Heard On... Six Flags Park Sell Update Call

On Friday, Six Flags had a conference call to give some details of their selling of 7 parks to PARC Management and to give an overall update on their operations and goals. Here's what I heard:

• Regarding Magic Mountain - Attendance was up at the park just with the announcement that the park would STAY a park regardless of whether or not they sold it. Season pass sales at the park are up 33% year to date. They wanted to keep it because they wanted a west coast presence, and the park is showing sings of moving in the direction they want. The park was only ever really offered for sale because interested parties wanted a 'big' park thrown in with the sale. Six Flags is not saying they will never sell it.

• Without the parks that were just sold being counted, attendance for 2006 for Six Flags was a total of 24.9 million, which is down 13%.

• Total Revenues without the parks that were sold for 2006 is $940 million, down 2%.

• Of more note, 2006 EBITDA is $190 million, where in 2005 it was $260 million.

• 2007 with the parks that were sold is expecting $38 million in sponsorship revenues.

• They are increasing marking spending by $25 million to a total of $130 million.

• Although it's early, currently group sales are up 34% over 2006 and season passes are up 50% more than ever has been sold before in SF history.

• Extra land at the St. Louis and Chicago properties are already on the market, extra land in NJ is still being worked on (zoning and such) before they try to sell, and the Maryland land is not on the market yet.

• New Orleans property - They took down the B&M, it will appear as a new for 2008 attraction at one of their parks. They are now formally suing the insurance company over payment for Katrina losses.


Six Flags has a lot of really good looking plans in place and they seem to be receiving an early response from the market. However, they can have all the best plans in the world in place and if people just continue to not go and not care about the parks, well then they are screwed. I think that the 2007 season is going to be very, very important for them.

The Park Chains On The Move

With Six Flag's recent announcement that they are selling 7 more parks, I got to wondering; how long until Six Flags is actually smaller than Cedar Fair?

Six Flags got really big for a while there, and the race wasn't even close. Remember when they had all those parks in Europe? Well those are gone, so are the 7 they just sold, plus Geauga Lake and a few water parks and such.

With Cedar Fair purchasing Paramount Parks, they now have quite a collection of facilities themselves. I wanted to figure it all out, so here goes:

Number of Facilities:


Cedar Fair:
Owned Amusement Parks: 12
Cedar Point
Worlds of Fun
Valleyfair!
Dorney Park
Michigan's Adventure
Knott's Berry Farm
Geauga Lake
Kings Island
Kings Dominion
Carowinds
Great America
Canada's Wonderland

Managed Amusement Parks: 2
Bonafante Gardens
Star Trek Experience

Water Parks: 5
Oceans of Fun
Soak City (OH)
Soak City (CA)
Soak City (CA)
Soak City (CA)

Hotels: 7
Hotel Breakers
Sandcastle Suites
Knott's Resort Hotel
World's of Fun Village
Lighthouse Point
Breakers Express
Geauga Lake Hotel

Indoor Water Parks: 1
Castaway Bay

Estimated attendance with all parks: 25 million


Six Flags:
Owned Amusement Parks: 12
Six Flags America
Six Flags Fiesta Texas
Six Flags Great Adventures
Six Flags Great America
Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Six Flags Mexico
Six Flags New England
Six Flags St. Louis
La Ronde
Great Escape
American Adventures

Safaris: 1
Six Flags Wild Safari

Owned Water Parks: 3
Six Flags Hurricane Harbor (NJ)
Six Flags Hurricane Harbor (CA)
Six Flags Hurricane Harbor (TX)

Managed/Leased Amusement/Water Parks: 5
Six Flags Marine World
Six Flags New Orleans
Six Flags Over Georgia
Six Flags White Water (GA)
Six Flags Over Texas

Managed/Jointly Owned Indoor Waterpark Hotels: 1
Great Escape Hotel

So, it would appear as though Cedar Fair Entertainment Company is really almost as large as Six Flags, if not as large. (depending on other factors such as financials) Back when Cedar Fair had 4 parks I used to compare them to the (then) giant Six Flags. I had no idea what the future held!

Riverside Park 1995 a.k.a. Six Flags New England

I always wanted to (and still have not had the chance to) visit Riverside Park in Agawam, MA - or as we now call it - Six Flags New England.

These days the reason to go is (IMO) Superman and the very large and modern water park, but back in the day this was another little park that did well on its own. I figured why not take a look at it just before the super-mega-branded park set in.

The park had a planner that they sent me and I used to pour over it. I have family near the park and it always killed me to visit them but never visit the park.

Here is the map that is contained in the planner. Click for a bigger version for some detail. As you can see, there was no Superman, no Batman, no DC Comics area, no Blizzard River... really the park has a horrible lack of comic book characters! Also note that the speedway was still there and in use. This was a big draw for the park back in the day ... much like Dorney Park's speedway.

And look! They even had a Halloween event named the same as what Six Flags uses now! Is that Elvira and Beetlejuice in the picture? I always thought it was cool that they had an event like this long before all the big parks had them.

It's nice to remember parks like these before their mega expansions.

Dorney Park 2007 Season Update #3 (kinda)

I went out to take some photos of what's going on over at Dorney Park this morning, but, uhh, there's nothing going on.

Laser is still looking untouched, there is no work on parking and parking lot improvements, and there is nothing visible going on in Wildwater Kingdom.

I'll keep checking and do a real update as soon as there is something to update!

ValleyFair! Halloweekends 2000

Okay so Valleyfair! has no operating dates for October 2007 listed on their calendar online. Last year they had a Halloween event with ValleyScare, and held it in October. Well, the park actually had a Halloween event - Halloweekends - for three years: 1998, 1999, and 2000. They had the event in September, originally for three weekends and then moving down to two before they cut the event.

You would have thought the world was ending for Geauga Lake when Cedar Fair canceled their Halloween event, yet the same thing happened to Valleyfair! in the year 2000. And it certainly wasn't a sign of death for the park, nay, the park now has an event once more.

Anyway, Valleyfair! has not said anything regarding Halloween 2007 - but who knows, maybe they are just moving the event back to September - where it originally anyway.

Enough rant: here's their brochure from 2000.

Steel Force Construction Diary #4

Back to the construction of Steel Force. When we left off the ride had just topped out. Now things really start to pick up.

Here we are on March 29th, 1997. As you can see they moved along quickly and have the entire lift hill and drop tracked. You can also make out that some of the bunny hills on the return run have been tracked. Thunderhawk's sign is also totally ripped down now, sadly.

This is where they painted the track and supports after they arrived at the park. You could see the paint on the ground up there the entire season after the ride opened!

This shot is from the very start of April, 1997. You can see that the supports for the second hill have been completed. Also, say hi to Hercules.

And here we have a shot of the newly tracked bunny hills. You can see where they stopped placing track at the bottom of the first drop. If I remember correctly, they had some issues with water while digging and pouring cement for the tunnel down there. Obviously it eventually was completed, but it gave them some problems for a while.

Next time we start both the station area and the turnaround!