Six Flags posts net loss of $100 million in second quarter

OhioStater:

My mental comparison was Kings Island, which is something like 5-10 pm (only 5 hours)

Kings Island weekday winterfests are weird. There's a mass rush right at opening and the place is slammed from 5 til around 7:30, then it empties out after everyone's burned their meal plan and ridden a ride or two (or skated). After 8 you can easily lap rides... I got my one and only zen MT ride last winterfest.

I went to Kings Island Winterfest in 2021.

If you don't want to clickthrough, here was my comment on the subject (in reply to Travis [Lost Kause, here]):

So, given our histories of opposite tastes, it should be no surprise that we felt like it was pretty lame.

Park opened at 5 and we were gone before 7.

I guess, given my personal experience, that I owe the room an apology. More hours there WOULD suck.

Mark it down.

metallik:

Kings Island weekday winterfests are weird. There's a mass rush right at opening and the place is slammed from 5 til around 7:30, then it empties out after everyone's burned their meal plan and ridden a ride or two (or skated).

I never have thought Winterfest was a real money maker for any of the Cedar Fair legacy parks. It almost seemed like a passholder appreciation event themed to the holidays more than anything. Longer, daytime hours in a climate like Charlotte that could easily support more open rides and outdoor options could get non-pass holders to consider going.

My assumption about the shoulder season events is that it gets parks to where they can offer nearly year-round employment to a larger number of people, and thus make the jobs more appealing, the workforce more sustainable, less training, less hiring expense, etc. Plus a certain number of people who might not visit twice in a summer, but would go for a regular summer visit and then a haunt and then a holiday visit, maybe they upgrade to a season pass.

(Of course, that last bit only works financially if you charge more for a season pass than one day's admission plus parking.)

So they don't necessarily need to make money on the holiday event, just not lose their shirts.

I still wonder if the year-round experiment at Carowinds and Kings Dominion was less about trying to turn a profit and draw a lot of guests and more about the ability to convert some positions to full time. The thought being the increased operating costs and increased labor costs converting 'x' number of positions to full time would offset the annual spring hiring spree enough to be an overall net positive.

A huge advantage the year round parks has is full time, year round employees. Reality is that huge number of people looking for jobs need them year round. Having to find another job for 2-6 months a year can be problematic. Less so if its 2 versus 6 but still a problem. And year round employees reduce turnover. You aren't going to get as many 10-20+ year people working at seasonal parks as you will working at year round parks.

Six Flags employee rotation program.

They must be making something at KI, because they keep expanding Winterfest. It's open 24 days this year (only two less than Haunt's 26 days) and last year they added Racer and a bunch of flats to the open ride lineup (to go with MT and FOF).

I'm guessing they get a lot of upcharge income: skating, pictures (from folks without funpix), etc. Christmas attracts a more diverse crowd, one that may not necessarily have passes and also be more open to spending in the park. KI is also pretty easy to get to (and in/out of), so it's more amenable for the shorter trips people seem to make in December.

There is money in Christmas, but they want to have it appear overnight when in reality it would probably require a decade of good performance and word of mouth to make the event really popular and profitable.

I only pay for x-mas events in frankincense.

We used to have a "myrrh" pass, but the merger got rid of that perk.

I think changing the hours is not a smart move. The issue is they are trying to make there base happy by having more rides open, but holiday events attract all sorts of other people that would not nessarly go to the park. Insted of trying to attract new customers, they are simply pleasing there existing base who was going to come anyway regardless of the hours they were open. Other Six Flags parks have aready tried moving there hours earlier and it just made the event less crowded and eventually canceled.

Well looks like Selim will have another company to ruin as well, hopefully ending his contract before June 26 at SF.

Goodfood Chair, CEO Jonathan Ferrari Steps Down; Six Flags Executive Chairman Selim Bassoul to Lead Board

https://www.marketwatch.com...=investing

I always wondered what the mix was of passholders vs single day tickets for WinterFest or Holiday in the Park. Here's an idea, use it to drive pass sales. Instead of giving away the Fall plus all of next year, have your passes start whenever in mid-August but they expire the following Labor Day. Had fun at the park all Summer long? Want to come back for HAUNT and/or WinterFest? Time to re-up.

That’s how they should’ve structured their season passes in the beginning and they wouldn’t be in this mess. But instead, they gave everything away and it’s hard to reverse that once it is done

It will be interesting to see what happens next week when this "sale" ends. Will they extend it like they seem to always do? Will they raise the price a mere $5 and pseudo-extend it?

Or will they do what they probably should do and transition the "Gold" pass to home park only at the same price point, add back in the all park passport for $100 or so, and introduce some more state or regional passes at price points in between Gold and Gold with all park passport? They could also choose to announce their capital program for next year (if it hasn't all been cut by this point) and hopefully use the new attractions to drive some sales to the people that didn't buy early, and get a higher price out of them.

They need to see past one quarter of lousy results and think slightly longer term. They are either spread too thin or they are making knee-jerk reactions that aren't thought through. Pass base is down? Let's have a huge sale and give everything for the next year and a half away for cheap! Then what? They got the pass base back up, but they will have more guests to service with less admissions revenue than they had before. Also, if they increase the pass base too much due to low prices, they're setting up for another decline when decide to charge a little more. Their plan to focus on increasing penetration at places like Magic Mountain and Great Adventure (two very big, underperforming markets) sounded really smart, but then they have one bad quarter and they delay their investments at those places for next year, which kind of tosses their plan into the toilet and likely leads to another bad year at these places.

This has been very frustrating to observe both as a park fan and as someone who is at least a bit interested in the business side as well. Now Zimmerman is out and hopefully Bassoul is gone too. What a mess the next guy is going to inherit. Just hoping it's someone from the amusement/hospitality industry and not some bean counter that will just be window dressing preparing for bankruptcy proceedings.

Curious to get a quick read on park attendance this weekend, the last weekend before the Labor Day "end of summer". (we all know that summer ended 1-2 weeks ago for some parks, but go with it).

Any trends?

Holiday World was JAMMED, even on the dry side, on Saturday 8/23. Looks like mostly sunny up and down the entire east coast, as well as Sandusky and Cincinnati (which would cover a lot of the FUN parks).

Curious if weather (and cicadas) were really a big impact on June, or if the more macro trends are continuing.

MDOmnis:

They need to see past one quarter of lousy results and think slightly longer term.

I continue to think this is about liquidity and whether or not they're going to be able to make payments on their debt, and/or what rolling over some of their loans is going to look like in terms of interest rates. They may want to think more long term but be finding themselves boxed in.

[insert rant about what a stupid stupid merger this was]

It would certainly help them (and a lot of other borrowers) if rates came down. That is not a statement that they SHOULD come down, that is for wiser folks than I to gauge. A decrease of 1/2 of a percent could have a huge impact. That assumes that some of the debt is actually variable, which I don't what proportion may be (e.g. SoFR +). It certainly couldn't hurt FUN.

That won't solve the problem in the short run, and even if rates drop, the company will find it hard to roll over debt at much better terms, given their position is presumably worse than when the last notes were issued.

The interest rates would have gone down, but Rapist Orange McFraudster with his tariff bull**** has prevented that from happening.