Six Flags revenue down 5% for the quarter compared to last year

If you are past the 12 month initial period for passes, there will be 3 months of payments you make on your passes in each quarter included in revenue. So your payments are included in the numerator of the per cap calculation. If you visit during the quarter, your visits are included in the denominator.

Expect that to a certain extent, revenue recognition is accelerated somewhat with the post-12 month memberships because early in the year revenue is being recognized with payments that are made for memberships but at that point in the year, recognizing revenue based on visits would result in less revenue recognition earlier in the year. Shouldn't be a significant difference on an annual basis but could be some variation on a quarterly basis. The more membership levels remain constant, the less the variation should be even on a quarterly basis going forward.

Inflation isn't uniform. 8.5% annual inflation doesn't mean the price of everything increased by 8.5%.

If anyone is interested here is the transcript of the earnings call.

My takeaways:

• The dining plan is coming back in some form but probably at a much higher cost.
• Six Flags doesn't want teenagers in the park, unless they come in on a school bus.
• Bassoul believes Six Flags is in the same tier as Sea World and Cedar Fair.
• Record single day ticket sales and lowered attendance can only mean that season passes aren't selling.
• Bassoul wants less people in the park but wants 3-5 million more people in the park.
• Their strategy is to (A) keep increasing prices but also the (B) guest experience. So far they have done A but B remains to be seen.
• They have pulled back on advertising to focus on cleaning up the parks.
• Bassoul is very likely a Coasterbuzz lurker.

I skimmed that very quickly (mostly to try to figure out "Bassoul wants less people in the park but wants 3-5 million more people in the park") and - there's some interesting stuff there. At a couple points I'd say he's saying the quiet part out loud, especially "I’m migrating a little bit from what I call the Kmart, Walmart to maybe the target customers" (I think he means Target the store).

In Coasterbuzz terms, Bassoul hates poor people.

The tricky thing about it is:

• The customer experience has not been very good, driving the Target people away.
• In order to get the Target people back, you have to improve the customer experience first.
• In order to improve the customer experience, you have to raise prices and discourage overcrowding.
• If you raise prices and discourage overcrowding, your current customers go away, and your revenue and profits drop.
• The Target people are really not going to return now, because they still remember how the parks sucked, and now the parks suck and they're expensive.
• You run out of money before you can win them back, and/or your shareholders get impatient.
• The next CEO decides the way to drive revenue is to lower ticket prices.
• Rinse, repeat.

Like, as the sort of person who haunts amusement park websites, I hope it works. But it's a tough needle to thread.

(To answer the less people but more people question, they're down about 35% from 2019, and he would like to be down 20% from 2019.)

Also, this:

In 1994, a season pass to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey average $75. At the time, Great Adventure only had four roller coasters.

Fast forward 25 years to 2019, and we are still charging on average only $75 for our season pass, despite the fact that we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our park and we now have 14 roller coasters, including several of the top rated coasters in the world. Just to keep up with inflation, we would have had to increase the price by 70%, but instead our season pass price remained flat.

Which does suggest he's a lurker at this website.

Brian Noble:

Per cap is $63.87 vs. $51.94. If the attendance drop is at the "good" end of the range (20%), they generate total revenue close to a per-cap of about $51.10 at the "old" attendance number. But, they also have 20% fewer guests to deal with, which should reduce some costs. And, those guests are in a less-busy park, so it is plausible that guest satisfaction scores are up.

They might have done it too quickly, but the doing of it doesn't seem like a terrible idea.

Looks like they're finally catching up. Gonch for CEO!

(We were overdue for a Gonchback and an annoying, "I told you!")

I have to wonder to some extent if another piece of their financial problems is the theming that they have. Disney is highly themed. Disney owns the IP. SIlver Dollar City and Dollywood are themed. They basically own their own IP. Six Flags has a lot of themeing, some done better than others, but spends quite a bit on themeing as it doesn't own the IP. That also to me feels like a piece of the puzzle. (Yes, Cedar Fair pays on the Snoopy theming as well, but I'm almost positive it is no where near as expensive. Same thing for Kennywood when it paid for Garfield theming.) With a few exceptions, is the theming really helping the Six Flags rides and experience given how it is done?

They can end those contracts and just call everything ": The Ride"

Six Flags gets treated like a ‘day-care center for teenagers.’ Its CEO is not happy

Walt S:

Six Flags has a lot of themeing, some done better than others, but spends quite a bit on themeing as it doesn't own the IP.

Yeah, but...

1) It's DC

2) It's the mostly old, unknown DC Comicbook style that looks nothing like the movies that people actually know.

I'm sure it costs something, but I'm sure it's bought at a huge discount, or else they'd be using modern Jason Mamoa Aquaman, not the one that even Vincent Chase was afraid to look like.

And just like that memberships are back, but at a slightly higher price and fewer perks.

Gold - $115

Platinum - $155

Diamond - $280

The Gold membership is only for the park you are a member while the Platinum and Diamond are good for admission to any Six Flags park. Pricing seems to be consistent at the seasonal parks. SFMM is priced higher due to year-round operations. Here's the info at SFGAm for reference.

I honestly don't know the difference between the memberships and season passes. Why is the membership such a big draw when compared with the pass?

Monthly payments make the product more financially obtainable for some. It’s also a compounding problem when you consider some* parents who use the monthly plans wouldn't be able to supervise their children at the park because of work schedules.

*No clue what proportion but I could guess.

Two things I think. #1 the ability to spread the payment out over time basically interest free. That's the advantage I think for the consumer.

From the provider's standpoint, you have cashflow year round (how many people would buy a season pass in January unless discounted, yet with membership income is coming in). Beyond that, in an era of unpredictability, it may keep some people as members that could not afford to otherwise. For example, in a family, lets say in the spring someone is let go from their job. The cash for a season pass isn't there, thus they do not buy one. But, with a membership, it's not as large of an expense and thus may not be cut immediately in a transient cash crunch.

Honestly, when we first got our memberships, I felt the main driving factor was Six Flags wanting consistent income. The membership was, over a year, about $5.00 more expensive than a season pass (which we could have bought), but included free drinks on each visit, one free skip the line pass each year, one time preferred parking each year, and "Every two weeks during the season we will send you regular updates from the park which will include special benefits for Members and Pass Holders."

The main factor from my standpoint was the free drinks each visit versus the season pass. Otherwise, we probably would have bought the season. The membership also had the advantage of running for one year. In our case, we bought in in September and had all of the fall season, Holiday season, and then the following summer. However, if season passes bought in "August" or "September" included the rest of the fall, this would also be a moot point.

Spreading out the money was the big draw for us. That and the drinks included, even though I generally just drink water.