2016 pool season shorter in days, longer in the green

Benefiting from a long, hot summer, the Greencastle Aquatic Center parlayed a shorter 2016 swim season into a bigger year at the box office.

Totals for the 75-day 2016 pool season that ended Aug. 13 show the facility took in $7,500 more this year than it did during 2015, Assistant Park Director Phil Cornelius told Park Board members at their September meeting.

For the 2016 season, Cornelius reported, the pool took in $67,961.30 in admissions and $22,029.27 in concessions, which computes to a $7,686 increase over the longer 2015 pool season.

Park Director Rod Weinschenk, in his 15th season heading city park operations, called it “an excellent year.”

That’s particularly true, Weinschenk said, because of how the calendar played out.

“Last year (2015), Memorial Day came early and the start of school was later,” he noted. “This year, Memorial Day was later and the start of school was early, so we had a smaller timeframe to work with.”

For the season, the pool only lost four days to rainy or cool weather, being open 75 days this year -- about 10 days fewer than in 2015.

Meanwhile, staying open for an extra week after school started in August didn’t really do too much for the stat sheet.

While the pool was originally slated to close Aug. 7, because of persistent hot weather, it stayed open until through Aug. 13 (Sunday, Aug. 14 being a rainout). But over that last week, only an extra 376 people used the pool, bringing in just $864.75 in admission fees and $149.61 in concessions.

So, as Steve Fields, the City Council liaison to the Park Department, pointed out, if the public isn’t going to take advantage of keeping the pool open later, then that idea may need to be reconsidered for next summer.

In all, 23,437 persons visited the aquatic center this summer while another 5,368 took advantage of the free facilities at the splash park, according to figures totaled through Aug. 14.

The splash park currently remains open and will continue as such as long as warm weather persists.

Asked how the splash park might have affected pool attendance, Cornelius said that typically “the splash park gets them there before the pool opens, and then they stay in the pool once they move over there.”

In other words, without a specific study of those figures, it doesn’t appear the aquatic center is losing much revenue by parents choosing to use the splash park.

Cornelius also noted that the splash park numbers aren’t 100 percent accurate, so it’s likely more than 5,368 used those free facilities.

“We can’t count them all,” he said. “We don’t have somebody over there all day with a counter. But we try to count them every hour.”

In a related matter, the Park Board was told that two end-of-the-year pool parties were very successful.

Dr. John Hennette played host to 587 persons invited through his dental practice, which set a pool party record, Weinschenk noted. Close behind was a Marshall girls camp that brought participants over in nine buses and rented the pool out for 515 people.

The next meeting of the Greencastle Park Board is set for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6 at City Hall.