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MagicMountainMan

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  1. Justice League projection is definitely not 4k, but they did indeed get rid of the 3D.
  2. Magic Mountain fumbled the reopening 'announcement' as that was an internal date and most employees hadn't even been notified yet, but April 1st is supposed to be the reopening date. As with most things, Magic Mountain couldn't execute an announcement correctly so it was retracted on social media; I'm glad to see nothing has changed there.
  3. I totally agree, but unfortunately entertainment isn't something that really makes the park any money directly (seasonal events notwithstanding). I worked various jobs for and adjacent to the Entertainment department for over 4 years and they cut the Entertainment budget every single season. It's just not something that Six Flags prioritizes at all. It requires time, effort, and money to pull off good entertainment and Six Flags has shown absolutely no willingness to support it. A lot of talented individuals from Entertainment and other departments have gotten their start at Six Flags and almost none of them stay there. I could go on for hours complaining, but at the end of the day entertainment is just not in the Six Flags business model.
  4. Tidal Wave is being removed as the raptor will be sitting right in the middle of it. The raptor trains are actually already on site as well. I'm definitely looking forward to riding it once it opens.
  5. Magic Mountain has hired the same lighting designer since 2013 right after Full Throttle opened. He was responsible for the "updated/improved" Holiday in the Park that started in 2014 and has been doing lighting design for all of the seasonal events and shows. He's also done work for many other places around Los Angeles, including working on a project in a galaxy far far away. Needless to say he's a talented dude and when he gets an appropriate budget he can do some really amazing things, and even at Six Flags where the budget is always really tight he finds ways to make every last dollar count. *Disclaimer: I am friends with him so I may only be a little biased, but he's genuinely a good dude who is passionate about his job.
  6. Just curious, was that a formal announcement from the park or something you heard through the grapevine? Typically, we ramp up big-time in early October on the electrical side. They just cancelled almost all open shifts. What that means for Frightfest will remain to be seen/announced, but you can use your imagination. What do you mean by ramp up in October? From your post history you seem to be in Maintenance so I take it you're talking about the Ride Electricians? Or the Lampers? I worked in Entertainment at Six Flags up until 2018 and did many years of Fright Fest. Fright Fest preparations start much earlier in the year. Maze vendors (if there is a new maze) are usually on site by May or June. Full ramp up with Stage Techs building out/fixing mazes starts in June. July and August basically become crunch time if certain projects get behind. HR/ENT start hiring maze and scare zone actors months in advance and usually have hiring fairs every two weekends for the duration of the summer. As soon as June turned into July and none of the parks in SoCal had opened yet was the final 'tell' that Halloween events (as we know them) weren't happening this year... There's too much that has to be done months in advance that hasn't been done. Right now at Magic Mountain, Entertainment only has a single person on staff that was working on prepping for Fright Fest in any sort of capacity and they were just recently told to stop. USH tried to play it smart and started construction on mazes MUCH earlier than they usually do, but it ended up not mattering anyway. I've been told from my friends that still work there that the Entertainment Director for Six Flags parks in the US had not completely closed the book on some sort of Halloween experience for the parks (and specifically Magic Mountain). However it was always going to be some butchered version of a Halloween event as there really isn't any logistical/safe way to do Fright Fest at full scale. And let's be honest, does anyone really think that Six Flags could pull of a decent COVID friendly Halloween event when they can't even pull of a decent Fright Fest? Here's to hoping that at this time next year we'll be looking back at this as a bad memory and not a current nightmare.
  7. I'm really looking forward to The Habit replacing Smashburger. Smashburger (at this specific location, I haven't been to other locations) really sucked. So far CityWalk has been dead, but that's to be expected since not much is open yet. I'm surprised that we haven't heard an official opening date for the park since Disneyland already announced, but the park has been ramping up in person staffing levels so I wouldn't be surprised if an opening date is too far away.
  8. Seriously troubling times are ahead for Magic Mountain. Six Flags did not take a page out of the Universal and Disney playbook and instead told all of their non full time employees (which is everyone except for managers, sales people, and most maintenance people) to instead file for unemployment. The park is also discussing layoffs for an already understaffed maintenance team. Hopefully COVID-19 is wrangled under control quickly as Six Flags was already doing pretty poorly before this hit, otherwise we might see a repeat of 2008-2009 for the park and the company...
  9. Why hasn't this narrative died already? WCR was a comedy of errors, not some massive and complicated project. I haven't seen this rumor anywhere, but that would be awesome. Everything I've seen so far has pointed to a Mack Power Loop/Splash, which sounds pretty cool as well and the park really needs a new water ride.
  10. Six Flags has always tried to keep their overhead low by not having too many 'non essential' parts in stock since it could be years before those parts are technically 'paid' for, which sucks but that's the way Six Flags has chosen to do business for better or (definitely) for worse. I need to correct my statement when I said that the park doesn't have a budget for the LSMs, they actually do have a budget for them, but it's really small and they blow through it every year. They lose more motors than they repair so they can't keep up with it and end up moving motors around on the track and under-powering the remaining ones. It's also cheaper for the park to wait until they have a decent amount that need to be replaced and buy them all at once. To my knowledge Intamin doesn't actually support the motors as it was a contracted part and the park has been in turn contracting a highly specialized mechanic that repairs them (and since it's so specialized it's quite a bit of money). At the end of the day the park would need a LOT more budget allocated to the maintenance of the LSMs than they currently have, so if the park can get more motors at a discount (even if they are used), they're going to jump on that chance. Dreamworld's motors would be giving Superman a new lease on life at a pretty good discount. **Speculation time** I'm not even sure that down the line if the park/company will ever spend the necessary money for Superman; we might end up down to one side permanently as motors start to get cannibalized from one side of the track to feed the other. This is possibly the slow death of the ride and Dreamworld's motors are prolonging it for a bit. Unless they can come up with another gimmick like they did in 2011 where they can market it again as a 'new' experience and justify higher expenses for a tangible ROI, the ride has a limited lease on life IMO. I'm not even sure if I'd miss Superman for anything other than its historical value. **/End speculation time** Overall I find the business decisions that Magic Mountain makes very fascinating as they constantly seem to have a chicken and egg problem they're always on the wrong side of.
  11. Superman closes to save money during slower times. This has been a common practice for the past few winters. I think this was already covered, but one of the ride electrician supervisors has been tasked with procuring the working LSMs from Dreamworld in Australia now that Tower of Terror is closed. Hopefully we'll see all of the LSMs actually working at some point in the future and the ride actually (reliably) goes 100mph again... They have had a lot of LSMs go bad over the past few years and Six Flags doesn't allocate the budget to have them replaced/remanufactured so getting a bunch of 'still good' LSMs from Dreamworld could definitely extend the lifespan of Superman. And yes, maintenance intentionally under-powers the working motors to not stress them so that the motors' lifespan is extended. The park sill could (and does) launch the ride at 100mph, at least empty, but they would be killing a lot more motors a lot quicker if they were consistently doing full power launches.
  12. I am also glad that the area is getting a well overdue face lift, but the only new building in the area that isn't WCR itself is the restroom building. Also, installing footers in a flat area with little to no conduit, drainage, or sewage rerouting isn't difficult. WCR didn't even need a full size crane to do any of the work, they just rented truck cranes and boom lifts to install the supports and track. Tatsu was many orders of magnitude more difficult to construct. I don't know where this alternative narrative has come from (and I'm not singling out thrillseeker4552 I've seen this posted around a lot lately), but Six Flags doesn't really deserve credit they deserve blame. The construction of WCR has been a comedy of errors. The park has proven over and over again that they are incapable of sticking to construction timelines. Twisted Colossus is the only 'new' ride addition in the last 8-9 years that has actually opened on time and that was because the general contractor on the project was RMC themselves.
  13. 10 years is a completely fair amount of time to have a new system installed for. My point is that Six Flags, especially the current management, hold the purse strings very tight and they would not have invested in the large systems and labor cost associated with redoing Viper's control system unless it was sticking around for more than two or three years. Also, the controls engineers and subcontractors have absolutely done offsite systems integration, that's standard for the industry. However based on recent controls installations at the park I don't see test and adjust/ride training being any shorter than two or three months. This is just speaking from experience on the last four or five projects that the park has completed so it could absolutely be faster, but I would be very surprised as this is Six Flags after all...
  14. Viper just had an entire controls system rehab. The park upgraded almost everything to bring it 'up to date' a year or so ago (when it was down for half a year). Six Flags would not willingly spend money on a backend upgrade if they planned on scrapping Viper 2 years later. Viper will most likely stick around for the foreseeable future unless something unexpected cuts its life short. In WCR news, they still haven't built the station yet. At this point I would be surprised if it wasn't delayed into 2020 now. The test and adjust period is going to be longer than a non-launched coaster due to the much more complicated controls system, and that test and adjust period doesn't come until they start actually cycling the ride.
  15. 100% this. If this was the first time that a project had been delayed than it could be excusable. The station is usually one of the first things to be (at least partially) constructed on a roller coaster build. All of the roller coaster's electrical is usually run into the station (or somewhere close nearby). The PLC that controls the ride lives in the station. The fact that Magic Mountain is just now pouring the concrete pad for the station (after trenching it a while ago) is very telling. Premier caused the initial delay, Magic Mountain has exacerbated it. In other news, Apocalypse should be opening this weekend. The preshow has been changed up by a small, dedicated, and incredibly underpaid team at the park so I'm interested to see what they've done. I still don't know how Apocalypse fits into "The Underground" and I don't think the preshow will answer that, but at least it's a slight update.
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