Does Six Flags Neglect Parks
In the last ten years SFAW has received 4 coasters, or one every 2.5 years. Doesn't sound so bad to me, many parks get much less.
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"There's nothing sweeter than a bowling ball with a liquid center" - Homer Simpson
When's the last time that happened?
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Look outside, I know that you'll recognize it's summertime. - The Flaming Lips "It's Summertime (throbbing orange pallbearers)"
kRaXLeRidAh said:
Did anyone else find that statement a bit funny? Cedar Point is landlocked, because it's a freekin island? Isn't the defenition of "landlocked" that it has no water on its borders at all? To think Lake Erie, which is directly connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Great Lakes by the way, is subject to "landlocking" is pretty neat. The day islands around the world become landlocked will most certainly be an interesting one... (Post #100 on this topic, wooty-woot!)
Are you joking? He didn't mean it literally. Which you obvoiusly took it for.
Yes, I am joking. I thought everyone on this board would know better than to take me seriously. After all, I am the guy who said swingin a lead pipe around in line will prevent line jumping...
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Long live Whizzer; 1976-2002...
*** This post was edited by staticman00 on 7/25/2002. ***
WOA management has been in the habit of picking up trash on the midway since it was Geauga Lake Park, but if there aren't enough people (or in the case of 2001 a bad system with idiots running the department) to do the job can the park ever be clean? Look at their competitors in the Northern Ohio area. Kennywood and CP both have people at every food stand being paid to do nothing but clean tables. That is something that the management at GLP/SFO/SFWOA has been trying to work into the budget for years to no avail. Also look at the amount of sweeps throughout, again SFWOA is lacking. I've talked to people in other SF parks and some are better at masking the problem than others, also the smaller parks have an easier time beacause they don't need as much. The other big problem with WOA is that it is currently run in large part by the Sea World BEC management that are used to Busch's extravigent budgets that bust the SWO bank. They are uncapable of running that park under the SF model, but since this is a general thread i won't go into to much detail about the inneptitude of the BEC crew at WOA.
SF will only ever build new coasters and rides and continue to skimp and cut corners throughout the rest of their parks because rides are the only capital improvements that can directly, immediately impact the gate attendance. Foods and games and merch and park services will continue to languish as long as the the people at the top are to busy looking at numbers, and are not concerned about creating a better overall product. Clearly this overgrown Premier Parks has taken on something that they have yet to fully understand. They got into the business thinking that they could dump money into a park with big new rides and nothing else and watch the attendance figures increase every year, but now they are learning that the consumer in this industry is more savy than to be blinded by shiny new steel.
One last note. Clearly, GLP drew from the Burgh's market. They always did and it was a strong market. On days there were more Steeler gear than Browns. GLP also drew if more modestly from Cini and Detroit. The difference is that people from these markets will get passes to their park and visit GLP/SF only once or twice. The same can be said of CLeveland people traveling to Kennywood or PKI. I myself will goto SFWOA dozens of times because it's in the back yard while only making it to KW or LKI once because of the distance. But i still go. Doesn't that mean that i am within its market?
*** This post was edited by meangene on 7/28/2002. ***
OutKast said:
You guys REALLY crack me up. You say money from SFEG goes to build coasters at SFGAm SFMM and SFGADv, yet wouldn't it makes more sense, being that these three parks probably rake in more money than the other park's combined, that they have there OWN net profits in which to build new rides? I don't think SFMM needs ANYTHING form SFEG or SFAW.
Glad somebody finally agrees with me.
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"The fish are eating the guest, sir
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On the seventh day, God created coasters!
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Lake Compounce-So Fresh and So Clean Clean
Ummmm......Vertigo, it hasn't been built yet. They haven't done construction for it since January. There's just dirt there!
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I Survived Millennium Force!
1.) Millennium Force 2.) Steel Eel 3.) Raptor 4.) Mantis 5.) Magnum XL-200
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D-Mon of Darkness
LIVE LIVE INVERTED - ALPENGEIST
And explain to me why looking at the parks as only a regional draw is a "problem"? Is there any reasonable expectation of success to think that people would flock all over the world in droves to go to Denver in the summer (winter is a different story ;))? Or Buffalo? Or Louisville? Nah, I dont think so.
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"To get inside this head of mine, would take a monkey-wrench, and a lot of wine" Res How I Do
Dukeis#1 said:
OutKast said:
You guys REALLY crack me up. You say money from SFEG goes to build coasters at SFGAm SFMM and SFGADv, yet wouldn't it makes more sense, being that these three parks probably rake in more money than the other park's combined, that they have there OWN net profits in which to build new rides? I don't think SFMM needs ANYTHING form SFEG or SFAW.
Glad somebody finally agrees with me.
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"The fish are eating the guest, sir
It's not like every park has a different bank account. The money that the parks makes goes to corporate and corporate makes the budgets for the parks. That's how the BIG DEBT is being paid off. So yes, money from one park is used for another park. It's not a bad thing, it's just how it is done. I think some peoples beef here is that some parks get BIG budgets and some get small budgets. ROI has a small part to play but is not the determining factor. A new ride will have a ROI no matter where it is put. New rides ALWAYS attract new customers. (Or show me where it doesn't...)
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Mike
www.mikerobinson.net
No, Astroworld is not a dirty park. You don't see trash and graffiti everywhere. Do the rides need painting? Sure, but the capital budget to paint rides is something the local management has absolutely no control over. If OK City won't give them the money to paint the coasters, there's nothing the park can do. Don't mistake paint flaking rides for a dirty park, however.
You are incorrect. All the profits get pooled back to Oklahoma City which then dishes out an operating budget to each park.
Dukeis#1 said:
First of all, Six Flags Parks don't "lend" each other money. If Six Flags Astroworld makes money then they keep it. There
We at Astroworld have also only received two coasters in the last 5 years (98-02). We lost one of our coasters to make room for the SLC in 1999 and the other "new" old coaster added in 1998 hasn't operated for the last two years.
In previous five years (92-97) the park received two old relocated rides, Mayan Mindbender in 1995 and Batman the Escape in 1993.
So that's four coasters in 10 years: three of them old hand-me downs, one of them non-functional, and a classic mine train also removed. Effectively we're only up two rides, and one of them is a hang-and-bang. Still sound good to you?
Mamoosh said:
In the last ten years SFAW has received 4 coasters, or one every 2.5 years. Doesn't sound so bad to me, many parks get much less.
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I Survived Millennium Force!
1.) Millennium Force 2.) Steel Eel 3.) Raptor 4.) Mantis 5.) Magnum XL-200
2Hostyl said:
And explain to me why looking at the parks as only a regional draw is a "problem"? Is there any reasonable expectation of success to think that people would flock all over the world in droves to go to Denver in the summer (winter is a different story )? Or Buffalo? Or Louisville? Nah, I dont think so.
Looking at parks as only a regional draw leaves out a huge potential market. How much SF should or tries to cater to that wider market will be debated until the cows come home, but ignoring it altogether is something not even SF would be dumb enough to do. I assume that's not what you meant, but I'm just getting technical and throwing that out there.
Expecting anyone to travel a great distance for the sole purpose of attending a park like SFEG or SFKK is unreasonable, agreed. But why not try to make the parks attract visitors to the area or people passing through? As a hypothetical example, let's say there's a chance I could be in northern Colorado soon for a family reunion. Before SFEG had their flying coaster I never would have taken the park seriously -- I'm just not up there very long and I would rather spend my time elsewhere or with family or whatever. But now that they have a coaster worth going out of my way to ride, I would surely be there and would likely be joined by some family. Now take into consideration that I'm not the only vacationer around, and (insert park name here) suddenly stands to attract many more visitors with a decent ride. How many more? Who knows. But no doubt the potential is there.
As another example, a friend at work asked me before going on vacation if there were any good parks along his route. Turns out he was traveling north through Indiana and thus HW was a must-hit. Would he have wasted his time with some boring park with no great rides or new attractions? But he went to HW yesterday en route to Minnesota (oh, and he's not going to Valleyfair -- no new coasters, he says) and I'm sure he enjoyed it.
Okay, this is getting long so it's time to call it enough. Bottom line: SF as well as other chains ought to pay plenty of attention to potential guests that don't live in the "So Big, So Close" vicinity.
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PLEASE READ: This post wasn't meant to offend or anger anyone; I apologize in advance if it does. So please don't post a reply just to rant about it. :)
StandUpFan said:
Looking at parks as only a regional draw leaves out a huge potential market.
And what market is that? Six Flags' entire strategy rests on being regional, which they can do because there are so many parks. If they wanted people to travel to "big" parks, they wouldn't buy them all over the place and market them as "So big, so close." Normal vacationers don't consider places like Atlanta, St. Louis, Buffalo and Louisville as tourist destinations. "Hey kids, we're going on vacation to Buffalo! Yay!"
I just don't get how people don't understand this. If you have giant markets like LA, New York/New Jersey, Chicago, don't you get that those parks stand to gain the most by big capital improvement? What possible incentive would an Elitch Gardens have to build a Goliath or Nitro when the market is (relatively speaking) small and without competition? (Yes, I know Denver isn't a small city... you know what I mean though.)
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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"Let's stop saying 'don't quote me,' because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying." - Dogma, KMFDM
StandUpFan said:
"Expecting anyone to travel a great distance for the sole purpose of attending a park like SFEG or SFKK is unreasonable, agreed. But why not try to make the parks attract visitors to the area or people passing through? As a hypothetical example, let's say there's a chance I could be in northern Colorado soon for a family reunion. Before SFEG had their flying coaster I never would have taken the park seriously -- I'm just not up there very long and I would rather spend my time elsewhere or with family or whatever. But now that they have a coaster worth going out of my way to ride, I would surely be there and would likely be joined by some family.
(SNIP)
As another example, a friend at work asked me before going on vacation if there were any good parks along his route. Turns out he was traveling north through Indiana and thus HW was a must-hit. Would he have wasted his time with some boring park with no great rides or new attractions? But he went to HW yesterday en route to Minnesota (oh, and he's not going to Valleyfair -- no new coasters, he says) and I'm sure he enjoyed it.
"
Example #1: So you're saying that a person like yourself would NOT go to a park to ride a bunch of rides that are completely new to them like Twister II as a side trip. But that self same person now *would* go to the park because they have *one* extra ride? If the enticement of a whole "new to you" park isnt enough to get you there, why would one extra ride make a difference? I dont see how the new ride would serve any other purpose than to entice new *local* riders.
Example #2: I do not think that anyone here would NOT recommend Holiday World as an 'en route' trip to anyone EVEN IF THEY NEVER BUILD ANOTHER COASTER! And that's fine. And sure, boo-hoo, ValleyFair is not getting his money because they didnt add something new this year (but based on your description, I'm assuming he's already been to ValleyFair). But can you even reasonably suggest that the amount of business they are losing to people like that justifies the expenditure of 3+million dollars? If a person like your co-worker only is influence by a ride that was new THAT YEAR, there would have to be a healthy amount of people like that to justify that.
The bottom line is just that, THE BOTTOM LINE. That's really the only thing that SFI needs to keep its eyes on. If attendance stays flat at some parks regardless of what is or is not installed there, smart business sense says not to spend money there. If that pisses some people off, so be it. They can be pissed off...as long as they are pissed off INSIDE my gates. It is only when people stop going that this theory takes a hit (but that hasnt happened now has it kiddies).
It's basically like putting money away in savings, you can put in bank A with a 1% interest rate or in bank B with a 5% interest rate. Both are guaranteed to give you money, but which will give you more quicker?
lata,
jeremy
--who never purported to be a financial guru
Closed topic.
