Manic Monte

Wow...very similar to The Joker at SFDK.

Went to USH and it was the same thing. So slammed that you couldn't even by tickets online by 10 am. I can't even imagine how bad Disney was...

Agreed. But I'd bet my hat that the Bourn Stuntacular is on it's way to Hollywood.

They can't have been making money though. The park is a ghost town that time of year.

I love Knott's, but the experience is inconsistent at best. Operations are painfully slow, and employees are not friendly at all. It is well kept though, something that can't be said for SFMM.

And that's where my theory comes into play. I wasn't being facetious. If this isn't solved soon, the company will need an alternative cash flow to pay down debt. Bringing in a new CEO at this point may stop the bleeding, but won't heal the wound. I can't see a way out of this without selling some asset. With California currently being the absolute worst place to do business right now, to me this makes SFMM and SFDK the most vulnerable. And I don't think anyone would miss either park

That's not controversial at all. I'd actually say SFMM is the next CGA. In 10 years it will be sold and closed.

I agree. You can already see the ripple affect all across US parks. Where’s the 25 million dollar B&M? 30 million dollar Intamin? No one is building that. Instead parks are either rebranding current rides or finishing rides that are already on the books. That’ll happen after a pandemic and economic down turn. You can look back in the thread from 2008/2009 and see a similar SF situation and park’s building family rides or nothing at all.

Agreed. I used that park as an example for a reason. Pricing aside ( because pricing can always be adjusted), it's a park that used to feel cookie cutter and out of focus when it was my homepark. And I enjoy it far more today.

I don't disagree with this, and is exactly the point! You can be regional and still offer a quality product. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Everyone DID expect it, including the CEO who was the first to predict it.

SFMM has never had good leadership that sticks around more than a year. Everytime they do the company promotes them (or runs them off). Look no further than Jeffrey Seibert at Fiesta Texas for what great leadership can do for a park. I hate the word Premium. That's not what SF should be aspiring to. Quality is a better word. They should be modeling Cedar Fair, not Disney/Universal. While I don't agree with prices being raised so much and so quickly, I do agree with the new CEO that the culture needs a face-lift. I've always hated the notion that the cheap, non spending, membership holding teen is the guest they should be courting. That any lousy guest is fine as long as they're clicking the turnstyle.

You can be a regional theme park and still offer a much better experience than SF has the last 20 years. It takes time and doesn't happen overnight. Look at the former Paramount Parks now under Cedar Fair? Kings Island, once not much better that your typical Six Flags park, is now one of the countries best. You think that happened after a year? I don't agree. I DON'T think the answer is to remain a cheap chain. These parks (especially the big 5) have so much more potential than that.

But yeah, being the original park isn't enough of a reason. It's the parks that will get the best return on investment. Disneyland is the original, but isn't anywhere near the destination of Florida or Paris.

As much as people hate Six Flags, you would think that they would be happy to watch this guy burn the whole enterprise down.

He'll have to make some adjustments for sure. But I think he's on the right track. The company needs a shift, and perhaps it needs to happen more gradually, but I'll give another year to see how/if his long term plan works out.

Well the CEO has access to more information about the parks than we do.

There is a certain amount of reality in Play here as well. You can't offer a better product without raising prices, and you can't raise prices with offering a better product. So what do you do? Nothing? Keep selling cheap season passes and a cheap experience?

Sky high parking is an old trick. Universal does this also. Raise parking to push people into buying an annual pass that includes parking. Unfortunately, this Selim dude has heavily overestimated the current interest level of Six Flags. On the plus side, I haven't enjoyed SFMM this much in years! So there's that...

I believe the restraints on these trains lift and lower along with the lap bar, unlike the Premier Collars, which attach to the bar separately.

^ Agreed. This looks like a long game play. The problem of course, if you're going to go this route, the higher ups really need to know what they're doing and need to stay the course even through sagging bottom lines and negative responses from the blogs. Can they? Can they (in a sense) turn Six Flags into the equivalent of what Cedar Fair managed to do with Kings Island and Carowinds?

Perhaps the new CEO is looking at the big overall picture and isn't glued to what is happening in a clear transitional period? The fact is, they were giving away the gate for so long, and just accepting cheap guests and bratty teenagers,and that needed to change. If you wait until all the parks are in great condition to make that change, you'll be waiting forever, as we've seen.

This all sounds really good to me. Good job Knotts.

Actually, if anyone is coming off upset, it's you.

The new CEO will be out in less than 2 years if not sooner, mark my words. SIX board of directors and shareholders are notoriously cut throat if they smell a dead fish in the water. Which is exactly why the mass firing happened. They need a scapegoat for what is coming Thursday.