Kennywood Park

[GAcoaster]

All the parks are going cashless. It's safer, faster, and easier for the retail operations (until the systems go down!).

 

[Mad Dog]

Gun shots reportedly fired inside the park last night, the first weekend of the Halloween nights celebration. Huge police response, and the entire park was evacuated, guests and employees both...
In past years the park has had trouble with youth gangs. Kennywood is located in an area of Allegheny County that has a history of violent neighborhoods and towns....Update: Pgh. Post Gazette is now
reporting that two teenagers were shot, and a 38 yr. old bystander also. None critical. Police are saying the shooting was a confrontation between two large bands of youths. ....There were also reports
of 'trample injuries' occurred as the crowd rushed out of the park in a panicked state.

 

[Joe]

What a mess, I'm going to be interested in seeing the investigation into this.

 

[Mad Dog]

What a mess, I'm going to be interested in seeing the investigation into this.

Yeah, people reported seeing groups of hundreds of kids running through the park all day. They must have let up on their security since it was just a few years ago that the gang problem got so bad that they banned the wearing of red shirts by the youth.
I've always thought it would be easy to get guns into the park. Just bypass entrance security and have someone on the outside toss you a gun over the fence. There's blind spots everywhere. They're really going to have to clamp down hard
on teens. The towns of McKeesport, Duquesne (most of the actual park is located in Duquesne. The park office is in the West Mifflin side of the park so that town gets the tax dollars), Braddock and Rankin, that basically surround the park are among the highest crime areas, mostly under age 25 people , in the county. McKeesport has one of the highest crime rates in the USA. Shootings are almost a daily happening in that area. They probably need to do a Knotts Park type of having adults accompany teens for Halloween nights and some other vulnerable times, and quit the cut rate prices for Phantom Nights. It's too cheap to attend, so you get a lot of riff raff......There's really only a handful of days when the bad youth problem arises. Phantom nights always a concern, and school picnics in the spring involving the aforementioned communities and certain schools in the City of Pittsburgh. Rest of the time the crowd mix is pretty normal and you don't get the criminal behavior. So security really needs to beef up in those times and crack down on any behavior that gets wild, ie. large groups running through the park, taunting, arguments, attitude problems...before they explode into something serious like this.

 

[Joe]

Yeah, people reported seeing groups of hundreds of kids running through the park. They must have let up on their security since it was just a few years ago that the gang problem got so bad that they banned the wearing of red shirts by the youth.
I've always thought it would be easy to get guns into the park. Just bypass entrance security and have someone on the outside toss you a gun over the fence. There's blind spots everywhere. They're really going to have to clamp down hard
on teens. The towns of McKeesport, Duquesne (most of the actual park is located in Duquesne. The park office is in the West Mifflin side of the park so that town gets the tax dollars), Braddock and Rankin, that basically surround the park are among the highest crime areas, mostly under age 25 people , in the county. McKeesport has one of the highest crime rates in the USA. Shootings are almost a daily happening in that area. They probably need to do a Knotts Park type of having adults accompany teens, and quit the cut rate prices for Phantom Nights. It's too cheap to attend, so you get a lot of riff raff.

I actually don't think the issue is the front of park security, instead I think it's how the park is laid out. Here me out here.

The incident happened outside of the Musik [sic] Express. Lets go to google maps...

Kennywood · 4800 Kennywood Blvd, West Mifflin, PA 15122

★★★★☆ · Amusement park

www.google.com

Right there is a gate for service vehicles to enter that a bag could be thrown over. My educated guess is drama between groups started outside of the park, either today or built up all week, and then it spilled into the park. Whenever things happen in parks like this it's always the outside world spilling in, not usually random acts of terrorism.

 

[Mad Dog]

I actually don't think the issue is the front of park security, instead I think it's how the park is laid out. Here me out here.

The incident happened outside of the Musik [sic] Express. Lets go to google maps...

Kennywood · 4800 Kennywood Blvd, West Mifflin, PA 15122

★★★★☆ · Amusement park

www.google.com

Right there is a gate for service vehicles to enter that a bag could be thrown over. My educated guess is drama between groups started outside of the park, either today or built up all week, and then it spilled into the park. Whenever things happen in parks like this it's always the outside world spilling in, not usually random acts of terrorism.

Yes, I agree on that, that's why I was guessing a gun came from outside the park, not through the entrance with the metal detector. Heck, they beep me for a metal belt buckle, they're so sensitive. . Easy to get a gun over the fence there....plus a lot of other areas that are near those homes also, and the picnic grove areas, easy as pie. and there's rarely security over there....and yes, those communities and parts of the Pgh. city are experiencing those issues everyday, so the park is a ripe setting for violence when they clash.

 

[Mad Dog]

Guess the violence last week didn't deter many from coming to the park. Tonight was the first Phantom Fright Nights since the shooting. Alene just drove past on her way home from work. She said the parking lot was already packed at 5:15 PM.

 

[JoeCamel]

Guess the violence last week didn't deter many from coming to the park. Tonight was the first Phantom Fright Nights since the shooting. Alene just drove past on her way home from work. She said the parking lot was already packed at 5:15 PM.

I went to Dollywood Wednesday and it was full. For a random weekday at the end of September it was surprising. All lots full by noon.

 

[Mad Dog]

Now this is interesting....I just took an online survey from our local park Kennywood. Keep in mind that it is the flagship park and US hdq. for Parques Reunides (Palace Enter. I believe for US) . Nearly the entire, very lengthy,
survey asked questions about zoos, aquariums, theme parks and if you were opposed to captured animals. Kennywood is small and really has no room for either. I'm wondering, and this might be a longshot guess, is perhaps their
parent corporation thinking of making a bid for the Sea World chain, whose parks largely contain some sort of aquarium and/or zoo.

 

[Joe]

Kennywood teasing an announcement tomorrow. I’ve seen them pay attention to the UFO ride on socials this summer so it might be a revamp of that or a new ride in that area.

 

[Mad Dog]

Spinvasion...Area 412

 

[Joe]

Wonder if this is replacing Volcano...

 

[Mad Dog]

Wonder if this is replacing Volcano...

Sounds like it. That's been a problem area for a long time. They keep trying new flats and themes there . They have that similar themed flat ride next to it, so it's easy to dress it
up and call it a mini land along with the adjacent gift shop.....and just a trivia guess on the 412 name. Up until the explosion of land line area codes, that area plus the whole valley was area code 412.

 

[Mad Dog]

Guessing attendance is not meeting expectations. Kennywood today announced they will be closed on Tuesdays for the remainder of the summer.

 

[Joe]

Guessing attendance is not meeting expectations. Kennywood today announced they will be closed on Tuesdays for the remainder of the summer.

Well, in fairness, we've had some hot weather and then the bad air. Hopefully we get some nice evenings soon.

 

[Tobias]

Well, in fairness, we've had some hot weather and then the bad air. Hopefully we get some nice evenings soon.

Yeah, from the looks of things the air hasn't been so nice lately. Personally, I wouldn't be in the mood to be out in a park during something like that.

 

[Mad Dog]

Yeah, from the looks of things the air hasn't been so nice lately. Personally, I wouldn't be in the mood to be out in a park during something like that.

I've lived close to Kennywood for most of my life. The only weather that discourages crowds is when we get lots of rain. Generally, May & June are rainy months here. But not this year. We went through three weeks in June where there was no measurable precipitation. And, except for one week with mid 80 to high 80 temps., the rest of the time has been moderate, 70's, or even cool. People here are used to bad air since we always get that locally due to steel mill emissions during temperature inversions. The local coke mill, a few miles from Kennywood is the single largest polluter in the USA. Plus, their waterpark at Sandcastle (a couple miles from Kennywood) remains open 7 days a week, as well as their childrens park , Idlewild & Soak Zone, about 20 miles away.....No, it's not the weather or air.

 

[GAcoaster]

I'd guess weak attendance combined with staffing shortages.

 

[Mad Dog]

I'd guess weak attendance combined with staffing shortages.

Just hearing from people around here and local social media, there's a few things that stand out. There's still a lot of backlash from the gang fights and shooting last year and a few years prior. It's both a safety and racial issue. There also has been a large increase in ticket costs the last two years, and that's not playing well with the largely blue collar locals. Kennywood, due to it's hard to get to location, doesn't get much in the way of tourist traffic. Staffing is always an issue, but that hasn't caused them to cut days or hours in the past. They've only cut days during the few years when attendance was trending low, generally in summers with lots of rain. Certainly, few rain days this year, the driest year in many decades. The other two parks, owned by Palace/Kennywood don't seem to be having attendance issues. Today I drove past Idlewild, on a trip to Ligonier, and the parking lot that I could see from the road, was full at park opening. During the past month they've been running continual, and different, discount offers, which probably indicates attendance is down. But even with the discounts, tickets are higher than they were a couple of years ago. Not a great idea to raise prices a lot when you're facing heavily media reported gang issues.

 

[medic2]

"heavily media reported gang issues"?? In 2023?

Sandcastle Waterpark will be closed Mondays beginning July 10 - it's on their calendar
Idlewild will be closed Wednesdays beginning July 12 - it's on their calendar
Lake Compounce will be closed one day a week - its on their calendar
Dutch Wonderland...Adventureland Resort... same six day a week schedule moving forward

It's a Palace thing.