First of all, I salute the seemingly endless amount of energy ACE's last two Events Directors, Paul Blick and Yvonne Janik, have put forth in making all of our national events memorable. I have no issue with the job they've done with our national Conferences. Even those aspects of Coaster Con they've chosen to emphasize were done extremely well. It's what they've chosen to de-emphasize over the past ten years or so that bothers me.
When I first started attending Coaster Cons in the early 90s, the typical approach was that we would have a primary host park that we'd be at Sunday through Wednesday of Con. Then we'd typically either have one secondary host park that we'd spend the next two days at or a couple of secondary host parks that we'd spend a day each at. Newer members might wonder, "How could you spend four days at the same park?" Indeed, I had to answer this question a few times and my answer was always the same: "If you're getting everything out of Convention that is intended, you actually shouldn't be spending all four days, open to close, at our primary host park!" The Sunday of Coaster Con then was much like it is today, except there were more sales tables, displays, and interaction between members that did not require a mixer event in order to occur. This would be followed by our first coaster ERT of the Con Sunday night. The Monday of the event would usually be a full day or nearly a full day at the park, with both morning and evening coaster ERT (and possibly some surprises, but nothing on the scale we've seen recently). Then on Tuesday, we'd have morning coaster ERT then we'd all go back to the hotel and have presentations, the business meeting, the video contest, and any number of additional activities. Tuesday night, we'd be back at the park for coaster ERT. Wednesday morning would typically be our last coaster ERT of the event then we'd have more Con activities back at the host hotel followed by the banquet at the host hotel that same evening.
I want to see the return of this format. I want our photo contest, video contest, business meeting, platform speeches, presentations, and other similar events to take place in hotel conference rooms or a convention center rather than at our host park. And I want to see more of these kinds of activities! I want more educational talks, more discussions about roller coaster physics, panel discussions about everything from ACE politics to famous coaster designers to historical talks, video presentations of coasters and ACE in the media since the last Coaster Con, discussions of ACE's projects (including preservation efforts and the state / growth or our archives), guest speakers from the NRCMA, IAAPA, Amusement Today, and anyone else who could add to our knowledge base, and games (like Tim Baldwin's Jeopardy! presentation from a few years ago or Bob Prentki's ACE Feud). You get the idea--I want actual intellectual content and stimulation at Coaster Con, not just swag, meals, and ERT (as great as they might be). My dream when I first started going to Coaster Con is that we'd grow in this kind of content to the point of being akin to a sci-fi convention...that is to say, three or four things going on at the host hotel or convention center at the same time so that you couldn't possibly do it all, happening essentially all day on Tuesday and part of Wednesday--a true showcase opportunity for anyone in the world to come learn virtually everything they'd ever possibly want to know about the past, present, and future of coasters. Instead, we've gone the complete opposite way, the wrong way in my opinion. We've pared down this kind of content to the bare minimum and located it in the host park which, while it's kind of them to offer in each applicable case, often has a poorly (or non-)air conditioned venue and an equally poor or non-existent PA system. Add this to all the distractions of an amusement park, and it is simply not an appropriate place to be having an academic discussion or a meeting that determines ACE's future. Coaster Con should be about SO much more than riding, but when we do ride, well, keep reading....
You'll notice that I kept referring to "coaster" ERT rather than simply saying "ERT." This is by design. The sole emphasis of Coaster Con was not necessarily ERT, but what ERT we did have was scheduled with an eye towards quality over quantity. We typically didn't have water park ERT or ERT on family rides or kiddie rides back then, and if we did, we did not sacrifice having ERT on the most important coaster(s) in the park (and by this I typically mean wood coasters) in order to do so. When it came to kiddie coasters, it was more important to arrange for our adult members who might usually not be allowed to ride them to do so during an ERT than to have them open only for their legitimate intended audience. And most importantly, wood coasters were nearly always part of nearly every night ERT. Everyone knows wood coasters run best at night and all of the most legendary ERT sessions I can recall were night rides on amazing coasters...from (the KD) Grizzly and Timber Wolf during my first two Coaster Cons to Texas Giant in the late 90s to Boulder Dash and Voyage more recently, all of those rides earned my highest accolades at the time as a result of night ERT sessions.
Coaster Con should transcend the typical coaster event. For the week or so that it is in session, it should be nothing short of the roller coaster epicenter for the entire world. It shouldn't matter if Hoffman's Playland, Memphis Kiddie Park, or Santa Monica Pier act as our primary host park--there should be so much going on at the host hotel during those first four days that you'd hardly notice that the coasters at those places are, maybe, not quite as appealing as at some of our more typical host parks.
The last thing I'll add on the topic of Coaster Con is that I find it distressing that Knoebels has never been the primary host for a single ACE Coaster Con. It hasn't even been a secondary host! Closest it ever came to hosting was as an optional add-on day during the 2001 Convention. While I would not presume to speak for the park, I have heard through the grapevine that they would love to have us if we'd only ask. As not only my personal favorite park but as one of the top parks among many long-standing ACE members, it is my mission to bring Coaster Con to Knoebels, preferably as the primary host park, as soon as possible (regardless of the outcome of this election). So long as we can confirm that Knoebels would, indeed, be willing to host a future Coaster Con, this unfathomable oversight needs to be corrected with great urgency.
