SFStL-abandoned section of Park or Halloween suff
In response to Kick The Sky: *Applause*
Any ways I am with him. There has yet too be ANY sight of ANY new rides. The clock is ticking and it looks like were gonna get screwed again this year has we have for the past three year, becasue other "bigger" and "better" parks have been more "desirving". And I aint sayign Schooby wasnt a good addtion, But the park hasn't had major funds put into it since we got the boss way back in 2003. And 2 out of the past three years are attendence have gone up. 7.5% in 2000 over the 99 season (or was it attendence was down 7.5% durning the 2001 season compared too the 2000 season. ) And this year attendence has been up 3.5%.
All in all its in my opinion are park is getting screwed by corprate "know how".
This supposed press release was nothing of the sort. Some journalist in the Dallas area took a couple of quotes from the conference call and made an article out of it. One of the last things Mr Burke said was that parks that performed were going to be rewarded with cap-ex. Now, I take that as being parks that have increased their numbers. Now, that would be SFMM, SFEG, SFKK, SFSTL, and SFA. Those parks had the largest increases. Everyone else was either flat or down. Now, out of those 4 parks, SFEG and SFSTL had any kind of cap-ex in the form of attractions. Scooby was right at 1 million and TFC was around 4.5 million. The others had NO major attractions added. Heck, one even had a coaster down most of the season!
You guys are jumping to conclusions way too fast. Look at Cedar Point. They are building a MONSTER RIDE and track is just starting to arrive. What SF park has officially announced ANY rides yet?? What parks have been surveyed for rides???What construction has been done at any of these parks??? What track has arrived??? The answer... NONE
SF is in the process of figuring out how parks with no cap-ex had increases and then they will replicate that. They will also be making major financial and personnel changes at parks also. GIVE THEM TIME EOPLE.. they usually dont announce rides until the winter anyways. With most parks doing Halloween events, they will wait until that is over before any work is done. Scooby didnt start construction until well into 2002. .
Ok, I am done.. back to your regularly scheduled program... :)
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I hear a train a comin'
Comin' round the bend :P
TR2k3....GET READY!
Chris Godsey, although they may not announce until fall, the decision was made prior. You cannot tell me that in October SFSTL will "decide" to get their attraction, which is being rumored in this thread as a B&M floorless or hyper from Intamin, and then have it ready for next season. It takes a moderate amount of time to fabricate a coaster, especially if it would be one of the rumored ones.
As far as announcements and surveying, we all know CP is getting something Intamin, track has already arrived even though no announcement has been made. You should slow down (as you told us to do) before getting excited. For all you know, CP's coaster will be a taller barely longer version of Excellerator. We just dont know yet.Also, you are not going to always see a park "surveying". (unless you are able to lurk around all parks all the time)According to people here, they have surveyed at VF, MA, SFGAM, and I would place a large sum of money on the fact that many of the parks have surveyed and you just don't know.
The park does not have to wait for the October events to be over to begin. Mamba construction began in August. If you build anything large, you should expect to at least see the survey markings, core samples, excavation if necessary. If the decision has been made for a small to moderate flat ride, the decision could happen in the off season. I would like to see you prove that SFSTL decides in October to get a Intamin hyper. Mind you because no decision has been made yet, there has been no track fabrication, train construction, excavation, que and infrastructure, permits and everything else that falls into this.
Sorry to go on such a tyrant there. Before you try to belittle someone, at least have the courtesy to think full circle about what you are talking about.
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wof fan
Well, if we take the Boss as an example back in 1999... In August I don't believe there was anything going on in the Park. I finally noticed land clearing in the middle of September. I believe it is still too early to begin writing things off. We must wait until October and if things are still quiet, then 2003 will be a bust.
In the rumored area where this coaster would be built will not require much land clearing btw. It is an empty field without many trees, unlike where they built the Boss - that was/is a thick forest.
Steve
So, to play devil's advocate... SFStL has seen attendance increases the last several years without the addition of a major new attraction or any large cap ex. The park also has no close (within 3 hours) competition. Other SF parks have decreasing attendance. It seems to me to make good business sense to give new attractions to parks that are doing poorly instead of "rewarding" the parks that are doing well. SFStL is bringing the people in without SF spending any money.
Now, personally, I hope Chris knows what he is talking about... I would love to see a hyper, or a tower, or anything new next year.
From my "sources" I have been under the understanding that because SFStl was among the lower attended parks, if not the worst attended park, that they were at the extreme bottom of the list when it came to adding new attractions. That being said, I found it difficult to believe that they would be getting a hyper or drop ride this next season seeing they got Boss in 2000.
It is a shame that this park is such a low attendance park. I really consider it one of the hidden gems of the Six Flags empire. It retains a lot of the charm that Great America had at one time and it seems to have been able to resist many of the stupid things that corporate has implemented over the last few years. I for one hope that I am wrong and that they do get a major attraction for next year. I think a hyper would get many people coming in from the Chicago area if it was advertised up there.
Here is hoping that I am wrong...
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Bob Hansen
A proud CoasterBuzz Member
Operation Wicked Twister - Goal: Lose 50 lbs by next season to ride it! (updates soon)
Six Flags St Louis has been packed to the rim for the last few years. Hurricaine Harbor is always loaded with people. This summer, there was a common 1 to 2 hour wait for that silly Scooby Doo ride. And yet people still think it is one of the lower attended parks. Baffles me.
It may be "lower attended" in terms of actual numbers... SFStL is a pretty small park. In terms of number of guests compared to park capacity (the park is full of people), I would imagine they do fairly well - the parking lot always seems to be fairly full.
I wouldn't use queue times for Scooby as an indicator, however... That ride has such horrible capacity, it is always a long wait - even if the park is empty.
Kick The Sly - Why would people from Chicago (other than enthusiasts) travel to SFStL for a hyper when there is one at SFGAm? I know you and I would, but we don't count...
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"The perfect machine, you seemed to be, when I built you up in my mind..." - Reverend Jon Autry
chris said:
Kick The Sly - Why would people from Chicago (other than enthusiasts) travel to SFStL for a hyper when there is one at SFGAm? I know you and I would, but we don't count...
Well they should... :)
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Bob Hansen
A proud CoasterBuzz Member
Operation Wicked Twister - Goal: Lose 50 lbs by next season to ride it! (updates soon)
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Jeff-Jeff
Wood - Raven
Steel - Millennium Force
Generic, isn't it?
We could care less about confirmations, and seeing as how the hyper keeps popping up over the tower, we don't need to see much in the way of excavating or clearing anyway. If a hyper is being planned for our park in 2003, the order will have been placed, track would be fabricated, and then it would eventually arrive to be put into place. Besides a couple of survey flags here and there, I'm not sure we'd see anything to hint at what's coming, if anything.
In reply to the topic of attendance, let me just say that this year has been very busy compared to last year. I'm seeing long waits on rides that hardly had riders last year, and parking lots filled all the way out to the exit for god's sake. This year has been booming attendance wise, so if corporate Six Flags continues with their jack-arse ways of rewarding attendance instead of aiding it, then we should be getting something this coming season.
Anyone else care to comment?
*** This post was edited by Negative-G-Addict on 8/23/2002. ***
The Boss was officially announced in mid February of 2000. The construction, not land clearing, started in Late Oct or early Nov. as far as footers and such. The park was closed for the season, in other words, before anything major began. Furthermore, a woodie is much, much more time consuming to build than a Steel since a steel is manufactured off-site. There is plenty of time, my friends, and I am still optimistic regardless of some the points listed here. By October we should know for sure.
Steve
Btw... someone on another coaster board claimed to have sighted Intamin Track in Northern Illinios. Maybe it is heading south towards St. Louis... Supposively it is yellow track. (Kinda coincides with Chris' hyper layout above - hmmm)
First of all, I want to apologize to everyone for my "stump stand" last night. I had a VERY long day(13 hours) at one of my IT clients and I was very frustrated at the whole world last night. On top of it all, it was Kristina's birthday!!!
Anyways, what I was talking about was official announcements, track citings, etc. Other than the Cedar Point track on site, there hasnt been one SF park that has officially announced anything other than SFGAM in regards to getting a new attraction next year. And people have seen surveyors in that park as well. Well, since the ride has been moved, I understand why they are doing surveying so quickly. They had done the whizzer surveying in the offseason and now that plans have changed, they had to make sure their coaster would fit in the shockwave area easily. But, I know that ride wasnt designed for a custom terrain so there shouldnt be any problems at all.
Most Six Flags parks dont announce what they are building until the early/late winter. Of course, the enthusiasts follow the construction beforehand and usually know what is being built. But, I dont believe any SF park will have any track delivered any time soon. According to my source at SOF, only 2 B&M coasters are being fabricated at this time.. both of them are flyers. I know exactly where one of them is going since I was involved with the design layout. The other, I have a good idea where its going. I will say this... both of them are SF parks.
In regards to the CP project, I found out about it in July when I visited Knotts. I was able to talk to members of the development team at Knotts and Intamin technicians on site and they basically let the cat out of the bag then.
If, I say IF a hyper gets built in SFSTL, look for flags and surveying markers in the next few weeks. Track probably wont be arriving until closer to the fall, maybe not until October/November. The announcement will probably be made in late Jan./early Feb.
Also, I do know that Intamin HQ in Switzerland had to send over a dozen employees to help the US office get all of next years projects done on time. They are literally swamped with work.
Finally, the colors of the ride were Green and Red, not Yellow and Red. But, anything is possible.. they could have changed it. The Red and Yellow is what I recommended to them when I came up with a cool "FLASH" theme for it, but they didnt like it... too bad :)
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I hear a train a comin'
Comin' round the bend :P
TR2k3....GET READY!
Chris,
Based on your question, why would anyone from Chicago go to Cedar Point or Disney? They do all the time. Before I became an enthusiast I made trips to Silver Dollar City and Worlds of Fun and I live in St.Louis. Why? Because they are different than SFStL. There will always be more rides in Chicago than St. Louis and you may be able to ride a hyper in Chicago, but would you not be interested in doing different things? People from Chicago and St. Louis regularly travel between the 2 citys for Cubs- Cards games, why not amusement parks?
Matt,
In response to the "rumor" of a B&M Floorless, I believe the only thing that was said on that subject, least way by us, is that upper management said the hyper was a nice wish but we would be more likely to get a small B&M like a floorless. They said they were pushing for a drop ride from S&S or Intamin.
On the subject of attendance,I have been a season pass holder almost every year since 1982 and I would have to say that attendance is greatly improved over past years. Granted the actual attendance numbers are less than most other parks, but if you compare attendance to other parks I would have to say that our attendance for the park size is propotional with Magic Mountain or SFGam. If we had a park the size of Cedar Point or Magic Mountain our attendance would be comparable because we would become a resort park or a "destination"!
Do I really think we will get a hyper. Yeah, right. I hope Im wrong. Do I think we will get a Floorless? Not really, but I can dream. Do I think we will get a drop ride or some other thrill/flat ride? Yes I think there is a better than a 50/50 chance.
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Like I said before, the drop ride is rumored to go up on the hill by Screamin' Eagle. More than likely it would use the path that they use for Brutal Planet during Fright Fest (you know next to Water Street Cab Company).
At least that's what I heard....
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In response to Steve there are amny possibiliteies on where that track could be going if track was acuatly spotted. It could be going to valley fair for the a possible impulse. it could be going to CP for the new coaster or heck it could even be used as replacement on Wicked Twister. But who knows where it would be going because there are hundreds of parks it could go to.
Chris you really are driving me nuts with:
I hear a train a comin'
Comin' round the bend :P
TR2k3....GET READY!
To me it sounds like you are talking about a coaster here. C'mon Chris just a few more clues.
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