Last 2 Days Of Astroworld

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Antuan said:

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Cameraman bellowed:
Seems like everyone has the idea that they could care less about Astroworld since it isn't their home park, people who dare call themselves enthusiasts.

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Well I guess I should be forthwith stripped of my enthusiast sash and sent to the dungeon. While it is sad that Astroworld is closing, what I am most concerned of is people losing their jobs. Everything else is miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

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Indeed, as usual the official media reports portay the situation in a misleading light. Of the 120 or so full-time positions and 1500 seasonal jobs lost, Six Flags has offered only 19. And even then, many of these employees had worked at the park for over 10 years, some over 20. Some had started working at the park as teenagers and loyally stayed at Astroworld until they were promoted to management only to have their lives ripped away.

I know I will be enjoying a certian drop tower from there next year. :)

Also please note that even though you have to build the infostructor for the ride and ship it, you still are not paying for the ride. From an accounting point of veiw its a good move. And frankly I applaud SixFlags for being resourceful. Also people that think this is a bad idea, to move the ride, look at this from the GP point of veiw.

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How about let SFNO at least have first choice then the rest can be divided evenly..

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They will be fine, the park will be either rebuilt to the way it was with a little thing called insurance money, or it will meet the same fate as SFAW. Frankly in order for SF, inc to surive it needs to shrink.

While you don't have to pay for a new ride you don't get a new ride either. You get things which never run at capacity (Dungeon Drop hasn't had all six sides operating correctly for years) and you get rides which have potential structural problems due to their age and sketchy maintenance (ahem, Batman the Escape has been tearing itself apart). Most of these rides have been around the block a few times and are from the 1970s and 80s and it's not as if SF corporate gave Houston a lot of budget to keep things in tip top shape. Enjoy your spoils. We were used to getting hand-me-down crap, nice to see some other parks get that treatment I guess.

There's also not a really great track record of rides leaving Houston that were meant for other parks finding new life. Excalibur, Astroneedle, even Texas Tornado have all met grim fates.

Look at this "from the GP point of view"? Hmm, I see a huge metroplex of GP that just lost everything after over three decades and are really upset compared to people in other cities getting one or two old and tattered rides in their park that they could barely care less about.

Unless I am mistaken and I have been wrong in the past but for SF to cut the New Orleans park loose it will loose all ownwership of the rides plus I believe that they actually only own a very small portion of land as the rest is leased, So to divest the N.O park would not return much of a investment, but to divest some of the larger parks now their would be quite a return of money, SFOG and SFOT are part owned I believe so that puts them in the keep column, I don't think Texas other 2 parks are targeted yet. Which leads to parks in Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland and other Northern parks, Under the Leadership of Burke & company who else might fall on the sword to save the company..Time will tell..Don't ever believe if you recieve a ride from the now closed SFAW you automatically move into the keep this one column..No One is safe If you believe you are Ask a SFAW Employee..I am sure that they would have never believed they were behind the bullseye.. Don't get me wrong with the dwindling population return in N.O I think SFNO will have a hard time recouping..Just have to wait and see...Hold on this is going to be a bumpy ride...

For the smug St Louis guy, keep in mind that your park is in a smaller market and attendance at your park was no better than at Astroworld (a couple rungs below it on the last list I checked from 2003). The only reason St Louis isnt sold yet's Six Flags cant get as much for the land apparently. Houston's land wasn't worth that much a few years ago either...

When SFStL hits the right *price point*, it will probably, eventually, end up in Busch hands...

Much like Cleveland was a hot target market for CF, Busch has GOT to be wanting SFStL. Busch has multiple parks in FL, and the ones n CA and TX, but St. Louis is their "home"...

Still very sad to see AstroWorld close...and knowing that Tx. Cyclone isn't being relocated is HUGELY painful, that ride was crazy off-the-hook...:(

AstroWorld is a tragedy that will be repeated in the Northeast and across the continent. It's not just the South. It's tough to lose any park, and we all know at least one or two parks that could shut down at the whim of the owners.

I witnessed the disappearance of countless small parks in interior BC, including an awesome Flintsones park I visited as a child. Cypress Gardens started its painful downhill slide shortly our family vacation there. Galaxyland (then called Fantasyland) in West Edmonton Mall (my home park as a kid) was vulnerable when the mall owners skidded through years of near bankruptcy.

Where I live now, all of my local parks (375 miles / 600 km radius) are under mild-to-serious threat. I could see a repeat of the AstroWorld situation occuring at any of these parks, especially over the long term (10-15 years).

• La Ronde is built on a small man-made island adjacent to downtown Montreal. How valuable does the land have to be before re-developing luxury riverfront property becomes a priority to the city government. The land and park is owned by the city - Six Flags just leases it.
• Six Flags Great Escape -- a gem of a park with a classic woodie, tiny waterpark, and no major modern attractions except the year-round hotel and waterpark across the road. It serves mostly tourists who visit the small mountainous town. If local tourism drops (because of poor economy or more tourist tragedies like drowning 20 seniors), or if the new hotel and indoor waterpark don't attract sufficient year-round customers, Six Flags may cut their losses and focus on Northeast parks with better attendance.
• Seabreeze is a small, family park. The staff there are very dedicated to the park. But the park doesn't have deep pockets, and sloppy management could make it vulnerable quickly.
• Six Flag Darien Lake -- a park with serious management and customer service issues which have lead to spotty attendence. When Six Flags struggles, will they keep this problem child?
• Paramount Canada's Wonderland is the least vulnerable, but not totally immune. It was a park built in the middle of nowhere, and it kept adding new attractions and drawing bigger crowds while the surrounding land was developed into suburbia. Locals complain about traffic and noise. Some day, the suburbanites may get the upper hand in terms of development approvals. Plus, there's the CBS ownership uncertainty.

*** Edited 11/1/2005 4:17:09 PM UTC by greatwhitenorth*** *** Edited 11/1/2005 4:17:39 PM UTC by greatwhitenorth***

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j_o_e_y__ said:
...Was going to go to the park the next day but it was closed, i really wish i did go now.

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What the heck would you have done? The park was closed! ;)

"The park says you're closed, but I say you're open!"

Bossstl said:

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Frankly in order for SF, inc to survive it needs to shrink.

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Quite frankly (and I hate to say this), your park could be next.

onceler, i meant i wish i could have gone in general. Now that it's closed, and knowing the fact that i was so close and didn't go is killing me. Drove by it, was supposed to go the very next day but it was closed, and there was nothing i could do about it. I wish it was open and i wish i did go. Sorry Houstonians.:( Also on the way to Texas i drove RIGHT by PKI and SFKK, but those i know i have time to do in 06, since now i got my liscence.

GOOD BYE AND SO LONG

I think there's a big, big difference with a northeast park closing and Astroworld closing. Let me explain; With Astroworld, your next closest Six Flags park is three hours away (I believe SFNO is even further). Where I live in Baltimore, if SFA were to close, I still have Hershey (hour-and-1/2), Dorney Park (should be about two hours after all the construction is over, currently about 2-1/2 hours), Knoebels (about the same), Great Adventure (2-1/2 hours), King's Dominion (2 hours), Busch Gardens Williamsburg (2-1/2 to 3 hours), Kennywood (3-1/2 hours roughly), Wildwood Piers (3 hours) and these are just some of the bigger parks available to me. If I had kids, there would also be Dutch Wonderland, Sesame Place available to me, not to mention all the little Pennsylvania parks like William's Grove. So my point is, we'd still have lots and lots of options available to us should SFA go under. We traveled before Wild World, and we can do it again (I do all the time).

So my suggestion (and this may not go over well), is that people who live in Houston start learning how to travel if you want to have a day of fun. You've got SFOT, SFFT, SWT, and Shlitterbahn all within a day's drive. Yes, it's a lot of driving back and forth if you can't afford a hotel, but you can always take other drivers along with you to share the responsibility (as long as it's legal age wise) if that's not a possibility.

If SFSTL is next, it will be a Busch park. A-B has been trying off and on to buy it from Six Flags to no avail. It's valuable to SFI if for no other reason than storage land. They can bring stuff here, hide it and ship it anywhere from St. Louis, and nobody is any the wiser. It's centrally located and anyone who rode the hayride during Fright Fest this year probably saw the swinging inverted ship rides back there that are just sitting there until SF can figure out what to do with them. It is also an ORIGINAL SF park built from the ground up. It has a sentimental attachment to it that ties the SF name to the crap the Premier turned it into. They shouldn't even be called SF, Inc because of the way the got away from the family atmosphere that we were known for. But I digress, I never made to AstroWorld and wish I had. It's always sad to see a park go, but we at SFSTL will try to uphold AW's memory with whatever we might get from there. Anyone who has never been to SFSTL, should try to come and visit us and enjoy our beautiful landscaping and decent assortment of rides.

R.I.P. Six Flags AstroWorld! One of the TRUE Six Flags Parks! *** Edited 11/5/2005 3:04:18 AM UTC by Buddha***

Yes, its unlikely that any other Six Flags parks sold will get bulldozed like Astroworld. That's really what's so criminal about this move. Selling the parks is fine, they're probably have a better operator whoever takes them. But destroying such a historic property is extremely insensitive to the patrons who have supported this park for over thirty years. It could have been justified if the Houstonians had given up on the place and the park was failing & losing money, but it wasn't. Boo Six Flags!

why astroworld? what about six flags new orleans? they could sold that.

Ouch. Actually no SFI can't sell SFNO because they don't own that property.

Well, I've said it before and I might as well say it again:

I see a lot of similarities in what people said about SFAW and what people have said about SFDL. In particular, about being [relatively] neglected in terms of capex. *IF* another park goes by way of the axe, it seems SFDL would be the unfortunate candidate. I would hope that it would at least change hands, though, and not get destroyed.

IMHO I think this may happen especially since SFAW didn't get hardly any capital improvements when Premier took over,we see the same thing happening to parks like SFFK,SFDL & yes I have to say it SFA as well.

With the way SFI took such a passive excuse to shutdown SFAW & destroy the place & what's worse letting all those coasters go to parks outside the chain & the scrapyard when they could go to other parks IN the chain instead....I mean 8 parks could've been looking at "new to them" coasters & what does SFI do? sell them outside the chain or scrap them alltogether.

That to me says they don't have much hope or intention of improving the other parks as much if at all & may very well be thinking of shutting them down real soon for the money that can be made from the sale of the land some of these parks sit on.JMHO

SFA gets treated just fine. You make me laugh. Just because they haven't gotten a coaster in 5 years means nothing. Lots of parks don't. Most parks clearly don't have as good of a coaster lineup as good as what SFA has. But the 3 years SF INC was in spending mode SFA got not 1 or 2 coasters but FIVE.

Actually i just checked RCDB and in 1995 both SFA and PCW got a Vekoma SLC. So I will compare my homepark with yours. Which Park has recieved more coasters since then? SFA wins with a whopping 6. ALL the coasters except ONE SF has put into your park(as of now). PCW has gotten 4 since 1995 and 2 of them are kiddie coasters. *** Edited 11/9/2005 5:24:26 AM UTC by j_o_e_y__***