Buy or Build your own theme park???

[Jodon]

Hypothetical situation: You win the $1.3 Billion Powerball jackpot by yourself and take home over $800 Million and you decide to own and operate a theme park. Would you rather purchase an existing park or build your own park from the ground up?

 

If you want to purchase an existing park, what park would you buy? What operational/fee/ticket changes changes would you make to it? What else would you like to change/add in the first 5 years?

 

If you would want to build a new park, where would you build it? How big of a park will it be? Theme park or amusement park? What would your ticket structure look like, Free entrance/pay per ride or single entrance fee with select up-charge attractions? Would you go the major chain route and charge for parking, everything else and emphasize season passes, or would you take the Holiday World approach and have free parking/soft drinks?

[ItsMe]

Wasn't there a member on TPR who build his own waterpark?

 

I would start small. The best example is the Dutch park Toverland. Hitting 700 K visitors by now and still growing strong. Smart investments, I think that is the way to go. I believe in the general admission ticket including rides. However I think it is an wise idea to work with the latest tech, like Disney is doing. For meals etc. you just have to come up with smart meal plans. Main thing I would do different: I would let kids get in for free up to about 6 years. Why? I think you can target parents easily with that to come and visit.

 

Season passes are fine, however I would sale them at what they are worth: so no passes that are only three times the admission. Within the passes I would make sure to get some kind of special reward program for anyone visiting let's say twenty times a season, to keep them going on spending money.

 

Great thread!

[A.J.]

I'd build a Scandi-style park somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Something like Fårup or Djurs. Something the size of Knoebels, maybe a little bit larger. Forested. Lots of playgrounds and physical attractions for children and adults. Family-oriented.

[DoinItForTheFame]

Call me crazy, but if I got the $800 million... I wouldn't be building or buying a park. I'd still visit the parks, and continue to do VIP Tours at parks. But as for owning my own?? No thanks! I'd use the money to pay for my school and buy a new car.

[neil009]

Call me crazy, but if I got the $800 million... I wouldn't be building or buying a park. I'd still visit the parks, and continue to do VIP Tours at parks. But as for owning my own?? No thanks! I'd use the money to pay for my school and buy a new car.

 

What would you do with the other $799,920,000?

[Comeagain?]

I would probably approach my local park about funding some new attractions, but I wouldn't necessarily want to try and buy it outright, or mange it.

[DorneyKid14]

If I won, I would buy the two airports in Allentown and then built up Dorney add a giga and a worlds biggest Waffle House with Chick Fil A as an option.

[Nrthwnd]

Have to tell, there is a thread for owning a park.

 

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23500&hilit=theme+park

 

And all my plans for taking over Playland (PNE) is on page 10.

[Canobie Coaster]

Call me crazy, but if I got the $800 million... I wouldn't be building or buying a park. I'd still visit the parks, and continue to do VIP Tours at parks. But as for owning my own?? No thanks! I'd use the money to pay for my school and buy a new car.

 

What would you do with the other $799,920,000?

 

Pay even more taxes.

 

I would buy a house with a large enough backyard to build my own coaster or two. I would save the rest for park trips.

[boldikus]

I would buy a bunch of stuff from Intamin.

 

A megalite

A prefab woodie airtime machine

A medium sized accelerator ala Storm Runner

An impulse

 

of course I'd need a Screaming Swing aka the best flat ever.

 

and then for good measure a Batman clone or a custom invert.

[805Andrew]

I would attempt to buy Six Flags Magic Mountain if I had to spend some of the powerball winnings on a theme park. I would probably have to vastly overpay for it to get Six Flags to sell it to me. I would improve the guest experience by retraining and adding operations staff; add a transportation system around the park and up the other side of the mountain; keep the rides that work and remove rides that don't work or aren't popular anymore; add indoor rides and/or rides that can operate in rain as future installments; improve food offerings and work with local California brands and chefs to operate the restaurants in the park; and I would pay and train staff that is competetive to Universal and Disney levels. I would try to get Magic Mountain to feel more like a Busch Gardens park. It would probably be a big money loser for me.

 

Now in reality, I would use the powerball winnings to enjoy my travels around the world for the rest of my life, and invest in small startups (or perhaps small parks) that I feel have potential to be something great.

[RaceBoarder]

Does anyone have any numbers for the actual sale of an up and running park? Just given that a single marquee coaster will be $10+ million, the value will add up quickly... It seems like a $1 billion + investment to buy an established Six Flags or Cedar Fair park....

[DoinItForTheFame]

^ I think it more so depends on the financial state of the park. If a park is about to go bankrupt, I'm sure they would sell it for a lot less than $1 billion. Just to get out from under it.

[ejot]

^^ To give some perspective, in inflation adjusted dollars, only about 5 or 6 US theme parks have ever cost over a billion dollars to develop and build from the ground up. EG: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, IoA, DCA. A typical Six Flags or Cedar Fair park does not have a market value near $1B.

 

I can't find what Six Flags was asking for Magic Mountain when they put it up for sale in 2006, but that would be very interesting to know.

 

With regards to the original question, I would certainly buy Conneaut Lake Park (presumably for $1), pay off their debts, clean it up, restore the hell out of Blue Streak, and add a few flats. Then operate at a loss while continuing improvements.

[rolercstrluvr]

I'd personally help CGA in tearing down Grizzly and put in a mega lite or something like wooden warrior on a bigger scale. I could always get rid of vortex and put the mega lite there. Throw in a decent launch coaster as well, some new flats as well just to round off the park a little better.

[ShaneH]

I would go to Holiday World and offer them 600,000 million to help them out. I wouldn't try to buy the park but donate the money and ask to be on the "in" group. I would want to help pick out rides and attractions for them. I would use some money to buy a private jet and hire a pilot. I would spend 2 years going around the world to different parks.

[neil009]

Does anyone have any numbers for the actual sale of an up and running park? Just given that a single marquee coaster will be $10+ million, the value will add up quickly... It seems like a $1 billion + investment to buy an established Six Flags or Cedar Fair park....

 

This is an interesting question which I'm sure is very complicated and depends on a lot of things. I don't think, for instance, Six Flags would sell Magic Mountain for any amount of money, certainly not 800 million. Six Flags America would probably be a different story.

 

To me the better question would be, what would be the smarter investment, purchasing whatever small park you can buy for 800 million, or getting other investors on board and starting from scratch. If your goal is to own a big park some day in the future, then you would need to buy a park that is A) small enough to cost less than 800 million, B) have enough land around it for you to expand, and C) be near enough to a population center to support a park as large as your ambitions. That might be a lot harder than it sounds.

[ericthewanderer]

I would rather start from scratch.I would start small and slow:first getting a large amount of land and building my own power generator and water treatment center specifically for park usage.The first rides and attractions would be basics like a sky tower,ferris wheel,a new handcarved carousel and a mid-sized woodie(around 100-120 feet tall).Later on I would add a lot more coasters,a couple of shoot-em-up dark rides and eventually a hotel.

[The Yeti]

If I won the Powerball I would absolutely want to invest in building my own theme park. I would start out small but with a couple great coasters and thrill rides, and they would all be wonderfully themed.

[thepoint4life23]

I would Buy a bunch of cedar fair stock be half or part stock Owner.

[Masquerade]

Option A: Buy out a good 400 acres of empty green space in Aventura, Florida (near Miami) and build a Rock N' Roll-themed park.

 

Option B: Buy out the Renaissance Fair space and surrounding area in Tuxedo, New York and build something there.

 

Option C: Build a park near Washington D.C. themed to the history of America and watch retired Disney execs from the 90's cry and reassess their life choices.

[Jodon]

Some really good responses so far! Figured I would answer my own question...

 

I would have a tough time deciding between buying a park or building my own. My homepark is SFGAm and while it should be a great park, there are so many issues with it that I might want to purchase it to help fix the issues. On the other hand, I've thought for a long time that the Chicago market could support two theme parks so I could see myself wanting to build my own park in the western suburbs of Chicago to compete with SFGAm. So, I'll give you my ideas for both.

 

Purchase SFGAm:

Phase 1:

1. Remove the trim brake on Raging Bull provided B&M signs off on it. Reinstate the special effects on X-Flight.

2. Change the ticket structure, lowering the daily ticket a little to $60, but increasing the season pass to $175 and lowering parking to $10 the first year and explore the option of free parking. Waterpark goes back to being included in the ticket price.

3. Increase staffing and training at rides and food vendors, then provide an incentive structure to ride operators/vendors based on their capacity compared to the optimal throughput of the ride.

4. Put a S&S Screaming Swings in the vacant Rajun Cajun' lot and a Zamperla Hawk in the vacant Trailblazer spot in Southwest Territory.

5. Refresh 2 themed lands a year and rename all the rides to fit the themed areas and remove licensing brought in by Six Flags.

6. Change up ride cycles for King Chaos, Revolution, and River Rocker.

7. Replace Buccaneer Battle with flyers and a Huss Booster

 

 

Phase 2:

1. Turn the Dark Knight queue back into a theater and have a high quality musical review or magic show.

2. Remove Loggers Run, Yankee Clipper, and the Wilderness Theater and replace with a new and highly themed flume and an Intamin Blitz that interacts with the new flume ride and Roaring Rapids

3. Build two Proslide water coasters in the waterpark.

4. Remove Gokarts and use that space to make that area the new and improved kiddie land with Little Dipper as the focal point.

5. Move the kids rides from the Kidzopolis to the new kiddie land and build a gigantic play structure similar to Fireman's landing at Silver Dollar City

6. Remove Pictorium and use that land for a station and queue for a new coaster that interacts with the main gate and water park.

7. Remove American Eagle and replace with a giga.

8. Keep Whizzer as long as possible

9. Replace Demon with a similar sized looper ride with a 42" height limit that reuses the tunnel but would use LED lighting.

10. Replace Revolution with a Huss Giant Frisbee or a Zamperla Giant Discovery

 

Build My Own Park:

 

I would build my park in the Chicago suburbs off of 90, 88, or 55, and far enough away from an airport to not have to worry about height restrictions. I think I would like to use a wristband ticketing system like Waldameer where you can either purchase an all day wristband or pay per ride. I wouldn’t charge for parking or soft drinks. All day passes would be about $50-60 and individual rides would cost between $1.50 and $7. I would offer a season pass for $150-175. My park would be a straight up amusement park without any themed areas, but would have fantastic landscaping and tons of trees.

 

Some rides that I would open with:

Coasters:

Intamin Blitz

Classic wooden coaster like the Coney Island Cyclone or Knoebel’s Phoenix

Intamin Hyper

B&M Giga

RMC topper track “woodie”

B&M Floorless Looper

B&M Inverted

Intamin Accelerator similar to Storm Runner but significantly longer

B&M Launched Wing Coaster

Dueling RMC T-Rex coasters

Gravity Group Jr. Woodie

S&S Compressed Air Launch Family Coaster or something similar

 

Flat Rides:

S&S Screaming Swings

Huss Giant Frisbee

Side by Side Flyers

Side by Side ARM/Larson Drop Towers

Classic Flume Ride

River Rapids Ride

Shoot the Chute ride

Classic Carousel with the Brass Ring Game

Huss TopSpin

Zamperla Air Race

Zamperla Hawk

Scrambler

Troika

Zamperla Enterprise

Big Kiddie Area with the Jr. Woodie, small steel coaster, gigantic play area, and several other small flats

Interactive 3D Shooting Dark Ride similar to Toy Story Midway Mania

Zierer Wave Swinger

Funtime SkyScreamer

 

I would also have a few shows:

Circus Show

Magic Show

Dive Show

 

I wouldn’t open with a water park, but would put one in within 10 years of opening.

[Diamondbacker27]

Would a park ever let you buy a coaster to go in their park? I know it's highly unlikely, but would they?

[Jodon]

^ I have a feeling that if you go to any park of your choice and say, "I'll give you $25 million as a gift to build a coaster of my choosing," most of them would say yes in a heartbeat depending on the feasability of your request. I.e. SFGAm can't build over 330 ft. so no matter how much money you throw at them, they will not be able to build a strata or poler coaster.

[JRice92]

^^ To give some perspective, in inflation adjusted dollars, only about 5 or 6 US theme parks have ever cost over a billion dollars to develop and build from the ground up. EG: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, IoA, DCA. A typical Six Flags or Cedar Fair park does not have a market value near $1B.

 

I can't find what Six Flags was asking for Magic Mountain when they put it up for sale in 2006, but that would be very interesting to know.

 

With regards to the original question, I would certainly buy Conneaut Lake Park (presumably for $1), pay off their debts, clean it up, restore the hell out of Blue Streak, and add a few flats. Then operate at a loss while continuing improvements.

 

I agree Magic Mountain would cost a lot less than 1 Billion. Remember in 2006 Cedar Fair bought all the Paramount parks for 1.24 Billion so I thinking it'd be doable.

 

What would I do with the money?

Re-Open my home park Geauga Lake, restore Big Dipper and for now add a mega lite. Take Holiday Worlds business model. Free parking, free soda, reasonable admission. I haven't thought this through very much but the goal would be to provide an atmosphere similar to Holiday World & Waldameer.