SF Conference Call details - 6 parks may sell
A) Trim the fat. In other words, reduce operating costs by removing troubled, expensive or un-nessasary coasters. This would mean saying bye-bye to Scream, Flashback, Superman, X and Psyclone for starters.
B) Changing SFMM from a year round park, to a seasonal one. I never thought being open year round really helps a park so removed from Disney and Knott's. Also saves operating costs, staffing and wear and tear on the rides.
C) Change the focus. PKI and PGA tried this back beginning in 2001, with mixed results. Removing coasters which no longer serve a purpose, and replacing them with family rides shows that your serious about wanting families to return to the park.
I do believe Shapiro will start there. If there is a pleasing offer made in the meantime than who knows. But I don't see them *actively* pursuing a buyer without other options first.
...now SFEG, SFDL and the waterparks on the other hand... *** Edited 6/23/2006 5:31:31 AM UTC by DWeaver***
A) Trim the fat. In other words, reduce operating costs by removing troubled, expensive or un-nessasary coasters. This would mean saying bye-bye to Scream, Flashback, Superman, X and Psyclone for starters.
I see them removing Scream, Flashback, and Psyclone. But why would they want to get rid of Superman and X. Superman is so huge that it would take so mush money to remove it. Also X is a roller coaster known world wide and is (soon it will be was) a one of a kind coaster.
*** Edited 6/23/2006 5:43:22 AM UTC by Hamster Boy***
"Dude, if your going to raise the gate price to $59.99, you might want to throw in the waterpark".
Talk about attracting families...
"My Six Flags park is safe, what about yours?"
;-)
-Tina
Apparently, Busch has shown some major interest. And if they get it, they will not spend *nearly* as much money as people are specuating. Things might get pretty interesting.
DWeaver said:
B) Changing SFMM from a year round park, to a seasonal one. I never thought being open year round really helps a park so removed from Disney and Knott's. Also saves operating costs, staffing and wear and tear on the rides.
Let's remember that Shapiro, at least he was, is looking into ways to expand the season for parks, not shrink it.
Busch is one I didn't think about but could be just as much a contender as Universal, IMHO.
A day at the park is what you make it!
DWeaver said:
B) Changing SFMM from a year round park, to a seasonal one. I never thought being open year round really helps a park so removed from Disney and Knott's. Also saves operating costs, staffing and wear and tear on the rides.
I imagine Shapiro was too late to do this last season, but I do think this will happen soon. Like I said before, cutting operating hours and concentrating your marketing efforts on specific months should help the park a bit. SFMM is wide open at the moment, and it's not helping as much as Disney and Knotts.
- Ryan - http://www.tideblue.com/painter/
Relocating X wouldn't be too hard either, the thing sits mostly level. Again, in some cases, it'd be nothing more than just cutting DOWN some supports in places. The only portion of the ride that seems to "hug terrain" is the first drop, and it's not like parks haven't dug pits just to accomodate a first drop before (heck, didn't MM do that when they installed X in the first place?). If you take a look at this pic, you can see the majority of hte ride (other than the first drop) sits on flat land:
http://www.rcdb.com/ig750.htm?picture=6
Viper is also an easy relocation candidate. Check out this photo:
http://www.rcdb.com/ig25.htm?picture=10
The thing might be built into the side of the mountain, but the construction site is a flat piece of land. That's another relocator.
And even Goliath is in the same position as X. Check out these two photos, you can see the entire thing was built on completely flat land, and a pit dug out for hte first drop - something easily accomplished at a new location.
http://www.rcdb.com/ig615.htm?picture=10
http://www.rcdb.com/ig615.htm?picture=9
So add in these four with Batman, Canyon Blaster, Colossus, Deja Vu, Flashback, Goliath Jr., Psyclone (although it should be burned, not relocated), Riddler, and Scream and you're relocating 13 of their 17 coasters. Other than Tatsu, you're not losing any rides that aren't rather outdated anyway, and they'd be hard to pass off as "new" rides at other locations. We all know SFMM is famous for not having flats, so how again is this park not ripe for the selling? Just my very drawn out 2 cents ;)
*** Edited 6/23/2006 12:11:06 PM UTC by cyberdman***
cyberdman
I don't see any of the parks on the list being ones that CF would want to gobble up. They're still putting a lot of time and energy into turning GL around. The new acquisitions will be much easier to bring into the fold, but I can't see them wanting another problem child when their plate is full. Kinzel's said he would love to get SFGAm, but the parks mentioned by Shapiro aren't the ones with SFGAm's level of operations.
Of course CF could always sell the land Knott's is on, use the money to buy MM, move all the KBF coasters there, and shatter the record for the park with the most coasters, but that would disrespect Cedar Point. :)
Here's an article from today's paper:it shows some land values in Valencia/Santa Clarita.Six Flags May Sell Its Magic Mountain ParkThe Valencia site, one of six properties that the company may divest, could be dismantled.By Jerry Hirsch, Times Staff Writer
June 23, 2006
Six Flags Inc. said Thursday that it might sell its Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor amusement parks in Valencia and raised the possibility that they could be dismantled for real estate development.
Facing mounting losses and declining attendance, Six Flags wants to reduce its $2.1 billion in debt by selling parks in Buffalo, N.Y.; Denver; Seattle; Houston; and Concord, Calif., in addition to Magic Mountain.
ADVERTISEMENTdcmaxversion = 9dcminversion = 6DoOn Error Resume Nextplugin = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash." & dcmaxversion & "")))If plugin = true Then Exit Dodcmaxversion = dcmaxversion - 1Loop While dcmaxversion >= dcminversionMark Shapiro, a former ESPN executive who is now Six Flags' chief executive, said in a conference call with investors Thursday that Magic Mountain was considered a candidate for sale partly because of its often rowdy teenage atmosphere.
After a proxy battle last year that saw Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder win control of Six Flags and install new managers, the New York company is changing its thrill-ride focus to family entertainment.
Unruly behavior by the teens, who gravitate to the giant dips and turns of Magic Mountain's 17 roller coasters, have driven families away from the theme park, Shapiro said.
"Once you burn Mom, she is not rushing back," Shapiro said.
Throughout Six Flags' 30 amusement and water parks, Shapiro said he wanted to reduce the company's reliance on "teens that drive our security problems … who loiter in the park, hate my no-smoking policy and don't spend money."
Though Six Flags could invest in Magic Mountain to transform it into a family-style park, Shapiro noted that the Southern California market was already crowded with family attractions, including Walt Disney Co.'s two parks in Anaheim, Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park and Universal Studios Hollywood.
In evaluating which parks to sell, Shapiro also looked at whether they were on valuable real estate. Shapiro said the sales would have to garner more than $500 million to be worthwhile.
Buildable parcels in Valencia sell for $750,000 to $1 million an acre, said Michael Adler, president of Adler Realty Investments Inc. in Woodland Hills.
The potential for converting the 250-acre parcel into homes and retail centers would have developers "lining up to bid," Adler said.
"This would be a great opportunity for a mixed-use development," said Adler, who has a 150-home development underway in Valencia.
"I would be a bidder."
The property could be worth $200 million or more, depending on whether it continues as an amusement complex or is redeveloped, according to theme park and real estate executives.
Shapiro said the property could also remain a theme park. He said another operator might be more comfortable with Magic Mountain's thrill-ride niche and the teenage behavior that comes with it.
Magic Mountain attracts 2.5 million to 3 million guests a year and is considered a profitable property, said John Cora, a theme park consultant and CEO of Palace Entertainment, which owns Raging Waters in San Dimas and the Boomer's chain of family entertainment centers.
"With a little TLC and investment, it would be a great park and a great revenue producer," Cora said.
Potential bidders could include private equity investors such as Blackstone Group, which owns the four Legoland properties and has a stake in the Universal Studios theme parks, Cora said.
But coaster enthusiast Eric Gieszl of Tustin doubted that another operator could compete with the real estate bidders.
"They would have to pay too much and would never recoup their investment," said Gieszl, who operates the website Ultimate Rollercoaster.com. "This looks like a loss for L.A. coaster fans."
DWeaver said:
A) Trim the fat. In other words, reduce operating costs by removing troubled, expensive or un-nessasary coasters. This would mean saying bye-bye to Scream, Flashback, Superman, X and Psyclone for starters.B) Changing SFMM from a year round park, to a seasonal one. I never thought being open year round really helps a park so removed from Disney and Knott's. Also saves operating costs, staffing and wear and tear on the rides.
*** Edited 6/23/2006 5:31:31 AM UTC by DWeaver***
Trim the fat? Scream would be one of the better built attractions in the park and I would guess a lot less to maintain than some others. X is one of the more popular, but more more labor intensive.
The problems don't stem from the number of attractions necessarily. Also, your logic seems flawed since if you remove one of the roller coasters you're likely going to have to replace it with another ride of some sort. Last time I checked, the family attractions also require maintenance.
Changing to a seasonal operation would be a huge mistake. A sizeable portion of the annual attendance comes off-season. If the seasonal parks in the US could operate on weekends year-round they probably would. Having an expensive piece of property sitting unused for many months when it could be is not smart business.
The only slow months for SFMM is January and the first half of December, but on the majority of those days I'd bet the park brings in more than enough to cover their operating expenses. The difference between SFMM and CP is that SFMM is not a destination. During the summer months it is not packed with vactioning tourists, so the weekday attendance is less than CP.
Personally, I think part of the problem *is* the number of attractions, or at least the number of large, expensive roller coasters which really haven't done much except to be...large expensive roller coasters. The park has had problems for years now, and Tatsu (although I'm sure a great ride) just isn't going to fix them.
I must admit Deja Vu and Scream are major head scratchers for me as well. Or at the very least, the TIMING of their installations. *** Edited 6/23/2006 4:46:58 PM UTC by matt.***
i)Too much reliance on foreign student employee program. These workers don't speak fluent english in many cases and are not trained properly.
These two points go to the heart of the future of the amusement industry...not just Six Flags. I've been saying it for years. In fact I argued this till I was blue when I when I worked at Cedar Point.
And, Six Flags isn't the only chain out there relying too heavily on foreign workers.
It is fun to invest in "things". It takes some vision to invest in people.
Maybe the foreign workers were not trained well at SF, but that certainly isn't true of the two places I've mentioned above. Matter of fact, when SFWoA was in business, some of the non-foreign workers just kind of looked at you with a blank expression, and had trouble keeping their pants above their butt crack.
I really think Shapiro is on crack if he thinks that he will make up that 14% attendance decline by following the path he has set. Sure per cap spending is doing well, they have outrageously raised the prices on everything. But that will also discourage repeat visits. Unless the pricing structure changes I think the lack of repeat visits and word of mouth about the high prices will kill them.
I'd rather be in my boat with a drink on the rocks, than in the drink with a boat on the rocks.
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