The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is in the process of installing Boon Edam turnstiles at a number of their rides to improve crowd management, ensure accurate customer counts, and improve revenue collection.

The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is the only major seaside amusement park remaining on the West Coast. The boardwalk is located along a scenic, mile-long public beach bordering the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The entertainment complex features 36 rides and attractions; 26 midway games, two large video game arcades; an 18-hole indoor mini-golf course; a laser tag arena; 31 restaurant and food outlets; and much more.

Prior to deciding on Boon Edam for an upgrade, the boardwalk had installed standard turnstiles at some of their rides to automate the count of customers taking the rides. As the facility improved its technology to a cashless card system, the opportunity arose to improve ride entrance technology as well.

“We needed to have confirmation that each of our customers has paid in order to enjoy a ride or attraction,” explained Monty Matteson, senior supervisor of revenue systems technology. “We now use stored value cards for our arcades, the midway, and all of our rides

“For some of the rides, we needed to better control access, and we looked to Boon Edam since they provide a product with more intelligent, effective control.” Thus far, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has purchased 21 Trilock 60 turnstiles; some are installed on rides, some are held in reserve for future use, and one is used as a test model.

The next phase of installation will be on some of the boardwalk’s attractions. “When paying for an attraction, each customer gets a receipt,” Matteson said. “But now we need one employee to take the money and a second employee to confirm the receipt. With the Boon Edam turnstile, we need only one employee, so we’re able to cut costs and reduce shrinkage from revenue loss.” Matteson plans to install Boon Edam turnstiles at four attractions — Laser Tag, Lazer Maze, Mini Golf, and Fright Walk.

 “We’re always looking for new, future deployments, as we switch out rides. Our overall experience has been that this is a great product,” Matteson said. “We’re achieving the desired level of throughput and we’ve had zero operational issues.”