Whos fault is it really? Six Flags?

[Twister II]

Well way back in 1998, Premier bought the Six Flags chain. So who's fault is it really for going bankrupt? Premiers, or Six Flags?

 

Im confused :?

[kenshinmac]

Premier overcommited... They couldn't manage all the parks and didn't even turn a profit except this last year if I remember correctly. It was a poor move overall.

[Twister II]

So its actually Premier's fault?

[ParkTrips]

Six Flags has filed for bankruptcy, did I miss something?

[Gnome]

Time Warner (I think was the owning company at the time) decided they were sick of Six Flags and sold it to Premier. Any major damage done to the chain was done by Premier.

[Twister II]

^Ok, that clears things up a little. People are just saying Six Flags because thats what the parks are name, when its really Premiers fault, right?

[robbalvey]

Much of the blame does fall on Premiere.

 

This is what happens when a company that not only knows nothing about the amusement park industry or the entertainment business gets in over their head.

 

If you do some research on them you'll find that the history of the company was in real estate, not amusement or entertainment.

 

IMO, the one thing I feel Snyder's group has going for them is the experience in the entertainment business.

 

He might not be making decisions we all like, but their background seems more suited than Premiere's originally was.

 

--Robb

[ParkTrips]

^ Thank you!!

 

People give Snyder crap about not having amusement park experience, but most seem to forget/overlook/not know that the current group didn't either!!

[MF310ryb]

To clarify the names Premier Parks bought Six Flags from Time Warner. Premier only ran a few parks before acquiring the assets from Time Warner. When they purchased Six Flags from Time Warner they changed their name to Six Flags Incorporated since it was a well known name and theirs was not as popular. So Premier Parks name was actually taken out of the equation. The people who ran Premier were still around since they were now running SFI. So call as you will Premier or Six flags its the same people running the company.

[Scaparri]

For the record, just to give an idea of how Premier got themselves in such a big hole, between the years of 1999 and 2001, every Premier park running under a Six Flags name received at least one brand new coaster. Here is the break down for ya'll:

 

SFA- 5

SFAW- 1

SF Belgium- 2

SFDL- 1

SFEG- 1

SFFT- 3

SFGAdv- 4

SFGAm- 3

SF Holland- 4

SFKK- 1

SFMM- 3

SFMW- 5

SF Mexico- 2

SFNE- 2

SFWOA- 5

SFOG- 2

SFOT- 3

SFStL- 1

 

Yes, I have too much time on my hands, but it really shows how they got some of their gihugic debt. And just think, this doesn't include the enormous amounts of money they spent on flat rides and such. I think it was great to add a coaster to each park, but they went overboard at most of them. Seriously, what were they thinking.

[robbalvey]

The lesson they also learned from all that is that 3 new coasters in one year doesn't buy you 3 times the amount of attendance in one year. You might as well spread that investment over three years.

 

Just look at SFWOA. Not even Villain, Knight Flight, and SUE all in one year could save them! I mean, those three coasters are most other parks new SIGNATURE rides for 5 or 6 years!

 

Again, this is a group that knew nothing about amusement parks.

 

--Robb

[Token Yankee Guy]

For the record, just to give an idea of how Premier got themselves in such a big hole, between the years of 1999 and 2001, every Premier park running under a Six Flags name received at least one new coaster. Here is the break down for ya'll:

 

SFNE- 2

 

Actually, to clarify that, we got three new coasters in 2000 when our park got flagged.

Superman, Poison Ivy's Tangled Train, and Flashback (new to us).

 

And we lost Black Widow and Little Rickies Little Twister at the end of the '99 season which was the last season the name Riverside was used.

[Hercules]

^ Thank you!!

 

People give Snyder crap about not having amusement park experience, but most seem to forget/overlook/not know that the current group didn't either!!

 

I never gave Snyder crap about not having experience in the industry. He does have experience in the ENTERTAINMENT industry, which is essentially what this is. People overlook the fact that Six Flags is not just in the amusement park industry, they are in the entertainment industry. They have competition with the bowling alley down the road, the arcade in the next town or with the freakin' apple picking place and with, let's just say, some sort of sporting event. Snyder has experience in the industry. I just choose to bash him because I don't like him .

[Token Yankee Guy]

I haven't bashed snyder much, maybe a little, but not compared to some other people. I personally think we should give snyder a chance, you can see he does care about the safety of the patrons at SFNE that's why he is promoting the slogan "Clean, safe, and fun" or something like that, and also is starting to target some families. I don't think this will completely hinder our roller coasters, I do believe we will get some great coasters in the next year, but at the time, get stuff for families. For example, look at what GAdv is doing for the second year in a row. They're building a whole new section which has a lot of stuff for young kids and family, with one attraction directed to older kids and adults.

 

I believe we should give him and chance and see if he does turn Six Flags around in a good way. The season hasn't begun yet and some of you guys are already over-reacting the future.

[ParkTrips]

Jay -

 

1. I wasn't calling you out

2. Your just a bitter Redskins fan

[Hercules]

Joe -

 

1. I know

2. Yes I am

[Meteornotes]

It is one thing to say your parks are "Clean Safe Fun". It is entirely another thing for the parks to actually BE these three things! Saying this as a slogan and not backing it up with drastic changes to how the parks are operated will be pointless. It's sort of like putting "now with a great new taste" on a bottle of Drano. Saying it doesn't make it so.

 

Will Snyder and his new team make the effort to make the parks "Clean Safe Fun"? There wasn't anything in the original proposal on how they're going to improve the absolutely horrible customer service at your average SF park, so they really have their work cut out for them. I remain cautiously optimistic...

 

dt

[GAcoaster]

When Premier bought out Time Warner's share of Six Flags, part of the deal was assuming more than $1 billion in debts with the chain, so they were on shaky financial ground even while they were part of TW.

 

My personal feeling is that Premier made some very smart moves, but suffered from bad timing more than anything. Had the economy not floundered with the dot.com collapse, and had 9/11 never happened, the chain would probably have been in pretty good shape. Making Six Flags a national brand and improving smaller parks were smart moves, but they turned out to be bad investments in some cases, and good investments in others. From what I understand, some of the re-flagged parks (like SFNE and SFMW) have done well, and turned profits. Others, like SFWoA proved to be mistakes, but as we've all seen now, not even the home town owners of GL have been able to reverse the problems.

 

Unfortunately, when times are bad cuts have to be made. Because the company over extended in anticipation of better returns, when time got tough, they had to make cuts. Because they had to make cuts, customer service, staffing, maintenance budgets, etc all suffered to the detriment of all the parks in the chain. I'm sure if they could do it all again, Premier/SF would have not made some of the acquisitions and improvements they did, but hindsight is 20/20. The investment community believed that Burke & co. had the right ideas, and I tend to agree for the most part. The problem is once the money was spent there was no way to unspend it when things got rough.

[Scaparri]

For the record, just to give an idea of how Premier got themselves in such a big hole, between the years of 1999 and 2001, every Premier park running under a Six Flags name received at least one new coaster. Here is the break down for ya'll:

 

SFNE- 2

 

Actually, to clarify that, we got three new coasters in 2000 when our park got flagged.

Superman, Poison Ivy's Tangled Train, and Flashback (new to us).

 

And we lost Black Widow and Little Rickies Little Twister at the end of the '99 season which was the last season the name Riverside was used.

 

Yeah, I meant to say "received at least one brand new coaster" to emphasize how much they forked out. On the other hand though, it's not cheap to have these things disassembled and reconstructed elsewhere.

 

-Scott "I'm not going to lie, I sort of miss having the Vampire instead of a less than stellar wild mouse" Parrish

[Twister II]

Unfortunately, when times are bad cuts have to be made.

 

Well when I was as SFMM, there were about 20 employees hanging out in SCREAM's station, doing absolutly nothing. There were only 3 ops acutally doing something.

 

We could so make this a joke: "How many SFMM employees dose it take to operate SCREAM?"

[GAcoaster]

Unfortunately, when times are bad cuts have to be made.

 

Well when I was as SFMM, there were about 20 employees hanging out in SCREAM's station, doing absolutly nothing. There were only 3 ops acutally doing something.

 

We could so make this a joke: "How many SFMM employees dose it take to operate SCREAM?"

 

Unfortunately, that kind of thing is always going to happen.

 

The cuts I'm thinking about most are things like no longer having attendants on flat rides. They have been reconfigured so the entrances and exits are together allowing a single person to run them. Yes, it's cheaper to run with one employee but it's slower loading, longer wait times, and (possibly) not as safe.

[Twister II]

SFEG has always been good with op's tho. Its pretty much as you say. Only 1 op per thrill/other type then coaster ride. Coasters usually have a MAX of 5. But on average it around 3.

 

Off of memory:

 

Chaos - 1

Disaster Canyon (White water rapids)-5 (including 1 at exit)

The Flying Coaster - 4

Twister II- 3 or 2

Tower of Doom - 3 (can operate with 2)

Rainbow - 1

Shake, Rattle and Roll - 1

[kenshinmac]

SFEG has always been good with op's tho. Its pretty much as you say. Only 1 op per thrill/other type then coaster ride. Coasters usually have a MAX of 5. But on average it around 3.

Yeah but then you have the rides that take years to load and unload. With 1 more person they would probably increase the hourly capacity of some rides incredibly. The real drag is the BatWing ride... OMG that takes forever sometimes.

 

Sadly my poor Chaos was another one that took a while to load and unload...

[Eunuch Provocateur]

Mine. It's all my fault.

 

But, really, could it be all Premiere's fault? Could it be our fault too since we all lust after thrills? And they were just feeding that need. It's just like the Matrix sequels. Don't listen to the fans or spend six months designing "the perfect raindrop."

[FlyingScooter]

It's the Oil company's fault.

 

Hey, I blame them for everything else.