Fright Fest Returns to Six Flags Great Adventure This Fall With New Scares

© Six Flags Great Adventure

Six Flags Great Adventure is excited to announce their line up of attractions and spooky fun for this year's Fright Fest, which kicks off on September 10th.  This year Fright Fest returns after taking a season off, bigger and better than before with new attractions, returning haunts, family fun during the day, live shows (like the fan-favorite Dead Man's Party) and more.  This year reservations will be required for all visitors to make sure they have the safest, most enjoyable day while at the park.

As in past years the park will offer plenty of daytime fun for the entire family during Fright Fest.  From Scarecrow Street, decorated in its Halloween finest, to a Spooktacular Dance Party, there's something for everyone.  And, of course, Trick-or-Treat Trail will return for kids 12 and under to get a sweet treat.

Dead Man's Party © Six Flags Great Adventure

New this year are Fright Fest Power Hours, taking place on Thursdays in September, Wednesdays and Thursdays in October plus October 25th through 28th.  This private event for thrill seekers will offer exclusive ride time on the park's thrilling coasters and select rides, plus access to indoor and outdoor haunted mazes at reduced prices.  Separate tickets and reservations are required.

Also, during the month of September there will be Frightworks, a dazzling display of fireworks set to spooktacular music.  The show will take place on weekends in September as part of the Member & Season Pass Appreciation Month.

© Six Flags Great Adventure

Once the evening sets in and the frights come out visitors will find new attractions at this year's Fright Fest.  These include a new scare zone named Venom Gulch, set in Frontier Adventures.  The area will be set as a Wild West town that was abandonded after a mine collapse.  Per the park, the town folk up and left, but the miners' spirits remained to poison the town.

© Six Flags Great Adventure

A brand new haunted maze will also debut this year, named The Lab.  Guests will venture into a secretive laboratory where "mysterious and unlicensed experiments are the order of the day."

© Six Flags Great Adventure

Additionally, the park's Xpedition Dino attraction will transform into Xpedition Dino: Survival, another new haunted maze.  While fun an educational during the day, the experience will change at night and feature blood-thirsty dinosaurs that are after the guests.

Elsewhere in the park guests will also find a new show named Witch's Brew, meant for younger guests, where a friendly neightborhood witch will tell stores.  Plus, the Lil' Devil Coaster will debut to guests this fall, located near the park's new star ride, the Jersey Devil Coaster.

© Six Flags Great Adventure

There are tons of returning shows and haunted attractions that will be offered at Six Flags Great Adventure's Fright Fest this year.  Shows include the Arrival Ghoul Parade, The Awakening, Dead Man's Party: Grave Stories, Unleashed, Blood Drums and Doc Swan's Sideshow of Oddities.

 

As far as haunted attractions go, there's a big list of favorites coming back as well.  Scare Zones include Scarecrow Street, District 6, Clown Town, and Lake of the Lake Cemetery.  Haunted Mazes, which require an additional fee, will see the return of Reflections of the Dead, Fears, The Manor, Big Top Terror: Forgotten Carnival 3-D, Blood Shed, Wicked Woods and Aftermath.

For more information on Fright Fest at Six Flags Great Adventure, be sure to visit the park's official website.

SeaWorld Entertainment Announces 2022 Opening Dates for New Coasters

© Busch Gardens Tampa

Over the past week SeaWorld Entertainment has announced that they will open several large roller coasters at their parks in early 2022.  Each of the rides were originally intended to have opened by now, and were delayed due to the pandemic.  With the SeaWorld Entertainment parks doing quite well in 2021 even without these new mega-attractions, the company has opted to give the rides opening dates to make them each parks' 2022 star attractions.

Busch Gardens Tampa will open Iron Gwazi, billed as "North America’s tallest hybrid coaster and the fastest and steepest hybrid coaster in the world," in March of 2022.  The ride is a conversion of the former Gwazi wooden roller coasters, which closed for good in 2015.  The new ride stands an impressive 206 feet tall, and features 91 degree first drop that sends trains roaring across the 4,075 feet of track at a maximum speed of 76 miles per hour.  The coaster also features two inversions and 12 moments of air-time.

© SeaWorld Orlando

SeaWorld Orlando will open Ice Breaker, a Premier Rides LSM launch coaster, in February of 2022.  Ice Breaker features four launches in total, both forwards and backwards, to send trains up over an 80 foot tall top hat element.  While getting up to its 52 mile per hour maximum speed the trains will soar up a 93 foot tall, 100 degree Jr. Scorpion Tail spike element.  The rest of the ride's 1,900 foot long layout includes several twisting elements and hills designed to provide air time for passengers.

© SeaWorld San Diego

Last, but not least, SeaWorld San Diego will debut Emperor, a B&M dive roller coaster, in March of 2022.  The dive coaster is the "tallest, fastest and longest" dive coaster in California according to the park.  Emperor takes trains up to 153 feet then hangs them over the edge of the 143 foot, 90 degree drop for a moment before they free fall down at a top speed of 60 miles per hour.  Emperor's layout includes 3 inversions, an Immelmann, corkscrew and a barrel roll.  When complete, riders will have travelled 2,411 feet of twisting track while riding Emperor.

No official word yet on Pantheon at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, but I would assume a 2022 opening for that ride as well.

SeaWorld San Antonio Announces Tidal Surge For Park's 2022 Season

© SeaWorld San Antonio

SeaWorld San Antonio has announced the addition of Tidal Surge, the world's tallest and fastest Screaming Swing ride, for the park's 2022 season.  The record breaker will take guests swinging out and over the park's waterski lake, giving them wide angle views of the park below them.  The new attraction is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2022.

© SeaWorld San Antonio

Tidal Surge is meant to give riders a sensation of flying as they swing back and forth on carriages each seating 20 riders, their legs dangling freely below them.  The ride is one of S&S Sensai's Screamin' Swings, though this one will be the largest that has been built to date.  Each of the ride's two arms will swing higher and higher as the ride progresses, eventually lifting riders to a height of 135 feet.  A lot of momentum is needed to raise the arms to that height, and Tidal Surge will maximize that by hitting speeds of up to 68 miles per hour.

© SeaWorld San Antonio

At the top of each swing arc (riders are seated back to back and as such both swing both forwards and backwards) riders will experience a moment of airtime before changing direction.  In total each arm will travel a total of 230 degrees and the main structure itself will stand 105 feet tall.  The ride's supports will be fittingly themed to the ocean, with a purple structure covered in decorative underwater plants.

SeaWorld San Antonio notes that this is a major addition to their thrill ride portfolio, which already includes four roller coasters, "two animal rescue adventure experiences and a fun-fulled family coaster."  For more information, check out SeaWorld San Antonio's Tidal Surge webpage.

Taking a Look at Alabama Adventure's New Rocket Racer Slide

© Alabama Adventure

Granted there's only a little bit left in Alabama Adventure and Splash Adventure's season, but I would be remiss if I never followed up on the park's large new water slide, Rocket Racer.  The six lane, rainbow colored mat racing water slide is one of the largest investments the owners have made in Splash Adventure in some time.  Standing over 50 feet tall and with each lane stretching more than 400 feet in length, the new slide has quickly become a favorite of park guests.

Rocket Racer opened in the middle of July, just in time for the hottest part of the Alabama summer.  Riders have been racing each other toward the finish line ever since.

© Alabama Adventure

This neat aerial view of the Rocket Racer shows it's placement within the park.  The park cleared out the space that an old log flume occupied and the new waterslide takes up a portion of it.  The new slide is pretty far off from the main water park area, but it also comes with some nice new lounge areas you can see built into existing structures adjacent to the slide.

This local news story from back when the slide opened noted that the slide has been positioned in an area that is an "opportunity for growth in the future."  There's a lot of open space in that part of the park that can be redeveloped over time, and since the water park is extra popular with guests that only makes sense to me.  As always, it's neat to see this little park continue to grow, perhaps we'll see another addition in 2022.

Dorney Park Shares Haunt 2021 Attractions + New Scares

© Dorney Park

Dorney Park has updated their Haunt website to show their offering of haunted attractions for this year's Halloween Haunt, which kicks off on September 18th and runs select nights through October 30th.  Along with the reveal of attractions, the park is also now selling tickets for the event, along with Fright and Fast Lane offerings.  Plus, they have a sweet bring a friend deal for season pass holders as well.

 

© Dorney Park

This year's event will feature new attractions in addition to returning favorites, all sure to give visitors a fright.  New this year in the maze category is Enigma, where "mayhem and madness have taken over and pandemonium reigns supreme."  This maze will confuse "your senses with impressive illusions, blinding lights and overwhelming mindbenders."  With each room more twisted than the last, the cherry on top is that hidden monsters will feel free to pounce while visitors are distracted.  This new haunted house will set up shop where Urgent Scare formerly was, as that attraction has been retired.

Returning haunted mazes this year also include Blackout, Blood on the Bayou, Cornstalkers, Necropolis, Tourist Trap and Trick Or Treat.  

© Dorney Park

There will also be a brand new scare zone this year, named The Hollow.  The Hollow is described as a new area that "captures the spirit of Halloween with dazzling décor and eye-catching pumpkin displays of all shapes and sizes."  Sounds friendly, sure, at least in the daytime.  But at night when dark sets in and mist fills The Hollow things will be different.  Visitors will pass though "winding vines" and come "face-to-face with ghoulish, flickering pumpkin carvings."  It will become hard to tell which are decorations and which have come to life.  This new scare zone will be set up in the general area that the Pumpkin Spectacular was located on in previous years, on the park's lower midway.

Returning additional scare zones include CarnEvil, Steamworx and The Lair.

© Dorney Park

With regard to live entertainment the park currently lists that Skeleton Crew will be back on the Possessed Midway, which is awesome since this show is a fan favorite.  Located just by the show will be the Port of Call, a specialty bar featuring custom brews and other spirits.  Also of note, Blood Drums will not return this year with additional entertainment options still to be announced.  And don't forget, the park's rides will be open and that means night rides, too!

Despite the tough conditions of the year the park is putting on a full Haunt event, and even noted that they have plussed many returning attractions with new theming, changes and other improvements.  Helps keep the visitors clueless for the monsters!

Heard On... Six Flags Entertainment's Q2 2021 Earnings Call

© Six Flags

Rounding out our look at the most recent theme park earnings is Six Flags Entertainment, which also generally had good news to share about their season thus far in 2021.  The company's press release is available at this link, but between that release and their earnings call there are some more items to share.  Let's take a look.

• Like the other operators, comparing this year to 2020 makes no sense, so comparisons to 2019 were offered.  For the quarter attendance was 8.5 million visitors, a decrease of 2 million from 2019.  Revenues were $460 million, a decrease of $17 million to 2019, and net income was $71 million, a decrease of only $9 million from 2019.  EBITDA was $170 million, also only a decrease of $9 million from 2019.

• Looking at the first six months of the year attendance was 9.9 million visitors, a decrease of 2.8 million visitors compared to 2019.  Total revenues were $542 million, down $64 million from 2019, net income was a loss of $25 million, down $36 million to 2019 and EBITDA was $125 million, down $23 million to 2019.

• The company has shifted some of their reporting periods starting in 2021 which did make the quarter have four extra days, including most of the July 4th weekend.  So that definitely padded their results a bit, to the tune of 614k in visitors and $32 million in revenue.

 

© Six Flags

• Right now none of the chain's parks in the U.S. have any capacity limitations.  They do have restrictions at parks in Canada and in Mexico.  They note that they held vaccination sites at several parks and gave away 140,000 tickets as incentive for people in their markets to get vaccinated.

• Through July 25th the attendance levels were at 82% of 2019 levels, with a big part of that being missing group visits.  Excluding group visits they estimate attendance levels to be at 89% of 2019 levels.  While not backed by a statistic, it sounds like trends increased even more in July.

• Six Flags received a payment of $11.3 million in the quarter related to the terminated park contracts in China, which as we know are no longer happening.

© Six Flags

• Total guest per capita spending in the second quarter of 2021 was up 23% compared to 2019.  This was driven by a strong increase in admissions per capita, but in park spending also increased by 22% - a trend we've seen from the other operators as well.  The admissions per capita was boosted by later than normal season pass sales this year, causing revenue to be recognized over a shorter period of time.  In park revenues were helped by mobile dining, going cashless in some areas, creating a QR code based Flash Pass system and more single-day ticket visitors.

• With regard to the active pass base, the total amount increased 65% at the end of the 2nd quarter 2021 when compared to the same quarter in 2020, and increased 2% when compared to 2019.  At the end of the second quarter in 2021 they had 6.3 million in the base, 2.1 million members and 4.2 million traditional season pass holders.

• With regard to liquidity, the company had $253 million in cash on hand as of July 4th, 2021, and $461 million available to borrow.  The net cash flow for the second quarter was $190 million.

© Six Flags

• Six Flags Entertainment is still focused on their "transformation" plan, which will cost $70 million to stimulate long term growth through "modernizing the guest experience through technology, continuously improving operational efficiency and driving financial excellence."  $60 million of that will be spend as cash and $10 million will be asset write offs through retired rides.  To date all the ride write offs have been recorded, which would imply the numerous ride removals might be done... for the moment at least.

• For capital expenditures the company has spent $42 million year to date.  They previously felt they would spend $98 million in 2021 but have now upped that to between $130 and $140 million.  To me that means they have increased the amount of spending to start projects for the 2022 season, but they also will spend on "high-priority and high-return park infrastructure and technology projects".  In the long term they plan to still spend between 9% and 10% of revenue on capital expenditures.  Once things are normalized with their debt levels they will again "consider strategic acquisition opportunities."