New Additions for SFNO ???

It's sad that "storage" for SFGAm's Shockwave means laying on top of a hill, rusting away, while seeing it from the latest ride that is in its place :(

Good point, Batwing Fan SFA. Unfortunately, according others (check out the SFGAdv "Sneak Peek" thread), your thinking is wrong. One $25 million coaster is better than significant improvements at 5 or 6 other SF parks.

Yeah, it's sarcasm.

Well of course a few do agree that it's not a wise investment,but a majority(those no doubt within close proximity of SFGRADV) do think that what they're doing is a wise investment when in all actuality it probably isn't.

Sure it will help that "one" park but what about the 28 other parks that havn't seen major new attractions in recent years?already it looks like all three Texas parks in the chain are out of the running for new attractions in 05 & I'd suspect the same is probably true for the remainder of the chain as well.

SF needs to spend their money wisely on "all" of their parks & not just one or two....the profits made from just two parks seeing a spike in attendance due to a new ride is simply not enough to offset the losses incurred by the other parks that get nothing year after year,instead of blowing the entire cap ex budget on just one ride for just one park they could purchase several smaller attractions(flats or coasters) that can be built at a handful of their other parks.

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
Speaking of Frontier city aren't they supposedly removing their nightmare coaster at the end of this season?

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Yes, that's been *confirmed*. Bummer, esp. since ENCLOSED coasters are SO cool...hope they at least use that building for something new and exciting...

edit: As for SFNO (the thread started with SFNO), there's some COOL stuff there already. I just hope I get there before they turn the train around on Joker's Jester's Revenge...;)
*** Edited 9/24/2004 3:35:24 PM UTC by rollergator***

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
SF needs to spend their money wisely on "all" of their parks & not just one or two....the profits made from just two parks seeing a spike in attendance due to a new ride is simply not enough to offset the losses incurred by the other parks that get nothing year after year

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The thing you continue to miss (or choose to ignore), no matter how many times it's said, is that the smaller parks are not losing money. Thus, there are no "losses" that need to be offset at the so-called "neglected" parks. It's the poorly performing big parks, like SFGAdv (which has dropped some 21% in attendance over the past eight years or so), that are really hurting the chain and really need the attention. If a big park grows 20% in attendance it helps the chain a whole lot more than if a small park does the same.

That said, there is still a good chunk of money ($60 million or so!) to be spent on the other parks. I wouldn't start whining too early (oops, too late).

-Nate

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
Yeah they really messed Excalibur up during the relocation process,however the main problem is that the track was actually welded together rather than bolted together during it's original construction.

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How do you know Excalibur was messed up during relocation? Did you watch them move it? For something that is supposedly messed up they sure have put a lot of effort into neatly stacking and storing it at Frontier City. Even if some of the track did get damaged, new track can be refabricated.

As far as the weldings go, every early Arrow was welded together and many early Arrows have successfully been moved. The Mine Train at SF Mid America was moved twice, first to Dollywood then to Magic Springs and it was welded together. So was the corkscrew that moved from Knott's to Silverwood.

Good to hear there is a chance of this coaster being given a second chance on life. It was the only mine train before Gemini with big drops, correct?

Well, lets begin with the good news. Park was not crowded which may not be good news but got to ride most all the rides with little or no wait..I guess the Highlight of the day was the enthusiasm of the ride op's who were on duty at several rides not all mind you but a better attitude then I have seen in the past.. Bad News UNLESS I was mistaken the sign by the DC comics area suggesting a new attraction for 2005 has been taken down..Not Good...Unless it was blown down during storm but I may have missed it..Looks like the Chatter at the park is the rug has been pulled and we are in a down hill spiral for anything new in the future to come true..Only time will tell, I was very dissapointed in my trip today to not hear the buzz that was prevalent on my last trip to the park about new things happening for 2005..I guess corporate SF just doesn't think we warrant any new additions..I believe Terry Prather and his crew have our best interest at heart and hope he doesn't Crash and Burn because of the going to bat for New Additions (waterpark/rides) not coming into play just yet and maybe not in the near future..Hopefully a Announcement from SFNO regarding these Questions will be answered forth with.. Either we are getting something new or not. Please just give us an Answer and don't leave us hanging until the season reaches a close.

^I second your sentiment there & in SFA's case they need to definitely get off their butts & do something what with every major park in the area making new additions for the 05 season & sorry but general improvements just isn't gonna cut it next year.

Nate: why are you always getting on my case? I take it you never visit any other SF parks aside from SFGRAM,if you did you'd see for certain that some of these parks are in need of some new attractions....the chain doesn't revolve just around SFMM,SFGRADV & SFGRAM,now if SFI would get off their butts & realize that then they'd see where part of the problem in their attempts at improving profits & total revenue are & fix them.

Adding new rides alone however won't solve the problem of being in need of better guest service & helpful,efficient staff though.

You can't expect to manage a successful chain of some 20 plus parks by only giving rides repeatedly to just 3 of them,you need to remember that other parks need new rides from time to time as well.

Hopefully the real reason the sign was taken down/torn down? was due to Hurricane Ivan.

Oh, by the way, does coasterdude318 really think SFGAdv's new ride will increase attendance by 20%??? Top Thrill Dragster (while things obviously didn't go as planned) only increased attendance by 3%. How is SFGAdv going to top that with all the absurdities that go along with a Six Flags park? *** Edited 9/26/2004 6:49:48 PM UTC by Cameraman***

Simple,they're not gonna be able to.

Sure attendance will increase at that ONE park but while SFGRADV fanboys are all enjoying their "new toy" the attendance will fall off yet again at the other parks....the ONES that havn't seen a major "new toy" added in the past 4 or 5 years.

Let's not forget that this ride will probably also be a maintenance nightmare,they'll have guests who are frustrated about it being down so often or at low capacity....unfourtunately for SF they havn't learned their lesson from the mess that was X,Deja-vu(times 3),Batwing & X-Flight when it comes to buying rides.

X-Flight is now Cedar fair's problem of course though.

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
Nate: why are you always getting on my case?

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Because all you post is the exact same thing, over and over again, to nearly every single Six Flags thread while completely ignoring logic, common business sense, and any and all facts anyone has ever provided you with.

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I take it you never visit any other SF parks aside from SFGRAM,if you did you'd see for certain that some of these parks are in need of some new attractions....the chain doesn't revolve just around SFMM,SFGRADV & SFGRAM

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I've been to more than half of the Six Flags parks in North America. The only ones I haven't hit are the Texas parks, the parks in the south, and SFA. I've never felt that any Six Flags park was in serious need of new attractions. I certainly don't think that SFA, a park that received as many new coasters as SFGAm and SFGAdv from 1998-2003 is in desperate need of any new rides. But, of course, that's a fact you continue to conveniently ignore. Furthermore, the chain essentially does revolve around SFMM, SFGAdv, SFGAm, and SFoT. If SFA has a crappy year or performs poorly, it's barely a dent in the chain. If one of the big parks does poorly, it's a serious detriment. Who do you think payed for all those new coasters SFA got? That park certainly didn't afford them by itself.

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Oh, by the way, does coasterdude318 really think SFGAdv's new ride will increase attendance by 20%???

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If you want the whole story, read my last post on this page. To summarize (and simplify), CP did not intend on TTD resulting in a huge attendance increase. For CP, TTD's purpose was maintaining attendance stability. For SFGAdv, the purpose of this ride is to return that park's attendance to the levels it was at a few years ago. The ride won't raise attendance 20% over the all-time high, no. But when you're down 20% in just a few years, it's not at all unreasonable to expect you could go up 20% in a few years. It doesn't matter whether I think it will happen or not, it matters what the chain's reasoning behind the ride is.

-Nate
*** Edited 9/27/2004 4:38:13 AM UTC by coasterdude318***

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
...attendance will increase at that ONE park but...attendance will fall off yet again at the other parks...the ONES that havn't seen a major "new toy" added in the past 4 or 5 years.

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There are PLENTY of parks out there that have proven you can go a long time without a new coaster and still not lose people in comparison to the rest of the parks in the country...

BGW:
-Last Coaster-Apollo's Chariot (1999: 5 years ago); granted Ireland was new a few years ago, there were no major new rides
-attandance ranking the past 3 years: 25, 25, 25 (no decline compared to national average)

SFAW:
-Last Coaster-Serial Thriller (1999: 5 years ago)
-attandance ranking the past 3 years: 38, 37, 36 (attendance has gone up in comparison to the national average)

SFDL:
-Last Coaster-Superman: Ride of Steel (1999: 5 years ago)
-attandance ranking the past 3 years: 41,43, 41 (attendance has down, but has rebounded since in comparison to the national average)

SFA:
-Last Coaster-Batwing (2001: 3 years ago)
-attandance ranking the past 3 years: 42, 42, 42 (no decline compared to national average)

Parks can hold on reputation alone. A good park is like a solar powered device. It can hold it's own as long as it needs to by keeping the park clean and putting customer service as the first priority. A bad park is like a battery powered device. It goes good, but you need to replace the batteries with brand new batteries every so often. Parks that depend on getting a new coaster every year arn't doing something right in the costomer service department.

About spoiling parks, well consider this...Last year pulled SFI pulled in about 28,260,000 people between the 14 flagged parks they have that rank in the top 50 parks in N. America. You know how much of that 28.3 million guests came from SFMM, SFGAdv, SFOT, and SFGAm (the "spoiled" parks)?...40.3%...know how much of that came from SFA, SFAW, SFDL, and SFEG (the "neglected" parks (though I hardly consider ANY of them neglected))...21.1%...See why it makes sense the major parks get major rides more often? Those bigger parks control a significantly larger portion of the companies assets and a small decline in the bigger parks overall attendance is going to have a lorger effect on the net revinue than a small decilne in the smaller parks overall attendance.

It's pure and simple economics...need more explaniation/convinceing? I'd be glad to argue my point..

Simple explaination is that SF has too many parks.

They need to sell some of them if they're not going to do anything with them as far as new rides are concerned......looks like I'll go to PKD just once next season & that'll probably be it.

At least they're getting a little something.

Sign is still down and it's looking like the park isn't getting anything after all. Just a false promise. I got used to that with Jazzland, no huge surprise. Although I must say that I am so upset with the abysmally poor service at the park this season that you will not find me buying a Six Flags season pass or spending money in that hell-hole of a park. A lot of other people share my sentiment I'm sure. Sure, established Six Flags parks can stay alive on reputation, but Six Flags New Orleans has never had a sparkling reputation. If anything, it's marred badly by the park's horrible past. This year was so bad and aggrevating to all guests that with nothing added next year, I would predict that 2005 will be the park's worst year on record. This season made me long for the Jazzland days where at least the park was fully staffed and better run.