Is Dollywood the Busiest Park in America?

The Dollywood theme park attendance in numbers

Consistently ranked among the best park in America by the Golden Ticket Awards, Dollywood has over the course of its 40 seasons risen to be a player on the national scene.

Dollywood has made the transition from a chintzy regional theme park to one of the best amusement/theme parks in the United States. But where does it rank amongst it peers? Well, one way to measure is the aforementioned Golden Ticket Awards. However, they skew oddly sometimes as their voting base tends to be eclectic at best.

Another way to measure? Guests through the turnstiles. In other words, attendance. While the Golden Ticket Award voters cast their ballots based on their opinions, Joe Q Public votes with the wallet. With this in mind, the Theme Park Association – known as the TEA in theme park circles – recently released its Global Experience Index for 2024. And it provides another version of Dollywood’s Standing in the World.

Where does Dollywood rank in attendance?

Overall – amongst North American theme parks – Dollywood comes in 18th with more 3.1 million visitors. However, it’s important to remember that theme parks in North American aren’t running in the same race. If you remove the parks from theme park meccas Florida and California – theme parks that are open year round – and go by seasonal parks, you’ll find Dollywood ranked fifth behind Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Valencia, California and Canada’s Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario.

If we were to loosely speculate what Dollywood’s year round attendance would be, it averages a little over a million per quarter. But if Dollywood had a full quarter from January through April, it would represent a significant uptick in overall attendance. I don’t think it would be enough to add another million because the weather would scare many away. However, as Dollywood President Eugene Naughton said when Dollywood’s open, people visit – it might be better than we’d expect.

Would it be enough to surpass Busch Garden’s 3.95 million or SeaWorld in San Diego’s 4.02 million? We can’t say definitively, but the year round parks clearly have an advantage.

Since Dollywood is the fifth-ranked seasonal park, does that mean it’s the fifth best?

No, I don’t think we can extrapolate that from just the raw numbers. And while I’ve been to Cedar Point and King’s Island, I’m not qualified to rank the other five. I will say that Dollywood’s base ticket price is twice as much as Cedar Point, King’s Island and the Six Flags park. While this is probably good for the consumer, it certainly could skew attendance numbers.

In terms of year over year growth, Cedar Point and Kings Island each saw 5% growth from 2023 to 2024. But Dollywood’s growth was a more modest .8%. Was some of that affected by the Hurricane? Maybe. But the park was only closed for one full day as most of the severe damage missed Sevier County. However, it’s possible an overall tourism depression on the region might have hurt Dollywood’s numbers overall.

And while reports from the parks indicate big crowds so far this year, we won’t know how well Dollywood did in 2025 season until the fall of 2026.

What can Dollywood do to move up the list?

The first response would be to lower ticket prices to levels more in line with their competitors. However, that would be short-sighted at best. Would Dollywood rather have 3 million visitors at $100 a ticket or 6 million at $50? While guest would certainly enjoy the improved price point the guest experience would be decimated by crowds. Lowering ticket prices is both unlikely and a very bad idea.

Continued expansion efforts

Dollywood is already more than a single day park and, if Wildwood Grove continues to expand, guests could spend a whole day in that single section of the park as if it were Dollywood’s second gate – aka second theme park. When speaking to Naughton this summer, he indicated plans for growth were already laid out to at least 2034 and others have indicated there are more phases to the Wildwood Grove expansion beyond NightFlight Expedition.

Why is expansion important? Naughton has indicated that Dollywood wants to maintain guest satisfaction levels. You can’t cram more people into the same amount of space and expect to maintain experience. To continue to grow you have to give the people something more to do.

How do we know Dollywood wants to expand? Naughton and others have indicated it. But beyond that, they’ve said they want to continue to add Dollywood themed resorts – as many as five of them total. DreamMore and HeartSong are up and running. But if Dollywood is going to do more, they’re going to have to have more attractions to draw the crowds.

What about more celebrity concerts?

Dollywood has dabbled in this before at the “Celebrity Theater” and this doesn’t seem to be a current pursuit. However, if Dollywood could set up real stars with Las Vegas style residences – only shorter – it could be an attendance driver.

Will Dollywood open year round?

Dollywood’s seasonal window is getting shorter with the passage of time. By simply extending the Christmas attractions another week into the New Year and opening on March 1 – it opened on March 15 in 2025 – you could carve the off season down to six weeks or so.

Would guests consider Dollywood in the early spring and late winter? Indoor attractions like NightFlight Expedition could help. Having the park open – even on a limited basis for shopping and restaurants – could also help get rooms booked at Dollywood resorts in the slow season.

And Dollywood’s leadership seems to want it.

“When we’re open, people come,” Naughton told Knox News. ““Behind the scenes, a big part of my job is the development of the long-term plan that’s gonna drive our overall experiences, I’m very focused on trying to march my way toward (Dollywood being open throughout the year).

What do you think? Are you surprised by Dollywood’s standing? Let us know in the comments and on the socials!