What is the big event in the amusment industry?

Well said, Mr Peck! ;)

Yeesh...I hadn't considered that. But that's scarier than that contraption perched up on top of the Stratosphere.

If cedarfair were to buy Kings island, they would have to buy the rest of the paromount parks. The last that I heard, they were selling the parks as one big package, not seperate.

Everything is negotiable.

Obviously Cedar Fair wants to dominate Ohio in the way that Six Flags has traditionally done in Texas. It would be interesting to see what happens if the deal goes through. I don't see a deal however if the the current owner insists on selling the parks as a unit. Following Six Flag's experiences, Cedar Fair won't want to pile up all of that debt to absorb five big parks. Meanwhile, they are still in the process of turning Geauga Lake around.

The main effect of such a deal might be that Houston will not get a new park for a while unless local investors step in. I look for a Houston park to be a regional park rather than a destination park, ruling out Disney and Universal. Busch might be a posssibility but they are more likely to make an offer for SFFT so thay can promote it alongside Sea World of Texas. WIth Paramount out of the Park business who else is there? Cedar Fair would have too much debt after the acquisition to consider building a new one from scratch. Most of the other companies are too small to make the investment needed although maybe Herschend might try to do something. They could build a park with more emphasis on things other than big rides at first (waterpark, shows, exhibits, family rides, good food) and add more thrills later once things are doing well.