Six Flags St. Louis (SFStL) Discussion Thread

[TNT]

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[RKO]

Wow! What great old videos!

 

A couple things I never knew, The skyride seemed to move pretty quickly, I always imagined they moved slow. Where was the Scrambler located? I couldn't quite make out the location. Mo-Mo was located where SkyScreamer is?

 

Does anyone have a list of the concerts held at SFSL? I remember seeing pictures of Dolly Parton and maybe Willie Nelson. I remember seeing Weird Al and Crash Test Dummies. I know they had NKOTB, which practically shut down the highway, the park got so crowded. I still wish Six Flags would have more concerts ate the park, 2-3 Christian concerts a year doesn't excite me.

 

One year when I worked out there we had Britney Spears (1999)and that pretty much shut the park down. Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray both played out there and there was a huge country concert out there in 1998 bit I don't listen to country and have no clue who it was, but it was packed.

[Arrow Dynamics fan]

-Here is the story Dave gave me about theming, especially when it comes to Batman & Mr. Freeze: When Time Warner owned Six Flags, their goal was to turn it into their version of Disney/Universal with the same level of theming. However, based on geography and other factors, it didn't really work out, so when they sold the company to Premier Parks, they went another direction towards thrills and basically the amusement park vs. a theme park.

HWFan, I want to start off with thanking you for sharing this information. It is neat to have more of the inside scope. One thing I perhaps do not understand is why they see this strategy as a failure. Looking at the attendance numbers from this time, it would appear to me that this period had higher attendance which is the desired outcome for a business such as this. Why do they see the other direction as being more successful when they are ending up with less attendance. Also, with respect, could you explain why Dave or Premier sees their other direction "towards thrills" as being what they were delivering to the consumer attractions that were not breaking new records for the park or the local region as what they were doing during the Time Warner area. In my view, this was stepping away from theming and thrills changing their direction to averageness which in my perspective has hurt them and let their competition catch up and in some cases surpassing them. Could you explain things from their perspective?

[SFZIP]

It's a plain and simple fact that Six Flags is too cheap of a company today to actually do a quality theming job on a new ride and to do what's necessary to clean/update the look of their parks' to put them even remotely close to the level that they were at throughout the 90's. It's not just the current corporate management that is failing, it's a continual failure over several years, from Premier, to Shapiro, to today's management they are all responsible in some way for what Six Flags is today. I would almost guarantee that none of the Six Flags parks are anywhere near a record attendance level today (all of those records for the parks were probably set when the individual park opened or sometime during the 90's) and attendance is never going to get to the that level again unless there are drastic changes in a whole lot of things that Six Flags does.

 

 

Does anyone have a list of the concerts held at SFSL? I remember seeing pictures of Dolly Parton and maybe Willie Nelson. I remember seeing Weird Al and Crash Test Dummies. I know they had NKOTB, which practically shut down the highway, the park got so crowded. I still wish Six Flags would have more concerts ate the park, 2-3 Christian concerts a year doesn't excite me.

 

Getting together a concert list throughout the years is something that I would like to do, but I don't know enough of them to do more than a broken list, back in the 70's and 80's there were probably close to 20 concerts a year and close to a dozen or so a year throughout the 90's (there have been several hundred concerts in this parks history for sure).

 

I know that the largest crowd the park ever had happened on August 15, 1977, whenever over 40,000 people were at the park and 28,000+ packed Old Glory way over capacity to see KC and The Sunshine Band. The other major crowd for a concert I know of happened July 22, 1989, when Tiffany and the New Kids On The Block were there, the park got around 36,000 and closed the park down to stop more people from coming in, traffic was backed up for miles and I mean miles. There have been other major concert crowds throughout the years but these two are probably the worst ever. I also, have been able to find that 40,000+ saw the Beach Boys perform (2 shows) in the parking lot on August 18, 1981, how that was even possible I don't know.

[Vonni]

Personally I feel like SFStL needs to take a few years to work towards thrills. I like a Park to be well rounded as much as anybody else, but its not like SFStL is lacking on Family attractions. Its thrill Rides the Park is lacking, particularly flats! So yes, I would like to see the next three years to be geared towards thrills. I'd like to see at least three flats come to the Park. We only have five thrilling flat Rides in the Park (not counting Superman, I don't consider Drop Towers flats). That's a very small number.

[theymitbgi]

Just googled Six Flags concerts and this seems to be the best list I could find, although it's nowhere near complete:

 

http://www.songkick.com/venues/52755-six-flags-st-louis/gigography

 

Just my idea on what the thrill rides are at SFSL (8): Batman, Boomerang, Boss, Mr Freeze, Superman, Screaming Eagle, SkyScreamer(my 11 year old will ride any coaster but this scares him), Excalibur(sidenote, not currently listed of SFSL's website.. hmm...)

 

Family Rides (14): Colossus, Carousel, Highland Fling(I put this in Family even though it goes upside down), Log Flume, Moon Cars, Pandemonium, Mine Train, Rush Street Flyer, Shazam, Scooby Doo, The Joker, The Railroad, Tsunami Soaker

 

This is exactly as how Six Flags has them listed on their site, excluding Excalibur. This does not include any of the Kiddie Rides, which I would say are suited for most ages 10 and under without accommodating adults.

 

Just IMHO, i think we could still use two more family rides before any more thrill rides/coasters are added. I think we need our bumper cars back, and some type of spin and puke ride(Wipeout, Tilt-A-Whirl, Trabant-style ride), although these on their own would be a tough sell to anyone in the GP.

[Vonni]

^ I, and many others categorize Coasters, and thrill Rides separately (not arguing with the fact that they are listed together on the website). I agree we need the bumper cars back, and a re-route of the antique cars, but we really do need two to three more thrill rides (flats) to really balance out the Park.

[theymitbgi]

I don't necessarily disagree that we don't need 2-3 thrilling flats, i just think the need is greater for another family ride or two first. Maybe the best plan would be to add an entire new are to the park the would include 4 smaller level flats, 2 thrill and 2 family.

 

It would be a lot easier to market a new area of the park and 4 rides, just don't see it happening though.

[Vonni]

^ That would be great, but I agree that it is not likely to happen. That would be something we would see with a CF Park over a Six Flags Park.

[HWFan]

-Here is the story Dave gave me about theming, especially when it comes to Batman & Mr. Freeze: When Time Warner owned Six Flags, their goal was to turn it into their version of Disney/Universal with the same level of theming. However, based on geography and other factors, it didn't really work out, so when they sold the company to Premier Parks, they went another direction towards thrills and basically the amusement park vs. a theme park.

HWFan, I want to start off with thanking you for sharing this information. It is neat to have more of the inside scope. One thing I perhaps do not understand is why they see this strategy as a failure. Looking at the attendance numbers from this time, it would appear to me that this period had higher attendance which is the desired outcome for a business such as this. Why do they see the other direction as being more successful when they are ending up with less attendance. Also, with respect, could you explain why Dave or Premier sees their other direction "towards thrills" as being what they were delivering to the consumer attractions that were not breaking new records for the park or the local region as what they were doing during the Time Warner area. In my view, this was stepping away from theming and thrills changing their direction to averageness which in my perspective has hurt them and let their competition catch up and in some cases surpassing them. Could you explain things from their perspective?

Now I am not an expert, but here is my best answer for you:

Disney/Universal are both in HUGE tourism centers and charge a ton of money for admissions compared to Six Flags St. Louis. Most of the guests that come to our park are all people who live around the park in the St. Louis area. In order to invest money to get the theming to be comparable to a Disney/Universal park, we would have to charge a lot more per ticket. If we did that, we would have less locals coming over and over again and without a large amount of tourists coming into the St. Louis area, we just wouldn't be able to support the park. It all has to do with location.

 

Dave has been at the park for decades. He started in the mail room as just a job to pay the bills before working his way up to President. He has nothing but love for the park, and he is working towards its best interests. The best interests are to keep the park looking nice, while slowly growing each year with new attractions. He is doing extremely well at this as our park, looks better and better each year. IMO, our park is heading in the best possible direction because of this strategy. In terms of the company as a whole, after the massive park sell off/shut down in the chain, getting back up on the horse caused some unfortunate circumstances where the parks had to slow down a bit to right their path. Let's not forget that the current Six Flags stock has been on the NYSE for less than four years. With Jim Reid-Anderson now at the helm as our new CEO, I think that the chain in preforming as good as anyone could expect. He has taken the company from less than $10 a share to over $35 a share in three years. I own stock in the company because I see that. Even higher up, the company is rated extremely high in terms of company executives buying the stock, which speaks highly of how they feel about the future of the company.

 

By focusing on just creating quality theme parks that just look and feel nice, they will continue to grow. Although parks like Disney or Universal may have their main focus in theming, the way Six Flags has risen out of bankruptcy is pretty optimistic. I had teachers in school that would say KISS or Keep It Simple, Stupid. I feel that that could be the parks' motto right now. Just make visually attractive parks that focus on bringing in rides of every genre to cater to the whole family, and they are doing that slowly but surely in order to not put themselves into another stage where they are being crushed by crippling debt. Just enjoy the ride.

[Woodie Warrior]

While we are on nostalgia stuff..love it

 

"The train! The train!"

 

"The burning! The burning"

 

Best commercial ever

[SFOMA7]

I don't mean to be rude at all but the time warner years (the years of very heavy themeing) were top number and money makers for Six Flags. I respectfully disagree with your statements comparing to Disney and universal. Premier Parks is what killed Six Flags not the heavy themeing. Premier killed the Six Flags we all grew up loving. Six Flags was the number 2 entertainment company in the world behind Disney during the time warner years. They were a head of Universal Studios. Six flags will never ever again be the great company it once was and it's all thanks to the loosers of premier parks.

[Arrow Dynamics fan]

HWFan, thank you for answering my questions. While I don't agree with many of the decisions the corporate level has made, I will agree that they do seem to be improving slowly but surely. I will also agree that the strides SFSTL has made particularly in the Fright Fest each year is head over heels superior than each previous year and have been very pleased to see a number of the suggestions I have made through the customer feedback implemented. I do understand the fact that Disney/Universal's level of theming would be far beyond SFSTL's budget and would cause the cost of tickets to become unfeasible as we are talking about a park with a MUCH smaller audience than those parks. Having said this, have they considered to try to compare their theming efforts and attractions in comparison to their more local competition such as Silver Dollar City which doesn't have theming on the scale of Disney/Universal but seems to have a clearer and more defined feel? Even if some rides do not have the budget for much theming is there a reason why the park on more recent attractions such as SkyScreamer and Boomerang didn't develop original names that actually fit the theming area? This in my perspective is some of the problem because it starts to make the parks atmosphere inconsistent. Is this a decision that is out of Dave's hands (a corporate decision) or (with no disrespect intended) are they having difficulties coming up with names to fit the new attractions?

[SFZIP]

Six Flags corporate is who dictates what the all ride names will be now (the parks can recommend what they would like), but it's corporate's decision (along with basically everything else now a days). Most of the complaints that people have are not SFSL's fault or any of the other Six Flags parks fault, they are basically all because of something that SF corporate has done (over the years) to further damage whatever is left of Six Flags reputation. When Six Flags continually has non experienced (in running theme parks) corporate management running things, problems will eventually show up in the park's overall product (which it would appear started to show up more frequently in 2013 in a lot of different cases throughout the system).

[TNT]

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[ArizonaGuy]

I think it's pretty cool on how management actually works with their front line employees. Sounds like SFStL has a really good Park President.

[TNT]

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[HWFan]

^ Exactly! Whatever you all think about corporate, I know I probably can't change your views. However, when it comes to our particular park's upper management, we are right up there with Holiday World, and I am very close to the Holiday World management as well. Dave and I spent a while in the front mall just looking at a couple of discrepancies in the facades. He actually fixed them. There are so many examples of this. It was a lower level seasonal employee that suggested keeping some of the Hannibarrels to turn into benches. Another thing that I don't think people fully know about is how charitable the park is. Every year, the park puts on an event for St. Louis Children's Hospital that raises over $500,000, and this year we're working on some kind of system in terms of donating super hero capes to St. Louis Children's Hospital. So if you don't agree with me about corporate, that's fine, but it would be horrible not to give credit where credit is due to the park's management.

[Woodie Warrior]

we're working on some kind of system in terms of donating super hero capes to St. Louis Children's Hospital

It would be cool to have a program that if you win a cape at a game you could either take it for yourself or donate it to a child at the hospital. There are a lot of people that would just take them but it would be cool to be able to know you put a smile on a kid's face if you were to donate them. Just a thought.

 

Is there a good chance we could see another new maze next Fright Fest? Is Total Darkness going to return? Random people we met at other mazes agreed that it was really lame, plus the capacity was horrible.

[TNT]

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[Nrthwnd]

How's our little Arrow-Vekoma Ninja doing these days?

As rough as it ever was, in the sharp turn after a loop?

 

Just checking here. (former EXPO 86 coaster)

[ArizonaGuy]

^ Exactly! Whatever you all think about corporate, I know I probably can't change your views. However, when it comes to our particular park's upper management, we are right up there with Holiday World, and I am very close to the Holiday World management as well. Dave and I spent a while in the front mall just looking at a couple of discrepancies in the facades. He actually fixed them. There are so many examples of this. It was a lower level seasonal employee that suggested keeping some of the Hannibarrels to turn into benches. Another thing that I don't think people fully know about is how charitable the park is. Every year, the park puts on an event for St. Louis Children's Hospital that raises over $500,000, and this year we're working on some kind of system in terms of donating super hero capes to St. Louis Children's Hospital. So if you don't agree with me about corporate, that's fine, but it would be horrible not to give credit where credit is due to the park's management.

 

That's always good to hear. Sounds like an awesome guy to work with.

[Woodie Warrior]

Is there a good chance we could see another new maze next Fright Fest? Is Total Darkness going to return? Random people we met at other mazes agreed that it was really lame, plus the capacity was horrible.

 

I imagine Total Darkness will be kept but they will try and improve on it. Its a cool idea it just needs some work

 

It would be better if there were some more scare actors. I think I encountered one during my trip through, and I kinda couldn't tell if it was a scare actor or just a easily scared teenage girl ahead of me who screamed.

 

So will there be a 5th maze next year?

[TNT]

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[TNT]

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