Corporate roller coasters

Do you think that Cedar Point or Six Flags Magic Mountain, or any of the larger chain parks, would have been able to put in such new and exciting thrill rides without the smaller amusement parks owned by the parent company?

I don't think CP or MM in paticular would have been able to put in such remarkable roller coasters like X and Millennium Force, let alone TTD. Do the smaller parks fund the larger rides for the larger parks?

Do you think CP or MM have been able to put in these newest rides if they weren't affiliated with their parent company?

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Western Michigan University Engineering student.
Go Broncos!
*** This post was edited by Fury 9/1/2003 12:38:59 AM ***

Usually it is the other way around, the bigger, more successful parks pay for the smaller park's improvements. When the economy is bad, the capital for the smaller park is limited.

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". . . don't you know baby that life is a scream!" - Gordon Gano

Thats not necessarily true. I mean, how many independent parks have a giga coaster? They do rely on the smaller parks. I mean, at smaller parks, do you really see no croud, I saw just as much of a croud at Darien Lake as SFNE. People come no matter what, as long as there are a few good coasters, which all SF parks have, or thrill rides, people will come and the place will be crouded during the summer. The ones that 'do the best', or have the most potential, get the most rides. But the smaller parks definately help the biggies. Look at Cedar Fair,

-Dorney Park, WOF, KBF, Michigans Adventure 6-7 coasters

-Cedar Point 16 coasters

Those smaller parks definately help CP keep adding coasters each and every year. Most parks money is used towards new rides, and I don't think CP could dish out 25 million every year without help from those other parks profit.

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http://sfdlmania.thrillnetwork.net

Six Flags Darien Lake Mania! Your #1 source for DL and other parks!

Cedar Fair parks basically fund their own projects out of their own pocket. CP does this easily as the sheer number of visitors and the resorts really give CP vast amounts of capital. CP was building record braeking coasters long before Cedar Fair was formed.

Valleyfair did the same thing with Steel Venom, many improvements are however funded by Cedar Fair, Michigan's Adventure comes to mind here.

At Six Flags it tends to work the other way around, all the money basically goes into one collective pot, and then the cash is divied up to the separte parks, or at least t5hats how I understand it.

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If given the choice I'd choose a hamburger over a hotdog anyday of the week.

I don't know if I'd call Gemini "long before" CF was formed, Brent. Yeah, it was a while before CF came about, but "long before" makes it sound like decades.

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- John
Homepark: Cedar Point
Home-away-from-homepark: Paramount's Kings Island

I don't know anything about Six Flags corporate finance, but I think it's safe to say by casual observation that capital expenditure money is distributed from a general pool.

Cedar Fair on the other hand very much handles each park as its own business unit and looks for measurable return on investment within a few years time. They've said this in many conference calls and even our own interview with Dick Kinzel.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
DELETED! What time does the water show start?

How does that saying go,Jeff?

Those who know don't talk,those who don't know talk.Is that how it goes?;)

I honestly don't think that Cedar Point would have been able to wip out coasters at such a fast rate, without the smaller parks under Cedar Fair's management. I think coasters would have just come slower without Cedar Fair.

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Western Michigan University Engineering student.
Go Broncos!

I think it is quite obvious that the smaller parks do more than they get credit for. Parks like SFKK and SFEG can be packed at time. Last year SFEG was over capacity many of the Saturdays and Sundays, yet we probably won't see another roller coaster for at least 3 years, but more likely 4 or 5. And when we do, it will be a piece.

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"Here's my ten cence, my two cence is free"-Eminem

Cedar Point was buying "mega" rides long before the formation of Cedar Fair LLP. The Giant Wheel, the Space Spiral, Jumbo Jet just to name a few were very expensive rides for their time. If you do your homework you will see that CP was buying what we now refer to as spectaculars almost every year starting in the late 1960's The first new coaster since the Jumbo Jet was the Corkscrew built in '75, thus signalling the beginning of the Cedar Point we now know. The Gemini followed shortly (as I recall) and the rest, to coin a phrase, is history.

I wasn't referring to Gemini in particular John. Mine Ride was quite an accomplishment for its time as were quite a few other rides teh park had.

I think it's pretty safe to say that the resorts have made Cedar Point, not any smaller parks Cedar Fair has picked up over the years.

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If given the choice I'd choose a hamburger over a hotdog anyday of the week.

Mine Ride wasn't exactly a record breaker, though. It was quite novel being the 3rd (or was it 4th?) tublar steel tracked coaster, but that's not really a record.

I still don't know why you don't change your username to MineRideForce... ;)

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- John
Homepark: Cedar Point
Home-away-from-homepark: Paramount's Kings Island

I almost got a rollback on it today, if that would have happened, I woudl have been forever mine ride force.

We backloaded the thing, and they actually let us.

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I am a real dog of a ride

I'm sure that SF, Paramount, and Busch function much like Cedar Fair. They put in new rides because they can make money off of them. If they can't make money off of them, they don't put them in. Capital tends to go where they can get the best return on investment.

From what I know of SFEG it is in a small location with little room for geographic expansion to accomadate larger crowds. Its popularity may actually work against its getting improvements. If the park is already at capacity, then a new attraction can't increase attendance. Of course increased demand for a new ride could possibly allow higher admission fees which would increase revenues.

Fury, Why the debate?

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Do the Moo Shoo!

Just asking about something I was wondering about.

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Western Michigan University Engineering student.
Go Broncos!

Fury said:
Do you think that Cedar Point or Six Flags Magic Mountain, or any of the larger chain parks, would have been able to put in such new and exciting thrill rides without the smaller amusement parks owned by the parent company?

Simply yes.

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As Mitch always said, "If you had a freind who was a tightrope walker and he fell down just walking down the street, that would be completely unacceptable."
-Tomas

WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATION!

If you read the signs, it seems obvious to me that for Six Flags, the opposite is true. Last year, we were all worked up about which SF park was getting what, and a certain conference call kept coming up. In it, SF brass stated that the big four "cash cows" of the chain had all performed well, and were going to be rewarded for it. So far, it looks like there's at least some correlation between what a park can do, and what it then builds. But let's look at what happened at SF parks in the few years just after Premier took over. Most of their small parks suddenly got something huge: AB&M floorless here, a Vekoma flyer there, a few Intamin hypers scattered about, all these parks that had never built a ride at more than a few million dollars were now getting huge attractions. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm suggesting that the money for all this came from the big parks. Unfortunately, the big parks needed that money to stay viable. The result is SF's current financial position.

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I hear America screaming...