Six Flags attendance down 4% in first half of year

In addition to my previous comment, I have to say, Superman: Ride of Steel (SFNE), is off the hook!!!!! The second best coaster ive ridden (Millenium Force is still tops for me 4 yrs and counting). From start to finish, its awesome! The first drop is phenomenal! Their Batman ride was suprisingly good. But the former Batman ride at the former SWoA is still the best ive gone on.

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..there is a word for this GREED!

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Uh, no, it's called capitalism. Besides, when the bank owns have of what you own, that money isn't yours anyway.

Jeff said "Perhaps then parks should be run more like Holiday World. Why is that so hard to figure out? "

Agreed....Paula said they are up 24% this year over the last (which was up over the last, etc). If my chain was down for the Xth year in a row I would take a good hard look at those who aren't and ask some tough questions why.

Jeff, that was 16 million in take-home profit after the bank got their share and all the bills were paid. I don't know how many stockholders they have, but maybe Six Flags should buy all their shares back, and go private again, like Paramount has always been.

It's not an issue of profitability, it's an issue of stock market watcher opinion that is the issue. Six Flags was averaging $5.33 million in profits after all bills were paid. Maybe the underlying problem is they have too many stocks out there, and they need to close that gap.

Its the same reason that small parks with lower prices is the key to the mid-America market. Too many times at SFWoA and CF's Geauga Lake do i hear 'I'm not buying that junk...they want too much" but if the prices were dropped to less than double retail, more people would buy stuff that would walk away from most of the time. I understand that the companies are in there for the profits, but finding prices somewhere between breaking even and gouging the customer is the key to success. There is no reason that amusement parks charge double or triple the retail price of the same item outside the park. Six Flags would have made $10-15 million a year in take-home profits at SFWoA if they would have lowered all their prices.

The other problem is the common park-goer usually knows ahead of time that the park overcharges for its food, so they do their best to buy as least as possible in the park. If CF's Geauga Lake is to be honest about their prices, and get the customer into the park, they should advertise the fact that prices went down EVERYWHERE, not just a tidbit that used to be on the website, which should of said "Junk we sell is now lowered in price, but food and drink prices went up 30-100% to make up for that, so make sure you bring at least 50 dollars extra per person to spend"

I'm not saying giveaway tickets and passes, I'm saying make the park reasonable to afford, not overpriced that the families can't afford it. CF's Geauga Lake is less affordable now than when Six Flags ran it. Maybe cause we live in NE Ohio, that in a few years GL will be gone forever...I hope not, but I can't predict the future.

Yeah, I don't understand why Cedar Fair would raise rates at GL. Cedar Fair is in a much better financial position than Six Flags. I think GL is one of those good parks out there. I haven't been there, but based upon all the coasters they have, that is enough for me.

But, yes, you are right about the food and "junk" they sell.

If Six Flags had 20 ounce bottles of pop in their machines for $1.50, I would buy. But, instead, it went from $2.50 last year to $3.00 this year.

I also believe that their profits woudl actually rise if they didn't charge so much for everything at the parks.

I doubt GL will be "gone forever" as you mention. Being that Cedar Fair owns it now, they also have distributed more of their tokens or whatever they call them. It is the same thing as Stock except it has dividend so why do they call it something else? Strange if you ask me.

WoA made $16 million in profit over that period of time, but didn't Six Flags sell the park at a massive loss compared to what they put into it?

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Six Flags was averaging $5.33 million in profits after all bills were paid... Six Flags would have made $10-15 million a year in take-home profits at SFWoA if they would have lowered all their prices.

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Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. $5.33 million is nothing, especially when the company is $2 billion in debt. And how in the hell does a company make more by lowering prices? Hello! They've been giving away the gate for years! It obviously isn't helping.

And Paramount is not private. It's owned by Viacom.

BigKirby...Six Flags brought in 64 million dollars at the Aurora Park from 2001-2003, and after all their debts were paid off, they kept 16 million to re-invest and pay shareholders...all from 1 single park in Ohio.

Jeff, maybe I should say that individual parks should be not corporately controlled by Six Flags, and let each park run on their own, while using other parks knowledge for others growth. Our single company does that, and we're the blueprint for all the other 6 companies within the corporation branch. If SFWoA and all the other Six Flags would have only worked with the cash that each single park had made in profit, then so be it. The company I work for is the 2nd largest of its kind in the world, and its been working for decades. And when one plant is closed do to mismanagement, the others aren't affected, which recently happened at another of the corporations divisions.

Oh, and what i meant is that you cannot buy Paramount Parks stocks directly, as they are Viacom properties, and part of the entire family of Viacom properties as a whole.

Anyways, the entire article is all from an editorial...in other words, possibly worthless rambling.*** This post was edited by midwave 7/18/2004 4:49:24 AM ***

Quoth P-Body..."Paula said they are up 24% this year over the last (which was up over the last, etc). If my chain was down for the Xth year in a row I would take a good hard look at those who aren't and ask some tough questions why."

But the ANSWERS to those questions are....HARD...;)

Seriously, it isn't THAT hard...but it IS nigh-impossible to turn it on like a light switch....the parks that DO do it right have been doing it that way for a WHILE...

I don't necessarily expect the poor-run parks within SF to completely change overnight, and I don't expect them to turn into HW, but I can't see why they don't learn SOMETHING from the parks within the chain that ARE well-run. If you are the GM of say, SFKK or SFGAdv, go to the parks of similar size, like SFFT or SFGAM, respectively, and see how THEY do things.

SF stock at last glance was back down to below $5/share...

One of the craziest things I've seen was a couple of weeks ago at SFMM.

The rides were pretty much closed except for X, Goliath, and Deja Vu (40 minutes before "park closing" at 10pm) which were still cycling through riders.

Me and my friends had delayed eating dinner so we could get on as much as possible before they closed the ride lines. So it's 9:30 (park closes at 10), and we decide to go get some food at a counter service place....we get up there and it's closed. Ok, we'll find another one. Next one, closed. Luckily the third one still agreed to serve us, but we were the last customers of the day. Same was to be said about all the gift shops in the area. While we sat and ate, there must have been at least 30 people who walked up to the place wanting to get food. So my question is.....why shut down two of your biggest moneymakers 30 minutes before park closing??? I can understand shutting down if there is no demand and no one in line. But there were people wanting food and they were turning them away (the people behind us in line even). If you're giving away the gate, can you afford to be closing all your sources of per capita revenue??

As we walked out of the park (still 15 minutes before closing, we were back by Gold Rusher), we noticed that every single food stand on the way was closed, as well as every gift shop with the exception of the gift shops and sweet shops right by the front gate. The gift shops up there were packed to the brim, and the sweet shop had a line extending across the midway. If the demand is that high for food and souvies, why are you shortchanging yourself by closing all those sources of revenue?? I'm surprised that per capita is even up when they do stuff like this.

Even with a dead park and practical walk ons I was still annoyed by Great Adventure this past Sunday. I dont belive we will be renewing our season passes this next season.

Blaster: That's an interesting story about food stand closures. Here we have parks like SeaWorld Orlando building restaurants and having a fireworks show late at night for the express purpose of keeping people there to spend more money, and SFMM isn't offering that chance?

Chalk it up as another "I'm not surprised" moment.

Also typical that they would force everyone into the front of the park and into packed gift shops that can only frustrate you even more after a long day. Now instead of a nice leisurly walk out of the park with your funnel cake you are waiting in another line, dealing with a grouchy employee who is forced to serve dozens of upset people. And we wonder why Six Flags cant keep staff.

Probably worried about labor costs, ROFL....can't even begin to think of all the times I've heard of businesses that pay *practically nothing* being uber-concerned that labor was eating them alive...fast food being the most notorious of these. You CAN get your labor costs down to ZERO the old-fashioned way, by closing your doors.....but we don't need to explore the reasons that THAT avenue is unprofitable, do we? ;)

Number ONE priority in ANY business...take the customers' money when they are standing there *waiting* to give it to you...and be QUICK about it!

This has been a problem at SFMM for as long as I can remember. And it's stupid. The person behind the counter at any of these food places isn't going to be making much. One or two items sold would cover the person's wage for the whole hour! And yet, they close all the food places and expect you to wait in these huge lines for gifts and especially food.

Well you know what? I am almost always wanting a snack before I go, but I never wait in those lines. Instead I get in my car and drive down the freeway a couple of exits and stop at one of the many fast food places that are happy to take my money. And I see tons of people do the same sort of thing. The Wendy's at the bottom of the hill is always packed. And Six Flag's just gives them the business, when it could be theirs. Really really dumb.

Unfortunately I see Disneyland doing the same sort of things with the food. Just try to find a popcorn, churo stand, or ice cream anywhere but Main Street the last hour. You can't. And the line for ice cream is huge. Again.. I keep on walking and spend money off park property. So not too smart there either.

*** This post was edited by Coasterbuf 7/20/2004 3:27:03 AM ***

The rational for closing food and retail outlets further back in the park early is to force the public to the main gate. They don't want to pay the help overtime, or in some cases schedule a second (or third) shift.I noticed this also at SFSt.L. When the park opens none of the food or retail outlets are open(except the McDonalds). Then they started closing an hour before the parks closing time. Pure and simple, it was so they only had to schedule one shift. It seems the bean counters are more worried about payroll expenses than the potential gain in revenue.

Dutchman, you are exactly right.

My trip to SFSt.L. last Thursday (July 15th), almost all of the concessions and "stores" were closed until about 11:30. Then the curtains began to come up and things started happening.

However, the McDonalds has been replaced by the MooseBurger Lodge. I was telling my mom and the girlfriend that McDonalds was about the only reasonbly-priced place to eat at St. Louis and we would eat there instead of packing a lunch. Welp, to our surpise, they put the MooseBurger Lodge in it's place. So, we didn't eat lunch and just left around 5 pm to go to Pizza Hut where 3 of us ate for $17.