The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[AmyUD06]

29 minutes ago, grsupercity said:

Cedar Fair tried on multiple occasions in the past to sell GCA. Even at Six Flag's worst times MM has never been offered for sale 

Ehh....not exactly.

Quote

2006 attempted sale

On June 22, 2006, Six Flags, Inc. announced that it was exploring options for six of its parks, including Magic Mountain and its neighboring water park, Hurricane Harbor. Though management said closing the park was unlikely, rumors still began that the park could be sold to real estate developers, with an intent to close the park and build housing developments in the area.[10] Park officials cited dwindling attendance due to rowdy behavior among some of the park-goers (notably gang members and other teenagers and young adults, who account for a large percentage of the park's attendance[citation needed]) as reasons for wanting to sell the park while management was wanting to move Six Flags into more of a family park direction. Throughout the Six Flags chain, attendance in the second quarter of 2006 was 14 percent lower than it was in the second quarter of 2005.

By the fall of 2006, Six Flags announced that Magic Mountain was still up for sale. They also stated, however, that it would be sold to a company that would continue to operate it as a park, and that closing Magic Mountain was not a possibility. Cedar Fair, Anheuser-Busch, and several others considered buying the park but none of the offers came close to the asking price.

When Six Flags announced which parks it was selling in January 2007, Magic Mountain was no longer one of them. The company decided not to sell Magic Mountain and its adjacent water park. Spokeswoman Wendy Goldberg said that upon further evaluation, the company decided that the Los Angeles parks remained too valuable to relinquish, as sales were increasing, and that the park would not be sold. Other parks were sold as a package and remained open.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Flags_Magic_Mountain#2006_attempted_sale

[coasterbill]

Magic Mountain doesn't exist in a vacuum. I'd be worried about it if these kings of things were only happening there, but operationally the chain as-a-whole is in the worst place it's been in in about 15 years. The CEO miscalculated and nobody is coming to the parks so they're scrambling to cut budget, making the product worse which makes the prices even more insane and hard for people to justify and the cycle is going to continue until someone else takes over.

[KBrylczyk]

Alright, so I'm not a business major but I do have plenty of life experience as well as a pretty strong background in ticket sales for events.  If Six Flags were to drop admission to like $20 for one day the parks would be absolutely inundated with customers.

A theater I used to work for sold tickets for anywhere from $50-$100 and we were averaging 150 seats sold per show.  We did a one-week promo for $15 tickets and we sold out of every performance offering that deal within 48 hours.

Unfortunately for everyone, though, the bean counters at practically every major leisure option break it down to profit per head.  They'd rather see one person pay $150 than ten people pay $15.  What they don't take into account is the fact that the one person who already spent $150 has no desire to spend any more money while the ten people who paid $15 have a decent amount of fun money left over to purchase food, drinks, and souvenirs.

[Rai Fox]

That's pretty much where Six Flags was under their previous leadership though, offering very cheap admission, memberships, etc, and while in general it seemed to work better than anything else in the last couple decades (comparing to the current situation, or the Snyder/Shapiro era...), that was where people started complaining about the crowds, six flags daycare, etc.  The new CEO had the brilliant idea of raising prices to bring in a "classier" crowd.  Results as seen. 

[Manic Monte]

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 

[13fishlips13]

This was my last Tuesday trip to MM. Taking my son and his friend to FF next Friday. Im going to cancel my membership as Tuesdays are my day to go. And thats not happening anymore.  Park was nice today. Ride operators were on it today. Park and bathrooms were clean. My only gripe is that they should pressure wash the puke pad just before the Tatsu train goes into the station. Every seat has a puke stain when it stops before it goes into the station. 

Full throttle 2xs

Tatsu 2xs

Viper 1

X2 1

Lex 2xs

Batman 2xs

Wonder woman 2xs

Twisted 2xs

Goliath 1

Left the park at 1:20 today.

[coasternut]

New bag policy at Magic Mountain. It seems a little extreme to me. I don't carry anything in, so I'm not effected. Just a heads up to save you a walk back to the car.

 

[ryder]

Not as extreme as Knott's bag policy, where the bags have to be less than half that size (6.5 x 4.5 x 2).

[bert425]

1 hour ago, coasternut said:

New bag policy at Magic Mountain. It seems a little extreme to me. I don't carry anything in, so I'm not effected. Just a heads up to save you a walk back to the car.

 

apparently it's only for Frightfest.  (and it's chain wide. . rolled out to all parks)

and I have zero issue with it. . . no reason to bring big bags into the park for a few hours for Frightfest. 


and yes, Medical and Diaper bags are exceptions. . but really, why would you bring a child still in diapers to Frightfest?  

[coasternut]

^ This new bag policy is for all day, not just during the fright fest hours.

[805Andrew]

^^ I think it's just through Fright Fest, but its enforced all day long and even on non Fright Fest days. Time to bust out the Lounge Fly backpacks if you have one of those, lol. 

[CedarFlags]

On 10/8/2022 at 9:14 AM, ryder said:

Not as extreme as Knott's bag policy, where the bags have to be less than half that size (6.5 x 4.5 x 2).

The Knott's bag policy is insane.  It's literally the size of an iPhone.

[leftcoaster]

Apologies if this has been asked before but can I still buy a discounted ticket for a friend using my Diamond Elite membership???

[VegasBaby]

6 minutes ago, leftcoaster said:

Apologies if this has been asked before but can I still buy a discounted ticket for a friend using my Diamond Elite membership???

You should be able to get 50% off friend tickets, that option is still listed in my account (although you have to buy them on the website or at the ticket kiosk).

[Invertalon]

Visited SFMM on the 28th and unfortunately, yet again, X2 remain closed all day. Boo. Same deal when we were there back in January, so it’s a bummer we are 1 for 3 for X2 being open when we have visited, haha.

Park was dead though, so we did ride everything else with little to no wait at all… Wonder Woman was a bit disappointing, I think I prefer the smaller raptors overall but don’t particularly like the style all that much. It just does little to nothing for me and far prefer Twisted Colossus within the park. It just feels a bit ‘carny’ ride to me, or something along those lines. I prefer a bit of refinement to my rides, or something? But I know I am an outlier with that opinion.

[hoppedup]

Was playing geoguessr this morning and got this one Easy peasy!

[SoCalJasonland]

I was thinking about driving out to MM in a couple of weeks.  Are this many of the thrill rides closed on a holiday weekend with good weather?  Only 9 of 17 or 53% of the thrill rides are open.  I can't imagine how bad it could be on non-holiday Thursday.  

 

[AmyUD06]

@SoCalJasonlandIt is the literal actual day of Thanksgiving.  I'm surprised they got anyone to work at all, and I feel absolutely terrible for everyone that has to work, since you know they're not getting anything special for holiday pay.

To your question, I would have to imagine that most "non-Holiday" Thursdays should be better staffed, but maybe not since kids are still in school.

[SoCalJasonland]

33 minutes ago, AmyUD06 said:

@SoCalJasonlandIt is the literal actual day of Thanksgiving.  I'm surprised they got anyone to work at all, and I feel absolutely terrible for everyone that has to work, since you know they're not getting anything special for holiday pay.

To your question, I would have to imagine that most "non-Holiday" Thursdays should be better staffed, but maybe not since kids are still in school.

Thanks for responding, and I will check again tomorrow.   I guess I have been spoiled.  I was used to hitting the park on a weekday pre-COVID and being the only one getting a beer at the bar, good weather, short lines despite one-train operations, seeing the same guests over and over again because you had the place to yourself, mostly everything open, etc... It wasn't financially sustainable and COVID finished it off.  You can't run a park profitably when you have more employees than guests that day.  The good days may turn lean for awhile and I am sure if sucks for everyone.   It could be expected high Santa Ana winds, cost cutting, or lack of staff but it doesn't change the outcome that the thrill ride would hopefully mostly be open.  I'll keep my membership because it is cheap but I have only been back one time since COVID re-opening and too many closed things and would probably stop by more if it wasn't a three hour round trip from the good old Inland Empire.  Too many Thanksgiving White Claws and checking out

[AmyUD06]

I think you're conflating a regular weekday and non-gathering holidays like July 4th or Labor Day with Thanksgiving, the #1 day for travel (and thus gathering) out of the year for the country.  Employees want to spend time with their families and/or loved ones.

I do think tomorrow would be a better indicator of what might be open during some future trip.

[coasternut]

I've been here all week. Their major rides: Scream, Full Throttle, Riddler, Goliath are not closed due to staffing. They are in various stages of disrepair. It's sooo sad. All the rides open late. Tuesday Wonder Woman opened at 3:45, Batman opened at 4:30. I've been told because of maintenance issues. Many of the restaurants are not open or available on the meal plan anymore.

"Bassoul the fool" (CEO) is taking his toll at this park and it's too bad. Their hours for 2023 are a real joke now. The days of 365 are long gone. Look at the new schedule just posted online.

[michaellynn4]

12 hours ago, SoCalJasonland said:

It could be expected high Santa Ana winds

[Hellocoasters]

On 11/25/2022 at 1:22 AM, coasternut said:

I've been here all week. Their major rides: Scream, Full Throttle, Riddler, Goliath are not closed due to staffing. They are in various stages of disrepair. It's sooo sad. All the rides open late. Tuesday Wonder Woman opened at 3:45, Batman opened at 4:30. I've been told because of maintenance issues. Many of the restaurants are not open or available on the meal plan anymore.

"Bassoul the fool" (CEO) is taking his toll at this park and it's too bad. Their hours for 2023 are a real joke now. The days of 365 are long gone. Look at the new schedule just posted online.

We are going to Cali in May. We were wanting to go 2 days Sunday and Monday (may 7 and 8th) looks like basically majority of Jan-May they are only open weekends (Fridays-Sundays). Does anyone know if they will add on more days in May especially when it’s so far out in advance? It sucks because with our vacation schedule only that Sunday and Monday really worked well. Now there’s like no openings at all on Mondays. 

[AmyUD06]

5 minutes ago, Hellocoasters said:

We are going to Cali in May. We were wanting to go 2 days Sunday and Monday (may 7 and 8th) looks like basically majority of Jan-May they are only open weekends (Fridays-Sundays). Does anyone know if they will add on more days in May especially when it’s so far out in advance? It sucks because with our vacation schedule only that Sunday and Monday really worked well. Now there’s like no openings at all on Mondays. 

I wouldn't trust any prediction about any Six Flags park's calendar, even what they've posted, at this point.

[ryder]

I wouldn't count on it.  And at the rate they're going, unless there's a drastic change with the current CEO, I wouldn't even expect half the rides to be open.