The 2015 announcement season has officially begun...

LostKause said:

Colossus looks like it may be considered one of the best new coasters of all time.

I keep reading this sentence over and over, but I don't know what it means.

slithernoggin said:

I like that they've brought back the original Marriott's logo for the 40th anniversary logo.

I propose that California's Great America do the same for their 40th season celebration, in which case both parks will once again have the same logo, at least for a year. ;)

(Incidentally, I imagine the trademark on the old Marriott logo has long since expired, but now that SF is using it for this celebration, I suppose they regain the rights?)

Complaining about the community or the individual who makes the comment when someone says the least critical thing about something the amusement industry does is not helpful to furthering interesting discussion. Seriously.

The Larson Fireball is a pretty fun ride, but I think it lacks the quality and new technology that a park as large as the Six Flags parks are known to install. People are already familiar with it from their local fairs. Will they be excited to ride this?

Switching moods though, just look at Twisted Colossus! That ride looks incredible. I predict that it will be the world's number one favorite coaster of all time, when it finally opens, that is.

Pagoda Gift Shop said:

LostKause said:

Colossus looks like it may be considered one of the best new coasters of all time.

I keep reading this sentence over and over, but I don't know what it means.

It will be very popular, and everyone will enjoy it a lot, to the point that it will be "the coaster to ride" for all the coaster enthusiast who travel the world in search for the next best coaster. It could reach the El Toro / The Voyage level.

Maybe I should have called it by it's new name, Twisted Colossus? :)

I'm just showing my enthusiasm for the new ride, that's all.

While both RMC retrofits certainly look to be big hits, I tend to side with what Charles has said in the Wicked Cyclone announcement page. Most of the new designs butcher the original track length, for sheer speed and intensity.

I love that they turned Colossus into a single-circuit experience, but SFMM just missed out on the opportunity to create the longest, and most ridiculous ride we have ever seen... If only they had kept the double out and back design. And then it could have ran a 6 to 8 train blocking set up. Imagine the capacity!

That wasn't a large complaint, just a small observation.

Also, from the video, it appears like the lift hills will change speed to get the trains as close as possible to one another at the top of the lifts, and to adjust from differing station unload/load times.

As for the Larson installations? Who cares!? We're enthusiasts, and none of us work in R&D at Six Flags. The fact that they are often the most popular rides at carnivals will only add to their appeal when GP see one "on crack." Plus factor in their small foot print, low construction and maintenance costs, and reliability. Winner.

That would be fun if both Great Americas used the original logo.

Over at Pointbuzz, Walt posted a Frontier Trail brochure for 2014 that uses Cedar Point's 1970s logo, one could presume they retained the trademark -- perhaps Six Flags did the same with the Great America logo?

CharlieW said:

If only they had kept the double out and back design. And then it could have ran a 6 to 8 train blocking set up. Imagine the capacity!

Just to nitpick, this actually wouldn't change capacity at all. Having a longer ride with more trains is not better than having a shorter ride with less trains. The only thing that matters for capacity is how many people you can load each cycle and how fast you can load them.

LOL, I was envisioning trying to evac a ride with 8-10 blocks...would take until the next day's park opening to clear all the trains.

Well, it looks like Tuesday (9/2) at high noon Cedar Point will finally pull the curtain back on 2015.

LostKause said:

Brilliant move opening an old carnival ride and calling it a coaster. Ring of Fire rides are nothing like a coaster. They are fun for what they are though. Great marketing idea.

I don't care about the "is it or isn't it" debate, but it is a bit concerning to me that Six Flags is marketing these as coasters because it implies that they still are of the mindset that coasters are the only draw for a park. Instead of trying to sell themselves as the complete park experience, they are seemingly again focused on the coaster experience. Seems like this would have been a good opportunity to sell these parks on their overall ride packages.

My concern could be completely unfounded, but it is something that makes me think.

While I think throwing in a handful of Larson Fireballs or Rings of Fire or whatever is amusing, coasters draw attention. I don't take issue with Six Flags referring to them as coasters at all.

Or perhaps they should market them as "Those looping rides that were popular at carnivals in the 80s, now at Six Flags in 2015!"

As if the Six Flags marketing department hasn't been on the edge of fact before. The "Or Maverick" meme spawned because of the marketing for Daredevil Dive (oG), all kinds of things get called coasters, all kinds of records are claimed, and I love the reverse marketing done for V2 SFDK (being marketed as 150' because of zoning when the ride was, in fact, 185').

Fantastic new thrill ride? Largest of it's kind? There's all kinds of things they might have said that would've been just as enticing without having to stretch the truth. If the desired effect is attention, they may have their fill of it when guests arrive next year expecting a new rollercoaster only to find the same flat ride that's been on the county fair midway since the 70's. (60's?)

At the same time I'll admit it's nothing to lose sleep over. It's just a real eye-roller.

Exactly. I don't care about the singularity of these rides being called coasters. I guess to me it is just that we all watched Six Flags emerge from bankruptcy with what seemed to be a new attitude of focusing on customer service and the "overall park experience" rather than just building coasters and I'd hate to seem them lapse back to what they were.

These could have been midway classics on steroids or anything else and I just hope this is the marketing department being the marketing department and not the corporate mentality falling back on thinking they have to build coasters to draw crowds.

My takeaway from the Six Flags announcement is that it reinforces just how built out these parks are now - every new installation takes over existing space (the RMC retrofits and dark rides) or features a compact footprint. The only real exceptions are the waterpark additions I suppose and even those aren't sprawling.

I'm not saying SF parks "have a space problem" or even if it's a good thing or bad thing, certainly aging product needs to be kept fresh and exciting, but it's certainly a change from years past to see no "greenfield" development.

I don't know where most of the other additions are going, but SFoT's Battle for Metropolis is (supposedly) going in an action theater that's been dormant for at least 3 seasons. I'm also not convinced that taking out old rides to put in new rides is as bad as we might think. Only SF has the maintenance vs. ridership numbers, but both of those go in the wrong way as the ride gets older.

Agreed, not a bad thing at all as these parks age but interesting to note. The '80s, '90s and '00s were a time of rapid expansion and growth for most domestic parks. Should be interesting to see how that model changes as many of them reach middle age, which is why I think this year's SF lineup is telling.

Indeed, but why build a new ride every year? I'd invest in sprucing up the parks in terms of landscaping, theme work, maintenance, etc. It's getting to the point of tackiness. Why is Batman in the New Orleans section of a park? Why is Bizarro in the western section of another? Why have a Superman and Vertical Velocity attraction in a park that really could have gotten by on just animal theming? I know some of those installations have been there for years, but I think Six Flags has a golden opportunity to fix what the Burke regime screwed up. Instead, it's like they're repeating the same mistakes that got them in trouble in the first place.

They're not bad parks by any measure, and with a little TLC, most of them would be some of the absolute best (SFGAdv's Golden Kingdom is spectacular in my book, and it should've been the first step in the evolution of the themed areas in all of their parks). I just think it would be vastly more cost-effective to make some "atmospheric" refinements and it would go a long way toward making their parks much more impressive.

I've long held the opinion that while some Six Flags parks used to be theme parks, all the Six Flags parks are, these days, amusement parks.

New rides are easy to promote, and usually enticing to local media. The local stations here in Chicago were all over Goliath; I suspect there will be much less interest in live coverage (free advertising) of the park's 40th anniversary celebrations.

Lagoon jumps in with their 2015 offering, the 208' Cannibal.

(You'd think the park that has Wicked would know how much I dislike vertical lifts, LOL).

http://www.standard.net/Business/2014/09/04/Cannibal-Lagoon-s-newest-ride.html