Look Gary, you're playing the same political game as Mike Dunn tried on the County Council yesterday. First of all, the Salisbury Zoo is NOWHERE NEAR the #1 attraction to the City of Salisbury. This may have been true back in the 1970's but today I'd bet a million dollars to your dollar that the Salisbury Mall and even Sam's Club attract more people to Salisbury than the Salisbury Zoo!You're trying to convince people that they're putting good money after good money when in fact you know darned well you're throwing good money after bad money! IF any of you were successful businessmen you'd realize the ECONOMY SUCKS and it's only going to get worse. Spending and planning on a $36,000,000.00 makeover of the Salisbury Zoo is a complete joke and it should be stopped.
IF the Zoo were willing to raise small funds at the door from everyone outside the City it would be one thing. Pride is the only thing holding them back from doing so. Salisbury wants to be known for being one of the only Zoo's left in the entire United States that is free because the City of Salisbury is so rich? You people are mentally challenged, that's all I can say. I'm not saying make the Salisbury Zoo into a profit center. I'm saying, help support yourself, Idiots!
Nevertheless Gary, I might even consider making that same bet that Gander Mountain gets more people through their doors than the Salisbury Zoo as well. You need to be far more careful with your words. Another major attraction would be the new Theater at the Mall. The Shorebirds probably get more people through their gates in one year than the Zoo and they're only open a few months out of the entire year. Yeah, this is the guy who wants to be your next Mayor.
One point about zoo visitors. Because the zoo doesn't charge admission, there's no way of knowing exactly how many people go through the zoo on an annual basis. Obviously the Shorebirds have to track attendance so we can find out easily enough that they attracted just over 200,000 fans last year - also, it's somewhat possible to know where tickets were sold so we can see where they draw from. But the zoo doesn't have a process to find this out as just anyone can walk in, even with a camera.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteOnce again you're very wrong here. There are electronic counters at the East & West end of the Salisbury Zoo. They know quite accurately just how many people are coming and going at the Zoo.
Joe,
ReplyDeleteDo a poll for the busy places in town. Salisbury Zoo,
Shorebirds,Centre at Salisury and any other places you'd lie to include.
Hmmmmm...didn't notice them when I was there. Guess I wasn't looking for them since I had no idea at the time I'd respond to a post such as this.
ReplyDeleteSo....since you know about the electronic counters, tell me how many people have been to the zoo?
Like I noted in an earlier comment, the Shorebirds draw about 200,000 a season for 65-70 home dates. Just to play a numbers game, if the zoo's open roughly 10 hours a day (more in summer, less in winter) they would need just over 50 visitors an hour (every hour they're open) to match the 200,000 number.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI believe the total amount of people visiting the Salisbury Zoo each year is around 35,000. I'd ask Jim Rapp or someone else from the Zoo to clarify that figure? It is not on their website. All they mention is the total amount of people that visit Zoo's around the world each year but not the Salisbury Zoo.
I can also tell you from their web counter, we get more visits to this Blog Site in a month than the Zoo has received in the entire time they have had a website, which is years.
In Zoo Commission Meetings they have admitted the counter is not accurate as there are delivery people coming and going as well as people coming in to use the bathrooms from Ben's Red Swings.