shop at Kennywood this year called 1898 Coffee. We are also changing our pizza offering at Kennywood to Pizza Warehouse. The strategy, I would say, is a combination of deploying tried and true favourites and improving them across the portfolio, but also moving to where consumers want new products and new experiences in our parks, as well.”
A family market
The visitorship is, generally, families:
“Because we have expertise in various niches – historic amusement, children’s parks, and water parks, there may be slight differences in the demographics, and we also respect the differences in demographics across the markets,” he comments:
“In general, however, the idea that these are families visiting our parks holds through across the portfolio. As part of this, the understanding that a lot of these families would like to return again and again, growing our seasons pass base, is a key strategy for us, as well.”
Ticketing is, increasingly, digital:
“Post-Covid, as most organisations would probably agree, tickets tend to be bought via mobile or online in advance, which is handy for understanding the purchase patterns and other information. I think it’s also just much friendlier for the consumer to be able to have something that they can scan and enter with.”
New developments at Palace Entertainment
Going deeper into the new developments at Palace Entertainment, he says:
“We’re pretty excited about Kennywood for this year. As part of the 125th-anniversary celebration, we’re launching Spinvasion, which is the first of its kind in the United States: a single-rider multi-action spinning ride, part of an alien invasion that’s happening at Kennywood. Then, at Adventureland in Des Moines, Iowa we are adding the 10th and 11th new rides that we’ve added in just a year and a half to that park.”
The Flying Viking & Draken, a combined flume and roller coaster, offer double the fun in the form of two rides intertwined:
“We’re pretty excited about that,” Reilly says:
“At Dutch Wonderland, about three, four hours down the road from Kennywood here in Pennsylvania, we are celebrating our 60th anniversary. We opened last weekend with a new teacup ride, a renovated castle entrance and gift shop, a brand new Easter event with an earlier opening in the season than ever, and a new puppet show.”
New events
At Lake Compounce, Palace Entertainment is deploying a brand-new concert series:
“Lake Compounce has a history of signature concerts over the years. Now it is back in the concert business, and back in a huge way. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, we are going to have concerts every weekend throughout the summer, and they’re going to be held on Connecticut’s first floating stage.”
He explains:
“Lake Compounds is set in an unbelievably beautiful setting with a mountain and a lake. The park is built around it, and the concerts will be right in the centre of that lake.”
Palace Entertainment’s refurbishment plans
Palace Entertainment also plans to continue something that it started at Lake Compounce in 2021, which is an intentional refurbishment of its parks.
“That means making enhancements in aesthetics, comfort, maintenance: all the areas that guests can see. We kicked this off at Lake Compounce for its 175th in 2021. We continued it last year at Kennywood, and we’re going with a third phase this year. Kennywood is getting a second phase of refurbishment: more enhancements inside the park, new, fresh colours, and new seating.”
“It’s going to happen at Adventureland and at Water Country in the Greater Boston area, as well as Castle Park in Riverside, California. We’re continuing to march that refurbishment strategy across the portfolio, after a couple of successful launches in 2021 and 2022.”
Keeping things fresh on an annual basis as well as a programme of big refurbishments is crucial, he says, especially for a repeat visitorship:
“It’s incredibly important, and our guests appreciate it. What we have learned is that they notice enhancements; they notice when you do something right, and they notice when you miss a detail. We’ve learned a great deal from these refurbishments, and we’re committed to continuous improvement of our parks.”
Industry trends
Offering insights into the trends he perceives and how he envisages the sector will develop, Reilly says:
“The first thing I would say about the industry is that in some ways the new trend is the same as the old trend: visitors appreciate newness.”
Accordingly:
“We are embracing newness with our large new attraction rollout this year.”
“Another growth stream that we are seeing and leveraging is the expansion of events. We launched brand-new Halloween events at Lake Compounce in Connecticut and Adventureland for the first time last year, and we’ve recently launched a food and beverage event, Bites and Pints, which will be in its third year at Kennywood.
“We believe building world-class events in these parks and creating reasons for our visitors to come back and see us multiple times during the year increases the value of the season pass and makes the visits that much more enjoyable, and makes people much stronger proponents of our parks. Events really are key.”
F&B evolves
The third growth trend Palace Entertainment has noted is food and beverage, says Reilly.
“Visitors to parks have higher expectations than in years past, so you see more food trends, more development of restaurants, more unique concepts, and you start to recognise that these parks can become dining destinations as well as destinations to experience attractions.
“Those are the three main trends that I would highlight, especially given the dwell time: people are coming for the whole day, so they’re going to want every part of that day to be excellent.”
