Bye bye Astroworld!

You are totally missing the point. I'm not talking about revenue generated solely from ticket sales and it doesn't even matter. If fewer people are coming in, then fewer people are spending money and revenue is less. You can try to offset it by jacking up prices and all that but at the core of the equation bodies must come into the park with money in their pocket.

Attendance at Astroworld WAS down due to lack of improvements amongst other factors, and consequentially revenue influx was down as well. Which is not to say the park was unprofitable, there were no real debts associated with this property and minimal spending by Six Flags on improvements and new attractions. They weren't losing money on the park, they just didn't feel like spending money to make even more of it.

Attendance doesn't necessariy corresponding with revenue. Six Flags has posted gains in revenue with attendance drops for the past several years. Read the investment reports.

Theres a little thing called "Per Cap". Its a pretty little word that measures, in a theme parks case, how much money each person on average in the park spends on there visit.

So if you have less attendence, but a hirer per cap per person then you did with the greater attendence figure the year before, it is still very much possible for the park to meet if not exceed it revenue amount for the year before, even though it had greater attendence.

Also most of the park revenue is not generated from Ticket sales, and especially not season passs. Its from the 300% mark up (on average) of retail merchindise and the 100's of % mark up on food. Now I am not blaming them for this, after all if you "give away the gate" you must find some way to pay your hundreds of employees, and millions in bills each month.

What people forget to mention is that the parking lease ended.

I dont know everything but what good is a park if there is no where to park your car?

Was all there parking leased?

Besides the improvements if a new lease wasnt negotiated wouldnt it cost a lot of money to make space and build parking yourself?

"Per cap" spending at Astroworld has not significantly changed, in fact it's gone up a slight amount. SPECIFICALLY at Astroworld a decline in revenue was due to a drop in attendance with a relatively steady "per cap" percentage. You people are straying significantly from the point of all this, it's not a hypothetical situation.

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majortom1981 said:
What people forget to mention is that the parking lease ended. Besides the improvements if a new lease wasnt negotiated wouldnt it cost a lot of money to make space and build parking yourself?

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Parking had nothing to do with it. They made the decision before a new parking contract was even discussed with the owners of the lot.

Here's a quote from those very people in response. I believe they got sick of our letters and decided to share some news so we would stop flooding them with mail.

"Six Flags announced that it decided to sell AstroWorld because it has been under-performing financially for several years, and it is my understanding that the Six Flags Board of Directors made their decision to sell the property in June, 2005, as a way to boost value for Six Flags shareholders, before negotiations began on the parking issue. I believe the parking situation can be resolved, but this will not resolve the long-term issues of land values and park revenue." ***

*** Edited 10/8/2005 6:45:47 PM UTC by Markieb***

Pancake, you're missing the point. All hypothetical situations aside, attendance and revenue are not the same, nor are they linear. By saying a 15% drop in revenue, it does NOT mean a 15% drop in attendance (Especially with an "up a slight amount" per cap). You can not use those synonymously, even if it happens to be true.

Say those hard words - "I was wrong" - because you were. You said the reasoning of the park closure was a 15% attendance drop. You were wrong, plain and simple. Anyone can see that just by reading the article and reading your post. Stop trying to defend it and just admit it. You were wrong. It's not the end of the world - everyone makes mistakes occasionally (yes, even me)

It doesn't matter in the slightest bit if I typed attendance or revenue when I was initially quoting the article, they go hand in hand. Maybe it was a 10% drop in attendance maybe it was a 20% drop, it DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL. The point it that there WAS a drop in attendance over the same 5 year span and there WAS a drop in revenue and you're generally going to get one with the other. I KNOW that attendance has declined in the last five years because it's my home park and I've tracked that sort of thing. So when Six Flags announces that revenue is down, well that's not a big surprise because attendance was down as well. And it very well is a linear equation, maybe not strictly linear but if you graph the $ on a chart where attendance declines by a good 10-20% and per cap spending doesn't waver by more than a few percent you are going to see a basically linear drop in income because there were fewer people in the park spending their alloted "per cap". It has to be a huge change in per cap spending to totally offset the effect of attendance, and that was not the case at all. The specific numerics are basically irrelevant to the situation.

No, the point is that they do NOT go hand in hand. (Are we talking to a wall yet?)

You were and are wrong.

Just because it happened to be approximately linear does not mean it is indeed linear. It just means that it happened, coincidentally, that in this case it was.

You still can't admit that you were wrong.

They decided to close because the park was losing MONEY. They don't care how many people were in the park. Thus, attendance is irrelavent. And contrary to your belief, they do NOT go hand in hand.

To clarify why you're wrong:

"15 percent decline in attendance is pretty laughable as a condemnation for the park - pretty much every single Six Flags has had a comparable drop in attendance in that period."

True, pretty much every Six Flags park has had a comparable drop in attendance. They have NOT had a comparable drop in revenue. Hence, the next statement is wrong:

"Not really, revenue comes with attendance. It's mostly a linear correlation. Attendance didn't stay the same and people came in spending less."

If it were a linear correlation, then they would be closing every six flags park - not just SFNO.

Thus, your statement: "15 percent decline in attendance is pretty laughable as a condemnation for the park..." Has no bearing because that is NOT the reason they're closing the park. The reason is a 15% decline in revenue, which is different. Not Liner. Not hand-in-hand. That's why they're closing the park. That's why Cedar Point is making more money even with a drop in attendance. You don't understand that.

Edit: spelling *** Edited 10/8/2005 11:25:36 PM UTC by dannerman***

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dannerman said:

Just because it happened to be approximately linear does not mean it is indeed linear. It just means that it happened, coincidentally, that in this case it was.

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In this situation and this situation about Astroworld is all that is relevant to this thread, it was approximately linear. I said mostly linear. Mostly - approximately - whatever, it's basically the same and nearly entirely besides the point of what this thread was meant to be about.

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They decided to close because the park was losing MONEY. They don't care how many people were in the park. Thus, attendance is irrelavent. And contrary to your belief, they do NOT go hand in hand.

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Park wasn't losing money. You're dead wrong there. It was making less money than it was at this time five years ago, but that wasn't putting them anywhere into the red.

I really don't get how they make Astroworld their scapegoat. It was just showing the same trend as the rest of their parks at the time! The trend was intensified by the fact that they invested little in the park. I don't know how they get off saying it would take $50 million dollars to "fix" the park! To me just the smallest bit of attention would have had the park moving in the right direction. Certainly their painting of rides and improving customer service (much better than many other SF parks I might add!) was a good move in this direction. I would think there's a lot of other Six Flags parks in worse financial/attendence condition-some of which have received many additions within the same time period that Astroworld got zip!

First of all, you're still wrong because the reason they cited was revenue, not attendance. If you don't know the difference, perhaps a dictionary can help you out.

Second, you never said specifically about Astroworld. You made a blanket statement saying that attendance and revenue were tied together. They are not. I wasn't even the only person to point that out.

Third, quit whining that it's a bad move just because it is (or was) your home park. For once, I actually think that Six Flags is making a smart move. Does it have it's negative aspects? Sure, it sucks that any park has to close. But stop whining and complaining like they decided to just close it for no reason. Even Six Flags isn't *THAT* incompetent.

...but that wasn't putting them anywhere into the red.

Seeing as how the company was already in the red anywho, selling SFAW makes perfect sense. Underperfoming park, plagued with parking problems, only 2 major rides added in the past 100 years. I'd sell it too.

So 2 underperforming US parks down... how many more to go?

Ah hell... Whole chain is underperforming TAER Six Flags down!

*** Edited 10/9/2005 4:41:33 AM UTC by Cameraman***

What people seem to have glossed over is Astroworld's 15% decline was caused by the lack of investment put into the park. Despite the lack of investment, the park did pretty well, was not losing money and was showing the same downward trend of all Six Flags parks. The park was underperforming at the same rate as every other Six Flags park.

Six Flags IS that incompetent. Selling SFAW gains them nothing but making a payment due on the debt. A Debt that an incompetent company incurred.

Anybody who thinks selling a park that was profitable is a good idea....well i dunno what to say.

The problems at SFAW were created by SFI. They had numerous chances to fix the parking situation including buying land for a very good price right behind the park. When they didn't buy the land, people were stunned becuase it would have solved the parking problem once and for all.

This is just an easy out for Burke and Company to get a little cash to make a payment of a 2 billion dollar debt.

Yes, Six Flags IS that Incompetent. Need Proof? Just look around a liitle bit..lol

Anybody who thinks selling a park that was profitable is a good idea....well i dunno what to say.

I depends on a couple things here. How profitable was the park as compared to how much they're going to benifit from selling it? How much will they sell the land for? Then too look at all the rides they'll be able to add to other parks, so that they won't have to spend a great amount buying new rides, when they can just re-locate the ones they have to other parks, and still get a boost from 'new' rides at said parks.

How far in debt are they? Is it more benificial to close and sell the park now to get out of some of the tremendous debt they are in and try to pay that debt down to get out of debt?

I agree. They mismanaged, did a poor job, and here they are. I hate that they are closing Astroworld. Never got to go, and most of all, there are a couple coasters there I'll likely never get a chance at now that were supposed to be very, very good. But just because I wish they wouldn't sell doesn't mean I don't understand and agree with the decision.

We will have to agree to disagree on that one. I think if you understood the situation fully and had all the facts you woudn't agree. Even Amusement Today thinks it is a terrible choice. If it is such a good idea, why did Six Flags lie about their intentions until September 12?

But you know, it does not matter if we agree or not because in a few short weeks, the gates will close for the last time and after Six Flags gets the money from the land sale, Astroworld will not provide another penny to help the company pay off the debt. And Six Flags will need every penny.

Sure, a dozen or so rides will make it to other parks as new cap ex for next season, but the best ride, Texas Cyclone will be demolished. The rest of the rides run from the great, Greased Lightning to the mediocre. Batman and Ultratwister are pretty hard up for operating units and will be more of a problem than a draw. Most of these rides came from other Six Flags parks anyway. As a full package at SFAW, they are a nice draw, but individually, well thats just a matter of opinion.

I see a lot of people drooling over SWAT, but that just shows me they havn't ridden it. Its not that great. Looks Cool, but just isn't that much fun to ride.

And anybody who dismisses lack of agreement as "Whining" has shown a complete lack of respect for people who grew up with SFAW and supported the park for many years. C'mon, have some compassion here even if you disagree.

Well said. If you all others think this was such a good idea to sell this park for the debt... look at the debt and look at the price of the park. It's practically worth a penny compared to the rest of the debt! How many parks that are "not as profitable as others" will have to go? How many properties would it take to get the debt under control?

The way I see it, ALL parks other than SFGAdv... and from the way they're investing in it, seems plausible!

Selling Astroworld only buys them a little more time on the doomsday clock. A lot more has to be on the chopping block to totally save them.

R.I.P

Astroworld

1968 - 2005

It's hard to say it but it is true.

Their is no hope for saveing It.

Thanks for 37 years of fun.

:( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

You will not be Forgot.