Six Flags [FUN] Corporate Discussion Thread

[TEDodd]

45 minutes ago, DirkFunk said:

Six Flags thinks they have a product worthy of the kind of cash outlay I had at Universal 5-6 years ago. They can believe that all they want, because I don't owe them my business for an inferior service that costs significantly more than it used to while not being any better.

Agree. SF is just not worth the new costs to me either.

I bought season passes so I could go on a whim (or while traveling for work) when they were relatively cheap. And the dining option made such visits worth while.
If the same options I had in 2021 were $10-20 more for 2022 I would have renewed all 3 of us.

But the new pricing just isn't worth it when the nearest park is 3+ hours away.
I didn't renew I 2022 an doubt I will for 2023 either.
Some special event (like a meet up) might get me in a park for a day.

I'll keep my passes to other places where there's more than just crappy, over priced food an long lines for the same old rides deteriorating.

[coasterbill]

In a way, this does feel different. Everyone hates Bob Chapek for various reasons but Disney is still selling out of reservations on a daily basis despite all of the complaints. People complain about it, but as I look now every single ride that sells Individual Lightning Lane sold out of them today so they really don’t care.

Cedar Fair made stupid decision after stupid decision last year but people still showed up and a lot of those stupid decisions actually benefited the consumer. Not all, but many did.

Six Flags is doing things that people don’t like and absolutely nobody is going to their parks. They actually are getting blowback for it, but for whatever reason they’re doubling down and raising prices some more. The fact that there’s no indication of any self awareness on their part is alarming.

[Manic Monte]

6 hours ago, DirkFunk said:

Their CEO came in and decided that he would do the Mark Shapiro thing of "cut costs, increase prices" which would in turn generate bigger revenue numbers. The open letter brings up the Mark Shapiro reign as a comparison point, and Mark ran up prices to the point at which the offset of lost attendance actually made things worse. That's the scenario here, with the (rumored) claims that the current CEO has not and will not read any reports from any individual parks about how their capital expenditures are being spent and is openly critical of using money to maintain existing infrastructure. In short: He has no idea what he's doing. And he's going to fail miserably.

This latest move with the season passes? Let me explain something - that agreement that Six Flags has with you about the membership lays out that they are to inform you in advance of price hikes. They didn't. Ergo, they're in breach of the contract they set out with you and you can sue them. They know this. I guarantee it. They don't care and almost certainly are taking the tact that literally stealing money from people through the membership increases will be more profitable after losing a class action lawsuit than not stealing money from guests would be. That's the kind of leadership in charge. 

I used to post a lot more here, but this hobby sucks right now in the US. Aside from Universal Orlando, basically every single park in the entirety of the US is worse off in every way than it was pre-COVID. I don't think it's fun anymore, and the people in charge clearly don't care about me as a customer because they believe they are entitled to my money. They're entitled to nothing and most of them will probably watch their businesses circle the drain while they figure out how they can spin it during the countless TEDx talks they'll give about how their failure wasn't really their fault and they'd be a great consultant.

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. 

[parkjunkie]

Six Flags corporate has been absolute SH!T for the past 8-10 years or so. They have ran this chain right back in to the ground after Shapiro and his crew did so much to get it back on its feet again. About 8-10 years ago, you saw the mass exodus of hundreds of both long time full times and part times, chain wide, including me. We saw the direction the company was headed and ran before it got to the point its at now. Corporate Six Flags is an absolute joke. They have NO CLUE what the hell they are doing, and the people paying the price are the workers down in the trenches, which corporate can give 2 sh!ts less about. Six Flags parks aren't even amusement parks anymore, corporate has turned them into permanent carninvals.

[boldikus]

10 hours ago, parkjunkie said:

Tell us how you really feel.

[Hilltopper39]

Is the main issue people are having with season pass prices? I mean a single day ticket is still like $40 or less, and an annual pass to a single park for SFOG is showing as $132 which is pretty reasonable. The Ultimate pass for $400 for all parks seems like it's a little much  but the Extreme pass which includes all SIX parks for $240 again seems pretty reasonable. I wonder how man people are buying the all park passes, enthusiasts I get it but I wonder how many regular customers visit a park outside of their home market on a regular basis?

 

I haven't been to a Six Flags park in years so I can't comment on the quality of the experience but is it really that bad for $40 a day?  To echo the sentiments of others I also don't really like the direction a lot of parks/the industry as a whole have taken post covid, but compared to other entertainment options out there it feels like the pricing here is still pretty fair.

[AmyUD06]

@Hilltopper39I think the problem is that the "tickets as low as $40" thing only applies on select days and every other day is more expensive.  At SFGAdv, weekends are $75 (even buying online) and weekdays are $55.  Paying $75 to go to a park where not everything is open is not most people's idea of fun.

And the pass cost now seems low to you and me, but to someone who was used to spending $60 a year for a base level membership, that's a 100% increase in cost with zero improvements to show for it.

[TEDodd]

13 minutes ago, Hilltopper39 said:

Is the main issue people are having with season pass prices? I mean a single day ticket is still like $40 or less, and an annual pass to a single park for SFOG is showing as $132 which is pretty reasonable.

Compared to $56 I paid for the all park pass for 2020?

 

[SteveStL]

I'd like to see Six Flags split up into regions.  West, MidAmerica, East ... or something along those lines.  Every Park has its own needs and they are having a hard time applying a single strategy across the whole chain.

 

[jarmor]

Why? No other chain is split up and they are able to cater to each parks specific need.  Apparently, this situation is a leadership issue.  More so one that doesn't want to listen, read or get assistance from anyone.

[parkjunkie]

5 hours ago, boldikus said:

Tell us how you really feel.

Sorry if you don't like the truth

[boldikus]

It's not whether anything you said is true or not, I'm just tickled by your... passion on the topic.

[TEDodd]

14 hours ago, jarmor said:

Why? No other chain is split up and they are able to cater to each parks specific need.

How many are close to the number of Parks and cover such a wide area?

 

Cedar Fair is what,  half the number as Six Flags.

[prozach626]

So what you're saying is the carousel at Six Flags Saint Louis will be down for another season?

  

On 8/9/2022 at 12:27 PM, DirkFunk said:

basically every single park in the entirety of the US is worse off in every way than it was pre-COVID.

 

I made a change to your post.

[DirkFunk]

1 hour ago, prozach626 said:

I made a change to your post.

There's plenty of stuff to do that's basically the same experience as before: Zoos, museums, national/state/municipal parks, to name a few. Casinos have been slow to bring back buffets by and large because A) disease concerns B) they're historically unprofitable, but aside from that, the experience of gambling is identical if not significantly better with the legalization of mobile betting. When I go to see a sporting event, the actual action on field/track is basically the same as it's always been, with perhaps the exception of slightly longer lines for food/drink. Even that's not really been anything I've noticed in my area or traveling for events. Concerts? Just the same as always. 

Theme parks though are so labor intensive, and have such a grossly outdated labor model that I've spent years pillorying here and elsewhere that when the labor crunch came and all the people who thought they couldn't do anything else with their lives suddenly found themselves able to seek new and higher paying forms of employment, that it was impossible for them to adjust meaningfully. It was bad before COVID. It's absolutely worse now in every way, and it's bled over into the actual products and services being provided. Cedar Point is down launched two coasters and a family ride, but hey, they got a new chicken restaurant located about 300 feet from another chicken restaurant. :makes the JO motion:

[parkjunkie]

17 hours ago, boldikus said:

It's not whether anything you said is true or not, I'm just tickled by your... passion on the topic.

LMFAO, you my friend are hilarious. You're upset by the truth, but not by what has caused this truth to happen. I'm not sure why you're so butthurt by the truth. Six Flags has been and still is being run in to the ground. Its been talked about for years that this was going to happen and how it would happen.... and here it is.

[Golddisk]

As expected, Q2 results are pretty bad. Revenue was down about $25 million and attendance dropped by almost 2 million. Per cap spending was up, but was not enough to offset the drop in attendance. Will be interesting to see how the earnings call goes this morning. Earnings per share projections were missed by 33.8%.

 

https://investors.sixflags.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2022/08-11-2022-110033684

[coasterbill]

[boldikus]

33 minutes ago, parkjunkie said:

LMFAO, you my friend are hilarious. You're upset by the truth, but not by what has caused this truth to happen. I'm not sure why you're so butthurt by the truth.

I'm upset? Not sure why I'm even replying because its clear you're missing my point entirely. Not once did I question whether or not what you said was true, I just though the delivery was comical. That's it. No one is butthurt about anything. Are you sure you're only a park junkie?

[Manic Monte]

59 minutes ago, parkjunkie said:

LMFAO, you my friend are hilarious. You're upset by the truth, but not by what has caused this truth to happen. I'm not sure why you're so butthurt by the truth. Six Flags has been and still is being run in to the ground. Its been talked about for years that this was going to happen and how it would happen.... and here it is.

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

[SoCalJasonland]

Six Flags CEO: ‘We became a cheap day care center for teenagers’

https://nypost.com/2022/08/11/six-flags-ceo-we-became-a-cheap-day-care-center-for-teenagers/

Six Flags revealed it has shed nearly 2 million customers during the past year – a drop that came partly because of an initiative to weed out “rowdy teenagers,” according to the company’s CEO.

The Arlington, Texas-based theme park’s shares tumbled 18% to $21.12 on Thursday after it disclosed that attendance at its 27 parks was down 22% from a year ago to 6.7 million in the quarter ended July 3. 

The drop came partly because Six Flags has been steadily hiking ticket prices after offering too many discounts this year, Chief executive Selim Bassoul told analysts on a Thursday earnings call.

“So, we only got the discounter or we became a day care center for teenagers,” Bassoul said. “It was a cheap day care center for teenagers during breaks and the summers.”

In response, Six Flags has been hiking prices to reduce the numbers of “rowdy teenagers running around,” he added.

The rowdiness has occasionally turned violent. Last month, a teen was arrested for aggravated assault of a police officer at Great Adventure in Jackson Township, NJ when he pushed a cop who’d been called to the park because of reports of a fight.

Last year, at the Six Flags in Prince George’s County, Md., several fights broke out in the parking lot during Fright Fest. Videos posted on social media showed young women viciously attacking each other, roofs of cars being trampled on and people smashing windows, according to CBS Baltimore.

And in 2017, at the Gurnee, Ill. Six Flags, police were called to the park after teenagers “sucker punched” a 12-year-old when the boy’s mother asked them to tone down their swearing. The teens then attacked the boy’s parents, punching and kicking them, according to media reports at the time.

Now, Six Flags is ratcheting prices higher as it focuses on “elevating the guest experience,” Bassoul said. Accordingly, the company now expects attendance to be down by between 20% and 25% this year. Total guest spending per person, however, has increased to $63.87 from $51.94 compared to a year ago, the company said.

“We realized that we had discounted too much and we were filling the park” with the wrong kinds of customers, said Bassoul, who became CEO in November after serving on the board since 2020. Meanwhile, the number of families attending the parks has increased by “multiple percentage points” Bassoul said.

Selim Bassoul was named CEO in November 2021.

Takreem

“We want to be a park for the middle class and even the lower middle class,” he said. “We believe our demographic is the average income of the US and I’m migrating a little bit from what I call the Kmart, Walmart [customer] to maybe the target customers, if I want to say that.”

Sea World in Orlando, Fla. charges $116 per ticket, according to its website while a ticket to Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ costs about $45, according to the Six Flags website.

“This is a transitional year for Six Flags, as we reset the foundations of our business model to focus on delivering a premium guest experience, while at the same time, correcting for decades of heavy price discounting,” Bassoul said in a Thursday statement.

Six Flags is also looking to improve wait times at its parks which can add up from up to 30 minutes to park, up to 30 minutes to clear security, 15 to 25 minutes to use the restrooms and one to two hours to get food and get on a ride, Bassoul said.  

In July, a power outage at its Great Adventure park in New Jersey forced park goers to wait for more than 90 minutes in the scorching heat to enter the park.

During the past year, the company said it has lost about 2 million season ticket holders who did not renew their membership As a result, total revenue for the quarter decreased by 5% to $24 million, fueled by the the lower attendance and $5 million reduction in sponsorship revenues. 

Six Flags officials didn’t respond to requests for additional comment.

[prozach626]

13 hours ago, DirkFunk said:

There's plenty of stuff to do that's basically the same experience as before

Almost everything costs more, service is not the same, and product quality is going to shit. Aside from that, everything is great.

  

1 hour ago, SoCalJasonland said:

Total guest spending per person, however, has increased to $63.87 from $51.94 compared to a year ago, the company said.

I hope he factored inflation into those figures, because they definitely make his numbers looks better without taking that into consideration.

[SoCalJasonland]

Like Seaworld and Cedar Fair[ Six Flags was forced to take on debt to stay open.  No one wants to lend them millions for new coasters, so gimmicks, it is.  Paint the old ones.  Get some new delicious chicken strips.  Clean the trash cans.  Standard operating procedure:

Shortcut to document:https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmqh043o4p6o4if/Six Flags Stock Report -08-11-22.pdf?dl=0

 

[DirkFunk]

11 hours ago, prozach626 said:

Almost everything costs more, service is not the same, and product quality is going to shit. Aside from that, everything is great.

If your primary interests are hobbies in which a bunch of 17 year olds being paid crap wages are responsible for staffing them and providing you a service, then yes, everything sucks. If you have a wider breadth of things that you do with your life, the fact that we don't have anywhere near enough laborers to do the amount of labor our economy requires is not going to impact you to the same degree. Theme parks are intrinsically going to be one of the points of failure in a situation like this because they are luxury services committed to high margin-low wage operation. There's a million things to do instead that aren't as impacted.  I have had no issues finding such things to do, and honestly, I don't feel as though my life is poorer for it. The opposite is in fact true!

[prozach626]

I want to visit this oasis.