Six Flags St. Louis (SFStL) Discussion Thread

[AmyUD06]

3 hours ago, SixFlagsOMA80 said:

 I don’t think theme park ppl should be paid $20 an hour when corporate jobs start at $20 an hour. This is why we have an inflation problem.

Have you considered that perhaps the problem isn't that "theme park ppl" are paid too much, but rather that entry level "corporate jobs" (along with everyone) aren't paid enough and CEOs and other executives are paid too much?

[michaellynn4]

5 hours ago, SixFlagsOMA80 said:

In the 70’s thru the early 00’s there was not the staffing issue there is too and less ppl lived in the area. I don’t think the park being in Eureka is the issue. Most kids are more lazy today and don’t want to work.

Every time we get the cliche "kidz jus don wanna wurk anymorr" argument, I'll always link the post I made a while back outlining all of the statistics about WHY kids aren't working anymore.

From the article in the post:

Quote

Why did American teens stop trying to get summer jobs? One typical answer is: They’re just kids, and kids are getting lazier.

One can rule out that hypothesis pretty quickly. The number of teens in the workforce has collapsed since 2000, as the graph below shows. But the share of NEETs—young people who are “Neither in Education, Employment, or Training”—has been extraordinarily steady. In fact, it has not budged more than 0.1 percentage point since the late 1990s. Just 7 percent of American teens are NEETs, which is lower than France and about the same as the mean of all advanced economies in the OECD. The supposed laziness of American teenagers is unchanging and, literally, average.

If anything, in the years since that post was made, it's only become MORE difficult for kids as the cost of college continues to skyrocket.

There were lazy kids back then (I worked along side plenty of them), and there are lazy kids now. But you gotta look at the macro level and step away from the personal anecdotes when trying to assess contributing factors to large-scale issues.

[thisdougsforu]

The "kids these days are lazy" is such a nonsensical thing and it's nice to see it de-bunked here. That kind of talk is the excuse of a poorly run company.

The whole "Six Flags is understaffed" seems like a relatively simple thing to me to diagnose. Maybe not fix, but diagnose. The company pays horrible and is horrible to work for. It's that simple. Also yeah, being out in Eureka does somewhat make it harder to find kids than say, somewhere in St. Louis county, so we can add bad location to to those other two, but I think that's a bit of a lesser thing. 

A company operating a theme park can probably get away with paying crap to bottom rung employees moreso than others because, at least in theory, it's a fun job that has cool perks.....if it treats its employees well. Six Flags, as noted in the example posted by Kim above, does not.

I don't know what kind of culture Cedar Fair has at their company, but I'm hoping at the very least it's an improvement over Six Flags. That alone would help improve park operations here, though that kind of thing takes usually a couple years. Given how seasonal a theme park is though, if the right people are put in place in management a turn around on that front can be probably happen quicker than other types of businesses. 

[teacherkim]

5 hours ago, thisdougsforu said:

The "kids these days are lazy" is such a nonsensical thing and it's nice to see it de-bunked here. That kind of talk is the excuse of a poorly run company.

The whole "Six Flags is understaffed" seems like a relatively simple thing to me to diagnose. Maybe not fix, but diagnose. The company pays horrible and is horrible to work. It's that simple. Also yeah, being out in Eureka does somewhat make it harder to find kids than say, somewhere in St. Louis county, so we can add bad location to to those other two, but I think that's a bit of a lesser thing. 

A company operating a theme park can probably get away with paying crap to bottom rung employees moreso than others because, at least in theory, it's a fun job that has cool perks.....if it treats its employees well. Six Flags, as noted in the example posted by Kim above, does not.

I don't know what kind of culture Cedar Fair has at their company, but I'm hoping at the very least it's an improvement over Six Flags. That alone would help improve park operations here, though that kind of thing takes usually a couple years. Given how seasonal a theme park is though, if the right people are put in place in management a turn around on that front can be probably happen quicker than other types of businesses. 

It really is all about leadership. I don't even think there is intent to treat employees like second class citizens, there just isn't anyone at our park to hold supervisors accountable and properly direct them. I'm guessing at SFFT where they have a President that borders on legendary the culture is totally different. I do hope this gets addressed with the merger.

[Danrarbc]

21 minutes ago, teacherkim said:

It really is all about leadership. I don't even think there is intent to treat employees like second class citizens, there just isn't anyone at our park to hold supervisors accountable and properly direct them. I'm guessing at SFFT where they have a President that borders on legendary the culture is totally different. I do hope this gets addressed with the merger.

Well before the merger I already thought every park president should train under Siebert somehow. Unless he doesn't want an expansion of his duties in that way.

But now Six Flags parks have access to the park and the chain that trained Jeff. They actually can set up a career path for that.

[castaway_kid]

17 minutes ago, Danrarbc said:

Well before the merger I already thought every park president should train under Siebert somehow. Unless he doesn't want an expansion of his duties in that way.

But now Six Flags parks have access to the park and the chain that trained Jeff. They actually can set up a career path for that.

Plenty of other parks have Presidents just as capable as Jeffrey Siebert, the only difference is SFFT gets every resource they could ever want while some other parks are lucky to even get scraps. It's easy to look good when you get the financial support to do anything you want.

[teacherkim]

20 minutes ago, castaway_kid said:

Plenty of other parks have Presidents just as capable as Jeffrey Siebert, the only difference is SFFT gets every resource they could ever want while some other parks are lucky to even get scraps. It's easy to look good when you get the financial support to do anything you want.

I wasn't trying to disrespect any other Presidents or overlook that he may have access to more, just using him as a clear example of 'what could be' and one that I have first hand knowledge of since I have actually spoken to him face to face.

He's pretty awesome though! And so transparent with what is going on and what the timeline is and why they are doing what they are doing. I think a lot of parks could avoid some grief and complaining if they just publicized what is going on behind the scenes and why. No reason for a shroud of secrecy all the time 

[Danrarbc]

17 hours ago, castaway_kid said:

Plenty of other parks have Presidents just as capable as Jeffrey Siebert, the only difference is SFFT gets every resource they could ever want while some other parks are lucky to even get scraps. It's easy to look good when you get the financial support to do anything you want.

There are things that Jeff does that don't cost money that many other park execs don't do - or at least don't do near as much. For instance the transparency that's been brought up. It's 'free' for a park president to pull out a camera or their phone and take some pictures and drop frequent social media updates keeping park fans caught up with what's going on around the park on any given week. Another good example of this kind of executive is Tony Clark at Cedar Point. Now some parks don't have an exec directly doing this but they have an active social media presence reliably communicating with the main accounts. Fiesta Texas has the benefit of having both one of the more active Six Flags social media accounts AND Jeff interacting directly - but literally either one would be fine (if a park can't afford someone working social media this is where a full-time executive that can be active can go a LONG way). SfSTL hasn't posted since October 27th and that was about Rocky Horror and the last 3 days of operation.

IMO there should be a social post at least 4 times a week in the offseason, with the media manager sticking around interacting in the replies for a decent amount of time after AND ready to go with a timely post participating in trends that are current (these shouldn't count against that 4 post minimum). We should be seeing updates on ride maintenance. What goes in to managing seasonal HR. We should be seeing carpentry highlighted. Q&As. There's way more that can be done to keep people engaged and informed and that just isn't being done - not with the main accounts and not coming from an executive. I'd like to see posts EVERY operating day and one every other weekday when the park is in weekend only operation too. There are enough employees and departments and individual duties and activities to keep this fed all year.

[bert425]

54 minutes ago, Danrarbc said:

There are things that Jeff does that don't cost money that many other park execs don't do - or at least don't do near as much. For instance the transparency that's been brought up. It's 'free' for a park president to pull out a camera or their phone and take some pictures and drop frequent social media updates keeping park fans caught up with what's going on around the park on any given week. Another good example of this kind of executive is Tony Clark at Cedar Point. Now some parks don't have an exec directly doing this but they have an active social media presence reliably communicating with the main accounts. Fiesta Texas has the benefit of having both one of the more active Six Flags social media accounts AND Jeff interacting directly - but literally either one would be fine (if a park can't afford someone working social media this is where a full-time executive that can be active can go a LONG way). SfSTL hasn't posted since October 27th and that was about Rocky Horror and the last 3 days of operation.

 

YUP

and not only does Jeffrey post on his own accounts (as well as cross posting on FB and into multiple groups), but the park itself posts on Twitter. (now granted, that's probably Jeffrey as well, just while posting, logging into the Park's account. . . but still the park itself updates at LEAST once or twice a week).

[prozach626]

I think this merger will be good for our park. If all else fails, at this point can it be any worse? Maybe it's because I'm almost 40 years old and my perspective has changed, but I only remember the park being as bad as it is now once or twice in the past. I can't give you an exact timeline. 

 

Things seemed to peak at the park right around the time Dave Roemer retired. Outside of HITP, it seemed to level out, and then go on a gradual decline from there.

 

Regardless, I hope CF/SF bulldozes the carousel and has a bonfire with all of the horses. I can't wait until new management finds out how long it has been in the "restoration" process. It will probably be fun to see how many mechanical failures it's going to have when it runs after sitting for five years.

[Danrarbc]

1 hour ago, bert425 said:

YUP

and not only does Jeffrey post on his own accounts (as well as cross posting on FB and into multiple groups), but the park itself posts on Twitter. (now granted, that's probably Jeffrey as well, just while posting, logging into the Park's account. . . but still the park itself updates at LEAST once or twice a week).

The Fiesta Texas accounts have been averaging at least a post per day for quite a while (skipping a day here and there - but having multiple posts per day other days).

Edit: Seriously though continuing along the lines of behind the scenes content. Imagine how differently people might feel about The Boss and their appreciation for the maintenance team if people were able to see just how much track work goes in to keeping it specifically running.

[thisdougsforu]

4 hours ago, Danrarbc said:

The Fiesta Texas accounts have been averaging at least a post per day for quite a while (skipping a day here and there - but having multiple posts per day other days).

Edit: Seriously though continuing along the lines of behind the scenes content. Imagine how differently people might feel about The Boss and their appreciation for the maintenance team if people were able to see just how much track work goes in to keeping it specifically running.

Yep. At a park like this, simply being consistent with bringing to light the work that does go on to keep things running would be huge. And when you have a park president doing that kind of thing, it also amplifies the message. Take the infamous carousel- lots of opportunity to at least show off the theoretical hand done work on it. Stuff like that goes a long way. 

[teacherkim]

5 hours ago, prozach626 said:

I think this merger will be good for our park. If all else fails, at this point can it be any worse? Maybe it's because I'm almost 40 years old and my perspective has changed, but I only remember the park being as bad as it is now once or twice in the past. I can't give you an exact timeline. 

 

Things seemed to peak at the park right around the time Dave Roemer retired. Outside of HITP, it seemed to level out, and then go on a gradual decline from there.

 

Regardless, I hope CF/SF bulldozes the carousel and has a bonfire with all of the horses. I can't wait until new management finds out how long it has been in the "restoration" process. It will probably be fun to see how many mechanical failures it's going to have when it runs after sitting for five years.

I agree about the peak being with Dave R. He was always out and about in the park. My son never even met the last couple President's and he was an employee. On the other hand, while you and I have always disagreed about the carousel, I've always been willing to let them have all the time they need if doing proper restoration work and I certainly do not want them to burn it all to the ground (I'll assume that is hyperbole) Which is ok, we're allowed to differ on this. I DO think they need to let us know what the progress is on it. If it is delayed let us know if it's due to lack of artists/lack of materials/lack of money or all three or none of the above and something no one has thought of. They should have published that they delay with RR was due to a supply chain issue and explain what they were waiting on, instead of do it back channel rumor by telling the ACE crowd at the annual event. I just don't get the secrecy.

31 minutes ago, thisdougsforu said:

Yep. At a park like this, simply being consistent with bringing to light the work that does go on to keep things running would be huge. And when you have a park president doing that kind of thing, it also amplifies the message. Take the infamous carousel- lots of opportunity to at least show off the theoretical hand done work on it. Stuff like that goes a long way. 

THIS! I have NEVER understood the point of being all secretive about it. Why didn't they post stuff about the train while it was down due to RR construction? A lot of people didn't realize why. As Dan said show what maintenance has to do over the winter. Why not just explain that HITP was not making money? When you are open about things there is a lot less rumors and conspiracy theories that are spread. 

[prozach626]

I wonder if HITP would have done better if they hadn't included it with the season pass.

[Danrarbc]

HITP would have probably done better financially if they decided to attempt to have less of the park open. 
 

As much as I loved having most of it open and I said that in this very thread that does mean they had to staff up all of those rides. 
 

I guess making it a separate ticketed event might have worked but I doubt near as many people would have attended. 

[prozach626]

I'd be down for a Winterfest type event with limited attractions open.

[SixFlagsOMA80]

Gravitor is the old Rush Street Flyer from STL  - if La Ronda did in fact remove it would be nice if they brought it back here  

Park News - (11/21/2023) According to a reader who passes by La Ronde almost daily on their work commute, it appears that the park has now removed two rides. Our source says that the Condor (Huss) tower ride has been taken down, as well as the park’s Gravitor ride, which was said to have sat closed for the past couple seasons anyway. Currently both rides are still listed on the park’s website, but the site has also not been updated to feature information about the 2024 season yet.

[prozach626]

That thing is old AF. Parts are probably hard to come by. It's being trashed.

[AmyUD06]

4 hours ago, prozach626 said:

That thing is old AF. Parts are probably hard to come by. It's being trashed.

Huss will sell you a brand new Condor today if you really want one.  I'm sure they still support it with parts.

[ricklap77]

The Condor at La Ronde was installed in 1990.  I don't know if they are removing it or just doing maintenance on it.

[KBrylczyk]

On 11/24/2023 at 3:38 PM, AmyUD06 said:

Huss will sell you a brand new Condor today if you really want one.  I'm sure they still support it with parts.

The one at Tivoli is a lot of fun, especially the outward-facing seat option.

[AmyUD06]

5 hours ago, KBrylczyk said:

The one at Tivoli is a lot of fun, especially the outward-facing seat option.

I can imagine.  I'd just love to find one that runs the standard cars as fast as the one at Morey's used to back in the 90s.

[Danrarbc]

On 11/24/2023 at 3:38 PM, AmyUD06 said:

Huss will sell you a brand new Condor today if you really want one.  I'm sure they still support it with parts.

Not only do they still sell Condors they have a second generation model. Right along with the second generation Troika.

[prozach626]

I wonder if the parts are compatible. 

[Danrarbc]

2 hours ago, prozach626 said:

I wonder if the parts are compatible. 

My guess would be Condor possibly, Troika almost certainly not because it's significantly more programmable.