Six Flags St. Louis (SFStL) Discussion Thread

[prozach626]

Then it sounds like it will pair just fine with our most recent thrill coaster. I'd hate to raise expectations.

[Danrarbc]

BTW there's precedent for Six Flags St Louis cutting supports down on relocated rides to make them fit on literally the same exact hill back there.

Flashback's lift supports were shortened to install Boomerang in that location - Chang's post-lift turnaround supports could receive the same treatment to make the placement I mocked up possible.

 

9 minutes ago, KBrylczyk said:

If it actually gets shipped to St Louis maybe there'll be the benefit of them dismantling the trains and rebuilding them with tighter wheel assemblies.  Green Lantern used to be tolerable and fun, recently it's like getting in the ring with Tyson.

Ryan the Ride Mechanic theorizes that there MIGHT be a part that B&M sources from a third party that has had the manufacturing tolerances loosened and that's creating the recent B&M rattle problem. He especially arrived at this theory learning that renovated OLD trains are seeing the same kinds of issues the new builds are. Green Lantern may be in that boat - it's received new assemblies that aren't built to the spec B&M originally intended.

[Stlouisguy]

I went to the park friday and someone on the team was out answering questions. From what I heard from sources over the past season I have put together to my understanding- the parks plan as of now.

To get things out of the way, there will be no new attraction for next season. As of now nothing is planned or being relocated. This is in anticipation for the park to finally get "A big investment" in 26 or possibly the year after. I dont see this being RMC boss, the park had previously talked with RMC and with the parks budget it would cut down the layout of the attraction so much so that it wouldnt be the show stopping coaster everyone thought it would be. Then Covid came along and it got the Axe, it likely would never see the light of day. IMO Id expect something more along the lines of a B&M dive. 

The park should receive its own park president soon, my choice for it would be Ron Mckenzie. Previously the President at Over texas, He worked with St louis for many years, knows and loves our park and I believe if given the chance, he would return. I sometimes see him post things about our park on social media and make jokes about returning on his old coworkers posts. 

In the meantime, the focus for next year is really just looking at what the park has done right the past couple seasons and continue with it. A return back to entertainment, how large scale the shows would be, im not sure. But also continuing to focus on events and looking at guest feedback. I believe a return of Holiday in the park has been thrown around but Id doubt it would be for next season.  

[Danrarbc]

A B&M dive, even a small one, costs considerably more than an RMC Iron Horse. 

[prozach626]

21 hours ago, Stlouisguy said:

To get things out of the way, there will be no new attraction for next season.

Thank God. We were getting spoiled.

[Danrarbc]

This is pretty typical of Cedar Fair. They don't require that parks open new attraction every year - Six Flags did. Both companies allocate a certain amount of money for capital improvements though.

Cedar Fair parks tended to announce things like new restaurants and other assorted updates more like January-February.

That WOULD be something I'd love to see at SFStL. An overhaul of the menus in general and at least one more decent-sized sit down restaurant.

 

Mooseburger could be removed and something not unlike Lazy Bear Lodge/The Farmhouse/Grand Pavillion/Miami River Brewhouse could be built in its place. With the attention to food quality Cedar Fair has had and a nice new eatery like that we could really be in for a treat.

And this is exactly the kind of thing we wouldn't know about until the new year.

 

 

PS: Cedar Fair parks have also commissioned custom beers from local craft breweries. I would LOVE if SFStL ended up doing this - they have a large number of breweries to choose from.

[SteveStL]

Carousel?

[prozach626]

1 hour ago, Danrarbc said:

This is pretty typical of Cedar Fair. They don't require that parks open new attraction every year - Six Flags did.

That's good to hear. We'll basically be the shittier version of WoF.

  

1 hour ago, SteveStL said:

Carousel?

lol stop

[SixFlagsOMA80]

2 hours ago, SteveStL said:

Carousel?

At the start of the season they had said it would by ready by summer. That never happened. What are we going on, 5-6 years now? Laughable at this point. The Zoo just started to redo their carousel. 

[SteveStL]

1 hour ago, prozach626 said:

That's good to hear. We'll basically be the shittier version of WoF.

  

lol stop

[Danrarbc]

Honestly if the only major addition for 2025 is Winterfest I’d probably actually be pretty happy. 

I miss Holiday in the Park. 
 

PS: If Cedar Flags has any idea of what is good for it they’d make all Halloween events ‘Fright Fest’ and all Christmas events ‘Winterfest’. They go together perfectly. 

[prozach626]

7 hours ago, Danrarbc said:

Honestly if the only major addition for 2025 is Winterfest I’d probably actually be pretty happy. 

Preach. 

[teacherkim]

On 11/3/2024 at 2:49 PM, Stlouisguy said:

I went to the park friday and someone on the team was out answering questions. From what I heard from sources over the past season I have put together to my understanding- the parks plan as of now.

To get things out of the way, there will be no new attraction for next season. As of now nothing is planned or being relocated. This is in anticipation for the park to finally get "A big investment" in 26 or possibly the year after. I dont see this being RMC boss, the park had previously talked with RMC and with the parks budget it would cut down the layout of the attraction so much so that it wouldnt be the show stopping coaster everyone thought it would be. Then Covid came along and it got the Axe, it likely would never see the light of day. IMO Id expect something more along the lines of a B&M dive. 

The park should receive its own park president soon, my choice for it would be Ron Mckenzie. Previously the President at Over texas, He worked with St louis for many years, knows and loves our park and I believe if given the chance, he would return. I sometimes see him post things about our park on social media and make jokes about returning on his old coworkers posts. 

In the meantime, the focus for next year is really just looking at what the park has done right the past couple seasons and continue with it. A return back to entertainment, how large scale the shows would be, im not sure. But also continuing to focus on events and looking at guest feedback. I believe a return of Holiday in the park has been thrown around but Id doubt it would be for next season.  

Thanks for the info! I think it's really helpful to try to keep everyone as informed as possible as to what's going on. The park needs to keep up the FB updates as well. That pretty much fits what I was told about the Boss/RMC. And as far as new attractions, Joker opened so late and without the funhouse so that might as well be the new attraction. Hopefully, they can finish the carousel, I have always been patient and assumed it will happen when it happens but not getting into an argument on that one at this point.

I very  much hope we get our own Park President and if we do it's only reasonable that that person have a season to assess and get the lay of the land. And in my opinion working on festivals is a good way to assess interest in things like HITP/Winterfest and find out what people are interested in. While I never really cared that much one way or the other about HITP, I went and I'm not against it but they will have to figure out some way to make it profitable. Despite so many people whining about it, they just didn't show up. 

[Danrarbc]

On 11/6/2024 at 7:34 AM, teacherkim said:

Thanks for the info! I think it's really helpful to try to keep everyone as informed as possible as to what's going on. The park needs to keep up the FB updates as well. That pretty much fits what I was told about the Boss/RMC. And as far as new attractions, Joker opened so late and without the funhouse so that might as well be the new attraction. Hopefully, they can finish the carousel, I have always been patient and assumed it will happen when it happens but not getting into an argument on that one at this point.

I very  much hope we get our own Park President and if we do it's only reasonable that that person have a season to assess and get the lay of the land. And in my opinion working on festivals is a good way to assess interest in things like HITP/Winterfest and find out what people are interested in. While I never really cared that much one way or the other about HITP, I went and I'm not against it but they will have to figure out some way to make it profitable. Despite so many people whining about it, they just didn't show up. 

Christmas in July could work as a special event. 

[TrippinBillie]

12 hours ago, Danrarbc said:

Christmas in July could work as a special event. 

Personally, I wouldn't want to enjoy "Christmas" while its 96 degrees outside with 99% humidity.

[SixFlagsOMA80]

2 hours ago, TrippinBillie said:

Personally, I wouldn't want to enjoy "Christmas" while its 96 degrees outside with 99% humidity.

agreed- i don't even want to hear the words Christmas when it is summer. That's the last thing I want to think about. 

[teacherkim]

 

2 hours ago, TrippinBillie said:

Personally, I wouldn't want to enjoy "Christmas" while its 96 degrees outside with 99% humidity.

I dunno Christmas by the pool seems ok to me  The point though is to experiment with new ideas to draw people in and see what is popular and what isn't. They need things that can be enjoyed by all ages to tempt more families to come in together, even if the kids go off to ride stuff that Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa don't want to do. If there are events that include special food, drink, shows, etc. etc. that entices the people with the money in the family (which are not the kids) to stay and spend. There are a whole host of ideas they could try out; back to school foam or beach party the last week of 7 day operation, craft beer festival (and I don't even like beer but it is popular), shark week in June, specialty food festivals like Epcot but on a much smaller more local scale. Or intertwine things like craft beer and whiskey tastings with the festivals. Just some examples, there are numerous possibilities. Some will be better than others but then they can get feedback. If they are putting a focus on entertainment maybe they are already thinking this way.

Also, maybe offer some VIP tours with behind the scenes and/or lift hill climbs and/or first ride of the day on something. I think the one at Holiday World has been pretty popular and most gp don't get to do those things. We are just used to it because of thoosie events. Got a behind the scenes inside the volcano once, it was cool, people will pay for it. 

BUT whatever they do they have to get better at messaging it to the whole area. Talked to a neighbor one day who didn't have any idea that HITP had gone away, which is the exact problem. People weren't attending in droves and as a person that doesn't seek that info out she had no idea. Advertising pays off.

 

 

[teacherkim]

When we were at Dutch Wonderland in PA it was July 2021 and they have an employee that legit looks like Santa, real beard and all; and he was taking tickets at the front gate with red shorts and red knee socks joking about it being his second job in the summer because Mrs. Claus didn't want him hanging around getting in her way, lol. Everyone loved it, there was a line a mile long. Of course it didn't involve the whole park just him, but it was great.

[teacherkim]

Sorry, double post

[Danrarbc]

I didn't make Christmas in July up. It's like a thing some people do, BTW.

I'm just saying if they aren't doing Winterfest yet there's a way to use the decorations again.

[Stlouisguy]

Crazily enough, they already did Christmas in July! I remember it, in 2021 the Britannia section had a couple Christmas trees, and decorations. The one day I went the big inflatable marshmallow snowman was out on the roof. I also BELIEVE, but I can’t be certain, that the current lights strung up in that section of the park was added for Christmas in July. I couldn’t find almost anything regarding the event besides these screenshots from a short clip of an ides of march video. But the video was from July 4th Fest so most nothing was up yet. Six flags social media never posted about it from what I can tell and I don’t remember it even being listed on the events tab, which I'm sure you don’t remember either. I can’t be the only one that remembers this, right? 

[teacherkim]

The missing element seems to be alerting the public to events like this. Hopefully, they will do a better job of advertising this kind of stuff on various platforms.

[prozach626]

There's so much to do in Saint Louis that I think Six Flags gets overshadowed just about year round. Fright Fest is the exception. It's thrilling.

As much as I enjoy family attractions, they're everywhere now. Not to mention, things like Grant's Farm and the Zoo are free. If people want to fork out money, they can go to a Cardinals game or Blues game during the winter. Even soccer has gotten big, since STL is a huge sports town with great fans. You can't forget about City Museum, too. It's hard to compete with the craft brew and bourbon market for adults, since our area is saturated with popular microbreweries and great culinary options.

Winterfest gets lost in the mix of the lights at the Zoo, Garden Glow, Union Station/Polar Express etc. Being on the outskirts doesn't help. The Japanese Festival and the Zoo's events absolutely crush Six Flags' quality. We went to some kind of light up balloon fest at the zoo and it was elbow to elbow.

You can construct as many future neglected planters as you'd like. Spruce up the shitters. Add some more mediocre restaurants. None of that has been drastically increasing attendance, as far as I know.

We need a big ride. Something to bring people to bring thrill seekers to a park that has always been focused on thrill seekers. Joker is a start, but it's a far cry from what needs to happen. KI really started to turn the page after Diamondback and Banshee. It's been a madhouse since Mystic Timbers and Orion. They brought in the crowds first, and then worked on beautification.

"Corporate doesn't hate us." There's just not as much potential at our park. It makes money. Consider it the conservative investment that isn't worth fucking with.

[SteveStL]

Ahhh, back to the decades old "They (SFSTL) needs to earn it first vs If they build it, they will come" argument.   

For the record I am in the "If they build it, They will come" camp.    This is the very reason why I drive to Cincinnati and Sundusky, Ohio.

[Stlouisguy]

43 minutes ago, SteveStL said:

Ahhh, back to the decades old "They (SFSTL) needs to earn it first vs If they build it, they will come" argument.   

For the record I am in the "If they build it, They will come" camp.    This is the very reason why I drive to Cincinnati and Sundusky, Ohio.

I feel like both arguments are in play here, obviously building a show stopping investment, it will drive up attendance people will come. But to a degree they aren’t going to put that investment in a park that can’t prove it will be worthwhile. We do need to earn it. In my opinion, we did.

I hate when people insist “Corporate hates our park” when they really don’t. We have received two flat rides, a coaster and a water park addition all within the past three years. We haven’t actually had an open plot to put a large coaster until tidal wave closed not that long ago. And since then the only small park to receive a half decent roller coaster is Bobcat at Great Escape, which waited much longer than us. Corporate doesn’t hate our park, they just invest in what they see fit. Of course we all would love our park to receive a big coaster, we just need to show up and give feedback.
 

But I do agree that it’s long overdue. We were supposed to revive RMC Boss in 2021, as far as my understanding, the huge layout cut wouldn’t have made it the top coaster it should’ve been. We should get that investment in the next couple of years hopefully, and Six flags is already planning large attractions for 2026, with a coaster already planned for Magic Mountain, and the ride removals at Over Texas and Great Adventure. I hope we don’t see any removals but If we see any, I’d consider it confirmation of a 2026 attraction.