Wednesday, April 16, 2008

3 Six Flags Articles


MassLive has an article with some further details about the cancellation of the Dark Knight ride at Six Flags New England. Not only has the park confirmed that the ride will no longer be built at the park at any time, it does say that what was built will be taken down and stored for possible use (I'd call it probable use) at another park in the future.

There's also plenty of quotes from the park and local planning officials to point out that there are no hard feelings and no one is blaming anyone for what happened.


Next, here is a press release from Six Flags about their deal with Gulf Finance B.S.C. (an Islamic investment company based in Bahrain) to license their name and intellectual property for use in a park in China. There was no specific mention of where or when in China a park would appear - basically Six Flags will be paid for the use of their name and characters when Gulf Finance builds a park in China.

Not huge news, but news worthy nonetheless - Six Flags is really putting itself out there in ways the old owners never would have. Plus it's a check for them with little to no work on their end.


Finally, here is an article that has some interesting quotes from Mark Shapiro, CEO of Six Flags. He gave a speech at the National Association of Broadcasters gathering and said that Six Flags aims to be an entertainment content company much like Disney currently is.

Regarding their future approach to rides and attractions, he said "Approaching Six Flags is like building Disney, backward, the focus and the root of all and everything we do is the storytelling itself." He also said that now the company's "strategy was to "build the characters, build the story around it, build the emotion, the drama ... as opposed to just putting rides up on cement."

I'm all for it, and I'm eager to see what they come up with in the next few years. I'd call rides like Tony Hawk a "light" approach to his ideals above, but Dark Knight certainly fits in with his plan.


0 comments: