California's Great America faces imminent closure in 2027

Dorney Park!

hambone:

Knott's is probably #2. Almost certainly more profitable than Magic Mountain.

Knott's was a gold mine for CF. They found the sweet spot in year round schedule and staffing. I'm VERY interested to see how the new combined season pass affects SFMM and Knott's. It's less than 60 miles between the two parks, with a huge percentage of the population living between the two parks. This was one of the top park pairs where the merged pass might actually hurt, from a gate revenue perspective. (I know I was able to drop my Diamond Deluxe VIP with cheese SF pass this year and just use my CF pass).

would love to see both chains AP lists pre merger and bounce of the 2025 list and see how many people were on both lists previously.

you would think it would be half the revenue, but not if you raise the gate. Ensure you are collecting more than they would have been paying for both parks standalone.

I really want to get back here before it closes - had such a great time there last year.

If they close Magic Mountain, will they leave the Moose out front to tell everyone?

dragonoffrost:

Why move corporate headquarters there, Six Flag Entertainment is taking over the Cedar Fair headquarters space if you are going to close the park? Moving it there to move it elsewhere in less than 5 years just sounds not a sound business choice.

Plus they partnered with Marriott for a hotel so I think the park is going to become their third to sixth focused park. I see the top 6 as Cedar Point, Great Adventure, Kings Island, Magic Mountain, Canada's Wonderland and Carowinds. Order may vary year by year.

They had big plans with this park and they have invested a lot of money. But I don’t think they’ve gotten a very good return on invest, judging by the low crowds any weekday during the summer.

The park looks great, but it suffers from the same problem as most of their other parks. There’s nothing for a person to do if they don’t want to ride thrill rides, or if they aren’t a little kid, excluding the majority of people in the world out out of your target market isn’t a good plan IMO

I know people get tired of me talking about this, but the park closes often for low attendance and a little bit of rain. At least Three times alone in June. And just this week they cut their operating hours because of low attendance in the heat. Any early park closings and negative schedule Modifications are a definite sign of low attendance.

They invested a lot, but they didn’t invest in any attractions that don’t depend on perfect weather

Plus the park is absolutely surrounded by warehouse development and has prime access to the interstate

You start selling off major parks like Magic Mountain and Carowinds, you'd better have PLENTY to show for it, or you'll signal fire sale to investors, which nobody wants.

Would they have plenty to show for it? Someone rattled off $20 million for the Magic Mountain land. Assuming they pulled in the same thing for Carowinds, and that seems like a big assumption, does that even move the needle for anyone when you consider their debt and that they lose all of the cash flow running through those parks? Every time Six Flags appears to be in trouble people start saying that selling off some of the big name parks is inevitable and it never happens. There's a reason for that.

Still not convinced it will happen, but perhaps having multiple parks in the same market changes the math. I.e. if you can sell a park for $$$ and stop competing with yourself, is that more attractive?

Still feels unlikely, especially when they are spending money on a new ride at MM. Plus, it's not like that park has a ton of assets that you can pick up and place elsewhere.

Can always pull the PE model and sell the land and make the park rent it. Which inevitably will force the park to close.

Carowinds built a bunch of new family rides this year and filed plans for a large water attraction next year. It ain’t going anywhere.

Cedar Fair built an entire waterpark just to close the dry side 2 years later.

And they kept the water park open for a number of years after. Not sure what your point is.

PhantomTails:

Carowinds built a bunch of new family rides this year and filed plans for a large water attraction next year. It ain’t going anywhere

they also removed at least four rides this year..,,

A new coaster and a wet raft ride are not family rides that flog How the industry classifies them. I know plenty of people that would not get on either ride and would have no interest in going to the park as it is now with its current attraction lineup. They keep installing attractions that regurgitate the same customers and do not grow the customer base. The new major water ride is for the same customers.

if the rumors are true about what Dollywood is installing. It sounds like a true family ride that almost everyone can ride as long as the motion is kept in check. And an attraction that people can go inside in the heat or rain

Carowinds keeps closing early because of low attendance this year and has so in the recent years. It seems the worst park in the chain for closing for attendance. The new attractions they are installing aren’t changing this trend.

I am going to add we've seen a lot of I was wrong being posted on socials about Siren's Curse. The throughput maybe be not great but the ride experience seems to be not what people were prejudging it to be. Maybe the same happens at Carowinds as they open the new rides.