Six Flags [FUN] Corporate Discussion Thread

I don't know if I agree with the whole let CF be the one to rehab all the rides. I would much rather have the retheme's done by SF. A great example is The Crypt at KI and KD. A retheme by SF to me is the only way the rides could be returned to what they once were.

All companies have to adjust given the changing customer. For example, SFMM was scary ghetto a few years back, so they had to be dirt cheap to get people to go. As they added rides, and cleaned the park up, the customers are willing to pay a little more. I don't think it was necessarily a horrible idea at the time (but they are bankrupt ), but it definitely needed to be updated, and they seem to be doing it. SF was definitely mismanaged and made some really bad investments, but hopefully once everything gets settled it will be a better place.

The premium pass upgrade is now going to cost be $24.99. The previous years, it only cost me $19.99.

You're questioning management over a $5 increase? That pass gets you into the entire chain for $75. That's peanuts. I remember Kings Island single park passes going for around $65 back in '91 to '92.

You have a reasonable point that they could sell more premium passes with better perks like early entry. However, Larry is right here. Six Flags has to raise prices. Their current pricing structure won them a fabulous trip to bankruptcy court.

Let's be honest about what your real issue is here: Six Flags has neglected SFA. No major adds for a long time. But that park is in a unique situation. All that land that could be a windfall for the company when the real estate market rebounds. If you think Cedar Fair is going to magically change the economics of that, you've got another thing coming.

I don't know if I agree with the whole let CF be the one to rehab all the rides. I would much rather have the retheme's done by SF. A great example is The Crypt at KI and KD. A retheme by SF to me is the only way the rides could be returned to what they once were.

I would rather have the rides work, than for Six Flags to re-theme them. Would you rather Six Flags also handle the maintenance to the Cedar Fair parks? I'm almost willing to put money that the rides would start experiencing more delays than what people there are use to seeing. But I like how this conversation is going. We all have different thoughts and opinions on what may happen if Apollo gets Cedar Fair. I enjoy talking with all of you.

Now, as for the real-estate comment that was made; are you saying that the company would benefit selling the parks land for real-estate? Or did you mean, sell some of the extra land it has to build houses and still keep the park? I'm confused. But with the park doing pretty good in this tough economy, I think it would be a bad move for them to close it down. They could make more money, selling it to another company. And to add another thing, that area does not need anymore houses. P.G. County has enough homes than what people can afford right now.

Lets take a break from rehabs and talk about Fright Fest. How many of you think that Cedar Fair parks Halloween attractions are better than the ones that Six Flags has set up right now? I personally would like to see Six Flags haunted attractions become scarier like Kings Dominion and Kings Island. Those haunted houses were a success. Even though they had to close down Flight of Fear in order to do Alien: Outpost; it was still cool. I will support my statement, that the current management of Six Flags, has made the Fright Fest attractions too family friendly. I miss the old Fright Fest where everything was scary.

At the NorEaster Event Sat. SFNE Park GM Larry Litton stated that Six Flags is not for sale and the rumor is false. Hopefully that helps everybody with the rumor.

At the NorEaster Event Sat. SFNE Park GM Larry Litton stated that Six Flags is not for sale and the rumor is false. Hopefully that helps everybody with the rumor.

Six Flags does not have put itself up for sale.

All you need is one entity buying up a majority of shares. Six Flags doesn't really have a say and can't prevent it unless management owns 50.1 percent of the shares.

I agree with Larry. That's the information I have been going on. This is why I say its inevitable for another corporate take over. When Avenue Capital Management released the information on the weird Dick Clark Productions and Six Flags deals, I knew the company had set itself up for failure, yet again. Lets keep this topic going. We all have good ideas.

What's everyone's take on Cedar Fair improving Six Flags Fright Fest.

^No offense, but I really don't understand why you are so obsessed with Cedar Fair "improving" Six Flags. Cedar Fair can't even get their own sh*t together.

Fright Fest (a free event included with admission) and Cedar Fair's haunts (hard ticket events) are two entirely different things to begin with.

^No offense, but I really don't understand why you are so obsessed with Cedar Fair "improving" Six Flags. Cedar Fair can't even get their own sh*t together.

 

Fright Fest (a free event included with admission) and Cedar Fair's haunts (hard ticket events) are two entirely different things to begin with.

I don't see what your saying. Kings Dominion's Haunted events were free with park admission. They had like eight or nine haunted house and they were all good. Six Flags on the other hand charges you tickets for their haunted attractions. But I see part if what you are saying. You are saying that both managements are crappy. I would be willing to take Cedar Fair's not so good management than Six Flag's not so good management. Cedar Fair, I respect because they are willing to spend money in order to make it. Dominator was a success for Kings Dominion and now Intimidator is also going to make the park even better. Six Flags keeps getting rid of their big rides and replacing them with smaller ones.

Now let me ask you, would you have gotten rid of Batman and Robin: The Chiller for Dark Knight indoor coaster?

^Neither of us have enough information to really know if that was the best decision. We're not privy to any inside information such as guest complaints from downtime, the cost of operating and maintaining the ride, the % of people who visited the park that actually rode the ride, and so on.

King's Dominion appears to be the exception, not the rule, when it comes to not charging for Halloween events in the Cedar Fair chain.

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Now let me ask you, would you have gotten rid of Batman and Robin: The Chiller for Dark Knight indoor coaster?

They didn't get rid of Chiller for The Dark Knight, they were supposed to run simultaneously together. But Chiller was beyond repair and cost to much money so it was removed. Movie Town Water Effect was just supposed to be removed and TDK replacing it.

^Neither of us have enough information to really know if that was the best decision. We're not privy to any inside information such as guest complaints from downtime, the cost of operating and maintaining the ride, the % of people who visited the park that actually rode the ride, and so on.

 

King's Dominion appears to be the exception, not the rule, when it comes to not charging for Halloween events in the Cedar Fair chain.

Good point that you make. If I'm correct all the Brutal Planets were removed from Six Flags parks when Shapiro did his tour in the winter of 2005. Well at least the on here at SFA was taken out. Do you think that weakened a lot of the Fright Fest, by making them too family friendly?

Here is a small update on whats going on in the bankruptcy case.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9EF7C5G0.htm

Six Flags on the other hand charges you tickets for their haunted attractions

Six Flags America does not charge you for their additional haunts. They used to have Brutal Planet with did cost, but on the other side of the park they had a free haunted house.

I do remember Hall Manor which they did not charge for. That was another attraction that was taken out do to Shapiro's family friendly idea. It's one thing to be family friendly with the newer attractions but why not just let whats already there, be there? To make the SFA story short, we lost our main haunted attractions that attracted people, do to Shapiro's family friendly Fright Fest idea. I thought Fright Fest at most of the Six Flags parks were fine the way they were, but now they are less exciting.

But back on topic. Many people that I have spoken to think that a merge will occur possibly by the end of summer or September. This bankruptcy case has been the most frequent news for Six Flags Inc in a while.

^Let's not drag details of the "Cedar Fair - Apollo" story into this thread, we have a separate thread to discuss that topic.

Cedar Fair Financial Thread

At my Lake Compounce convention, the sfne general manager came and addressed this question. I took video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjAZYYaNYRQ

Just to add something, I don't think it's in his power. It's in the power of the majority shareholders. If a huge equity decides that the merge is a good thing they are going to vote for it. I feel the same thing is going to happen, just like it did when Dan Snyder win the proxy battle over the former SFI CEO. Shareholders sold him their shares and he got control of the company. The same thing can happen with the current management. The GM of SFNE is speaking on terms for himself. Like most corporate take overs; the new management always appoints their own staff. So its very likely for most of the park staff to loose their jobs if Cedar Fair gets merged with Six Flags. The same thing happened when Dan Snyder took control.

So its very likely for most of the park staff to loose their jobs if Cedar Fair gets merged with Six Flags.

Darn. It's always a bummer when people "loose" their jobs.

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^I don't think you understand what exactly a monopoly is.

You can't have a monopoly when there are 5,000,000,000 other ways people can easily spend their disposable income. Don't like Six Flags+Cedar Fair jacking up the price on a season pass? Save up for a trip to Orlando. Or visit the already existing competitors parks in the same region. Or family fun centers. Or sporting events. Or a concert. And so on and so forth.

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^I don't think you understand what exactly a monopoly is.

 

You can't have a monopoly when there are 5,000,000,000 other ways people can easily spend their disposable income. Don't like Six Flags+Cedar Fair jacking up the price on a season pass? Save up for a trip to Orlando. Or visit the already existing competitors parks in the same region. Or family fun centers. Or sporting events. Or a concert. And so on and so forth.

I agree with (Jew) on that one. Plus Cedar would probably sell some of the parks to other companies. They would keep the main ones like Great Adventure, Over Georgia, Over Texas, Great America, St Louis and Magic Mountain. I'm still going with them keeping Six Flags America because its close to Washington D.C. so you get their crowd, Maryland, Baltimore, and Annapolis. If Cedar improved on the park they could also drag in more people on Route 301. Let's not forget that National Harbor is becoming a popular tourist area, so they could pull in a lot of people from that place with shuttle buses.

Again we have until April 8th for the vote on Apollo and Cedar Fair. If the vote is successful for the buy out then, we know their next step is Six Flags Inc. A lot of things will change including season pass, park hours, events, camps, company pic-nics, and holidays. Under a Cedar Fair management most of the things I just mentioned would increase. Cedar would set up better deals in order to get more people coming to the parks. So basically as parks improve a weekend for a Six Flags park would be crowded with people. Believe me, they are going to do something to get a lot of these parks back on their game.

I still think the government would not allow the merger to happen.

Why do you think that? The DOJ has classically gone after big fish like Microsoft and AT&T. Not small potato regional amusement park operators selling non-essential entertainment services.

One thing that has been floating in my mind, is what Cedar Fair would do with the Six Flags properties they decide to keep? Will they keep the Warner Bros theme, will they start random themes, or will each former Six Flags park have it's own theme? For example, with Cedar Fair's Kings Dominion park having Premier launch ride (Flight of Fear), would Cedar be willing to put both Jokers Jinx and Poltergeist inside enclosed buildings for alien themes?

A good idea I had in mind was for Cedar to start a Sonic the Hedgehog ride franchise. If you think it sounds funny then keep listening. In the video game "Sonic Heroes" there is a stage called (Mystic Mansion). That theme could be used for a indoor family/thrill ride. It would have to be much darker and suspenseful, but with enough work, it could become a popular ride.I'm thinking of a half indoor/outdoor coaster.

If you don't like that then there is a cool idea I had for the (Kings Solomon's Mine) stories.

I'm just trying to think on what Cedar would do if they acquired the Six Flags properties and dropped the Warner Bros theme.

Any ideas?

SF gets to have more trash cans and concrete theming?

Seriously though, at this point I'm personally not jumping to conclusions about this sale. On top of that, if this sale does come through, I see SF going back to the SF of the late 90s, early 00s (building bigger rides in favor of family-style attractions with maybe a bit of Planet Snoopy retheming).