The end of summer means the end of the season for Arnolds Park Amusement Park on Lake Okoboji in northwest Iowa. Park CEO Jon Pausley says the season’s attendance numbers tracked well with last year.
“We had nearly 800,000 visits to the property over the course of the summer, which is right on par with where we’ve been before,” Pausley says. “The challenge we ran into was July was just so hot that we had about two or three weeks where it was just so warm and humid that people, you know, it was not great amusement park weather.”
This year’s attendance numbers were also in line with 2023, while there was historic flooding in the region in 2024, so he says that was a down year.
Pausley says the Live at the Lake Summer Concert Series at Preservation Plaza continues to be a strong draw.
“We certainly had great attendance for our concerts, great attendance for our Saturday night concerts, our premium paid show concerts, and the Queen II had the most riders in the summer it’s ever had,” he says, “so while we didn’t set any records in the amusement park, we still had a great season across the property.”
Pausley says preparations are already underway for next summer with four new thrill rides planned, along with the return of the Mirror Maze.
Arnolds Park is expected to reopen in mid-May of 2027.
