I believe that it will be one of the two most discussed options; either a water park expansion including a water coaster and making HH a separate gate, or a Raptor clone. Like many of you, the enthusiast in me wants to see SFGAm get an awesome front gate roller coaster, however, the realist in me knows that is not going to happen.
Oddly enough, the most likely way for SF corporate to start adding large scale roller coasters again is for attendance and revenue to start dropping. Like Sven has been saying over the last page or so, SF corporate has a distinct strategy that has been very successful and have no need to change their approach unless attendance figures and revenues decrease.
Jodon wrote:I believe that it will be one of the two most discussed options; either a water park expansion including a water coaster and making HH a separate gate, or a Raptor clone. Like many of you, the enthusiast in me wants to see SFGAm get an awesome front gate roller coaster, however, the realist in me knows that is not going to happen.
Oddly enough, the most likely way for SF corporate to start adding large scale roller coasters again is for attendance and revenue to start dropping. Like Sven has been saying over the last page or so, SF corporate has a distinct strategy that has been very successful and have no need to change their approach unless attendance figures and revenues decrease.
So a decrease of 50% attendance will get any SF park a huge coaster. No wonder any parks haven't got anything big in a while. However it seems like our attendance can go down easily if we keep getting small rides. If that happens we can see another B&M, maybe RMC AE, or a 7 inversion coaster.
How come Lightning Rod is never open when I go.
Top 10: 1. El Toro 2. Steel Vengeance 3. I305 4. Fury 325 5. Maverick 6. Mako 7. Iron Rattler 8. Medusa Steel Coaster 9. Raptor Clones 10. Maxx Force.
The cap expenditure formula that BBD is obsessed with, is there to prevent Six Flags from going bankrupt again. It's just a restraint that says we can only spend "X" amount a year on new rides. It in no way allocates "X" amount to each park or rules out major attractions. If he had paid attention, none of my posts even remotely suggested lifting the cap, but stated the obvious, that you can easily install an expensive coaster ($25 Million is just a random number I picked) and stay well within the cap, and actually reduce your expenditures....... Corporate invests heavily into Six Flags Great America more so than Six Flags America because they see growth potential! This isn't "Enthusiast fantasy" it's what they've been doing for the past 8 years now. The parks attendance clearly hasn't plateaued yet! There's a reason why Disney wanted to buy this park back in the 90's, not because they saw a dead end, but because they saw an enormous opportunity for further growth (AKA more money) Great America is in one of the richest Collar Counties, and in between two major cities. It's a gold mine!
But back to the topic. I have no idea what the ride is going to be! Hopefully teasers will start coming in late June.
Jodon wrote:I believe that it will be one of the two most discussed options; either a water park expansion including a water coaster and making HH a separate gate, or a Raptor clone. Like many of you, the enthusiast in me wants to see SFGAm get an awesome front gate roller coaster, however, the realist in me knows that is not going to happen.
Oddly enough, the most likely way for SF corporate to start adding large scale roller coasters again is for attendance and revenue to start dropping. Like Sven has been saying over the last page or so, SF corporate has a distinct strategy that has been very successful and have no need to change their approach unless attendance figures and revenues decrease.
So a decrease of 50% attendance will get any SF park a huge coaster. No wonder any parks haven't got anything big in a while. However it seems like our attendance can go down easily if we keep getting small rides. If that happens we can see another B&M, maybe RMC AE, or a 7 inversion coaster.
I'm not saying that the decrease has to be that drastic, but their current model of annual small capitol investments is increasing revenue and attendance right now. I think that SF corporate would have to see several years of consecutive decreases to alter their model. The evidence that SF corporate is seeing is that the majority of visitors to their parks are happy they are getting a new ride every year and don't care that it won't a massive $25 million dollar Giga.
SFGAM_Hog wrote:Sadly, idk if that will happen. It will probably be an exact clone of Wonder Woman.
Well, all of this talk about T-Rex and Raptor tracks got me interested in the new Wonder Woman coaster. Honestly, I didn't think the Pictorium space was big enough for a coaster, but WW is an incredibly compact design. A T-Rex would need a bigger footprint, but I don't see this as an issue given the amount of free space available if a Raptor was installed instead. I'd really be interested in seeing one or the other installed over a waterpark expansion.
As mentioned before, Raptors have capacity issues. For example, from observing several online videos, it appeared that Fiesta Texas was running an efficient Wonder Woman operation. Even so, I was seeing dispatch times of between 1 minute, 11 seconds and 1 minute, 34 seconds per train. At eight riders a train, that's a capacity of about 300 to 400 riders an hour. I'm pretty sure that's bad.
The ride is just over 30 seconds from the time you leave the lift hill until hitting the brake run, but it is jammed with more elements than I've ever seen over such a short track. So, I decided to overlay Wonder Woman with the Pictorium space. At first, I laid it down to use the newly cleared area behind Hometown Fun Machine:
In the picture above, the yellow lines bound the potential area I could see a coaster using. They extend past the ones drawn by jmanporty7 because I assumed coasters can overhang pathways. The green box is the Wonder Woman station. The transfer tracks are to the lower left of the station. The assumption was that this would be a clone, so there's a lot of theming and water-features to the left of the tracks. The ride itself has a smaller footprint than everything shown above.
There was a problem with this layout. Because Wonder Woman is so dense, there's no room for the Scenic Railway to pass under it. So, I rotated the ride to see how much space it'd consume:
The point of this exercise was to demonstrate to myself that there could actually be a lot of space for a custom T-Rex or Raptor. I couldn't see it before. Now I do. Alternatively, if a Wonder Woman clone were installed instead, you could conceivably have space left over for something else as well.
Last edited by UnclePennybags on May 14th, 2018, 11:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
SFGAM_Hog wrote:Sadly, idk if that will happen. It will probably be an exact clone of Wonder Woman.
Well, all of this talk about T-Rex and Raptor tracks got me interested in the new Wonder Woman coaster. Honestly, I didn't think the Pictorium space was big enough for a coaster, but WW is an incredibly compact design. A T-Rex would need a bigger footprint, but I don't see this as an issue given the amount of free space available if a Raptor was installed instead. I'd really be interested in seeing one or the other installed over a waterpark expansion.
As mentioned before, Raptors have capacity issues. For example, from observing several online videos, it appeared that Fiesta Texas was running an efficient Wonder Woman operation. Even so, I was seeing dispatch times of between 1 minute, 11 seconds and 1 minute, 34 seconds per train. At eight riders a train, that's a capacity of about 300 to 400 riders an hour. I'm pretty sure that's bad.
The ride is just over 30 seconds from the time you leave the lift hill until hitting the brake run, but it is jammed with more elements than I've ever seen over such a short track. So, I decided to overlay Wonder Woman with the Pictorium space. At first, I laid it down to use the clearing behind Hometown Fun Machine:
In the picture above, the yellow lines bound the potential area I could see a coaster using. They extend past the ones drawn by jmanporty7 because I assumed coasters can overhang pathways. The green box is the Wonder Woman station. The transfer tracks are to the lower left of the station. The assumption was that this would be a clone, so there's a lot of theming and water-features to the left of the tracks. The ride itself has a smaller footprint than everything shown above.
There was a problem with this layout. Because Wonder Woman is so dense, there's no room for the Scenic Railway to pass under it. So, I rotated the ride to see how much space it'd consume:
The point of this exercise was to demonstrate to myself that there could actually be a lot of space for a custom T-Rex or Raptor. I couldn't see it before. Alternatively, if a Wonder Woman clone were installed instead, you could conceivably have space left over for something else as well.
My bet is on a custom Raptor. Alan Schilke has stated they have plans for a 200 foot model so anything is possible in that plot of land!
jmanporty7 wrote:Am I the only that would rather have a premier launch coaster built here? Just curious...
You're not the only one. A full circuit launch coaster is one of our needs to have a really strong coaster lineup. If we got something like Full Throttle than we can expand our lineup and the attendance may increase
How come Lightning Rod is never open when I go.
Top 10: 1. El Toro 2. Steel Vengeance 3. I305 4. Fury 325 5. Maverick 6. Mako 7. Iron Rattler 8. Medusa Steel Coaster 9. Raptor Clones 10. Maxx Force.
I cant even believe a T-Rex can be built as a tall as 200 feet or higher in the air. I personally dont see us getting one that big and tall. Cedar Point will probably do that and need to break 10 records
jmanporty7 wrote:Am I the only that would rather have a premier launch coaster built here? Just curious...
You're not the only one. A full circuit launch coaster is one of our needs to have a really strong coaster lineup. If we got something like Full Throttle than we can expand our lineup and the attendance may increase
How about a full circuit launched coaster that's nothing like Full Throttle?
I'd like to see a Mack Launched like Helix.
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"I've been told that some part of every wish will be heard but lately I lost sight of the truth in those words."
Well, sans the capacity problem, raptors intensity looks balls to the wall insane! And I imagine it to be a cool new unique experience to ride inline on a 15.5 inch track. I haven't ridden Full Throttle, and sure, FT has a big loop and a launch, but from the pov the ride looks kinda "meh".. since it has a brake run halfway down the only "airtime hill" so nah, I wouldn't go crazy over FT, but I wouldn't b*tch and moan about it either. *shrug* Maybe something similar can replace V2 eventually? I would like something more original for our park. I'm rather sick of the copy+paste strategy, though. I wish Six Flags had top executives that actually love roller coasters just as much as they love making money and getting their 250m windfall stock options or whatever else
I'd be fine with a RMC Raptor clone or a full circuit lunch coaster. Having a Raptor clone would mean I wouldn't have to go out to CGA or SFFT to ride one.
UnclePennybags wrote:Because Wonder Woman is so dense, there's no room for the Scenic Railway to pass under it. So, I rotated the ride to see how much space it'd consume:
The point of this exercise was to demonstrate to myself that there could actually be a lot of space for a custom T-Rex or Raptor. I couldn't see it before. Now I do. Alternatively, if a Wonder Woman clone were installed instead, you could conceivably have space left over for something else as well.
The only problem I have with any coaster going in this spot is that the view would be blocked by Carousel Gifts. There really isn't any other ride/coaster with a blocked view (except Superman, but once you are out of the first queue block, you can see it). I can only assume that SF would want a great vista for a new coaster they demolished a huge building for. I guess you could queue up behind Sky Trek instead of the old Pictorium entrance, but Im not sure how traffic would work with STT's exit being right there. I'm still thinking its going to be a waterpark expansion with the train now going into HH.
What a day! What a place! What a smile on your face!
jmanporty7 wrote:Am I the only that would rather have a premier launch coaster built here? Just curious...
Absolutely, the park should get a Premier coaster, but the best option for the park with what it has (what it needs), and what it should replace should be getting the Backlot Stunt (family) Coaster to get rid of the demon roller coaster. They don't need all that theming at Kings Island or Kings Dominion, but the layout of it. If I'm greedy, I want ALL the Premier rides. I love Premier coasters, but with what the actual park should get (sort of needs) is another family coaster to replace the aging black Arrow coaster that has long surpassed it's time at the park.
staticshadows wrote:Take this with a grain of salt, I heard some parks might be getting a Zamperla Air Race for 2019.
Just what these parks need (not), another smaller inversion - version of a Larson Looper. It would only make sense to me at Magic Mountain because they don't have an inversion, actual flat ride. To me, all Six Flags parks in the flat department should receive a Chance Alpine Bobs. That's what all these parks need. The only Six Flags park that has one is Six Flags New England. Kontiki at Six Flags New England (If you remember, Hay Bailer at Great America, it's the same type of ride - Cedar Point has Matterhorn. Michigan's Adventure has Thunderbolt, etc.) https://youtu.be/4SNgMCjt368?t=1m53s
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
staticshadows wrote:Take this with a grain of salt, I heard some parks might be getting a Zamperla Air Race for 2019.
Actually, that looks pretty cool. I think we are long due for a nice "showstopper" flat ride for our park. They add a lot of movement to the area that a coaster doesn't.
What a day! What a place! What a smile on your face!
staticshadows wrote:Take this with a grain of salt, I heard some parks might be getting a Zamperla Air Race for 2019.
Actually, that looks pretty cool. I think we are long due for a nice "showstopper" flat ride for our park. They add a lot of movement to the area that a coaster doesn't.
Hmm, I'm intrigued. But I would really like to see something like Sledge Hammer at Canada's Wonderland here. It just seems more unique for us.
How come Lightning Rod is never open when I go.
Top 10: 1. El Toro 2. Steel Vengeance 3. I305 4. Fury 325 5. Maverick 6. Mako 7. Iron Rattler 8. Medusa Steel Coaster 9. Raptor Clones 10. Maxx Force.
I'm skeptical that it would be a raptor, at least a Wonder Woman clone. Because we already know that exact layout would fit perfectly in Buccaneer Battle's plot of land, and Buccaneer Battle is ripe for demolition, lol. That is a really big plot of land that they are clearing, and now that they're clearing land behind the Home Town Fun Machine, it makes me think that this will not be a water park expansion or a cookie cutter coaster. Hopefully we'll start seeings signs soon for a zoning meeting, if it turns out to be a large coaster.
There's a planning & zoning board meeting on the agenda tomorrow. Probably normal gurnee business as usual so not making a claim one way or another. Could be about anything. I don't know how that works.