SFZIP

It was somewhere close to 1.35 (which was down around 4% from 2013), the park had a strong finish to the season to make up a major hole they had early in the year.

That photo shows what it looked like about 10 days ago, now there is nothing left of what was the que/facade building except the concrete which was the original que area for the ride. There are also 4 large holes cut in the front of the ride (two of which you can see in the photo, where you used to enter the building) and there are two more cut in the front corners of the building, plus there are two large holes where equipment was driven in for interior demolition on the right side of the building. A lot of details about the ride will probably be released tomorrow from IAAPA, where there is a special press event about the ride (and the one at SFOT).

The actual ride building won't be demolished but the que building (original que area) in front of the ride building will be demolished and the ride building will be expanded some, The Hall of Justice facade will be put on the front of the expanded area.

Major demolition work on Scooby-Doo began this week, as has already been stated the boats and scenes were removed weeks ago. Now they are taking down all of the interior walls and whatever is left in the building, after the park closes for the year demolition on the facade and whatever else will be taken down on the outside of the building will begin.

Fright Fest 2014 guide is up at - https://www.sixflags.com/sites/default/files/sfsl_ffentertainmentguide.pdf. A couple of other changes for this year are that the entrance to Insanity Alley is now on the Joker side (former exit, entrance/exit switched around) and The McBoogles that have been overlayed on the Moon Cars for several years is now a walkthrough through the Scooby-Doo que line.

The clown area including the tunnel/walkthrough and all of the props are in front of Batman (where Turbo Bungy was in that corner area) this year for Fright Fest.

The gutting of Scooby-Doo went into overdrive this week, last week was just removal of the boats and other small items, this week full set pieces were taken out of the building and all the story boards in the line were taken down. I don't think that you will see much done to the outside of the ride until after the season has ended , The Dead Beats stage was placed right in front of the ride (the Scooby van out front is gone as well, likely for good in this area). The freak show stage for Fright Fest is located right next to Sound Stage No. 2 (where it's been the last couple years), but with Tsunami Soaker taking up more room, this may be a crowd bottleneck on a busy Fright Fest day.

Small Fright Fest update - the terror train will be Radioactive Rails this year, replacing the Holidead Express from last year.

The Fright Fest list and the concert list I posted before are my creations from a lot of research about the past of SFSL from a wide varity of different sources.

Fright Fest set-up is in full swing, while most of Fright Fest will be the same there are a few changes - Voided Vision replaces Total Darkness, the Sinister Clowns area has been moved to the former Turbo Bungy loaction in front of Batman (since Tsunami Soaker took over the former area) and The Dead Beats is a new show for this year. Here is a look back at the 26 year (2014 will be year 27) history of Fright Nights / Fright Fest at Six Flags St. Louis:

Went back to find the Scooby-Doo press release from 12 years ago:

The entire ride won't be in 3-D, only some screens in the ride will be, watch this video from the Justice League ride in Australia - (the Six Flags rides are based on this ride with a different storyline).

The two Justice League: Battle For Metropolis (SFOT and SFSL) rides are the same thing in different buildings, both will have the exact same technology and the exact same storyline (which will be the bigger size wise of the two I don't know). Sally Corp. is not the only company behind the ride (they are the main one), from the press release - Lifelike animatronic super heroes designed by Sally Manufacturing, the industry leader in dark rides 3D graphics and film produced by Pure Imagination, the gurus of Computer Generated Imagery Robust gaming elements by Alterface, renowned for their work in site-based interactive game play First-of-its-kind, fully programmable, multi-DOF (degree-of-freedom) vehicles that will transport guests through all the exciting twists and turns designed by Oceaneering.

ThrowbackThursday - Presentation time has arrived for a look back at most of the concerts and major special events that Six Flags Over Mid-America/Six Flags St. Louis have had throughout it's 44 seasons (I know that this is not a 100% complete list, I doubt I will ever be able to come up with all the concerts the park has ever had, it's a lot), this is the list as it stands now (it could be added to in the future):

Dave is obviously looking for a signal in the sky.

With Fright Fest about 8 weeks away, advertisements are going up around the park for the attractions, most would appear to be the same as last year. Voided Vision is something new (replacement for Total Darkness?) and what will the Terror Train theme be this year (I don't think the Holidead theme is coming back)? Also, the 1st Friday which I think was to be the beginning of Fright Fest has been dropped off the schedule - Fright Fest starts on Saturday October 4 and runs through Halloween, the park is open on November 1 and 2 but the hours change those days and it's questionable what will be offered related to Fright Fest on those two days.

Sally Corp. is the company leading the 2015 project, there are probably other companies involved in the project, it's based off the Justice League 3D dark ride at Warner Bros. Movie World in Australia, likely with a different theme here (what that theme and official name will be is really the only mystery of the ride).

Since the actual station area of the ride has always been open (I know it has a roof over it), I would assume that the ride building may be expanded to enclose this area, I don't know how it would work to have a tracked dark ride in an open station. Some may not know that the Scooby-Doo que area didn't exist until the ride became Scooby-Doo, the que before that was the entire building that is in front of the ride (what all the Scooby-Doo facade is attached to and the exit area), this could go back to being the que area in the remodel.

Some trivia about the Scooby-Doo ride/building - The actual boat ride was designed by Arrow as an original ride to the park, Sally Corp. modified the boats and added all the shooting elements in 2002. I believe that Injun Joe's Cave, Time Tunnel and The Legends Of The Dark Castle versions of the ride were all designed and built in house by Six Flags Over Mid-America employees, I don't know what company designed the Castaway Kids version. The ride was used as the parks first haunted house during the early Fright Night years (1988-1991) under the name House Of The Living Dead (which was just an enhanced version of The Legends Of The Dark Castle version of the ride). Scooby-Doo was the longest running version of the ride - Scooby-Doo - 13 seasons (2002-late 2014) Time Tunnel - 10 seasons (1979-late 1988) Injun Joe's Cave - 8 seasons (1971-1978) Castaway Kids - 8 seasons (1992-1999) Legends Of The Dark Castle - 3 seasons (1989-1991) closed for 2 seasons (2000-2001)

Scooby closes on September 14 for "future improvements". In other news Turboo Bungy moved sometime over the weekend to it's new location across from Mooseburger (former Rock Wall location).

The Justice League replacement for Scooby was strongly rumored to have happened this year instead of Tsunami Soaker. It is the one and only rumor about 2015 I have heard about, I figured that since there is construcion happening at SFOT for something inside a building that the ride was moved there instead of here. If the Justice League ride is the plan for next year, then Scooby would have to close sometime soon, to gut the building for a complete change of everything.

2015 announcement day should be 6 weeks from tomorrow (based on what has happened the last few years), for the parks' to have no idea at this time of the year what is coming in 2015 (very little rumors about anything but the two parks closing roller coasters down), continues to show how clueless Six Flags current coporate mangement is about a long list of things when it comes to operating a theme park company.

Most of the land east of the park (past the parks dump area), is quietly for sale, but there is probably not a whole lot of interest in the land, Eureka is not exactly a booming town right now, there are a lot of out of business restaurants and shops along the strip to the east of the park. One thing that I think makes the park look bad right off the bat is the cheap looking (by today's standards) 1970's marble concrete that makes up all the ticket area, front mall and in front of the palace. Almost every theme park in the country (big or small) has a brick or some other fancy concrete design that gives the park a better initial image. I know that a few years ago the park redid a few small sections of the outer front mall with a newer design, but of course nothing has been done ever since and it looks bad and really outdated (if you're going to start something, you have to finish it and not leave it half done, which is something that Six Flags does all the time).

So far, this has not been a really great season in any way at SFSL, the weather hasn't helped out much, the park is basically irrelevant within the Six Flags system (it shows in a lot of things that happen at the park, both publicly and not). The park continues to go on a path to nowhere in my opinion and unless there are drastic changes (not just new rides), there's no reason to believe that attendance will ever go back up to the level it was at for the park's first 30 years or so (just continue to basically be flat year after year).

Awhile back somebody wanted a concert listing for SFSL throughout the years (since this was something I already wanted to do), I've set out to find as many concerts as possible and there were a lot of concerts during the parks younger years. As a preview/test of what will be coming at sometime in the future, here are the concerts of 1990 and 1991. Whenever I feel that the list is complete enough it will be posted here and since I have nowhere else to post the full SFSL timeline that I have, I'll post it here as well (full overall timeline, most shows, most concerts/events and most of the Fright Fest history - 46 pages in word and growing).