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Six Flags: General Discussion

Pleasure Beach Valhalla said:
I've been hearing rumours recently that Goliath at Six Flags NE will be relocated to another park like Frontier City or Great Escape!
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Goliath was AMAZING when I rode it. But I hear the trains have been changed since I last went.

Bloody LOVE Giant Inverted Boomerangs!
 
Pleasure Beach Valhalla said:
I've been hearing rumours recently that Goliath at Six Flags NE will be relocated to another park like Frontier City or Great Escape!
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Possible, I guess, but Six Flags approach to relocations has changed quite a lot in recent years. If New England was to take it out, you'd think it would be down to the fact that it's a bit of maintenance headache, shifting the problem to a different state to parks with much smaller maintenance budgets seems counter intuitive, but they've done it before ... it's how it ended up at SFNE after all.

I didn't notice a great deal of difference between the Vekoma & Premier trains on those rides. The best thing about the Premier ones is the reduced confusion in the station in terms of which gate is for which seat.
 
Funcone said:
Let's face it, we've all had a colleague we hated working with. If you could send them a giant inverted boomerang they’re going to have to maintain, you would. “Happy Christmas”, you’d say, while swallowing a few chuckles.
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I once gave a colleague that I despised a live fish in the Secret Santa, knowing full well he'd have to take it home instead of coming straight out on the town with us from the office.
 
Rick said:
Possible, I guess, but Six Flags approach to relocations has changed quite a lot in recent years. If New England was to take it out, you'd think it would be down to the fact that it's a bit of maintenance headache, shifting the problem to a different state to parks with much smaller maintenance budgets seems counter intuitive, but they've done it before ... it's how it ended up at SFNE after all.

I didn't notice a great deal of difference between the Vekoma & Premier trains on those rides. The best thing about the Premier ones is the reduced confusion in the station in terms of which gate is for which seat.
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They may have reduced the confusion but I heard that the trains were the main cause of its tonne of downtime. Aftershock at Silverwood came from SFOG and gets way more praise these days now that it's more reliable!
 
Sorry to bump, but Six Flags’ financial report for Q1 2022 recently came out, and there was some very interesting stuff in there: https://blooloop.com/theme-park/opinion/six-flags-q1-2022-strategy/

In terms of their financial stats:
  • Total Q1 attendance was 1.7 million, which is an increase of 25% on Q1 2021.
  • Revenue was $138million, which is an increase of 68% on Q1 2021.
  • Spending per capita increased by 34% compared to Q1 2021.
  • Revenue has increased 8% since 2019, but attendance has declined by 19%.
Some other, more interesting things were raised, however, in regard to Six Flags’ future strategy and some future ideas for the chain. These include:
  • An improvement in “ride efficiency and convenience” is being aspired for. Selim Bassoul, Six Flags CEO, was shocked that nearly 30% of roller coaster seats in the chain were going out empty due to inefficient loading of groups. In order to combat this, single rider queues are gradually being added to rides.
  • Park wide Flash Pass programs have been scrapped in favour of single Flash Passes.
  • Six Flags is focusing on park beautification within the next few years, with improvements to front entrances, ticketing areas and restaurants being planned. More “premium brand” restaurants are also planned.
  • Six Flags’ current dining plan is being scrapped due to it being “very unprofitable”. This decision spawned from viral videos of people talking about how they’d saved thousands of dollars by going to Six Flags just to eat dinner using their dining plan.
  • Season pass and day ticket prices will be increasing, and a plan to improve the overall guest experience will be implemented long term. A model of lower attendance and higher pricing is being pursued; it is felt that the pre-pandemic figure of 30 million guests per year chain-wide, caused by low pricing and free ticket offerings, “suffocated the parks” and made the guest experience suffer. Six Flags’ initial aim is for an attendance drop of 10-15%, but with higher pricing, so that the guest experience improves.
I think some of that is very interesting reading! What do you guys think?
 
Looks like they're trying to ditch their McDonalds of the theme park industry appearance, then.

Cedar Fair are pretty much doing the same thing in terms of ramping up their visual appearances in parks and putting in more 'premium' food outlets, so I can see why they'd be looking to compete. Their new dive coaster also appears to be very heavily story-driven, which is extremely uncommon in Six Flags parks.

It's a good direction to be going in, but it remains to be seen whether or not they can execute it.
 
Danny said:
Looks like they're trying to ditch their McDonalds of the theme park industry appearance, then.

Cedar Fair are pretty much doing the same thing in terms of ramping up their visual appearances in parks and putting in more 'premium' food outlets, so I can see why they'd be looking to compete. Their new dive coaster also appears to be very heavily story-driven, which is extremely uncommon in Six Flags parks.

It's a good direction to be going in, but it remains to be seen whether or not they can execute it.
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For one thing though there does seem to have been a dramatic difference since the change in CEO, this one seems remarkably different with a complete different direction for the chain.
 
Matt N said:
Season pass and day ticket prices will be increasing, and a plan to improve the overall guest experience will be implemented long term. A model of lower attendance and higher pricing is being pursued; it is felt that the pre-pandemic figure of 30 million guests per year chain-wide, caused by low pricing and free ticket offerings, “suffocated the parks” and made the guest experience suffer. Six Flags’ initial aim is for an attendance drop of 10-15%, but with higher pricing, so that the guest experience improves.
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Love this strategy. I do hope Merlim are paying attention to the theme park operator they seem to most aspire to.
 
pluk said:
Love this strategy. I do hope Merlim are paying attention to the theme park operator they seem to most aspire to.
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I'm all in for an Attendance drop and Guest experiance improvement, but price increase? No thanks. AT is already expensive enough for my Family as a yearly treat. I feel that the price should either stay the same as it is Currently, or drop down by 10-20%.
 
Trooper Looper said:
I'm all in for an Attendance drop and Guest experiance improvement, but price increase? No thanks. AT is already expensive enough for my Family as a yearly treat. I feel that the price should either stay the same as it is Currently, or drop down by 10-20%.
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You can’t have both low prices and low attendance/improved guest experience, I’m afraid. Having both would make the business totally unviable.

If low prices are pursued, then attendance needs to be higher to get an optimal amount of revenue.

If low attendance is pursued, then prices need to be higher to drive up spend per capita to healthy levels and get an optimal amount of revenue.

It would be lovely if parks were able to provide both, but sadly, they can’t. The theme parks are (aside from a select few) not charities, they are businesses that are out to make money. So I’m afraid that one or the other has to be pursued; we can’t have both.
 
pluk said:
Love this strategy. I do hope Merlim are paying attention to the theme park operator they seem to most aspire to.
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This is already the strategy that Towers has been applying in the past year or two and one other parks have been moving toward too. Less people on park, increased ticket (and annual pass) prices, but make the same/more revenue by pushing guest spend up with events such as Oktoberfest, Mardi Gras, fireworks and Scarefest.
 
Trooper Looper said:
I'm all in for an Attendance drop and Guest experiance improvement, but price increase? No thanks. AT is already expensive enough for my Family as a yearly treat. I feel that the price should either stay the same as it is Currently, or drop down by 10-20%.
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The current AP prices directly drive the high gate figure for low revenue that the parks suffer with.

It should be at least double what it is, as should fasttrack.

Craig said:
This is already the strategy that Towers has been applying in the past year or two and one other parks have been moving toward too. Less people on park, increased ticket (and annual pass) prices, but make the same/more revenue by pushing guest spend up with events such as Oktoberfest, Mardi Gras, fireworks and Scarefest.
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My £60 AP suggests otherwise! It's a stupid price.
 
Trooper Looper said:
Righto Mr Chapek.
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Let me know what £60 will get you at a Disney park if you are going to make that comparison...

Let's turn to those doing it right in the UK for inspiration. Paultons is always a delightful place to be; immaculately kept, plentiful staff, near 100% ride reliability, and most importantly almost never waits exceeding 20 mins or so with no payed queue jump available or necessary. This utopia could be repeated at any Merlin attraction by charging one fair price instead of filling the place up for a pittance, giving noone a good time or quality product, and scraping back the money with underhand upcharges in parking and fastrack. Their park tickets are never discounted at just under £40 each, and APs in the region of triple Merlin equivalents. Perfect.
 
I just did a Friends and Family ticket for Alton, which was £27.50. That feels like a giveaway.

Are those limited in any way?
 
Rick said:
I just did a Friends and Family ticket for Alton, which was £27.50. That feels like a giveaway.

Are those limited in any way?
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Someone correct me if wrong but i’m sure it’s 5 friends and family per merlin pass per visit. Four of us have passes, so could theoretically bring a max of 20 people along with us on f&f discount. Not that we would, sounds hellish.
 
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