According to people who work at the park, gate figures are clocking in around the 250-750 mark. Which to put into perspective is, if everyone went and rode Dragon Falls first thing, would only equate to a 30/45 minute queue.
The thing is right, at the beginning of the year when Alton were saying they were going to close an hour earlier, people were rightly up in arms about the opening hours and one of the things suggested was closing Chessington completely because its gate figures equate to essentially nothing, barely breaking even and having masses of rides just sitting there waiting for people to arrive.
It has been like this for years, I can remember sitting at Dragons Fury and having the first rider turn up at the ride at 10:30m, half an hour after park opening (the ride then broke down with the car stuck at the top of the lift, whey!). My worry will always be, if closing Mystic East and WIld Asia doesn't cut out enough money then whats next? Close Forbidden Kingdom and Mexicana until 12? Make Truckers/Carousel and Sea Dragons/Griffins dual operator? It's not beyond them because they did this consistently in 2007.