Lets take a little walk down memory lane, a history lesson of sorts if you will, to a time I'm going to affectionately call the "Golden Era".
You see this "Golden Era" was a period of time in the Mid 90s to the early 2000s where pretty much every year almost like clockwork you'd see GOLIATH!......RAGING BULL!....... MR. FREEZE!......TITAN!! being installed at your local Six Flags. The Golden Era for what its worth could also be named something else; how about the "Burke's Folly"
You see, while we were getting drunk off the shiny new metal and wooden coasters that would spring up at Six Flags parks across the country like dandelions, a storm was starting to brew at Six Flags HQ. A Storm that as of late 2008 has cast the future of Six Flags in doubt. Serious Doubt.
And when I say future, Im talking not about when Great America will get a Dive Coaster, or what SFMM will do next. Im saying what if there is no SFGAm or SFMM to speak about?
Coaster enthusiasts or should i say... Coaster enthusi-asses care about one thing and one thing only Themselves.
There I said, you dont care about Six Flags, you dont care about what the company is trying to do to save itself from years of folly that Burke and Co. have burdened Shapiro and Co with.
But before you get all mad at me. Remember something; Six Flags is responsible for getting you into Roller Coasters in the first place, they where the ones who put B&M on the map (remember that?) They are the ones who gave you Deja Vu (and took it away) So where would you be with Six Flags?
Would you be talking to me on this website? Would you be into coaster at all.
The Bottom line is this:
Six Flags is synonymous with the roller coaster, like it or not. And while we wont be seeing a golden era any time in the near future. You have to understand what exactly Shapiro is trying to do. And that is SAVE THE COMPANY!
I love coasters just like all of you people do, I have been to enough parks and enough coasters that I have a good idea of what im talking about here. But you need to understand that Shapiro and Co. arent just adding family areas or kid rides because he hates the thrill seeker. He's doing it for the Good of the company.
Think about it this way. (This analogy is going to possibly get me in trouble) For the past 8 years theres been a guy in the White House, and if you look at the world around you its not all smelling like roses. Then a new guy took over for the guy whose leaving.... He spoke of Change, and how things are going to be different and how its going to take some adjustments.
GUESS WHAT......
That analogy on a smaller scale is exactly whats happening at Six Flags.
So in short, hate all you want on Shapiro and his changes... but remember why he's doing it in the first place.
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The Business of Business at Six Flags
70 posts
• Page 1 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
Hey, this isn't BusinessBuzz pal.
Take your making sense of things somewhere else. Let us all go back to thinking a coaster should be added every year until all other attractions are forced out and the park shuts its doors forever. Traitor!!!!!!  I finally retired the Sarah Palin signature because she is now 100% irrelevant.
Galvan316 does have a point, as much as we HATE what's going on, Six Flags NEVER Should have been about adding coaster after coaster, more steel, more wood, bigger hills, better loops, make sure the fans are getting bigger and better. Six Flags is in good hands and will one day return to its glory of not only keeping and giving the fans Newer, Better, FUN coasters, but it will KEEP you happy with all the coasters and rides they have!!!
"WE NEED A DIVE COASTER, WE NEED A KINGDA KA, WE NEED A LOOPER". Six Flags could have Kept Deja Vu because they new it was popular, and that its possible one day it would be fixed, but they KNEW that they had to sacrifice something GOOD to make sure there is BETTER in the future. I was very upset when Deja Vu was gone, but i would be severly upset if SFGAM went BYE BYE, so lets deal with what we got I do at times feel that some enthusiasts think they are better then anyone else. The few i have met, were upset because the lines were to long, then tried cutting the line and going to the fast past line and being like "Hi, we are part of the "bla bla bla" thinking they had special line access, and then trying to reride the rides when there was people in there line waiting just to get "ride time" and so on. These are just things i have witnessed in the past few years. If you are part of any enthusiast group, you are NO MORE special then anyone else, you do not have more power or access over any other park guest. please remember that. Trips Planned 2009: ?Unsure?
Actually 1998 was the downfall of Six Flags when Premeir Parks bought the Six Flags chain from Time Warner and Blackstone Group entirely on a line of credit. All the coasters and purchases since then only added like 3/4 of a billion worth of the debt onto the final total.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder
Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
You see my problem with that nonsense is pretty clear. We have Mark talk of having to add family ride after family ride to make up for bad purchases like Kingda Ka and the rest of the beasts. Which is fine. I get that families help keep the park and chain afloat. I get that every ride costs money and steel costs are 10X what they were years ago when Six Flags was starting out. If this way of thinking was incorporated into EVERY park I would be happy. Unfortunately, you have the same guy tell the people at MM first they get Tatsu(Which reprtedly failed to increase attendance), a multi-million dollar makeover on another ride, Thomas Town, Terminator and ANOTHER coaster for 2010 and ANOTHER kiddie area. While I get they need the additions more frequently then us, getting out of debt will never happen if 97% of the parks get sacrificed without any new attractions and Magic Mountain gets something virtually every year. How about spending their money on park fix-ups, paint jobs, etc. instead of adding something to Valencia, Cali year after year and adding other crap that I guarantee would not make a big difference if it was being added or not. We last got the real thrill in 2003 and then it was all about driving families inside. They knew what Hurricane Harbor would do. Mainly attract the families and people that spend the most cash. I don't think a new attraction, family oriented or not, is what drives people inside. It's about the whole experience. Welcoming staff, no major price increases, cleanliness, rides in good shape, etc. THAT is ALL I need to come back. I don't need a dive machine. I don't need Deja Vu.
13 Years with SFGAm World!
Tatsu was the same as El Toro in that it was already under construction when he came on board. As for SFMM, Shapiro realizes that the family bit will not work in SoCal since the family Market is very saturated with the likes of Disney and Legoland and Knotts to an extent.
I am sick and tired of people complain and moaning about Great America getting a family attraction vs. a high thrill attraction. Look at it from a business standpoint and you will see quite clearly that the reason why Great America is getting family attractions is because since they are the only major gig in town, they can attract the group that is going to make them the most money. And since that is without question families and not pimpley faced 13 year olds. you can see why we are not getting SFMM attractions year after year.
Magic Mountain drains the budget big time every year. Too bad they have attendance problems every year and it will always be a burden to the company. Try not adding anything major for a year or two and see if sales/attendance sharply decline. If they stopped adding something EVERYWHERE for a bit and concentrated on the in-house problems they would stop adding to their debt and satisfy people who just want the upkeep to be more important for every park in the chain.
****RUMOR****Magic Mountain is thisclose to losing Deja Vu in the next year or two and the park has yet to decide where their 2010 coaster will go. 13 Years with SFGAm World!
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I dont think you understand English, I just told you why SF pumps more money into SFMM for Coasters and thrills. And the reason why DV would be removed is because like its predecessors; SFMM's has had a history of trouble.
You don't understand common sense. If you continue to add to Magic Mountain and still not see a large enough increase in people going there you will drive the final nail in Six Flag's coffin. That is what has been going on. You don't need a new ride every year to stabilize attendance. You need a good park. Not a good ride. I think we can all agree these days it is not about rushing out to a park for one new thrill ride. You want it to be fun for everyone, be affordable and see the park is not ignoring key upkeep problems. We fail on two of those yearly. Year after year.
13 Years with SFGAm World!
What is the difference of spending $10 million + for In park improvements at other parks versus Using that same allocated funds for a coaster instead of overall improvements at SFMM?
The money is spent just the same as if it were spent elsewhere. This is pretty much the concept behind a budget. Yet, I don't know common sense... Lets look at this another way (keeping in mind don't posses or understand common sense*) *according to onyxhotel08 Now this is a hypothetical situation: If my math is correct Six Flags owns 21 parks not including the under construction Dubailand or the destroyed SFNO. Anyway say for example that each year Six Flags allocates anywhere between 3 and 10 million dollars for new park upgrades, whether that be for paint, rides or snow cones. Now obviously the formula is based on how much the turnstyles are spinning so a smaller park like SFKK wouldnt get nearly as much as Great Adventure or Great America. But lets say for arguements sake that for fiscal 2009 SFMM was allocated 10 Million dollars. That money instead of upkeep for paint and snow-cones went to build the new coaster. Now perhaps Since 2008 didnt see a full scale investment of the 10 million dollars inside the park, any left over funds from 2008 are used for 2009 paint and snow-cones. Making a Budget 101 my friends. No one here unless they specifically worked at Six Flags HQ can legitimately say they now how much as allocated to which park which is why i have an estimated figure, I could be totally off base but as a person who has made large purchases and has to budget everything all the time everytime, this example could work. Furthermore it all comes down to as I said above. WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE COMPANY Shapiro knows he cant win over families at SFMM, But he also knows that no one in SOCal can hold a candle to the thrills at SFMM. This is also why Great America doesnt get major attraction after major attraction year after year: Several reasons for this: One: land is at a premium, Two: No need for major attractions that draw a small subset of your customers (that'd be us) when families are king, and since Great America is the only game in town, Shapiro is following what his customers and biggest spenders want. Yet.... I dont know anything about common sense
I dont consider the early 2000's to be any "golden age," especially at SFGAm. The clientele was awful at that time.
I still dont think theyve turned anything around other than maybe the state of California, sure Great Adventure was much better when I went there in 2008 compared to 2005 but if putting your best employees at El Toro and Nitro so they load really fast and all the other rides still are run like total crap, that doesnt qualify as turning around a park in my opinion, it still needed a lot of cosmetic work. Six Flags America is still a hellhole an run like crap. Six Flags hasnt paid a dividend in a long time and has put off paying debt as long as possible with their only answer to that being "the payments we need to make can be put off a year interest free." They have succeeded in changing the clientele at SFGAm to a more pleasant crowd, other than lots of ads I dont think the park is much different (in 07 I thought the change was really noticeable, but that positive change was negated in 08 when the park was really dirty again with lots of operation cuts such as opening the entire back half of the park late).
Im starting to get sick of this!
 What people need to realize is that no matter how many people complain, b!tch, bash each other the more the truth seems right. Seriously, we all have the same interests...why not just go with the flow of the park, have fun, and try to make some friends. By posting pages and pages of crap WILL NOT change the park.  [read]
Bingo. I am willing to say 90% plus of the people here will or already have a 2009 season pass. We are not the crowd Six Flags cares about. The same really goes true with any season pass holder anywhere. They have us hooked and know most will come back no matter what. We have already gave them their big profit up front. Odds are, most people will also eat outside the park, have a parking season pass and not buy any items in the gift shops. While they are happy to have us there as we did pay them to be there, a family of 4 that comes 1-2 times a year and spend s 200-300 each visit is the priority.
The thing is though that if Six Flags goes out of business because they aren't making any money then there are no coasters at all. So I'd rather have one good coaster every 10 years than no coasters at all.  Track Record=467
Park: 103 Steel: 363 Wood: 104
Six Flags Great America is NOT ind anger of closing, Six Flags is. It is too profitable location and a company is sure to sweep in someday if Six Flags can no longer run it. By the way, families these days are also on a budget. Especially with more than one child and park costs increasing yearly. A typical teen is not that likely to leave the park, eat at Burger King and come back. Teens are lazy and most don't see the point. Going to Six Flags you know what the costs are and I know most people plan on eating about once and getting a snack or two later on. You really don't have that many people eating more than that and you don't really come for the food. You come for the coasters, rides, etc. Sometimes a teen is more capable of paying more for gifts and what not because they don't have two, three or four other people to think about on a daily basis. They make their own money and don;t have a family to take care of. Families will not stop coming to the part because there is no new family ride for a season or two. They will stop coming if prices continue going through the roof and the park does not do the necessary things to make it look more attractive, appealing and pleasant.
13 Years with SFGAm World!
I want to know how often you go to the park. I'd say 80% of the people I see walking to Burger King, or leaving to go get food outside the park, are teenagers. I am one of those people, and the majority of the people I go to the park with are too. If there's one thing I'll hear about when I'm around non-enthusiasts, is how outrageous the costs of everything is at the park. Do you even work? Like honestly, how much of your life do you pay for? (assuming your a teenager 16-21) I get maybe 20 hours a week at my job at MAX. There is NO way I'm able to buy all of the gifts and such if I go to the park. I'm not wasting money left and right buying food at the park, and granted, you say that no one goes to the park for food. And that's probably true, but the fact is, people are going to have to eat at some point during the day, but I guarantee there's not one family or teen out there that see's $50 for a few cheeseburgers as a "good deal." Take an economics class, and get realistic.
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I find it amazing that the same person who doesn't think i have common sense isn't using any of his own.
You think these days families really feel capable of spending tons of money in a park with a can of pop going for $3.25? You guys seem to think just because you are a family going to Six Flags you automatically put in tons of money in the park and buy all that useless crap when these days you have to factor in gas, admission, food, etc. EVERYONE is on a budget these days. Especially people with kids to think about. I happen to know 3-4 different families who stopped going to Great America not because of no new family rides but because it is too expensive and our park has yearly price hikes on most items inside. Simply put, my way of thinking is simply forget about what to put in every year. Save some of money so that you don't need to increase prices every year with this lousy economy. That and maybe a paint job or two. I guarantee any typical family would appreciate that over The Dark Knight and Buccaneer Battle any day.
13 Years with SFGAm World!
The think is, with more family attractions, you give them more of a reason to budget in a trip. Putting in a dive machine or painting a ride does nothing to increase visiting. I am willing to wager outside of something completely new to the area (a ride such as X2 or a water coaster) not much is going to draw people in coaster wise. We have basically one element of any other ride in the park coaster wise. A new paint job on a ride does nothing to help the park draw one person. While someone may say it looks nice, an old paint job will not turn families away. The only way a new paint job should be done is if a company does it in exchange for advertising. For the prices, they are because they can. It is as simple as that. Sure they can charge 2.25 (Disney price for a bottle of soda) for a soda and make a profit, but why not charge 3.50 instead. Same reason lockers cost around $15.00 and Flash Pass is over 100 for 2 people on the gold version. They do it because most families with young kids don't want to deal with making little johnny sad about leaving the park for an hour to eat and save 15 bucks. It is simply not worth it. They know in families, they have a captive audience.
What YOU don't realize my friend is that it's a BOTTLE of pop going for $3.25. You also don't realize what you're saying. You are essentially saying that a teenager can budget gas, admission, food, etc. and a family can't? WHAT IS YOUR LOGIC?! I also bet you not even 5% of guests noticed Deja Vu's paint job a few years ago, let alone Raging Bulls. Paint jobs don't attract people to the park. Honestly, come on. You can hype up a roller coaster, have it be a let down, but still get people in your park. Can't do that with a paint job. You really need to just get some common sense, and get your head out of your Roller Coaster Tycoon filled behind.
*Pops head in*
Humm, what ever happened to going to just have fun? I try to see every ones point, but I just don't get what is the big deal, right now if every one can just try to look at the " Bigger Picture" then yes this is for the best. As americans we have the right to complain when things dont go our way. But if you are going to give a company your money, knowing full well what they have in there, then you can't complain. If you don't like what their doing here is a crazy idea, don't go. * sneaks out the door before anyone has time to turn around.*
I'm lazier than you I guess. I just drive to the mall and get the $5 teriyaki chicken and noodles deal at teriyaki japan  And you're totally right about non-enthusiasts not liking the prices. Most families (the ones that only go once or twice a year) try to not spend more than 1 meal in the park. I remember I was at the park the same day as my mom and her friends and they only wanted to get one meal there and they still ended up spending like $40 or something like that on a few hamburgers and fries. And this was before this years extremely crappy economy and these are people who live in $500,000+ homes and have a huge pool in their backyard. Track Record=467
Park: 103 Steel: 363 Wood: 104
I wish that back in 1998, Someone Else besides Premier Parks would have Stepped in to Buy Six Flags. That Way there would be much less debt if any debt and Six Flags Would Rival Cedar Fair in terms of Attendance and Revenue but Not Debt.
Premier Parks Screwed Things Up MASSIVE TIME by Buying Mom & Pop Parks, Expanding them with 40-60 Million in New Additions (Some Parks Even More than That in 2 Years) and not giving 3 Piles of (Insert your Own Word Here) about the 1.9 Billion dollars of Debt and Just expanding to 12 parks and not the remaining 17 Other Parks. I Will tell you right now why Kieren Burke was such a bad CEO OK, its simple; HE DIDN'T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTHING HE DID AND ONLY CARED ABOUT THE QUANITITY OF THE COASTERS AND NOT THE QUALITY OF THE PARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Prior to Premier Parks, Six Flags only had 12 Properties (8 Theme, 1 Safari, 3 Waterparks) and a few years later in 2002 they had 40 Properties (21 Theme, 1 Safari, 8 Waterparks, 10 International) If (FOR EXAMPLE PURPOSES ONLY) Marriott International had Purchased Six Flags in 1998 and Not Premier Parks, Things would be Great for Six Flags right now. 943 Coasters around the World! Countdown to 1000!
http://sfgamworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15272 Runner Up of the 2017 SFGAmWorld Elimination Thread
Maybe they will some day...Can we all just agree some parks should and will eventually be sold to help with the money problems? Certain parks just don't warrant the money which is why they never get anything. Maybe in 2009 Six Flags will start thinking about selling a few U.S. parks while they continue to expand their international presence.
13 Years with SFGAm World!
So let me get this straight...you DON'T want a dive machine?
70 posts
• Page 1 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
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