SF hidden agenda?

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meangene said:
I think the conspiracy here is that the corporate SFI officers have been linning their pockets for a few years now.

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That's nonsense. It's a public company, and compensation for the people running the company is public record.

Why is it so hard for people to accept that thing just did not turn out the way SFI thought they would? Premier thought that a great way to grow their business was through expansion. Not a "bad" decision per se but they didnt really have a good idea of how to manage so many. They adopted the "build it and they will come mantra". Again, not a "bad" idea, but in order to pay for these rides, they had to cut corners elsewhere to avoid falling too far into the red, and this is where customer service got punished.

In the end, I do not believe that there has been a concerted effort to make the company look bad. There just have been a series of "judgement calls" that have gone exactly the opposite of what they wanted. They were doing okay in 2000 with all the new "flaggings", but they were not able to retain that new found fervor and excitement. In addition, they alienated a large portion of their established base (see Astroworld). I can think of another set of executives who have had similar missteps in the past few years, squandering their goodwill and only offering empty promises of "change"....but I wont bring them up directly...

lata, jeremy

Not to mention the fact that their poor choices were followed by a terrible downturn in the economy. Big case of being in a bad place at the wrong time.

But bigboy, THAT shouldn't matter. Other park chains are doing just fine and have recovered.

Maybe it all comes down to greed. They wanted to be more profitable by cutting corners. It works for other businessess, but SF overcut. Now they are LESS profitable.

Ugh, don't talk about greed. It's a business. The goal is always to make the most money possible.

I agree with Jeremy on the whole thing not being a bad idea per se.

I'm a big believer in the "spend money to make money" thing. Find old threads and you'll see me supporting SF's decisions to drop a bunch of new rides in the parks like they did. Unfortunately they dropped the ball in other areas, but in all honesty I think bigboy's post covers why.

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dexter said:

But bigboy, THAT shouldn't matter. Other park chains are doing just fine and have recovered.

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But the main difference is, no one spent like SF did in the period just before the economy went sour. They decided to "go for it" and were struck with incredibly poor timing. I suppose that's a potential consequence of any risky decision, but if SF had made the same moves just a few years earlier, you might see a totally different company now.

Seems like dumb luck followed up by bad and/or forced decisions due to that sucky luck put them where they are now. They chose to take a gamble and got burned.

I still have a hard time figuring out exactly how it would be possible to blow something like SFWOA. There's really no reason it couldn't have competed favorably with CP had the circumstances been different. They made their move in 2000/2001 and then the world changed. Things got very different, very quickly. They got burned and then either had to (or felt they had to) make certain compromises and decisions to compensate for the gamble and in the long run made things worse.

It's kind of a shame, really. Three major parks competing favorably in the same playing field would have probably made for some interesting times.

*** Edited 8/30/2004 2:02:36 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

or maybe SF is actually run by Dr. Evil and DR. Evil fired No#2...

Good economy or not, Six Flags was still going to fail. Sorry.

Let me explain why. Same thing happens to other businesses in other industries, too. I guess it's what I call "The Ten Megaton problem." I apologize in advance for such a gruesome illustration...I just can't think of a better way to express the point of view.

If a one-megaton nuclear missile is detonated in a heavily populated city, it will kill one million people. That being the case, how many casualties will result from a ten-megaton warhead?

You'd logically think ten, right? But in reality the answer is three.

Back in the early days of mail-order PCs, small companies would do great business on an ad in a single magazine like Computer Shopper. They'd logically figure doubling their $10,000 a month ad budget to appear in 3 magazines would triple their sales. Of course it never did...and soon the new huge expenses would destroy them.

Premier's initial strategy worked with troubled urban parks. They'd buy them, drop in a couple coasters (usually the Vekoma duo) and proclaim a turnaround to shareholders. That would boost their stock price which they'd use to buy more parks and coasters. Great plan in small doses.

But buy a dozen parks, add 40 coasters and guess what? It doesn't have the same impact.

Cedar Fair's strategy (add one coaster, add one ride, nudge up the gate, then discount if you need to) is cautious, well-thought out and vastly superior. That's why they're still throwing punches at a time where they may not even have to.

Class over.

-'Playa

*** Edited 8/30/2004 2:47:35 PM UTC by CoastaPlaya***

I see what Playa is saying.. But isn't SF the discount kings? Again, my local park. Can of Coke $25.99 admission, I'm looking at SFA VIP Card, $13.00 off any day this summer, or Buy one, get one free after 4pm. $15.00 off this fall. Season Passes that are the best value in the industry. Even with discounts like these, they still can't get people in their parks.

They're forced into that discounting scheme because the all-at-once capital wad-blowing they did from about 1999 to 2001. When you don't have new attractions to pull people in, you need to discount. You also need to discount when your reputation sucks so bad that people need a serious incentive to come back.

This is my third season of having a SFA season pass. My best season at the park was 2002 and from reading various trip reports before getting my 2002 season pass, the 2001 season was not a good season for the park. What was it like during the good times both before the acquisition and after the acquisition?

Premier had that park before they bought out Six Flags.

Prior to the purchase of SF from Time Warner Adventure world actually had decent operations(two trains running on everything save for WO) & efficient,friendly staff.

Now I attended opening day on may 8th 1999 (the opening was delayed by a week) & hardly anything was running & got on only 3 rides the entire day....at that time the park showed promise under new ownership & the locals were somewhat pleased & excited to have an SF park nearby but 5 seasons later it seems that things have been going downhill as the park is rarely as crowded as it was back then.

Now one thing I really enjoyed at AW was the hallowscream(now frightfest) event,back then the ride ops would all be in full costume at each & every ride.....that has since stopped as of the 2000 season IIRC.

I wasn't specifically talking about SFA. I know the history of SFA, Adventure World, Wild World. I was talking about SF in general.

Funny how the difference between a *pleasantly full* park, and a *nasty overcrowded* park seems mainly to depend on operations and throughput...and of course your POV...;)

If there's ONE thing I have to hand CP (not necessarily CF, but the flagship park anyway), is that even LONG lines move quickly and consistently.

SF, here's you're *not so hidden agenda*: Fix your operations policies, keep your park CLEAN, have a pleasant atmosphere (employees, landscaping, etc.), and it'd be hard NOT to turn a profit when you're as close as SF parks are to MAJOR metropolitan areas...advertising and new rides are short-term fixes that fail to address the longer-term issues...;)

Sheesh, something around here sounds like Deja Vu...

While pay rates, bonuses, incentives and such are public knowledge kickbacks, payoffs and the like are not. The later is what i would call linning you pockets. Something that would generally be looked upon unfavorabily or illegally under the right circumstances. I can't believe that the folks that have killed this company are so stupid as to have made these series of horrible mistakes dispite all the signs along the way that the current model was and is doomed to failure. I saw it as well as my co-workers as far back as '99. Just like i KNEW that the company would have to sell WOA.

Overt spending on something (rides) that would only create a short term spike in attendance. Refusing capital investment in departments other than rides. Terrible pay rates and pay structures. Horrible full time organizational structure. GLP was the perfect example of how these weaknesses can go terribly bad in a short amount of time.

Before 2001 the park had a core of hard working, smart, dedicated full time staff that had built a culture and work environment where the seasonal staff were willing to go out day in and day out despite having subpar equipment, facilities and pay scales. In the course of two months a couple key induviduals were moved out to be replaced by horribly ineffective, diversive group that were unable to deal with or understand the rediculous operational proceedures Premier (SFI by now) had in place.

Anyway i digress, the point is that the policies and decisions were so bad someone should have seen what was going on. Streaching themselves out so thin with that number of induvidual parks and then sinking that much money into each one to "flag" them can't be argued as a good business move now or then. Look at the math for our own GLP. It cost well over 80 million in 2000 for the upgrade necessary to flag the park. But how long before a return is ever seen? The Food Service Dept ran on a per cap in the neighborhood of 12 or 13 (if memory serves). That's only 21 to 22 million dollars gross that season. How did they ever think that the company would ever get out from under this debt unless they thought they could either "flip" the properties or line thier own pockets somehow.

Finally i don't see how the economy played a factor in SFI's woes at all. Not only do other parks do well in economic hard times, but SFI built itself as the local park. Why travel to Orlando or LA? You have a great theme park right in your backyard! Remember "so big, so close"? (a point completely lost to the Cleveland market who at the time were coming to grips with the loss of Shamu and the 15 minute walk around the lake so they could get to the rides where they really wanted to be anyway) If anything a small economic downturn (which is what it was) is perfect for parks like WOA, CP and PKI who all depend on the locals to drive the parks economics (granted CP less so than in the past), as well as cheap labor.

Anyway, i think everyone here thinks that the amusement industry are full of people just trying to make the best park possible like we (the enthusiast) would do. When in reality there is a lot of shady stuff that goes on, especially in the smaller companies. And while it's nice to think that Premier took a chance to make a run at the big boys, none of them would have stuck their necks on the line if there weren't any garuntees.

Someone has an agenda. I submitted to news but thought this was appropriate for discussion here as well.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/040831/leisure_sixflags_snyder_1.html

Gee... I wonder if Mr. Synder has been to SFA recently? *** Edited 8/31/2004 11:44:00 AM UTC by coasterguts***

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meangene said:
While pay rates, bonuses, incentives and such are public knowledge kickbacks, payoffs and the like are not. The later is what i would call linning you pockets.

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That's an absolutely ridiculous, border-line libelous statement to make. You're making stuff up.

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Before 2001... In the course of two months a couple key induviduals were moved out to be replaced by horribly ineffective, diversive group that were unable to deal with or understand the rediculous operational proceedures Premier (SFI by now) had in place.

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That "rediculous proceedure" had been in place since 1995... when Premier Parks bought the park. There was no radical change in 2001.

You sound like you have an ax to grind. If you want to make some kind of argument, you should stick to known facts.

Sure i have an axe to grind, but you miss the point. The people running the park before 2001 not only knew and understood the rediculous policies of Premier but those policies weren't to far off from how Funtime ran the park. The fact that there was no radical change in Premier's operation is the point, but the people running WOA were a radical change from the norm for GLP. At no point did i state or insinuate that Premier had changed policies or proceedures at this time. The loss of experienced, skilled amusement park full time management in 2001 was the begining of the end for that park.

I cannot say that anyone in particular is preforming any sort of "lining of pockets" (it's not like i'm naming names, where does libel come into it?). But i do know (as anyone working the food service industry) that kick-backs for major contracts is the norm not the exception. Now the kick-back may go to an iduvidual or some corporate office but they are there. And at every place i have worked the kick-back didn't help my location at all, in fact it usually works out the the iduvidual unit or location pays more for a certain product or products and the money is then transfered back to the head of the company. Jeff you must be quite nieve to think that everyone out there is playing on the level. The amusement industry has had its fair share of shady characters and still does. Facts? Haven't i prooved enough over the years that i know what was going on in that park and company through the turn of the mellenium? You constantly question things i have seen or learned over years of contact with hundreds of people in the business. I was telling you about the sale of WOA when you thought i was nuts.

You can go on believeing in a dream that amusement parks are all run by people who care as much about them as us; but the simple truth is that most park owners and operators could care less about coasters and rides beyond what is good for the gate. If it wasn't truth, then places like Holiday World and Kennywood wouldn't be as special or as unique as they are.

Actually, to me, you lost all credibility when you tried (unsuccessfully, I might add) to go up against Paula about HW's free soda policy.

But the question I have is why do you think that because you work in Food Service, you understand the Amusment Park business?

I worked in Food Service(worked all the way up to upper management), Retail (lower mgt), Movie theater(ditto), Service, and now I work @ a hospital. Management in many places, no less, but that still dosen't mean I'm an expert in a field I don't work in...

And IIRC, you can make a libelous statement in reference to a group of people, in this case, you refer to Six Flags upper management.