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Six Flags and Cedar Fair to Merge

  • Thread starter Thread starter GAcoaster
  • Start date Start date Nov 2, 2023
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Mad Dog

Mad Dog

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  • Yesterday at 8:01 PM
  • #61
One major problem with Six Flags is that most of their parks, except for Knotts, sold out to the coaster craze and became primarily 'coaster parks'. Well, that worked for a while. But now the demographics have changed, and the Six Flags/Cedar Fair prime customers, teenagers and twenty somethings, are a declining demographic since family sizes started shrinking two decades ago, and have accelerated the shrink even more so now.
I remember when parks like Cedar Point, Paramount Kings in Cinn. before Cedar Fair, and even the competition's Sea World BGW were more balanced parks with lots of entertainment and non coaster attractions that would attract a larger, and older, demographic in addition to the youth..
Balance in parks is a plus. But the coaster parks got rid of the non coaster and entertainment attractions and became one dimensional. Now they pay
the piper. Their prime demographic doesn't have spending assets or spending power. The parks can only squeeze so much out of their bare wallets.
Heck, SF financial situation is so poor that they even have difficulty building unthemed new coasters, let alone a real theme park (Disney/Universal)
ride. Herschend has done better. Their parks remain balanced and I'm guessing that they might end up acquiring a couple of the best Six Flags parks.
They already bought Kennywood, though not really a regional park, but has always maintained a balanced attraction line up. A good buy there.
 
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kristenabelle

kristenabelle

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  • Yesterday at 8:26 PM
  • #62
Mad Dog said:
One major problem with Six Flags is that most of their parks, except for Knotts, sold out to the coaster craze and became primarily 'coaster parks'. Well, that worked for a while. But now the demographics have changed, and the Six Flags/Cedar Fair prime customers, teenagers and twenty somethings, are a declining demographic since family sizes started shrinking two decades ago, and have accelerated the shrink even more so now.
I remember when parks like Cedar Point, Paramount Kings in Cinn. before Cedar Fair, and even the competition's Sea World BGW were more balanced parks with lots of entertainment and non coaster attractions that would attract a larger, and older, demographic in addition to the youth..
Balance in parks is a plus. But the coaster parks got rid of the non coaster and entertainment attractions and became one dimensional. Now they pay
the piper. Their prime demographic doesn't have spending assets or spending power. The parks can only squeeze so much out of their bare wallets.
Heck, SF financial situation is so poor that they even have difficulty building unthemed new coasters, let alone a real theme park (Disney/Universal)
ride. Herschend has done better. Their parks remain balanced and I'm guessing that they might end up acquiring a couple of the best Six Flags parks.
They already bought Kennywood, though not really a regional park, but has always maintained a balanced attraction line up. A good buy there.
Click to expand...
I don't live far from SFGA, and haven't been there in almost a decade. I love Nitro too, but I can't do a full day of coasters anymore
 
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SkiBum

SkiBum

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  • Today at 8:57 AM
  • #63
Mad Dog said:
One major problem with Six Flags is that most of their parks, except for Knotts, sold out to the coaster craze and became primarily 'coaster parks'. Well, that worked for a while. But now the demographics have changed, and the Six Flags/Cedar Fair prime customers, teenagers and twenty somethings, are a declining demographic since family sizes started shrinking two decades ago, and have accelerated the shrink even more so now.
I remember when parks like Cedar Point, Paramount Kings in Cinn. before Cedar Fair, and even the competition's Sea World BGW were more balanced parks with lots of entertainment and non coaster attractions that would attract a larger, and older, demographic in addition to the youth..
Balance in parks is a plus. But the coaster parks got rid of the non coaster and entertainment attractions and became one dimensional. Now they pay
the piper. Their prime demographic doesn't have spending assets or spending power. The parks can only squeeze so much out of their bare wallets.
Heck, SF financial situation is so poor that they even have difficulty building unthemed new coasters, let alone a real theme park (Disney/Universal)
ride. Herschend has done better. Their parks remain balanced and I'm guessing that they might end up acquiring a couple of the best Six Flags parks.
They already bought Kennywood, though not really a regional park, but has always maintained a balanced attraction line up. A good buy there.
Click to expand...

Kings Island has added some more balance but I do agree about the majority of parks. Cedar Point is a coaster park, although I would submit that it never had any qualms about being so. The Point is also consistently busy. This just feels like an overstretched company who cannot maintain, either due to capital or due to management style, the parks. Maybe Cedar Fair was in bad financial shape but this was a poor merger, particularly for the park goers. Herschend has a few larger parks but most of the parks are manageable.

SF will probably promote a former SF manager to CEO and the parks will suffer. From the moment this deal was announced, I figured that Kings Island would start to get back into the same shape it was prior to Cedar Fair when Paramount was letting everything fall apart.
 
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AvoidTIMtation

AvoidTIMtation

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  • Today at 9:28 AM
  • #64
We'd be here all day talking about the horrible decisions Six Flags has made over the years. My least favorite era being the one where they said they'd add a new attraction to every park every year, which forced them into a corner with random carnival ride additions. But I honestly think their recent investments and additions (at least at their bigger and better performing parks) have been pretty good. While places like Darien Lake and St Louis will definitely be closed or sold off sooner than later, the major parks will be fine. Six Flags and Cedar Fair will always be regional amusement parks so I'll never expect anything other than that. However I still continue to *hate* the fact that they'll be holding the DC License hostage for the next several decades though.
 
Last edited: Today at 9:41 AM
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UniversalRBLX

UniversalRBLX

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  • Today at 9:59 AM
  • #65
I think the parks need to go back and improve on the existing experience versus adding new marketable attractions.

Theme parks used to be nice areas to just be in, roam around and enjoy entertainment and dining. Now entertainment is rare and dining options are absolutely disgusting in quality and price. Made it to Cedar Point a few weeks ago, and the busiest area of the park on my visit was the nicest/more pleasurable area to be in (Frontier Town) that also offered the best food quality in the park, go figure.

If the parks gave a similar level of attention to place-making (doesn't mean Disney/Universal-esque theming, just creating a nice environment), they wouldn't be struggling as much.

Knott's is a perfect blend of nicely themed areas with traditional amusement rides.

This might be a controversial point, but some of the larger parks would probably benefit more from replacing or improving existing experiences versus simply adding more.
 
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Mad Dog

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  • Today at 10:05 AM
  • #66
SkiBum said:
Kings Island has added some more balance but I do agree about the majority of parks. Cedar Point is a coaster park, although I would submit that it never had any qualms about being so. The Point is also consistently busy. This just feels like an overstretched company who cannot maintain, either due to capital or due to management style, the parks. Maybe Cedar Fair was in bad financial shape but this was a poor merger, particularly for the park goers. Herschend has a few larger parks but most of the parks are manageable.

SF will probably promote a former SF manager to CEO and the parks will suffer. From the moment this deal was announced, I figured that Kings Island would start to get back into the same shape it was prior to Cedar Fair when Paramount was letting everything fall apart.
Click to expand...
I think Cedar Point, even though they went too full cycle on coasters and tore down, or decreased, all the other fun stuff that used to
be Cedar Point, will survive and end up being bought by someone substantial. Cedar Point is not just a park, but it's a full vacation destination.
But it would be better served if it got back in balance. I loved Cedar Point when I went in the 1970's, 1980's, and even early 90's....but hated it when @UK-Trigg and
I visited a few years ago. CP was on his bucket list for a US visit, and he was greatly disappointed, even though he's a coaster fanatic. But he
wanted more than just coasters on hot sun baked concrete.
and to @UniversalRBLX point. Yes Frontier Land is the best section of the park....but it was even much better when it was almost Diagon like in the past. It was fully woods enclosed and isolated, and you didn't have all the visual interruptions like now. It also had enough demonstration and
live entertainment that you could spend hours upon hours there. And there was a Jungle Cruise type ride near it through the swampy forested area
that's now just a mass of hot concrete and a coaster or two.
 
Last edited: 26 minutes ago
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AvoidTIMtation

AvoidTIMtation

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  • Today at 10:22 AM
  • #67
UniversalRBLX said:
I think the parks need to go back and improve on the existing experience versus adding new marketable attractions.

Theme parks used to be nice areas to just be in, roam around and enjoy entertainment and dining. Now entertainment is rare and dining options are absolutely disgusting in quality and price. Made it to Cedar Point a few weeks ago, and the busiest area of the park on my visit was the nicest/more pleasurable area to be in (Frontier Town) that also offered the best food quality in the park, go figure.

If the parks gave a similar level of attention to place-making (doesn't mean Disney/Universal-esque theming, just creating a nice environment), they wouldn't be struggling as much.

Knott's is a perfect blend of nicely themed areas with traditional amusement rides.

This might be a controversial point, but some of the larger parks would probably benefit more from replacing or improving existing experiences versus simply adding more.
Click to expand...
But I think that's the difference between major theme parks and regional ones. The exact same people are going to these parks over and over, multiple times a year, some even more than that. So I think the need to add attractions more often than not makes sense.

Disney/Universal can go several years without adding anything because the majority of guests go several years between each visit.
 
Mad Dog

Mad Dog

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  • 56 minutes ago
  • #68
a BTTF....Back in the mid 70's I was a district manager for Radio Shack and I lived in Toledo, Ohio and then Monroe Michigan, so Cedar
Point was just a fairly short drive. My wife and I would go there at least a dozen times each summer. The park was always crowded.
And for those unfamiliar, there's also a nice sand beach and park hotel right on Lake Erie. It was a long time midwest vacation destination and
was built in the 19th century. The amusement park was well balanced with attractions and live entertainment in a heavily forested, great
ambiance setting.
And guess how many coasters the park had in the 1970's. The closest substantial park was Kennywood with it's four
classic coasters. Cedar Point had......'ONE' coaster..........and CP was packed daily with family visitors of all age demographics. ........ Yes, CP
needed to go with the trend in the last three decades and build some coasters for the expanding teen audience, but they went too
far out of balance, and now with a quickly declining teen demographic, they really need to achieve some balance.
 
Jerroddragon

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  • 46 minutes ago
  • #69
Would making some sort of light show help?

Like Universal castle show

I know its not a golden bullet but would some sort of light show at that scale help some of these parks to keep people staying until the nighttime at some of these parks during the peak seasons? That along with more live music would be welcome
 
Mad Dog

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  • 21 minutes ago
  • #70
Six Flags has some real wishful thinking. They want to get their per guest spend up to $100, BUT they still
go after the teen/early 20's demographic that is economically challenged. It makes no real business sense.
They really need to get all their parks in balance to attract a wider, better economics, demographic. Giving the
store away to super cheap season passes just gets you more of the same demo with no money.
 
UniversalRBLX

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  • 9 minutes ago
  • #71
AvoidTIMtation said:
But I think that's the difference between major theme parks and regional ones. The exact same people are going to these parks over and over, multiple times a year, some even more than that. So I think the need to add attractions more often than not makes sense.

Disney/Universal can go several years without adding anything because the majority of guests go several years between each visit.
Click to expand...
Well even the regional parks go years without anything substantial. Not saying to complete eliminate investment towards new coasters, but I think the years between major investments should provide smaller investment towards improving existing park infrastructure, entertainment, etc.

When it comes to Six Flags, they struggle because the don't create a welcoming environment for their guests. The fact that SF charges cheap admission and passes, and yet struggles attendance wise is pretty telling that it's not a pricing issue but a quality issue. I love coasters, but I can't enjoy them when I'm forced to wait 45-60 minutes for each one with horrendous operations. If I don't want to ride a coaster, I'm out of luck if a park doesn't offer something else beyond them.


Mad Dog said:
Six Flags has some real wishful thinking. They want to get their per guest spend up to $100, BUT they still
go after the teen/early 20's demographic that is economically challenged. It makes no real business sense.
They really need to get all their parks in balance to attract a wider, better economics, demographic. Giving the
store away to super cheap season passes just gets you more of the same demo with no money.
Click to expand...
Bingo. You're also not going to increase per capita if your guests are stuck in queues thanks to horrendous park ops. There's a market/demand for places the entire family can experience together at a reasonable price as long as the quality is there.

I don't think the parks intentionally want long queues, they just don't want to invest in their employees and give them the right level of compensation/training.
 
Jake S

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  • 4 minutes ago
  • #72
I just don't think the profit motive driving an enormous conglomerate like New Six Flags is compatible with operating theme parks that are in tune with the incredibly diverse locales that they exist in. It has to be homogenized. It has to be cheap. It has to cut corners. It can't allow local control, because that defeats the purpose of conglomeration in the first place.

It stinks out loud!
 
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