How would you fix Six Flags' problems?
^^I would have to agree with FiredragonLord on the rollercoaster issue at Wonderland. It's my homepark, and to say I am extremely bored with it, is an understatement.
I spend more time walking aorund, in Splashworks, and on the flatrides, then on the coasters, and even that is reaching it's limit.
A lot of my friends have stopped going, because they are tired of waiting every year for Wonderland to get a new coaster.
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3 out of the 4 voices in my head say, go for it!
I think they should stop buying all of these parks and worry about the existing ones that is stuck, considering they are in debt. Parks like Sfaw, Sfeg, and Sfkk I think deserves new coasters they have people to cater to and I don't think its fair that only the big parks get coasters they should try to have good attendence all around. If they won't give them new rides fix the place up replace old unpopular rides.
If they focus on treating the customers good than it will definently help them. I think they should hire more staff for their parks and have supervisors posted at parts of the parks recording how the staff works this way the workers would always be on their toes. Higher pay can help. They need to stop adding rides and leave their other rides busted up. Repainting rides and rehabing them, especially the wooden coasters makes the existing rides better and probably save them from building a new one. Keeping the park clean and nice landscaping with lots of shade will make the park seem better. I think building a better family atmosphere is good so they should add more shows and have a good variety of family rides. Small parks like Sfaw, Sfeg, and Sfkk can benefit from a scooby dark ride or a family coaster.
The prices of admission is not bad but package deals and heavy discounts have people coming. Like more $20 off discounts and 2 day packages for the big parks. Food coupons for free soda or something helps save about $3.00. I used a coupon for a soda at Dorney and I saved some money and played some games. Festivals that brings diverse people in like at sfgadv's is something that can relate to most people and make them feel familiar with their culture. Fast lanes and Q-Bots gets people to have shorter waits on line.
Commercials and advertising I think that if they show the rides from their park don't make a difference to some people but what if they go there and be like hey I don't see this green ride here, or this orange ride that I saw on TV. I like how Dorney Park advertise their rides and name some of the rides so some people get familiar with the coasters. Some would go and say I want to ride Talon that yellow and blue coaster. They have a lot of potential they just need to focus on different parts of their game and realize your in it to make people have fun not for the money.
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- Peabody
you got it....Holiday World Magic Mountain, Holiday World Great Adventure, etc. :)
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- Peabody
I agree with Jay_rider on this one.
SF should sell off thier less profitable/favored parks and invest in those which have the potential instead of buying every park in sight.
The problem is they've bought too many parks and now don't have the money to provide attractions for them all,they foolishly believe they can buy up more parks in order to help get out of debt but end up further into it instead.
As for advertising,if they were to spend more on new ride construction and less on their "music videos" that they've been running then they and we would be a lot better off,and I wouldn't be surprised if someone sued them for false advertising when showing rides in their ads/brochure's of any particular park which doesn't actully have such rides,for example in an SFA 2002 season pass brochure that I got in the mail it shows a picture of B:TR when SFA clearly doesn't have a B:TR or any B&M for that matter as of yet.
Now I probably wouldn't sue over a thing like that but who knows maybe someone else would.
OK, after some thought and after rebuffing the wooden coasters will bring people to the park argument, I will now offer my opinions as to what will save Six Flags.
1. Freeze all new capital expendatures for one year. This includes acquisions of new parks, building any new rides, ect..
2. Fix any existing problems with rides that are non-reliable/painful/sore sight. This includes getting the Deja Vu's and X to work reliably, painting the rides that need it, and looking at ways to improve other existing rides in the chain.
3. Start recruiting at college campuses for new employees and offer room and board in dormitories for all seasonal employees. Try to make the place as attractive to work at as say a Cedar Fair park and you wont have the staffing issues that are present today.
4. Provide incentives for employees to work at the top of their potential. This need not be monetary. Make certain parts of the park have friendly competitions with the other parts of the park. For example have the roller coaster crews compete with capacity or the food stand crews compete for survey ratings. Establish a sense of esprit de corps in the employee base and you will have excellent employees.
5. Make every effort to increase park capacity. The quicker the lines move, the happier the guests are, and the more apt that they will return. If I had a buck for every person I have heard say to me this year that they would never go back to Great America because the lines were too long I would be a freakin millionare. Long lines are one of the biggest reasons that parks in this chain are not getting repeat business, not customer service. Every train needs to be run when at all possible. Every ride needs to be adequately staffed, motivated, and well trained. Putting single rider queues on some rides will also help with capacity issue by sending out full trains every time. The yearly goal should be increasing PPH at all costs.
6. Lower all admission rates this year across the board to make up for the lack of new coasters and advertise the hell out of the fact that the park is cheaper. While they are at it they should lower the prices on other things in the park. Food is way too expensive. I always bring a lunch and judging by the number of people I saw dining out at their cars on Sunday at SFGAm so does everyone else. If they want to make money from concessions and other activities in the park, they need to make it more attractive to do it.
7. Get rid of fast pass and lo-q and institute a system similar to Universal's Fast Pass system where one can get a ticket to ride a specific attraction at a given time and only one attraction at a time. And for gods sake, make it free so everyone has a chance to use it. Guests will love it.
8. Form partnerships with competing parks for admission deals. For example, Six Flags could form a partnership with PKD at SFA where you could buy a two day pass to both parks for the price of one days admission to one of the parks. THis is called making friends with the enemy, something Universal has done with Busch in order to combat Disney in Florida.
9. In case it wasnt clear earlier. Increase the PPH at all costs. Get those lines moving. That is why people arent coming back to the parks again in the same season. Who wants to go to a park and only ride 4 or 5 rides and wait in line all day. Not me and definately not a less tolerant member of the "General Public".
Just a few things. Flame away!
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Bob Hansen
A proud CoasterBuzz Member
"We are not responsible for anything the Demon takes or breaks"
No flames here, just a little realism. No capital expenditures would be the worst mistake they could make at this point. People turned off by SFWOA aren't going to go back because Six Flags promises to do things right. They're going to go back to ride the new 200ft hypercoaster, and the new family flatrides. See, it's at that point that you have their attention, and that's when you *show* them you've made improvements. Talk is cheap and people don't have the patience.
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"Escuse me, can you tell me where the heck the Mystery Lodge is"?
Disband the company and return each park to individual ownership ;)
But realistically, whoever said earlier that the execs of Six Flags need to play some RCT are exactly right. You don't need capital expenditures to keep your guests happy - to get your approval rating up, you hire more mechanics, get the rides workng, hire more security guards, fix broken benches and lights, and hire more handymen, clean up dirty pathways and make sure that your staff can handle all your guests and rides ... sure its just a computer game, but thats exactly what needs to be done.
But, somehow I doubt that Six Flags will catch on and we'll probably see them spend even MORE money on big rides to try and bring people in without spending more on customer service. I just hope that if the company does go out of business that the parks are kept open by independant owners or Cedar Fair or Disney or Busch or whoever steps in and keeps them open. Six Flags for all their faults has built some great "shells" of parks, just need the filler now ...
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Steel - #1 Kumba, #2 Millie, #3 Mantis ||| Wood - #1 Thunderbolt, #2 Villain, #3 Gwazi
"The key to a happy life is moderation" -- Jon Stewart
Not spending for capital improvements and attractions would be a mistake, because there would be nothing to draw the people to the park. I don't think advertising a "newly repainted midway" or "we have re-trained every employee" would work for most of the potential market.
But, once the new attraction is in - something else has to happen to get the guests to return. That said, I think in most parks the answer would be to improve employee training and empower the employees to generate one thing: "FUN." (No play on Cedar Fair stock ticker intended.)
FUN is the one thing I find at successful, entertaining parks. The employees have fun working there and the customers have fun being there. When I worked at a park, it was a blast. But now when I go to some parks there is no fun to be found. The employees think of it as just another job, and the guests aren't smiling.
Back during the days of Time-Warner, Six Flags promoted the "entertainment" side of working in an amusement park. But that was too hard and abstract for most of the high-school aged employees to grasp. But I think (in fact I hope) everyone knows how to have fun.
Train the ride ops to have fun, but always be safe. Train the food operators to have fun, and keep the customer happy. Train the store sales people to have fun while helping the guests to find the perfect souvenir. Train the show personnel to have fun, smile and give a great show everytime. Lots of training, which is not a priority at most companies, but how much would it cost to invest in an extra 30 mins a week to help train and reinforce the staff?
If everyone were having fun at Six Flags I don't think there would be a problem - and I think only training, motivating and reinforcing the employees to always have fun is required. Working at an amusement park shouldn't be "just a job."
So Six Flags, go ahead and invest in starring attractions, just train the employee's that they are part of the fun experience, too.
I have never been to a SF park but I think I can make a few recommendations based on the opinions I have heard. The first thing I would do would be to get some kind of an auditor to look at the finances and see where we could cut back. With that money, I would concentrate on some of the more important things. I agree with Jeff. Rides are not everything. People also notice the state of the park as far as cleanliness and upkeep are concerned. Look at Busch Gardens - they have only 4 coasters but it is still one of the most popular places. Why? The atmosphere makes it a great place to be.
As much as I hate it, I would see to it that every employee be required to take training for any job that he or she may be capable of performing. If they object, they are canned. There is always someone looking for a job so replacement should not be difficult. Since the employees are at the parks more than anyone, I would get feedback from them. I would ask if they had any reasonable suggestions to help improve the working environment. Then, as much as money allows, I would fix up the parks and the rides, mechanically and appearance wise.
After about a year of positive results, I would then look into adding things to the park. I would make sure I could handle the difficulties that arise of introducing new attractions that do not perform well with the public before adding anything. Always assume the worst possible scenario. I would also ditch Vekoma and Arrow and concentrate ion GCI, Intamin, B&M, and Morgan. I do not like Vekoma or Arrow and since I would be in chargem, I could make that decision. :)
But wouldn't SOB be a giant contraption with big height and a loop?
Not a good example to disprove his point...
-'Playa
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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.
edit:someone beats me again :) and where did his post go?
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TOGO!
*** This post was edited by PT300 on 8/20/2002. ***
I'm not sure on this one but I thought it is against a parks policy to allow "competition between rides" or incentives to improve operator performance. I had read somewhere about this being a safety risk to park guests and the park could very easily get sued over it. I'm sure those that are more knowledgeable will correct me if I'm wrong :).
Hmm, good point. When I worked on Tidal Force at Hersheypark, we always tried to get the boats out as quick as possible to avoid stacking which lead to a ride failure. This required a very hectic pace of 35 seconds to unload and load a boat before stacking and 90 seconds before the ride shut down. Because I ran my team smoothly and efficiently, we rarely had problems. But there were things that got by that may have been caught had we not been rushing to get boats out. These occurrences however were never severe nor different than other teams running the ride with less boats.
I am proud to say, that I was the only supervisor able to run Tidal Force with all four boats pushing through 2000 guests an hour! To this day the park still doesn't put a forth boat on without me. ;-)
Anyway, as a "chain" I do not think there is one thing that the company can do to change aside from listening to the individual parks. Basically, almost like PittD mentioned, but no need to disband the company. Each individual park has its own set of situations to deal with and it is very park specific. The solution to one parks problems may not work on a different park. I mean, just look at SFA and SFWoA. Each has been adding major attractions the last few years. SFWoA has even gotten MORE in this time period. But SFA, even with major installations at its closest competitors, has increase attendance 9% while SFWoA is down that much. Instead of dictating top down, the company could listen bottom up. Of course they retain veto power on the big stuff. I would make sense if say SFoT, SFDL, and SFEG all felt they needed a looper for SFI to purchase them all at once from the same company. Perhaps they could get a better rate that way. But at least it is the need that is being filled. *How* that is filled is somewhat irrelavant.
I *would* take an across the board step back from thrill coasters for a *little* bit. But it would be INSANE to suspend capital expenditures entirely. I would have those weird flat rides hopping up everywhere. I'd make better use of the licenses they have. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup themed rides would sprout like dandelions. Scooby Doo themed MadHouses would be like Waffle Houses in the south. Batman themed HUSS GIANTS and Looney Toon themed Zamperla kiddies would be be littered THROUGHOUT the parks like flies on schitt.
And despite what you people may thing about confining Batman/Superman to a "DC Comics" area or Looney Toons to a kiddieland, they can be MADE to fit into the existing themeing. Dont just plunk down a silly-arsed sign TELLING the riders that Medusa was found in the mine shaft. SHOW the guests the actuall shaft. LEAD them to that conclusion themselves. IOA and PKI with Dueling Dragons and Tomb Raider respectively demonstrate EXACTLY what I am taking about. Now granted, those are done EXTRA elaborately, but I think a similar feeling could be made without quite so much build up.
They were doing SO WELL with the original Batman: The Ride queue and really, how much did that themeing cost them? Would it have killed SFGAdv to have a wooden shack over the last maze of Medusa's queue with a few props from a mining mission, a poster or two with news clippings of "strange disapperances", some speakers with drilling sounds (hell the B&M roar is sufficient for that) and just a hint of A/C? (Heaven forbid your guests are actually comfortable in line). True enough, I would not have used the name Medusa for that particular ride (Villain or Outlaw or Rustler or even DustStorm would have been more fitting). But since they did, and they had a story to tell, TELL the story. Let me *experience* it, not just post it on a placard that (unfortunately) few people will even read.
But you'll have to excuse me, I am a *THEME* park whore. I love the coaster to my heart and can have a great time on them. But I really think the industry as a whole has missed the theme concept. IOA is about the best at re-kindling that spirit (too bad they dont have but a handfull of attractions). It makes the experience so much more memorable!
Oh well, it'll all come out in the wash!
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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
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