I've been wondering what the general public thinks about
parks and their rides for years, they have such different tastes and opinions to enthusiasts. And with my increased interest in attractions
from a theoretical design and marketing standpoint, understanding the public
has become not just interesting, but important to me.
For obvious reasons, attractions keep their research a closely
guarded secret, and so my understanding of their audiences has come from
observing them on site by overhearing queue-line chatter and talking to friends
not particularly interested in the industry. What little information
the parks do release ranges from confusing to unbelievable, such as that whole
"the British public sees wooden roller coasters as unsafe" idea that Merlin Entertainments have concluded from their research. It was my belief that
they must be pre-empting that with loaded questions and such… How wrong I
turned out to be.
So, I decided to conduct a little survey. My audience was primarily contacts on Facebook, I have to admit. Though I was careful to only select people I felt were ignorant of the subject matter and who's relationship with roller coasters was normal. Some friends got their friends and family to fill it out, my mother filled it out and I managed to gain some strangers feedback from the helpful folks over at r/samplesize. The majority of respondents are in their early 20s, but all ages completed the survey. More than half of the respondents were in the UK, with the US coming second.
It's by no stretch of
the imagination flawless. There are fundamental problems with any survey, but the results are none the less interesting and I hope you enjoy reading them.
