"Tony Hawk" "Wiggles" and "Thomas" to leave Six Flags?

[CardCraze]

Say goodbye to the Flash Pass at TGE. Flash Pass is now a Go Fast Pass...

 

http://www.sixflags.com/greatEscape/tickets/gofastpass.aspx

 

this is feeling more and more like they are getting the park ready for a transition, maybe Robb hit on something.

I said it before, I'll say it again. TGE is an awesome park. It has a great atmosphere and I loved it the second I got there.

 

It is NOT, however, a typical Six Flags park.

[robbalvey]

I really can't see that happening. Its a park in a HUGE market that doesn't require that big of investment into it, and even when it does, the guests are happy to have it.

Do not underestimate the cost involved with having a park in a foreign country. Especially when it's a one-off park. If they owned 2 or 3 parks in the same country, to me it would make more sense. But when you basically need an entirely new set of admin staff to deal with your one park that speaks a different language that markets to a completely different audience than the rest of your US properties, it can be quite costly. You need different PR and marketing, you need a whole new set of HR, you have different administration needs, everything that you use in the US parks that you also use in Mexico now has to be totally re-printed into a different language, you have many different hurdles with your finances, different currencies, etc, etc... and then the same has to be repeated in Canada as well...for that ONE park.

 

I can tell you that whenever I work on a game for the USA market, and then we have to translate that game into a different language for Europe, it's like a whole new project all over again because there is a totally different set of rules we need to follow. Same thing goes for a park, but on a much bigger scale.

 

Not saying that I think they'll sell off those parks, just saying that when someone says it's not a huge investment, they are not looking at the bigger picture.

 

--Robb

Edited December 24, 2010 by robbalvey

[liftsifter]

I went to TGE quite a few years ago, and I enjoyed my time. I wasn't tall enough to ride much, but the overall atmosphere screamed family. I don't see the chain dropping that park, their just trying to transition it out of all of the IPs. Which could be a good or bad thing depending on how KIDZOPOLIS goes.

[jps294]

Wiggles Water World has been renamed to Buccaneer Bay.

 

The biggest adventure of all can be found at Buccaneer Bay. This interactive area spans several acres and includes water slides, a pop-jet and spray area and a 25-foot tall interactive play ship.

 

http://www.sixflags.com/whiteWater/rides/KidsRides.aspx

[ajc47]

Buccaneer Bay is actually a much better name.

[disney4me2001]

Buccaneer Bay is actually a much better name.

Agreed. I actually like this name, and I think it's a better retheme than the other Wiggles Worlds, even though this particular one is a water play area as opposed to a regular Wiggles World

[arson]

BEST-CASE SCENARIO TIME!

 

Six Flags America: Keep the park. It's got a lot going for it - some big rides like Batwing/Joker's Jinx and Roar/S:ROS that would be hard to re-locate, good location albeit with a lot of competition, waterpark that's half-way decent, ample expansion room, etc. Given time and budget, they could add 2-3 family flats, more entertainment, a dark ride, and a Big Spin-type coaster. Or to be more ambitious, they could install something along the lines of SFMM's Green Lantern (that would be a good fit for the place capacity-wise, while being unique enough for the market). The park's not a complete waste, though. There's a lot of room for improvement, sure, but maybe it'll start getting more attention?

 

The Great Escape: Sell! Kennywood/Palace/Parques Reunidos would suit this park fine, although something tells me that CNL might be interested, too. After all, CNL does license Great Wolf Lodge in a few places, and Great Escape has an indoor waterpark lodge that seems like it was separated at birth. Either way, I visited this park this past Summer, and it was nice and all, but it doesn't gel with the Six Flags identity (and given the changes, they've seen this and are taking action). Either way, it could be a nice park for either company to pick up, despite it's proximity to Lake Compounce or Darien Lake.

 

Six Flags Mexico: Why fix what isn't broken. Keep it.

 

La Ronde: I'm sure Reunidos could grab that up if it's really in the air. I've never heard anything bad about the park, aside from not building a waterpark.

 

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom: Nobody's bringing this up sufficiently, so I will. This park... I could see them giving it the Kentucky Kingdom treatment. Medusa and the kiddie coaster could move to St. Louis (really, why doesn't that park have a kiddie coaster?), and Big Spin could move to America, and the rest of the park could be sold off to another park operator or zoo. The transition into Discovery Kingdom sounded really cool, but really just meant some paint and sculptures, and not much else in terms of major new rides or exhibits. The other option would be to close out the animal attractions and replace them with waterpark attractions (cough Sea World Ohio), but that would be a costly gamble. Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if this park is gone or de-branded within five years.

[palmerleeberry]

arson wrote:

Six Flags America: Keep the park. It's got a lot going for it - some big rides like Batwing/Joker's Jinx and Roar/S:ROS that would be hard to re-locate, good location albeit with a lot of competition, waterpark that's half-way decent, ample expansion room, etc. Given time and budget, they could add 2-3 family flats, more entertainment, a dark ride, and a Big Spin-type coaster. Or to be more ambitious, they could install something along the lines of SFMM's Green Lantern (that would be a good fit for the place capacity-wise, while being unique enough for the market). The park's not a complete waste, though. There's a lot of room for improvement, sure, but maybe it'll start getting more attention?

 

 

"Oh gee, I didn't know you can write fairy tales.

 

All right, in some ways I do agree with you that the park should be saved and should be kept running, but how this park is being treated in the Six Flags family and how this park is being runned in general is very appalling. Like I said before, Six Flags America is being treated like its the bastard child of the Six Flags Family, and I was more that ready to change my tune from "Let's Boycott the Six Flags Park" to "Let's Go Back to Six Flags America, cos it's gonna be great park again!" during the 2010 season (Thomas Town addition). Now, I'm not sure what the (your favorite expression here) is going on since it seems that the Six Flags Family is neglecting Six Flags America (once again) and the new family coaster (that the park sorely needs) will not be coming in 2011.

 

But still, I'm optimistic about this park's future. Maybe something drastic will happen and things will change for the better for Six Flags America. It still amazes me how this park is still open and running after the many years of abuse and neglect it has received from its family, after many seasons of attractions being removed and never being replaced with something new. But until things are better with Six Flags America, I'm still back to boycotting all Six Flags parks.

 

"I hope I'm not being boycotted. I BETTER NOT BE BOYCOTTED!!!"

[PSiRockin]

La Ronde: I'm sure Reunidos could grab that up if it's really in the air. I've never heard anything bad about the park, aside from not building a waterpark.

 

 

Yes, but La Ronde is landlocked. It also gets good crowds (I went on a Wednesday-Thursday in the Summer and it was packed) and the park has no branding (save for Flash Pass). The park also has no near competitors, save for waterparks.

[chadster]

Some intersting reading on franchise costs for those who aren't "in the know". It should be noted that although these fees are what is paid by say you or me, SF's may have negotiated different terms.

 

Mrs. Fields

 

TCBY

 

Johnny Rockets

 

Papa Johns Great deal for 2011! hmmmm

 

Papa Johns Non-deal pricing

 

Cold Stone

[CardCraze]

Papa Johns Great deal for 2011! hmmmm

 

A FREE SET OF OVENS!!! How did Six Flags pass up this incredible deal?!?!?

[chadster]

Thom25 has informed me over in the TG thread (I know it was off topic but was kinda on topic at the same time) that as a seller of franchises, it's been his experience that SF's doesn't pay fees/royalties and gets the product for cheap, plus the franchisor pays SF's to be in the park, so one has to wonder, given that, why they would even think of getting rid of something like Cold Stone on those sweet terms...

[tatertot3710]

TGE would be a GREAT park for Kennywood. I absolutely loved it there and it seemed like the only notice of Six Flags was the commercial aspect - train wraps, in-park announcements, and even more advertising signs. I'm in no hurry to return, but if it was bought by Kennywood, I would love to see how it would change!

[chadster]

Looks like they are finished with the Tony Hawk makeover at SFOT

entrance, the tony hawk videos are gone, replaced with park advertisement, more specifically, TG

signage replaced on the platform

and the back panels look to have been removed and painted removing any resemblance to it's former self

Edited January 3, 2011 by chadster

[CoasterGuy06]

Thom25 has informed me over in the TG thread (I know it was off topic but was kinda on topic at the same time) that as a seller of franchises, it's been his experience that SF's doesn't pay fees/royalties and gets the product for cheap, plus the franchisor pays SF's to be in the park, so one has to wonder, given that, why they would even think of getting rid of something like Cold Stone on those sweet terms...

Coldstone is actually one of the worst brands to own a franchise of, from things I have read over the past few years.

[chadster]

If the Screamscape rumor is true about the Glow in the Park parade budgets getting that ax, there appears to be no bottom to the length they are going to cut everything to the bone. Sure, it will look good for about one year to the shareholders, but if people quit going to the parks as a result, they might end up back in their old home, the bankruptcy court. Not that Glow in the Park was a big draw for me, but maybe for others. And I'm not just talking about themes and eats, but also regular ops, cutting trains, staff, and other stuff we enjoyed under the prior leadership.

[CoasterGuy06]

The "new" Six Flags management has said they though Glow in the Park was a big mistake because it forces parks to stay open later than is profitable for them. How many smaller parks (on the level of SFNE, SFStl, or smaller) stay open til 10pm on a daily basis in the summer anymore? Not many.

[robbalvey]

So Six Flags is basically cutting any "atmosphere" from the parks? Have they just given up on making their parks anything but dirty, disgusting parks that appeal to anything more than 13 to 21 year olds?

 

Seriously, walking around Six Flags Magic Mountain yesterday to see puke covered trashcans, dirty bathrooms, cardboard signs to replace what used to be nicely presented displays, park information handed to you with sharpee cross outs, rides closed, employees not knowing what's going on, signs missing letters and falling apart, etc, it just felt "cheap" and dirty.

 

I felt like I was walking around the park in 2003 all over again....

Edited January 10, 2011 by robbalvey

[Meteornotes]

Looks to me they're ditching everything they can to make the bottom line look more attractive to investors for a possible sale of the company.

 

Really, really sucks to see the place being run like this, given how much the park improved in the last couple of years.

 

dt

[DJeXeL]

^^Sad to hear as they were moving in the right direction. Don't get me wrong there was still a lot of work to be done but this past summer was not bad at all. X2 was open at park opening and downtime on all attractions in general was minimal. Park wasn't spotless in terms of trash but you could tell they were making an effort. I cringe to think the park is headed this direction again as that place could be a cash cow if it was ran properly.

[chadster]

If Robb hadn't of posted a picture of the park entrance, I would have thought I was at SFA with rides down, unknowledgable staff, etc. It's not just noticeable at SFMM, I began noticing things at other parks from Sept on. SFFT short staffed, one train on Goliath, one! with a 1:30 wait! Rattler staff was overly slow, and Superman only had two ops on the platform which seems to have become more normal for them. SFOT's bathrooms were nasty and Judge Roy's crew acts like they are running one train half the time, we sat on the brake run for 5 minutes while they were standing around talking!

 

Seems like the attitude that you need to hustle has disappeared along with many other things. Shapiro's pet peeve was an unknowledgable non-hustling staff member. I've heard he'd chew people out on the spot. Seems like they are heading back in that direction. They used to have friendly people at all of their parks, even SFA in my experience, now, just some of the parks. Sad.

 

Oh, and the info card with the scratched out portion, that's funny, too cheap to print new cards, it's not that expensive. I wish I would have kept it, but they had employees in Oct handing out $5 off coupons on the flashpass. Looked like it had been xerox'd a million times over and cut into strips with a pair of scissors!

[DJeXeL]

^When I went to SFFT back in summer of '08 there was 1........yes I said 1 operator checking the train and wasn't stacking trains.

[SharkTums]

^Interesting you mention that!

 

On my first visit to SFFT with Superman there was also ONE operator checking restraints and he was doing a damn good job, but at the same time I couldn't help but think this is normal.

 

With multiple reports of this are they really sometimes scheduling only ONE op for that position!?!

[DJeXeL]

^You're correct. My friend and I approached the dispatcher and asked if 1 checking is the norm. His response was "we only have 2 checking when we have 3 trains operating." Crazy part about that is with just 2 checking they probably still weren't stacking trains.

 

In theory they may be scheduling 2, and maybe staffing issues/park attendance only warrant 1 checking??........In either case I'd rather be waiting in line with 1 bada$$ checking the train than 4 slowpokes checking the train.

[SFGAm Shock Wave]

In regards to the Glow In The Park rumor, Six Flags Great America has just confirmed on their Facebook Page that Glow In The Park will be returning for 2011.