The Taylor Swift Eras tour should help drive theme park attendance - or, at least, ticket sales - in California this weekend.
The biggest concert tour of the year comes to the San Francisco Bay Area this week for two nights at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. As Theme Park Insiders might know, Levi's Stadium - the home of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers - shares a parking lot with the California's Great America theme park.
However, California's Great America has exclusive use of that lot on the dates of the Taylor Swift concerts, and the park just reminded the public of that fact on its social media. That means anyone wanting to park next to the stadium - and the theme park - must have a ticket to California's Great America.
"To use the parking lot on Friday and Saturday, all individuals in your vehicle must possess a valid park ticket. This means that everyone arriving in the vehicle must have their own park admission ticket in order to utilize the parking facilities," the park said.
Given the absurd amounts of money that many Swifties have spent already for their Eras Tour tickets, an extra $70 per passenger for a theme park ticket might not deter carloads of fans from parking in the lot. As California's Great America noted in its statement, "For your convenience, tickets will be available for purchase at the parking toll booths upon arrival."
The park did recommend, to help keep traffic moving, that fans buy their tickets online in advance. Heck, just to jump on that bandwagon, allow me to pitch that our travel partner is selling California's Great America tickets for just $52 each: California's Great America tickets.
The park's statement also notes that tailgating in the lot is prohibited. Left unsaid was that plenty of food and drink will available for fans to purchase at its Carnivale at Orleans Place event, which will be running this weekend. Hey, if you bought park tickets to get into the parking lot, you might as well come early and use them, right?
So that, my friends, is how Taylor Swift likely will help drive tens of thousands of ticket sales, if not admissions, for a California theme park this weekend.
Update: For fans who do not have tickets to the concerts, California's Great America is offering a $50 "Eat, Drink, Relax" package that includes unlimited food, bathroom access, and the chance to hear the concert from up close via the Pavilion entrance of the park. Park admission is not included with this ticket.
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This park has some of the strangest policies and hours. We're planning a visit in mid-August, and had to completely juggle our preferred itinerary because we found out that the park is only open one day (and only a Friday night at that) during our 4-day stretch in the Bay Area - it's closed on a Saturday of all days.
The way this park operates, it's no wonder it's destined to close for good in the not too distant future.
Russell - The 49ers host the Broncos for a preseason game Saturday 8/19. Assuming that is the Saturday you planned to visit? Since it is a shared parking lot with Levi Stadium, the park is always closed on days the 49ers play. I am not aware of all of the dynamics involved in getting Levi Stadium built, but perhaps Cedar Fair (or the predecessor owner depending on when things were negotiated for Levi Stadium) figured it made more sense to close the park those days if parking wasn't available to parkgoers?
@I64Trekker - We eventually figured out that's why the park is closed, but it was a bit of a shock to us to see a park closed so many days during a week in the middle of August (yes, we also realized Bay Area public school go back that week too, which IMHO is ridiculously early - our son goes back the following week which is already too early for my liking and cutting his summer break down to just 9 weeks this year). We thought we'd have a little more flexibility in case of ride closures (at Great America and Discovery Kingdom) or bad weather, but the park's hours that week really put a monkey wrench into our plans.
It is kind of ironic that the park closes for a 49ers preseason game that probably won't fill half the stadium, but will be open during Taylor Swift, which will probably set a Levi's Stadium attendance record.
I was going to reply to this thread with a comment littered with Taylor Swift puns but I think I’ll wait until the LA shows.
It’s a real shame that there can’t be more synergy with the park and the stadium in terms of shared benefits. In the end it will all end up as a big ol’ case of Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve for CGA I wager.
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That’s… insane. I presume as it’s the US there’s no real public transport option either?