Bye bye Astroworld!
Fierce Pancake said:
It's preposterous to accept that SFAW vastly underperformed.
For the size of the population in Houston, I am suprised it attracted 1.4 million visitors last year. I've been to Houston a few times and I am from Atlanta and found them to be very similar: both have a bit more than 4 million people in the metro areas, both have a good economy and similar demographics (and as UCLA found in a study, the Hispanic population play a huge role in theme park attendance), and Houston has even more hispanics than Atlanta. Yet, in the end, SFOG did much better attendance wise, so I think that it is safe to say that Astroworld underperformed. Now, is that in large part due to a lack in major additions? Probably, but the fact that they underperformed (and could have done a lot better IMO) is still there.
*** Edited 9/14/2005 1:36:35 AM UTC by Jophish***
Jophish said:
Fierce Pancake said:
It's preposterous to accept that SFAW vastly underperformed.Now, is that in large part due to a lack in major additions? Probably, but the fact that they underperformed
I think Pancake is correct. You do have to take the lack of major addtions in consideration, and funding of restoration needs, therefore they really did not underperform given the circumstances.
kRaXLeRidAh said:
Yeah uh huh. And since when did you work with Six Flags upper management to make such a confident statement? I'm pretty sure the park's declining attendance over the years played some part in the decision for its closure.
What are you talking about?
In 1999, attendance at SFAW was 1.9 million.
In 2003, attendance at SFAW was 1.7 million.
I don't have a figure for 2004, other than it came in at #39, which puts it somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.6 million.
So, from 1999-2003, the park dropped just 300,000 people per year (or 16%).
From 1999-2004, SFGAm lost 800,000 people (or 26%). And guess which park is still a corporate favorite?
In other words, attendance delinces at a Six Flags park were not uncommon (on the contrary, most of them saw declines). That's not the reason SFAW is closing.
-Nate
*** Edited 9/14/2005 6:03:15 PM UTC by coasterdude318***
I hate to see it go, but it isn't a bad business decision. Which is what SFI is known for ;).
Moosh was right the first time around in my opinion! I wish this were not the case. How many other parks are at or near the same situation?
Jophish said:
AB reports they had an attendance of 1.4 mil in 2004, for whatever that is worth
Thank you; I didn't have access to those figures. Still, Astroworld lost only half a million compared to SFGAm's loss of 800,000.
On top of that. SFGAm has been spoon-fed capital while Astroworld has gotten very little. Thankfully, SFGAm has started to turn back around, but I think my point is pretty clear.
-Nate
coasterdude318 said:
kRaXLeRidAh said:
Yeah uh huh. And since when did you work with Six Flags upper management to make such a confident statement? I'm pretty sure the park's declining attendance over the years played some part in the decision for its closure.What are you talking about?
In 1999, attendance at SFAW was 1.9 million.
In 2003, attendance at SFAW was 1.7 million.
I don't have a figure for 2004, other than it came in at #39, which puts it somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.6 million.So, from 1999-2003, the park dropped just 300,000 people per year (or 26%).
From 1999-2004, SFGAm lost 800,000 people (or 16%). And guess which park is still a corporate favorite?
In other words, attendance delinces at a Six Flags park were not uncommon (on the contrary, most of them saw declines). That's not the reason SFAW is closing.
-Nate
*** Edited 9/14/2005 3:55:40 AM UTC by coasterdude318***
What does the attendance drop coinside with? Premier buy Six Flags in 1998. Smells of mismanagement to me.
-Nate
coasterdude318 said:
Jophish said:
AB reports they had an attendance of 1.4 mil in 2004, for whatever that is worthThank you; I didn't have access to those figures. Still, Astroworld lost only half a million compared to SFGAm's loss of 800,000.
On top of that. SFGAm has been spoon-fed capital while Astroworld has gotten very little. Thankfully, SFGAm has started to turn back around, but I think my point is pretty clear.
-Nate
Yeah, but Great America could recuperate from that kind of loss in attendance. AstroWorld lost only half a million guests? What's their average yearly attendance? Nothing as high as Great America's.
In 2004, Great America drew in about 2.3 million visitors. Six Flags AstroWorld was not even in the top 20 most visited list in the United States at all (*actually, only three out of all the Six Flags parks made the top 20 most attended list). Heck, even Knoebel's brought in more guests than AstroWorld.
* Six Flags Great Adventure: 2.8 million guests; Six Flags Magic Mountain: 2.7 million guests; Six Flags Great America: 2.3 million guests
daniel2003 said:
Oh and Gonchar why cant you do a gallery of six flags astroworld before it closes you know as a lasting memory to it?
Oh man, I wish! Not gonna happen though. We had plans early in the year to go to Texas as we have a friend who just moved to Houston this past January, but put the money into other trips figuring it might make a good 2007 stop.
No way I'll be able to get there before the end of the year. :(
But I digress, continue with the attendance discussion - good stuff. :)
kRaXLeRidAh said:
Yeah, but Great America could recuperate from that kind of loss in attendance. AstroWorld lost only half a million guests? What's their average yearly attendance? Nothing as high as Great America's.
Astroworld's attendance hovered just under two million. Parks are budgeted based on their attendance projections. It matters little how high your attendance is; a 26% loss is a 26% loss.
You mention Astroworld's standings as if it was the lowest-attended Six Flags park. It wasn't (SFStL, SFDL, SFA, SFEG, La Ronde, and more were all lower on the list).
You also claimed that the reason SFAW is being sold is because of its attendance drop. I refuted that by pointing out that all of them (even the favorites) had significant drops.
I don't think that Coastergrotto list is complete. Jophish cited Astwororld's attendance as 1.4 million, yet it's not on there (the list goes down to Knoebels at 1.3 million). Also missing are several Six Flags parks that should have been well over 1.3 million.
-Nate *** Edited 9/14/2005 4:42:51 AM UTC by coasterdude318***
dragonoffrost said:
Let's see there is the cost of disassembly, moving it, preparing the new site, laying footers, reassembly, rehabing, testing, staffing and advertizing for the ride.... did i forget something, probably.
Well, let's put it this way... you definitely hit on it. The installation of the cement footers for the rides are believe it or not, the most expensive part. So rotating not-so-great, not-so-new, known-maintence-issue coasters and then paying an arm and a leg to install new footers for them will rule a LOT of the rides out for transfer.
There is at least one very popular ride out there I know of where the design firm approached the park and told them they had a great idea for a different ending than the one originally planned, and they wanted to do it so much that they would give the park the steel for free, as well as the redesign... meaning the park would only have to pay for the additional footers.
Thanks to the cost of adding cement, that ride never got the "new" ending. That's the reason that smaller rides like Tidal Wave / Greezed Lightning get new homes... because they have relatively few footers to install as well as companies that will still support them. But when it comes to rides like XLR-8 and UltraTwister, the likelyhood of those rides getting reconstructed is almost nil.
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