Experts predict more park sales after Six Flags results

Fewer Flags, More Fun?

Seriously though, I don't know anyone in the enthusiast community or a theme park employee that felt good about this merger in the beginning. Then when it was quickly figured out that the new combined chain was essentially going to be Cedar Fair with the Six Flags name, there was some optimism. And now after a full season, I think a lot of people are surprised at how bad it actually was.

Cedar Point will be fine. So will Knotts, Kings Island, Carowinds and probably Magic Mountain and Six Flags Great America. But a lot of the rest? As they said in Aurora in 2004, the FUN is back!

Selling parks will have the added benefit of allowing the remaining parks to add "new" attractions by cannibalizing the sold ones. Six Flags leadership will see it as win win.

Kings Dominion is my home park, and the land on which it sits is not yet a suburb of the Richmond metro area, but will be in 5-10 years, and there's already tremendous demand for more detached homes around that area. Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me if they sell the park in that time frame because the cash is too much to pass up. They also have to compete with the demonstrably superior experience provided by Busch Gardens, about an hour south.

I had zero optimism the moment it was revealed that the merger was being designed in such a way that Cedar Fair shareholders would not be allowed to vote; because they know it would have gotten voted down.

I quite literally made an "April Fools Thread" on P-Buzz (IYKYK, right RCMAC??) about the companies merging (maybe 7 years ago?); it worked because it toed that line of being something technically possible but yet so incredulous it became obvious once you remembered it was 4/1.

And now here we are.

Greg77:

Kings Dominion...

I am hopeful Kings Dominion is safe. It has a lot of valuable assets (the brand new Rapterra, I-305, Twisted Timbers, the newly retracked Grizzly) that aren't really relocatable. And I'd argue the Kings Dominion experience (at least pre-merger) is the best it has been in a long time while the Busch Gardens experience isn't nearly as good as it was (but is still infinitely better than the Tampa park).

OhioStater:

I quite literally made an "April Fools Thread"

I swear the new corporate Six Flags logo in the old Cedar Fair font and color was posted somewhere on April Fools Day several years ago.

There's a second article worth reading (linked in the first one): https://www.cleveland.com/t...uptcy.html

Much of the same, with some different quotes from the "experts" who somehow thought this merger was a good idea:

Both Hardiman and Speigel were supportive of the merger, which joined together the two largest regional amusement companies in a union of equals completed in July 2024.

Whereas it seemed pretty obvious to me and most other folks here that this was a merger of poop and vanilla ice cream - not so bad for the poop, but ....

All we can do at this point is hope the smaller parks aren't stripped down for parts.

hambone:

a merger of poop and vanilla ice cream

Six Flags filed bankruptcy in 2009/10 in large part because it could not refinance its debt (in large part because banks were struggling during the Great Recession). They recently refinanced their most pressing debt so that now they do not have any debt that needs to be refinanced before 2027. So the situation (at least at this point) isn't the same as it was 15 years ago.

But it could get there around the first half of 2027.

Not sure about the other parks, but Cedar Point was very busy over Labor Day weekend. I wouldn't say any one day broke any records, but each of the three days was well above average.

It is kind of funny that most of what is happening after the merger was predicted by this community here. I'm not saying that any of us have what it takes to run a $2 billion company, but sometimes there are some pretty good insights around here from people that have lived and breathed the industry as much or more over a period of decades than some of the people in charge.

When looking at the majority of the SF legacy chain parks, they all seem to have similar issues that Geauga Lake had. Where it's going to take a lot of capital to turn it around. Some parks have a huge potential, but to get to that it will take years and capital to address.

They talked about doubling attendance at SFMM, how much time and money will it take to turn it around / undo the SF perception?

A long ass time, but they can't work on repairing reputation until the product has been repaired, and that is currently questionable as well.

I think many fans have said "this merger won't work" and they might turn out to be right, but for the wrong reason.

There is one factor that is not getting enough attention and that leisure tourism in the US has absolutely tanked this year. This is not related to the merger, just bad timing. This merger may lead to disaster because they underestimated the likelihood of demand dropping by 10% year over year.

And as much as people like to groan when executives cite bad weather, C suite leadership will never publicly admit that fewer people want the product. That's what the new CEO will do though: "Our problems are because we lost our way, and now we're going to fix it".

I’ve often pondered this, you have a fool who is nuking the economy and especially hurting foreign travel, which ultimately hurts businesses. So you would think those c suite folks who are probably in the same club would push back a bit harder. Unless there is an angle I’ve missed and the drop helps them.

I have it on good authority the parks, especially Cedar Fair parks leading the way, had a very strong August through Labor Day. While it doesn’t change the corporate leadership and strategy changes needed, it does show the parks with a history of effective management produce results.

Well, I got suckered by the $75 pass renewal (plus $9.99 nuisance fee 🤬). So if they go under it’s not my fault.

MDOmnis:

It is kind of funny that most of what is happening after the merger was predicted by this community here.

Yeah, but that doesn't make us geniuses, it just means that we were paying attention to history. I was onboard until I understood that Bassoul would be executive chairing the board. Having been through financing rounds, sales and even an IPO, the patterns are hardly difficult to predict. And if you were here from the start, you've been here for 25 years. It's 27 if you started on PointBuzz/GTTP. We've seen some things.

I don’t believe any park located in a metro area is safe. Carowinds is a good example. It is surrounded by warehouses and has easy interstate access. It definitely sits on valuable land. This park also does not boom in attendance like it was intended to. Most summer weekdays are fairly quiet.

Now Kings dominion is more rural, but when they start selling land off, and if that land gets developed that story, you may change. The land of Kings Dominion sits on, has both railroad and interstate access and there are a few new factories that have popped up in the distance in recent years. KD also is one of their parks with mediocre attendance.

it would be a shame if nice parks like this gets destroyed by this mismanagement, but it wouldn’t be surprising

So, **** on the product making it not viable, then complain it isn’t viable and sell it off as land, using the low profits to justify. Feels like I’ve seen that playbook run before.

we may not be geniuses, but we are the best armchair quarterbacks in the business, and I’d wager between the lot of us we would make a better board than cedar flags has currently.

That merger as everybody knows it was not a good thing for the amusement industry. I knew from the beginning that it meant that some parks were going to close for good. I just hope that the surviving parks florish. Only time will tell but certainly some parks will dissapear from the map, especially the ones on valuable land. I don't know how much money the company can save by relocating those rides and roller coasters as it is quite an expensive process (carefully dismanteling, transporting, and re-erecting) versus turning them into scrap metal. But with the company's massive debt and lack of money that could mean that the forgotten parks, the ones that hardly receive new attractions on a regular basis, could profit from the situation by getting those used rides or coasters. All in all the industry is not in a good position. I have been an enthusiast for almost 30 years and I keep saying it; we've been spoiled for many years! Times are changing.

It kind of goes back to the question, "What is the purpose of an amusement park?"

If the park is owned by a family, or someone who cares about the business, then maybe it's to make people happy for a day.

If the shares are owned by outside investors, the purpose is to make money. If there's more money in selling land than making people happy for a day,* well ...

*Implies that Six Flags America makes people happy.