In chatting with some of the ARM attendees two weeks ago, a number of sites hosting DOWT had either seen attendance declines, gift shop sales declines, or both. Some sites had seen steady attendance. I didn't talk to anybody that saw significant increases. Some had bad weather, bad luck, or bad timing with the previous toy recalls.

Any sites that can/want to make trend commentary on the 2007 season/sales to date? I guess I'm wondering if what I heard was truly representative. If you want to use the PM feature rather than posting a public response, that's fine too...

I'll share some immediate PM results, with no names or organizations.

Very small sample, but it's not the 'gloom and doom' you might think, particularly if you had a bad year yourself. One down over 10%, one up around 10%, one stable for attendance. Gift shop sales took a trouncing on one, went down mildly on one, and stayed stable in the third.

There's other issues than the toy recall, all of the kind of management issues that HIT hears firsthand at the meetings, and I expect they will hear again. A very prelimary consensus from these and who else I've talked to indicates that retail sales seem to be down a little to down a lot, but more related to general spending than just the recall. Not very scientific, but better than nothing.

This kinda reminds me of 911, where it was easy to hear stories of people that got just hammered in ridership, but others would quietly tell you they had a remarkably good year and were almost embarassed to admit it.