Six Flags America (SFA) Discussion Thread

[Highridin]

 

But if you think about it, the way to curtail the "reputation" issue is to make the park more upscale, and a better destination park, so that you can charge a lot more. Really, what kills SFA is how cheap the season passes are. The sticker price for a single day admission isn't that low. Then after discounts, the price comes to within a range that it's expected and reasonable. But when you have a season pass that's $10 more than the sticker price of a single admission ticket, it just gives lower income families a cheap babysitting option for the summer. And those kids just cause trouble and don't spend money at the park. The business reason for why they give away the season passes is to get people into the park more so they'll buy food, pay for the parking, and pay for the games, etc. But obviously you're not getting that with that customer base.

 

The best way for SFA to be more solvent, would be to either do away with the season passes, or price them at 4-5 times the price of a single day ticket, and maybe throw in a coupon book to make it a little more appealing.

 

And not that I've seen any park do this, but I think it would also be a cool idea if they required any kid under the age of 18 to be accompanied by an adult. It would help save the park from liability, and help curtail the mischief and misbehavior. Also encourage a customer base that has disposable money to spend.

 

If they did anything close to this stupidity, it's definitely goodbye SFA.

 

Well thanks for calling my idea stupid without even providing justifications for it. I postsed a well thought out multi-paragraph business plan while you spouted out a sentence of vulgarity. Way to go.

 

The word, "stupid" is "vulgar"? I learned something new today.

 

I think that its not logical or right to attack a person's character when you disagree with what they say. It makes more sense to try to look at the argument and try to improve it or create counterpoints. You should probably know that calling somebody "stupid" or saying something is "stupid" without saying why is going to push buttons and is not going to come across well. Just thought that I would help you out there.

 

For example, when I was talking about increasing the price of season passes, people created a counter point where they mentioned that they would not pay $400 for a season pass, so my idea might not be practical for the real world.

 

I appreciate this argument, and appreciate the time they took to write it. However, the argument was fallacious.

 

Primarily, their math was faulty. I was talking about a multiple of 4-5 based on the expected price that somebody would pay at a park after normal discounts. SFA is $70 sticker price at the gate... in name only. You can buy online and get tickets for $45, and probably find even better discounts elsewhere without looking too hard. Maybe somebody can double check the facts on that, but with soda cans, online discounts, etc. only fools really pay for the full stick price. So let's assume $45. Now let's assume a multiplier of 4.5.

 

4.5x42=$202.50.

 

Yes, its a high cost, but not anywhere near 400. And if you don't want to pay that, that's a good thing. As I was saying, a main problem for the lack of profitability at parks like SFA is the cheap season pass cost. You can buy an SFA season pass for $62, plus this comes with perks, coupons, exlusive stuff, etc. So maybe the raw component of the entry to the parks is something like $52. Let's say that they go 8x a year. The park is making $6.50 a visit off of you. Not very good. Those are rookie numbers. You have to pump those numbers up if you want to make money, and put it back into the park. I think that to make the kind of margins that they want, they need to think in terms of revenue earned per visit per guest. There is a limited capacity at the park, and they need to maximize their earnings per visit, while managing costs. If fewer guests who are cheapskates choose to not get season passes, great! If they choose to not buy individual tickets, great! If they choose not to go, you probably weren't going to be making much money off of them anyways.

 

 

 

Sources:

 

https://www.sixflags.com/america/store/season-passes

https://www.sixflags.com/america/store/tickets

 

SMH, not a big deal whatsoever. Took what I said out of context, but not uncommon here.

 

Taking feelings into account, I'll say this. Walmart makes a lot of money, because they sell a lot of stuff cheap. SF is a business. Someone, somewhere with a ton of education (or maybe not) put the math together.

[Trackmaster]

 

But if you think about it, the way to curtail the "reputation" issue is to make the park more upscale, and a better destination park, so that you can charge a lot more. Really, what kills SFA is how cheap the season passes are. The sticker price for a single day admission isn't that low. Then after discounts, the price comes to within a range that it's expected and reasonable. But when you have a season pass that's $10 more than the sticker price of a single admission ticket, it just gives lower income families a cheap babysitting option for the summer. And those kids just cause trouble and don't spend money at the park. The business reason for why they give away the season passes is to get people into the park more so they'll buy food, pay for the parking, and pay for the games, etc. But obviously you're not getting that with that customer base.

 

The best way for SFA to be more solvent, would be to either do away with the season passes, or price them at 4-5 times the price of a single day ticket, and maybe throw in a coupon book to make it a little more appealing.

 

And not that I've seen any park do this, but I think it would also be a cool idea if they required any kid under the age of 18 to be accompanied by an adult. It would help save the park from liability, and help curtail the mischief and misbehavior. Also encourage a customer base that has disposable money to spend.

 

If they did anything close to this stupidity, it's definitely goodbye SFA.

 

Well thanks for calling my idea stupid without even providing justifications for it. I postsed a well thought out multi-paragraph business plan while you spouted out a sentence of vulgarity. Way to go.

 

The word, "stupid" is "vulgar"? I learned something new today.

 

I think that its not logical or right to attack a person's character when you disagree with what they say. It makes more sense to try to look at the argument and try to improve it or create counterpoints. You should probably know that calling somebody "stupid" or saying something is "stupid" without saying why is going to push buttons and is not going to come across well. Just thought that I would help you out there.

 

For example, when I was talking about increasing the price of season passes, people created a counter point where they mentioned that they would not pay $400 for a season pass, so my idea might not be practical for the real world.

 

I appreciate this argument, and appreciate the time they took to write it. However, the argument was fallacious.

 

Primarily, their math was faulty. I was talking about a multiple of 4-5 based on the expected price that somebody would pay at a park after normal discounts. SFA is $70 sticker price at the gate... in name only. You can buy online and get tickets for $45, and probably find even better discounts elsewhere without looking too hard. Maybe somebody can double check the facts on that, but with soda cans, online discounts, etc. only fools really pay for the full stick price. So let's assume $45. Now let's assume a multiplier of 4.5.

 

4.5x42=$202.50.

 

Yes, its a high cost, but not anywhere near 400. And if you don't want to pay that, that's a good thing. As I was saying, a main problem for the lack of profitability at parks like SFA is the cheap season pass cost. You can buy an SFA season pass for $62, plus this comes with perks, coupons, exlusive stuff, etc. So maybe the raw component of the entry to the parks is something like $52. Let's say that they go 8x a year. The park is making $6.50 a visit off of you. Not very good. Those are rookie numbers. You have to pump those numbers up if you want to make money, and put it back into the park. I think that to make the kind of margins that they want, they need to think in terms of revenue earned per visit per guest. There is a limited capacity at the park, and they need to maximize their earnings per visit, while managing costs. If fewer guests who are cheapskates choose to not get season passes, great! If they choose to not buy individual tickets, great! If they choose not to go, you probably weren't going to be making much money off of them anyways.

 

 

 

Sources:

 

https://www.sixflags.com/america/store/season-passes

https://www.sixflags.com/america/store/tickets

 

SMH, not a big deal whatsoever. Took what I said out of context, but not uncommon here.

 

Taking feelings into account, I'll say this. Walmart makes a lot of money, because they sell a lot of stuff cheap. SF is a business. Someone, somewhere with a ton of education (or maybe not) put the math together.

 

But Six Flags is not a very solvent firm. They were delisted at one put from the NYSE, with the season pass issue being one of the key problems. They had Dan Snyder from the Washington Re***ns as the head of the board at one point.

 

I think taking an approach where you view the product as a commodity and trying to reduce costs is fine for retail, and maybe for airline flights, but I don't see it being the best approach for the entertainment industry. I think that you make money by attracting upscale customers who are willing to pay more, and cutting out the riff raff.

[CoasterAuditor]

^

 

Soooo whose excited for Wahoo River? I definitely think that will be a good upgrade to the water park. I have not been to SFA in 10 years I hope to break that streak this year.

[Jason Maier]

^

 

Soooo whose excited for Wahoo River? I definitely think that will be a good upgrade to the water park. I have not been to SFA in 10 years I hope to break that streak this year.

 

What the hell . . . . I think I'll enjoy it. Sometimes, DC area summer days can get way hot/humid . . . so cooling off would be nice

[Highridin]

I'm actually looking forward to the extra deck space. Also, the upgrades to the water park will be great.

[Rollercoaster Rider]

Better addition than Busch Gardens Williamsburg

 

At least SFAm will have all their rides open.

[larrygator]

The best way for SFA to be more solvent, would be to either do away with the season passes, or price them at 4-5 times the price of a single day ticket, and maybe throw in a coupon book to make it a little more appealing.

 

Sorry. I'm late to the game in commenting on this. I completely agree with this except the multiple of 4-5 times. However, SFA can't operate in a vacuum without SF Corporate.

 

I agree because I see what Cedar Fair did.

 

10 years ago - A $100 pass from any Cedar Fair park used to allow you entry into any CF park. Cedar Fair bit the bullet and took a lot of pushback and criticism from the enthusiast community a few years ago when they started selling their platinum pass. They kept the individual park season passes priced at around $100 (about 2.5 to 3 times a discounted admission ticket). The Platinum Pass became a $100 surcharge. The enthusiast community lost their sh!t because they were being wronged. Oh the outrage, many said they would never visit CF parks again.

 

The present - Most people realize that paying an additional $100 for a CF Platinum Pass practically pays for itself in one visit to a 2nd park, since parking is free. Enthusiasts that spent over $200 for the Platinum Pass start trying to visit more CF parks. When they make these additional side trips they realize they want to maximize their day and they potentially buy a Fast Pass (or add a multi-day stay at Cedar Point). The $200 they spent months ago is a distant memory, so they only consider the price of the Fast Lane into today's trip spending.

 

As more money is spent in the off-season on next year's season passes, the corporation's earning extend into the quarters that used to extremely unprofitable. This provides more shareholders with money and more money for parks to improve. FYI is you bought 50 shares of Cedar Fair in 2009 for a total of $500, they would be valued at $3,500 today and you would also be getting dividend checks in the amount of $180 this year, almost enough to buy a Platinum Pass.

 

Even though SF and shown similar corporate stock price growth to CF since 2010, CF has almost twice the earnings per share as SF due to their pricing structure. Since 2010 Cedar Fair had to dig themselves out of a huge debt hole, while Chapter 11 restructuring saved Six Flags.

[bill_s]

^^-- Platinum is over $100 more and it's a better deal to just get seperate passes for 2 parks. It becomes a deal if you go to 3 parks, and even then really you need to go to 2 of them more than once.

 

I'm not buying that SF passes are so cheap. A special on 4 passes is not the same at all. I know personally only 2 people that bought a set, and both went only once themselves and rode one ride, for different reasons. When you start stretching it to get a "deal" it happens like that. I wouldn't count discounts on merchandise a discount on the pass either, it tends to be they come out ahead. I never used any of them.

[larrygator]

^^-- Platinum is over $100 more and it's a better deal to just get seperate passes for 2 parks. It becomes a deal if you go to 3 parks, and even then really you need to go to 2 of them more than once.

 

Gold Pass is about $120, Platinum Pass is about $220. Doesn't make sense to buy two Gold Pass for two parks.

 

 

I'm not buying that SF passes are so cheap.

 

By what metric are they not cheap. What other park chain allows unlimited visits to all park for that low a price? What other individual park allows unlimited visits to one park for a lower price? Where can you buy a cheaper pass? If you can't buy a cheaper season pass somewhere else, than the Six Flags passes are cheap!

[djackson]

I don't think that Six Flags raising there Pass prices would equivalate to them adding massive B&M's and providing a park experience like Cedar Fair does.

[Trackmaster]

^^-- Platinum is over $100 more and it's a better deal to just get seperate passes for 2 parks. It becomes a deal if you go to 3 parks, and even then really you need to go to 2 of them more than once.

 

I'm not buying that SF passes are so cheap. A special on 4 passes is not the same at all. I know personally only 2 people that bought a set, and both went only once themselves and rode one ride, for different reasons. When you start stretching it to get a "deal" it happens like that. I wouldn't count discounts on merchandise a discount on the pass either, it tends to be they come out ahead. I never used any of them.

 

You sound like a 70 year old marketing guy at a board meeting. I'd imagine that the absurdly low cost of season passes compared to the price of tickets come down to two assumptions/philosophies:

 

1. People are going to buy a season pass and forget about them. They go once, and forget to ever go ago, so on those customers, you make 20-30% more than if you just sold them a one day ticket.

2. You consider the admission price to be the price leader because you actually want to make money on parking, arcade games, Flash Pass sales, food, upcharge attractions, etc.

 

Personally, I don't agree with these philosphies, and I think that analytic, numbers savvy, and tech savvy 25-30 year olds would have these people for lunch. Here's the reality:

1. Some people may buy the season passes and forget about them, but the reality is that many people do go 10-15, bringing their price per visit to less than $8 a visit in some cases. Sure, they may not have gone that many times if they were paying out of pocket, but they're still using your facilities, adding congestion to the park, increasing your insurance, etc. There are many variable costs that go into a park experience. And one of the main problems that "rough" parks like SFA has is that lower income families buy $60 season passes for their kids, and drop them off at the park all summer. The park makes no money, and gets a reputation, because 12-17 year old kids act like... well you know kids. They don't listn to rules, they make scenes, and they have no money.

2. Bringing me to my next point. If you think that somebody, or a family is cheap enough to pay $60 a head on season passes to a crappy park, and to keep coming back all year, what do you think that the chances are that they are buying a lot of your overpriced stuff? Don't think too long or hard on that one.

 

I just in general follow a business strategy of trying to stay as close to paying per item of service as possible, without being a pig about it (I can see the problems with a Spirit Airlines style of marketing). In general, I'd try to charge per visit, I'm mostly against the season passes, but I may allow the if they're costly enough to make them worth my while. If it were up to me, I'd charge per ride, and have a modest admission price too, but I'd see what my board thought as well, people have an emotional attachment to paying one price for an admission all day it seems sadly. I think that with technology, we could easily use a fingerprint recognition or wrist-band system to ensure that all rides are rationed and accounted for. If people had to ration the number of rides, it would help with congestion and wait time. If people are just binging on rides for free, we're not appropriately rationing number of rides by priority.

[Trackmaster]

I don't think that Six Flags raising there Pass prices would equivalate to them adding massive B&M's and providing a park experience like Cedar Fair does.

 

Its a pretty simple economic concept. There are two ways to make money in business. You can present your product as a commodity and earn a profit off of a large volume and reducing costs to as low as possible. Or you try to differentiate your product and offer something at a premium, and you hope to earn a profit by having a higher sales price, while understanding that you may be limited by a smaller potential customer base and with higher operating expenses.

 

The lower and lower that SF prices their season passes and single day tickets after normal discounts, the more that they rely on the fact that their customers don't mind a cheap, bland user experience, and don't mind that no coasters of quality tend to be built. They're happy riding the lazy river most of the day, and maybe stopping in for a whirl on the scrambler, or SROS. Why not?

 

But if you start putting money into the park, you'll raise prices. You'll drive out the non-serious visitor, those of lower socio-economic statuses (who are probably great people who you get to know them despite the fact that they've been down on their luck by birthright), and the "Basic B." But with their absence, you'll attract people who are starving for a great experience and will save up to go, or those who have high levels of discretionary income, where spending for them is just a status symbol. Those people aren't going to accept old, worn out clones and lazy rivers. They want elite B&M coasters, and preferably RMC's.

 

In my mind, you get what you pay for. If you are OK with paying $8 a visit, ride your Vekoma garbage and leave us alone. If you want RMC and new generation B&M original designs, you might have to pay a little more.

 

Ironicaly, the Greatest Designers of Our Generation seem to be mostly at SFI parks. Clearly they haven't rescued SFA yet, but it seems like the parks that RMC have been going to take their parks seriously, and are interested in the future, and not accepting mediocrity.

[Highridin]

Hmm, sounds a little elitist, but I digress. Many businesses, even a few powerhouses have found themselves out of business or suffering, because of years of overcharging people.

 

Though I do not agree fully, your charge per ride idea is interesting. Kind of like a carnival. Though, I do not think they could get away with charging at the gate, and on the rides.

[Trackmaster]

Hmm, sounds a little elitist, but I digress. Many businesses, even a few powerhouses have found themselves out of business or suffering, because of years of overcharging people.

 

Though I do not agree fully, your charge per ride idea is interesting. Kind of like a carnival. Though, I do not think they could get away with charging at the gate, and on the rides.

 

I think that outside of pure seasonal carnivals, many parks who charges per ride also charge at the gate too. Many of the small beach parks come to mind. But that may be a dying breed too, I think that many of them are switching to free admission. I'd personally want to have something keeping people out, so they weren't taking in my intoxicating atmosphere for free.

 

I think that charging per ride is a lot more feasible too with better technology now. We have the technology to scan in using fingerprints, wristbands with chips, smartphones, or keycards -- all of which can come pre-loaded with money or preferably linked to a credit card. So there's no need to wait in line for token or tickets.

 

I'd say that in exchange for pay per ride, I'd focus the park to make money on the rides and admissions, and not so much on the hidden fees. No gouging for parking, food, souvenirs, arcade games, etc. I'd allow food in, have quality options for high end dining that were competitive to restaurants, have reasonable parking with transit busses that were chartered to population centers, and institute a Disney-like Fastpass system (but also integrate it with smart phone accounts and touchscreens across the park) where guests could reserve their spots for rides virtually for free, and no person could jump in line simply because they had more money.

 

I'd also strip out most of the non-elite coasters and rides, and make every ride an experience within themselves that were balanced and appealed to the guest with high standards. So each ride would have the same fare. No kiddie coasters, no scramblers, no wild mice, no Vekoma boomerang, etc.

[MisterBrow]

If ME is getting the better trains would they announce it on the web site or would we have spot them arriving or sitting nearby?

[JG-77]

If ME is getting the better trains would they announce it on the web site or would we have spot them arriving or sitting nearby?

 

If I remember correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong) SFNE announced that their Mind Eraser would get new trains. I would assume that if SFA's Mind Eraser was to get new train, they would have announced it somewhere. There's no point in getting Mind Eraser new trains if nobody knows that it has new trains.

[djackson]

If ME is getting the better trains would they announce it on the web site or would we have spot them arriving or sitting nearby?

 

We'd probably have to spot them sitting nearby. The Marketing team st SFA is pretty bad for the most part so I definitely wouldn't expect an announcement

[JG-77]

If ME is getting the better trains would they announce it on the web site or would we have spot them arriving or sitting nearby?

 

We'd probably have to spot them sitting nearby. The Marketing team st SFA is pretty bad for the most part so I definitely wouldn't expect an announcement

 

I would expect that SF corporate wouldn't fund new trains unless SFA made some sort of announcement or at least some sort of informal recognition (like on the website or at least on social media). I'm ~98% sure that mind eraser will not see new trains in 2018.

[Trackmaster]

If ME is getting the better trains would they announce it on the web site or would we have spot them arriving or sitting nearby?

 

If I remember correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong) SFNE announced that their Mind Eraser would get new trains. I would assume that if SFA's Mind Eraser was to get new train, they would have announced it somewhere. There's no point in getting Mind Eraser new trains if nobody knows that it has new trains.

 

I mean you would hope that the park wouldn't put more money into that ride and double down on it. Its a 20+ year old SLC. Wouldn't it be better to invest in a modern, innovative coaster?

[coasterbill]

I would give this "Mind Eraser getting new trains" thing a 0% chance of happening simply because it's Six Flags America, but it's not fair to act like it's a choice between new Mind Eraser trains or a brand new coaster. While we don't have the exact figures, it's reasonable to assume that getting new trains for Mind Eraser is dramatically cheaper.

 

That said, I don't see either of those 2 things happening.

[ScreaminNewEngland]

If ME is getting the better trains would they announce it on the web site or would we have spot them arriving or sitting nearby?

 

If I remember correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong) SFNE announced that their Mind Eraser would get new trains. I would assume that if SFA's Mind Eraser was to get new train, they would have announced it somewhere. There's no point in getting Mind Eraser new trains if nobody knows that it has new trains.

 

They told us the the ACE winter event that they had purchased new restraints for it but nothing was ever announced to the public about it.

 

Ours is apparently getting the Riddler re-theme this year up in New England.

[djackson]

 

Ours is apparently getting the Riddler re-theme this year up in New England.

 

What are you saying?

[MisterBrow]

That said, I don't see either of those 2 things happening.

 

 

How about a path, three trees, or a bathroom in back? They could add VR to any or all of them.

[livai]

https://static.sixflags.com/website/files/sfA18_park_map_and_guide.pdf

new map available, I do not see roads, or new built bathrooms

[Trackmaster]

I would give this "Mind Eraser getting new trains" thing a 0% chance of happening simply because it's Six Flags America, but it's not fair to act like it's a choice between new Mind Eraser trains or a brand new coaster. While we don't have the exact figures, it's reasonable to assume that getting new trains for Mind Eraser is dramatically cheaper.

 

That said, I don't see either of those 2 things happening.

 

My point was that I don't want them putting a long-term investment into a coaster that I wouldn't want to be in the long-term plans. If the park keeps the Minderaser for another 6-8 years, you're gonna have a bad time.