"therefore most things that would normally be done for an event would be the usual opening day stuff, just done an hour earlier" So MW charge you for the extra hours time for all the staff. Cleaners, street washers, maintenance crew and staffing on the ride. i never said my math was perfect, just adding what knowledge i have to the discussion on pricing. Nate

Yes, but it isn't an EXTRA hour for all staff - the cleaners and street washers and maintenance crew would START an hour earlier - and therefore FINISH an hour earlier. As to the maintenance crew, depending on what order they do it (because you don't have a separate crew for each attraction) you just change the order - so instead of doing Superman last.... do it first! no extra time required! I seem to recall the wonderland maintenance crew started around 5 or 6 in the morning, so if this is a similar situation for MW - just get em to do the rides you need first... the only additional costing would be the overtime (25% extra pay) to those starting early, and the extra full hour's pay for the operators.

I think it's a very different situation when an international park with many times more attractions than our parks shuts a ride during normal operating hours for a function. Especially when you consider that international parks also have much more reasonable opening hours. Losing one out of 20 or 30 attractions for an hour or whatever when the park is open for 12 hours or more during the day isn't going to be a significant loss. If Movie World rented say Superman Escape to a group during normal hours, realistically that's a quarter of the main attractions gone for about 1/8th of the day. A restaurant booked for a private function isn't going to then take money from other customers only to tell them that they won't be getting a meal because the place is booked out. Now, I've been sticking clear of this whole discussion and it's all largely moot at this point, but if all anyone's going to do is break costing down on a dollar-by-dollar basis then you're looking at it in a pretty shallow manner. Saying nah, too expensive for my liking/what you get etc. is one thing, but to suggest that the organisers of such an event aren't entitled to some remuneration for their hard work is pretty insulting. I assume no one would have a go at the TPR folks for profiting off their coaster trips?

I don't deny an organiser is entitled to suitable profit for their efforts in organising the event - As i've said, I do some work in event management, so i'd be pretty hippocritical if I did. I think my issue was moreso with the margin that appeared to be involved. Realistically, for that money, anyone could organise this event for them and 70 of their closest friends. I could do it for the guys in my office and make a nice hefty sum out of it, simply because I made the phone calls and signed the contracts. I think give or take it worked out about $30pp profit, or $2100 for a one day event, plus the organiser would have their own free ticket out of the deal as well. Now Rob and Elissa would have their own free ticket, but to be fair, there are a lot more phone calls, and a lot more people to deal with (a coordinator for every park, bus\coach, hotel and so on). I also wouldn't imagine that they would be taking a 23% profit margin out of the deal. The costings they offer, and the inclusions provided, I can't imagine that (on a per person basis) they would be taking over 20% profit - their trips wouldn't be affordable. (And with the number of trips, and number of people, they can would easily afford to have a lower margin) Of course, I could be wrong, but only Rob and Elissa could really supply that information, and Rob is rarely around, unless theres something from TPR he needs to plug.