 All right, this is Abuse When Insiders with Grace Peacock from Canada's Wonderland and we are here today to talk to you guys about Winterfest and maybe a few other things depending but we'll see. But nonetheless, we'll get it started. So Winterfest in 2019 Grace was such a huge success at Canada's Wonderland. I don't even think Cedar Fair was expecting such large numbers. So we were wondering what's new for 2021. Well, yeah, first of all, we are so thrilled to be back because you're right. It was a beautiful event and it was so well received. I know everyone I spoke to was just blown away. They didn't expect to see the entire park transformed. And so we're so happy to have this back and to be finishing, you know, what is it has been a hard two years, you know, going out with 2021 with this beautiful event. It's a nice way to end the year, I think. So Winterfest this year is bigger than ever. Like literally the footprint is bigger because we've expanded our North Pole themed area, the park. So we've included in there anti-carousels open, swing the sentries open. We have all the food venues in that area are open and they're being sort of given a holiday spin as well. We've got a new ice wine garden in there. Some of the entertainments moved over, including some new entertainment like the bar will have some new entertainment. The Tannin bombs, if you remember those characters will have their own show over there as well. Plus we have this gorgeous 100 foot long colored LED tunnel called Northern Star Lights. And I'm sure you've seen these in different places, but you're just completely surrounded by beautiful lights. And it's going to be one of those places people go to take pictures of themselves. And that's going to be on the pathway between the Yukon and Behemoth. So that's those are the biggest changes. We're obviously also grappling with, you know, COVID protocols that we've had all year. But it's the same live shows, the skating's back on the rink. In a lot of cases, you've got to book things in advance. Obviously your trip to the park, you're going to be reserving. Skating, everything has to be done online as well, including your waiver before you come to the park. So make sure to get all that done. This is one of those events you have to plan ahead for because there's so much going on. You need to know when the shows are happening to make sure you're in the right place, right? You don't want to miss the tree lighting ceremony. That's a 530 every night. So go online, check out the mobile app, plan your night and you'll have a great time. For sure. A little plug here. I saw Coaster Circuits posted on Twitter, an entire show timeline. I definitely screenshot it. So definitely shout out to Coaster Circuits for that. Yeah, it's a good idea to look at those showtimes and just decide what it is you're going to see that night. Yeah, but I did notice on the map you guys had that too. So that's going to be helpful. All right, I guess what's your personal favorite show at Winterfest? My favorite show. I love Cool Yule because it's all the like the pop holiday songs that you can't help but sing along to. I think that one's got to be my favorite. Holly Jolly Trolley is a lot of fun too. And that's in a new location this year. So it's right across from Sledgehammer and it's going to have its own little stage there with the trolley behind it. So I'm sure it's going to look gorgeous. But it's a close call between those two. I would agree. Yeah. What is your biggest piece of advice? I guess you kind of touched on it a little bit near the end of the first question. But what's your biggest piece of advice for someone who has never been to Winterfest before? Yeah, the planning piece for sure, because it just it makes me very sad to ever hear somebody's come to the park. They've walked through the whole place and they've missed all the shows because they didn't know that there were showtimes. They had to be in a certain place and the park's huge, right? So it takes a long time to get from one side to the other. And if you're not planning for that, plus we have so many different activities. Like if you're doing skating, if you're doing cookies with Mrs. Claus, the letter writing at the North Pole, seeing Santa. Like that fills up your night right there. So aside from planning, I'm sure I know a lot of the audience there already sees as pass holders, but that that gold pass value is huge because you can't fit it all in in one night. It's great to have the freedom to come back and do all the other stuff you didn't get to the first time. Of course. Yeah. All right. So we saw online that Canada's Wonderland posted a vaccine mandate for the park to allow themselves to have higher capacity and other reasons as well. I'm assuming a lot of questions we're getting online is would a negative test work to get in as a alternative? Right. Right now we're following the guidance by provided by York Region Public Health, which is our local area here, and they do not permit the negative tests in replace of the vaccine. So at this time, we're not. OK. And then a second question is anyone under the age of 16 for photo ID? You don't need photo ID. Oh, OK. Perfect. Government issued with your birthday on it. So a health card or birth certificate. The if you go on the government websites, York Region has a to there's a list of all the different acceptable IDs. And we follow closely with York Region Public Health, as I mentioned. So if you have any questions about that, I just see what they have. This is acceptable. Awesome. All right. That answers one of our most popular questions there. So what goes into transforming Canada's Wonderland from Halloween Haunt into Winterfest in 12 days? A lot. So much. I don't even think we have enough time to talk about it. The other departments right now, kudos to them. They're working around the clock. There are some people here that I don't see their cars leave. Because there's just so much to have to happen. Obviously, all the Halloween decor had to get out and we brought in all of the you know, the lights for the trees, much, much of which was already on. But there were there's a new area to build out. So those trees have to have lights put on all the different installations. If you recall, you know, the big photo ops of the big Christmas present box. We have giant ornament balls. Those are all being put out, you know, like our our reindeer's up here and our toy soldiers, the skating rink needed to be built. And it's up. It's it's I think if it's not already frozen, it's well on its way to be. I just saw it the other day and it looked like it was it was a hot day, though, so it might have been just a little melty. But that itself hiring is still happening. So we have to hire for, you know, entertainment across all the departments, really, food security and that's really been the case all year. So if anybody's looking for a job, check the website. There's probably still some opportunities. And what else? You know, in my department, the marketing that's happening, promotions, getting awareness out, because this is this event runs longer than it did in 2019. So we're starting opening this weekend, runs select dates until December 31st. But people aren't really thinking holidays yet, right? So we're trying to get awareness out and get it on people's minds that hey, we're open this weekend and you can come enjoy this event. But it's really the heavy lifting that's happening with Park Decor. Oh, and all the rehearsals for entertainment. So we've had vocal rehearsals, dance rehearsals. I saw the tree lighting ceremony crew out the other day. You might have seen it on the Tik Tok app. Your Tik Tok app. Yeah. So it's just a flurry of activity. And as you mentioned, it's only 12 days. Yeah. So it's a small miracle that they're pulling off here, but we always do it and it's going to be great and everyone's excited for the opening this weekend. Yeah, it's crazy. Wonderland always happens to pull it off like last second. It looks like it's not going to be done, but it gets done. We're going to get there. Another question I have is, what goes into deciding which rides can open for Winterfest and which ones can't? Oh, that may be a little out of my area, but I do know generally. I mean, it's about the weather. And we have to be ready for the coldest of days, even though this week's been pretty warm. And I know some people are like, why aren't the coasters open? Well, we have to also plan for staff to run those rides, right? So if we know we're not going to be able to commit to having a ride and running, we're not going to bother hiring for that ride and training for it. So it's really the rides that can run in inclement weather, the kind of weather that you get in December. That's the biggest piece so far as I am aware. Awesome. All right. So this one might be a tough question. So with Canada's Wonderland success in Winterfest and Cedar Fair kind of looking to expand the season at other parks, is there talks for Canada's Wonderland to potentially expand Winterfest into January like Carowinds? It's always a possibility. I'll leave it at that, I think. I know even when we opened for 2019, we had a lot of feedback from guests because kids are out for school for another additional week, right? So a lot of guests were asking, can you just stay open for an extra week because we've got our kids at home and we don't have anything to do with them and it would be great to be able to come. So we're aware of that. Nothing's been decided or concrete. But as you all as know, when things happen at different parks across the chain, there's always a possibility people will like yours. Awesome. Good answer. I'm great at dancing around. Dancing around. Not many people know this, but Canada's Wonderland operates like a mini city in there. In fact, you might even be able to pick it up on the mics behind us. But Wonderland does a lot of their own fiberglass and woodwork for events like Halloween Haunt, Winterfest, and sign design for their rides and attractions. We're wondering if you could provide any information or context on what goes into that. I know that, yeah, we have a new workshop in the back behind the wild bees. Where, yeah, exactly, we have a fiberglass shop. So not these guys are my soldiers here. But a good example, the Snoopy that's on top of the Rainbow Bridge, the Winterfest, is on its little sleigh. That was created here. That was built here. I think peanuts related. That's fiberglass. It's built by us. We get designs that work closely with the hence licensing company. But all that's built here as well. And all of the signage that you see on the stores, that's here as well. And that's a huge job for Winterfest because we're switching out everything. Like all the stores have new names. Our food venues this year, there's more with new names as well. And all that work is happening on site. And it's great. It's really great to have that resource. And we've got a talented team of people doing these designs and building these things. It's like you said, it's like we have our own city and it's great to be able to rely on your own resources here because you can do things much more effectively and efficiently, especially when you have a little Christmas tree ready for something. Awesome. A little personal question. Windseeker. Yes. A lot of the other parks decorate their windseeker like an LED Christmas tree. Oh, OK, yeah. We were wondering, you may not know this because it's such a small little item. But we were wondering if a windseeker would ever be chosen to be a LED Christmas tree here at Canada's Wonderland. I have no idea. OK. I figured. Here, obviously. But like I said, it's always a possibility that something is popping in another park, right? Yeah. I thought you were going to ask me about my ride on Windseeker. I was just there when I went on that. Well, that too. I ended up going on that again at night. Really? On the hunt because we had to do some online filming with the mounts and stuff. So I did that and I was terrified again. I don't even know. I think that's it. We're going to figure that out. But for Christmas, I don't know about that for sure. OK, awesome. So earlier, before Howie and Haunt, you posted a really creative post that got the internet in a whirl about Flight Deck. It was with the carefully, not so carefully placed. I think it's placed there every year that way. But you made a little TikTok about Flight Deck. You know, post a little image and everyone won a stir. So we were wondering if you wanted to provide any more context to that. You know what? I love the support and the engagement of the park and the band and it's great. And I guess I owe everyone a little apology because that was a complete innocence. I was one of our, we were looking through Haunt before it opened and I saw that and just thought it's just the positioning was great. I was like, it's got a coaster in the background. I didn't even think Flight Deck took the picture and shared it and made the joke about who put this here. And then yeah, it just took off. So kudos to everybody for being so engaged and interested. I didn't mean it. I don't have any definitive plans or information about Flight Deck leaving in the future soon. I really promise I won't do that again, but I do apologize. Oh, it was awesome. Especially your follow-up one. I was like, I'm not going to say anything. Yeah, I just, I like to have fun. If anybody knows me, I like to have some fun. And I love everybody. Of course. All right. So new food options, it's a little early. I don't think you've announced everything. So I'm not sure you'll be able to speak too much on it, but is there any new food options that you could go into a little bit? Oh, we are planning, I believe, to release our Winterfest menu next week. So I would stay tuned for the specifics on that. As you know, we always have a couple of festive funnel cakes. I am excited about, I'm excited about the alcoholic option to go to the festival park. Sorry, I'm a mom. Whenever I'm here with my kids, I can eat. Anyway, because we have so many different bars, I swine garden is going to be gorgeous. We have a anniversary store. It's going to be converted into the jingle bar, and they're going to have fun little holiday cocktails and things. Yeah, that's on the map. I was like, isn't that St. Nick's? No, that's Moog. Really? Mine is now at Crystal Arcade. Oh, OK, a bigger, oh, wow. Yeah, we've moved some things around in there. So we take a look at, we're going to have the jingle bar, I swine garden. I believe there's another outdoor bar in Med Fair or the Elf Village called the Naughty Elf. And then another one up in the frontier of Canada, where we have the energy and the quantity. But there's a whole array of fun things. And then there's a milk and cookies venue that's going to be in Med Fair Elf Village. I know we have new names for everything. Milk and Cookies is the Dairy Queen location that's there. And they're going to have cookie witches, holiday cookie witches. And these, I believe, these little cookie shots. So it's like a little shot glass with a cookie on top. And it's a lot of fun. Plus the apple cider, hot cider, the mold line, I always love. And the kids, hot chocolate for the kids all over the place we have lots of hot chocolate locations. As for the rest of the menu, I would wait to find out next week because I don't trust my memory to be able to remind you right now. I think we have one more future speculation type question. But I think this is definitely going to be a no-go. But we'll put our feet in the water. As we arrived here today, they started chopping down some of the poles in the front gate area right over there. And we were wondering with over the past couple of years, like before 2020, we noticed the front gates getting a little more incapable of handling the crowds. We were wondering if there was any future plans for implementing an upgrade or just implementing new things at front gate. Yeah, I can be at it now in terms of anything else about the facade here I've been at before. OK, that's awesome. I thought we would just. I'm getting ways. It's OK. So on some conference calls, we've heard rumblings that not all 2022 attractions may be announced for all the parks. We were wondering if maybe Canada's Wonderland was one of those parks that has unannounced items for 2022? I'll tell you, at this time, there is not. OK. We released our announcement in August, as we always do. So we have the big new restaurant coming. And then we also have the international news festival, which is going to be huge. So those are two big pieces for 2022. Awesome. And then I guess on that topic, is there any updates about the restaurant, any further announcements on the restaurant at all? Yeah, I think that it may wait until after Winterfest is done before we release the renderings and things. There's a few details that are still being confirmed. So we're just not ready to put that out the door yet. But it is going to be gorgeous. And I think everybody's going to be excited. I know people say I'd rather have a ride, but you know what? I think restaurants and food venues, they're needed just as much to help improve the guest experience. And we're really excited about this one, because it's big and it's beautiful. And it's really going to fit in the community and aesthetic that we have going here at the park. Awesome. I look forward to it. Infrastructure is important to a theme park, so. All right. So we saw a couple of two indoor attractions for Winterfest disappear off the map and off the attractions list. So Tinker's Toy Factory and the little candy cane maze over in Planet Snoopy. So we were wondering if that was just because of COVID. And hopefully we'll see Tinker's Toy Factory return in 2022, of course, according to the things going on. Yeah. Yeah, it was exactly because of COVID protocols. With a production like Tinker's, we work with the Hote Bowl, which is out of Montreal. And to put a production together like that, we require contracts to be signed and agreed to. It worked to happen well in advance. And with COVID protocols and adapting to this current norm, it's been very difficult to work for in advance of anything, right? So we had to make a call on that. And unfortunately, we didn't have it this year. But it was a huge success in 2019. People loved it. And yeah, I think the intent is for that to return. Same situation with Candy Cane's Castle, with it being an indoor attraction at the time that we needed to commit. So yeah, unfortunately, it did. But we have more outdoor space than usual. So lots more to explore over in the North Pole section, which is actually ironically on the south side of the park. But we'll just skip over that. I think people still have a lot of fun. I'm excited. I'll be here Saturday and Sunday. So obviously, go get vaccinated so you can come. We went over the vaccine policies, everything that's new for 2021 at Winterfest. And it sounds amazing. Obviously, I'm a huge fan. And I preach it way too much. But that's OK. No, there's not possible to love it too much. All right. Well, here's to 2021 Winterfest. See you guys at the park. Bye.