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Six Flags: General Discussion

That does sound hellish.

I was thinking about it more on the basis that if you visited 3, 4 or 5 times a year as a family and you wanted to visit on weekends, is it not better value to get one pass and use F&F for the rest of your group?

New to this perk, so forgive my ignorance.
 
pluk said:
My £60 AP suggests otherwise! It's a stupid price.
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Yup, it is a stupid price, but then Six Flags prices were even crazier. Season passes were cheaper than day tickets on the 2 visits I've made to Magic Mountain. I paid around £45-£50 for a season pass in 2013 and in 2016. They were literally throwing out free friend tickets on multiple dates throughout the season on top of that too.

It's a delicate balance raising ticket prices, especially when you've made the mistake like Merlin and Six Flags have in devaluing your product too much in the past with a one dimensional "just get 'em through the gate" approach. The ideal aim of a season/annual pass is ultimately to make people visit a couple more times a year than what they would buying individual ticket. Sure those people won't be buying another individual ticket, but the argument is that would they have visited again in the first place without spending that extra cash on the pass, especially at off peak times when you really need people through the turnstiles? Then the aim is to make up some of that lost individual ticket revenue by having guests spend more on park as they see themselves already having saved money from buying the pass.

Of course, that only works if you've got a decent on park offering in the first place, and for Six Flags that's where this "beautification" plan comes in. Ditch/reduce the existing dining plan, bring in better quality premium food outlets and encourage people to spend more. Put more effort into having the park be an enjoyable place to spend time, then guests won't just be turning up, riding rides and leaving.

It's all too easy to "flick a switch" and double/triple the price of annual passes - but when they've been such an essential source of income for parks for so many years it's impossible for that income stream to simply be choked off. It needs to be a softly softly approach, both at Merlin and Six Flags parks. Incrementally increase the prices up/reduce the benefits slightly yet up the offering to those guests to show that they're still getting value for money. In Merlin's case, perhaps they went too hard too fast, which is why we saw the sales and offers for passes in recent months. Get pass holders visiting, let them see different offerings throughout the season thanks to the new events, and make them realise the benefits of keeping the pass despite potential future price increases.

For Six Flags that's even more important, as I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that the majority of their gate income is from season pass purchases. Remember, they only want attendance to drop by 10-15%, so it's a fine balance between achieving that and ending up with their guest figures crashing as people stop visiting en masse. This will be a multi year thing, not something where I see prices hiked up stupidly in one go. I also doubt it means pass prices going up to what we would see as high prices anyway, just a more realistic price or set of benefits compared to the existing setup.
 
pluk said:
My £60 AP suggests otherwise! It's a stupid price.
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Although I think the discounting to £60 is a bit stupid I don't think the full £89 price of the Discovery pass is wrong. Its only valid on off-peak days and would still be the equivilant of three theme park visits based on the 2for1 vouchers. The sale this year did feel a bit grasping for extra income, but the overall Merlin pricing is better now.
 
Craig said:
This will be a multi year thing, not something where I see prices hiked up stupidly in one go. I also doubt it means pass prices going up to what we would see as high prices anyway, just a more realistic price or set of benefits compared to the existing setup.
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This is what I thought was already happening, then before any chance has been given to let it bed in and show results the passes are slashed in price and you can currently get your completely free ticket by buying a few copies of The Scum. Meanwhile the opening hours go back to the worst they've been for a few years, presumably because it's the only way to make the day acceptably profitable what with the gate being worth very little.
 
pluk said:
This is what I thought was already happening, then before any chance has been given to let it bed in and show results the passes are slashed in price and you can currently get your completely free ticket by buying a few copies of The Scum. Meanwhile the opening hours go back to the worst they've been for a few years, presumably because it's the only way to make the day acceptably profitable what with the gate being worth very little.
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I do agree, there's a bit of panic there without a doubt. But they're coming out of a very precarious few years and with the cost of living mess cropping up now only adding to that, I can hardly blame them. Sun tickets are kind of like the aim of passes, they're to get the numbers up on off peak days when people wouldn't normally visit (only 17k of the 230k tickets are for weekends when the park is busiest), so it's really helping to keep the park going with daily opening without having those awful closed days. Coupled with the exposure they get from the park being splashed on the front page for a fair while, it's likely a very good deal for them.

But, pass pricing aside I do think Merlin are showing signs of doing some things right. Events have seen a year on year improvement in size and quality, and getting back on topic with Six Flags I think that's something that they'll be looking to capitalise on too. The Busch parks do these events incredibly well with their food festivals etc, and I can see something like that coming to the Six Flags parks as they move more away from a rides park where the food is seen almost as an inconvenient necessity to provide, to giving guests a proper full day experience with some real quality options.
 
It would appear as though Six Flags corporate have made sweeping budget cuts across the company’s parks, with rides such as Zumanjaro at Six Flags Great Adventure being closed for the season, attractions such as the Justice League dark rides and upcharge attractions being operated for reduced hours and future investment projects being cut:


I wonder whether this is a last act of the “old” Six Flags in its dying days or whether this is a sign of things to come under the merged Six Flags and Cedar Fair? I’d hope it’s the former, but I’m unsure on whether the Six Flags and Cedar Fair merger has gone through yet.
 
The merger hasn't happened yet, definitely feels like it's execs trying to guarantee those sweet sweet performance bonuses when the merger does happen.
 
I wonder how long it will be before Kinda Ka gets the same sort of treatment as Top Thrill 2. The rides days are surely numbered even without the merger that is potentially on the cards. The rides are maintenance nightmares and expensive to run.

A refurb might not come from Zamperla, but seemingly they have proven or are in the process of proving themselves as a viable alternative. I guess the more TT2 ride stays open and not closed for maintenance, the more credibility Zamperla will get. So far, so good however, but it is still early days
 
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