AndrewRnR

Since it appears Apex sold the land a few years ago and have been leasing it could make matters a lot more complex.

And to add that is a blanket statement to apply to the market in general and even among entertainment stocks. Recession or not, a big part of it depends on the company's business model. Generally speaking regional entertainment does OK in recession periods because people are cutting back on big vacations and look for things closer to home. In SIX's case their plan to create licensing and leasing deals should set them up nicely regardless of any small dips in the economy. If/when they get the China parks online that will be a huge revenue stream for them that can help balance out softness here. They shared that the 5-7 year goal for the first China complex is upwards of 7 million guests a year. That's big revenue numbers from licensing. And overall SIX has done a great job about value perception (according to the CEO in a recent earnings call the value perception rating has never been higher from guest surveys). If things in the economy slip and you look to cut out things, they have positioned the passes at such a great value it might no longer be the first thing a family cuts when for ~125 bucks/person a year they can entertain their kids and have them feed. Compared to a movie or a sporting event, SIX is a great value. They have said as much in calls that the passes are designed to get those incremental visits from guests when they think "what should we do this weekend? oh we have passes, let's go there."

^ It is actually nearly double that as the stock did a two for one split a few years ago when it reached the 70s. So you are looking at 10x since emerging. Too Fast for Comfort, Some other bullets I would add: - Creating additional income streams with small to no investments. Their business model for park licensing deals is fantastic and is providing the company with large amounts of additional revenue. Those numbers will grow greatly once the parks open. - 2017 was the best year in the company's history for attendance and revenue, while growing EBITDA - Growing Q1 and Q4, which jsut a few years ago were very soft times for the company, now are among the strongest - Guest survey numbers are at all time high for a number of the parks - Go read up on Project 600 and 750. Would love to hear your counter point on how that is bad business. All of the above was taken from the earning calls and reports over the last year. I would recommend you listen to some of those and hear the reaction from analysts yourself, especially when you hear those same analysts on other calls. Take the Q2 earnings call -the same analysts within a few days praised Six Flags performance while greatly questioning Cedar Fair and their soft quarters. One of the analyst who was on both calls even said "your competitor isn't using weather as an excuse why are you", "why are you now creating additional revenue streams like Six Flags?" "Do you plan on growing your parks like Six Flags". Really curious on your thoughts after reading up on Project 600 and 750.

But that's exactly the point, there is more smoke than just the FB post by a blogger. Not saying the smoke is exactly for a sale but rather something is brewing. Zhonghong is broke, in trouble with the govt, leadership has assets frozen, and company about to get delisted. Then this comes out.... and shares go up. Zhonghong made some nice money off today's news. But time is up for Zhonghong. Don't disagree with anything you said (but hey the Sentinel quoted me so it isn't a waste of an article ) but I think there is a larger story brewing here. Maybe it isn't a sale, but with Zhonghong's position things are about to get interesting. You're spot on about someone would've bought them around $10 bucks - Zhonghong bought at a premium of ~22 a share. Unless it was a very strong hostile takeover, between Zhonghong at 22 and Hill Path in the high teens, a majority of the company ownership would be against selling for that low of a price. That in of itself caused analysts to question the company for conflict of interests accusing SeaWorld of not selling when low because their board is made up of Zhonghong folks who would lose big. I always thought once shares hit the $22 dollar threshold something might happen so no one in a majority ownership would lose money. We have passed that for a month or two now and Zhonghong situation back home continues to worsen. Selling to Six Flags or whoever to have Six Flags manage might sound crazy, but I think something will be happening in coming weeks and Zhonghong is at the end of the line.

I'll say what I said in the SEAS thread: Buying SEAS? No way. Not feasible. Licensing/partnership/management deals since Zhonghong is in quite a bit of hot water right now... not far fetched.

Buying SEAS? No way. Not feasible. Licensing/partnership/management deals since Zhonghong is in quite a bit of hot water right now... not far fetched.

Nice trip report. Has me excited to go this weekend for the first time to this event. Unfortunately the weather isn't looking great and your sudden evening closure has me worried. Anyone know what the thresholds are for them to close the coasters? Looking like light rain and 50 degrees around 7pm on Saturday.

Not to pile on more but I did an ACE trip recently and the whole time I kept thinking back to the TPR trip I did. We didn't find out the schedule until we checked in at the hotel on day 1, ERT was a hot mess (sure there is a language piece but still) in the sense the park thought we wanted it on the SLC. They had that up and running but not the RMC (which was marketed as big part of the trip). Then the one park on the trip they revealed to us on the bus they could never get a hold of and there was a chance it was closed. They almost didn't go to it but enough of us were like "we have nothing better to do the rest of the day can we at least try?" It was open go figure. The one day they had local sightseeing scheduled, the trip planners decided they had to do some errands such as drop off paperwork for the next day's park so instead of seeing the places we were suppose to the buses were stuck in traffic going to the park we were going to the next day but just to drop off paperwork. The three buses and 100+ people had to give up seeing the biggest sights in the city because one person had to drop off paperwork. To me the biggest difference was how nimble TPR trips were. You guys are clearly travel experts who know if X happens we can do Y and Z. Where is every road bump we hit on the trip they had no idea what do, whereas on the TPR when something happened you guys already had a backup plan or ideas ready. Like when GeForce broke during ERT, unplanned exclusive beer time started minutes later.

^ They mention biggest on the teaster page: https://www.wildadventures.com/plan-your-visit/new-for-2019 Could totally see it being a complete marketing gimmick in saying biggest (since that could mean so many things) but interesting none the less.

The park is teasing "something wild" is coming for 2019 and it will be their biggest announcement yet. They are announcing tomorrow (Sept 13th) morning. Haven't heard any rumors at all - any guesses?

Bingo. The fact they accept advertising dollars from those up for awards says it all. The parks know they won before hand because they get a phone call or email or whatever asking to pay money to run an ad with their award. And I think that is why Knoebels always wins a few things - because they know they can call up Dick and he'll buy an ad and will show up to the awards show. Instead of if Epcot won best food (as it probably should), Disney isn't likely going to send a rep and won't buy an ad (fun fact: Disney is the only park that won an award, Tower of Terror, and didn't buy ad space...) and they certainly aren't going to post over social or issue a press release about it.

No need to scratch your head - ACE held their big annual convention at SFA/KD/BGW this year. If you look rides at all three parks ranked much higher this year than in past years. Also have to assume that the big ACE event at Silver Dollar City in the spring likely helped Time Traveler get the bump up to almost take over SV as best new ride. Every year it is same story - wherever the big ACE event is those rides rank differently, which would tell me they need to change up their pool of voters. I just want to know who was the 5% that voted Wacky Taxi as best new ride. It wasn't like the top roller coasters where you rank your type 5 new rides for the year (in that case I could see some people having it in top 5 perhaps), the option literally was pick best new ride and 5% selected Wacky Taxi. Sure it is a great ride but c'mon. I did see a PA local news story about Phoenix winning best wood coaster and dared to read the comments. Most of the comments were people going "wait, how?" "that ride won? it isn't the best". The results didn't even pass the sniff test of the "general public" readers of the local paper.

I've seen other parks with that type of system and it works great - I think the park has to have some reason because no only are they not building them they've removed bins from several ride platforms. They had bins on Magnum's platform for what 10+ years? People rode with loose articles for 25 years? Now a locker is needed? My guess is maybe they get some insurance credit for putting up these signs and trying to force leaving items - this is same chain that installed seat belts on every ride. To me the frustrating piece is the lack of consistent policy between rides and years. Magnum had bins for years but doesn't now and requires locking items up, yet Maverick which is equally as intense still has bins. Rougarou there is bins - but only for shoes. They make you leave for line if you try to put anything else in the bin - if there is space for items why can't I leave my phone or hat there? So if a guest rode Rougarou, Magnum, Maverick and then went to SV it would've been 4 different polices on 4 different coasters.

After losing my wallet once on a coaster (it was secured in my back pocket - still not sure how it happened) I usually always put my phone, wallet, keys, etc in a locker or station bin but the problem I have with this is when you are expecting 2-3 hour lines let me have my phone. I know, I know we all did just fine waiting in line without phones for many years but still. While on the subject, was disappointed there was no drinking fountain or vending machines in the line. Coupled with the lack of shade (probably felt worse with the line moving so slow - being stuck in-between the few shade structures), waiting for SV is miserable. After 2 hours in the heat I would've given anything to have a bottle of water. Honestly I think you have a better chance of people not taking items on the ride if you provide bins vs make people try to sneak things on. Props to BGT for having small phone-only boxes at several of the coaster stations.

As much as I love staying "on-property", I have to throw out a recommendation for AirBnB (and I'm not one to usually stay in them). Sandusky only recently (as in last year or two) started to allow vacation rentals and there are tons of great options for good prices. Myself along with some friends just rented a house down Chaussee (the "other" causeway to the park) a few weekends back. The cost per night was less than the deluxe cabins at Lighthouse Point and our house was probably 2,000 square feet, had 8 beds, deck, full kitchen, etc. It was maybe a 5 minute drive tops from the park. There are other rentals closer to the park (including some of the houses you see when in the parking lot) that are a little smaller but still around that 400-500 a night price point (which is cheaper in many cases than Lighthouse Point). Downtown Sandusky also has some great condos on the water that we looked at renting opting to be closer to the park but that might be an option. As for Lighthouse Point itself - while it does what it needs to do and are not bad, they are very small, including the deluxe cabin. My family group of 8 last year felt really tight in the deluxe cabin. The disappointing piece was that there was no area big enough to seat more than 6 people to gather around to eat, drink or play a game. Hence why we went with the AirBnB this year. Honestly the walk back to some of the cabins was almost just as long, if not longer than what it took to drive the half a mile to our AirBnB rental.

I don't think they care. I know a lot of people in regional parks laugh at the numbers by how off they are (though I've heard with the bigger chains they take it more serious and the numbers are closer - Universal forced them to republish the report when they were drastically off back in early 2000s). With Kings Island it was a clear lack of research on TEA's part. CF announced it was the best year since 1998 on the earnings call. Then you add in the extra 25+ days of WinterFest and it would've made it one of the best ever. TEA just likely isn't listening to all the earning calls because they had a few other years since 1998 as higher than 2017.

I'm actually surprised at the reaction to Wall Street as I don't see as much concern as Wall Street and some fans think. Here's why: - They are wrapping on a very strong Q1/Q2 in 2017. They stated Kings Island had record April and May last year in prior earnings call. Without a new ride it will be tough to wrap on that. Sure you had new ride at KD for the whole quarter but it had problems and bad press. And KD doesn't do the numbers KI does. - RailBlazer just opened. - Weather. Yeah, its the "easy" excuse. But let's not forget the horrible cold & wet start to season Kings Dominion had. I believe there was some earlier closings in there due to that. Same with Carowinds and Kings Island in April. Also, Memorial Day was quite rainy for a better part of the east coast. - Not wrapping on same for same hotels. Sandcastle Suites is gone. Sure last year Breakers was missing the smaller Bon Air wing, but not have 170+ rooms at CP suites prices does hurt the bottom line. I believe average daily rate was around 200-400 a room vs. Bon Air which was usually under 200/250. - Steel Vengeance. The crash, the closures, the issues, etc were all over the news in the core markets. Detroit TV stations were even running stories the one day it closed for testing in late May. But mainly I think it pushed people to later in season. Also look at the Frontier Hoedown they did. That likely didn't count as gate clicks - if you didn't have the event that's probably 10-15k more in attendance you would've saw in the first few weeks. I know several people with passes that went to that, then didn't go again for another month or so. Also, you lost all that easy FastLane+ revenue for a few weeks. Someday I'd love to try to do a deep dive into the impact of sports team on attendance. No surprise one of the best years for regional parks was '94 when MLB was on strike. May seem like a stretch to say KD and CP lost entertainment dollars (or even days from people wanting to stay home and watch games) due to playoff runs. Kings Island's GM confirmed last year's number was much higher than what was reported by TEA. I believe by about 300k - 2017 was their best year since the record year like 20 years back (again according to the GM).

Good time to remind everyone of the coaster's past. It was closed last year by the state due to safety violations. How or why the ride reopened last year is a big question mark. Source: http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20170521/uncertain-future-facing-daytona-beachs-boardwalk-rides

I've heard rumors the event will be shifted till June this year so if you are planning a trip just for the BBQ festival I'd wait a little longer if possible to ensure you book when the event is.

I don't think Steel Vengeance had anything to do with it. They have been really cracking down on parking back there. When I stayed at Lighthouse Point this year and was walking over for early entry they had someone at the entrance to each Lighthouse Point lot and the Shores lot not allowing traffic in. They were telling people Shores parking wasn't open yet. I think this has more to do with Ouimet's focus on the beach and driving revenue there through the events and F&B offerings they do there. Once the park closes there is no real way for day guests to get from beach back to their car (besides the tiny shuttle) - this will be that solve. I would bet big money we'll see a F&B location (hopefully more B then F...) on the beach as part of this.

I beg to differ. It's quite obvious Six Flags was incredibly cheap this year. The chain as a whole spent around 50 million as supposed to the 75 million number that was being thrown around. They may not see a big profit at a few of the parks. Not sure how you are doing the math - they said 2018 capital totals would be close to the prior totals. We'll know the exact number soon, but I'd guess this year is around 100 million. I think you are underestimating how much some of the flat rides cost. I remember Maxair at Cedar Point costing somewhere around 8-10 million and that was back 10+ years ago.

Wow - why two coasters closed? Especially Ride of Steel? Going on Monday for first time and this has me worried.

That's not always the case. I think it happened in a few cases but The Gravity Group has partnered with M&V for construction for many of past projects (not Mine Blower) but they wouldn't let non experienced people build the rides.

Was able to ride Mine Blower today. Here's some of my thoughts: - Overall fun ride, super compact layout is great design - First drop has really great airtime - Inversion I thought could be a marketing gimmick but was the highlight- lots of airtime (throws you out going up, and you remain out of seat during upside down part) - About halfway through ride there is a bigger hill that somewhat kills off some speed. What would've been a great double down is OK - Timberliners... This is where I felt the ride suffered. The ride isn't rough like say Gwazi but I didn't find it smooth like Mystic Timbers or even White Lightning. It's not that it's beat you up rough, but rather the trains seem to spend a lot of the ride trying to find the track. Quite a bit of shuffling and bouncing for a brand new ride. Will average Joe notice? No - it isn't a deal breaker at all. But if you just ride Mystic Timbers or even White Lightning you can probably notice the difference. I'm not expert but if you watch the video another site posted of the wheels you can see them constantly bounce off the rails - whereas I thought Timberliners were suppose to almost hug the track. Overall a great addition - just perhaps not as great as some of us built it up to be. But that's ok because it's still a fun ride.

Interesting stuff - thanks for sharing. Were you there when Ed Hart spoke? I read elsewhere that he said they are still evaluating what to do based on how attendance has been as they don't want to rack up the debt. To me that sounds like they want to pull the trigger on a bigger project but want to be absolutely sure they can get the numbers right from an investment perspective. Perhaps this season has been softer and they are trying to understand why?