One that caught my eye was "Grad Night Festival" on April 30th.
Make plans now to join our first annual grad night exclusive event! This is a private party in Great America from 5:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. with limited attendance, less lines, dance areas and lots of fun! This event is for all graduating high school and junior high students. Please contact SFGAMspecialevents@sixflags.com for more information.
While I think its a good idea, this is actually not the "First" grad night that has been held at the park. When the park was owned by Marriott, they did have a grad night every year. I forget which year was the last, but I know that there was some kind of incident in the parking lot that year that put an end to it all. Details are a bit cloudy in my mind, but I kind of remember a fight of some kind breaking out in the parking lot at the end of the night between a group of guests. Another thing that sticks out in my mind with this was that someone in the group had a gun. This may not be 100% correct, but it is the way I remember it. Timeframe of this was the late 70's or early 80's. (1977 - 1982 I believe).
So, we'll have to see how this works out, and if the park continues to do it again.
At least until 1984, my mom's grad night was here (and they rode the "new" White Water Rampage last at 3 am)
(sings)If you want to be my Chang-y, doesn 't matter if your black or white, or brown, or blue, or green, or red, or orange, or mauve, or yellow... 2010 trips- Dollywood, SFGAm, maybe SoCal
Brian is right, there was an altercation in the parking lot after closing during one of the "original" grad nights back in 1983 or 1984. Seems like it was 1983.
Some bozo had a gun and took a shot at someone during the "original" grad nights. That incident ended the events instantly because it was all over the news and the park simply didn't want or need the negative publicity. I don't think anyone was seriously injured, but the bad press was enough for Marriott to shut it down.
As others have said, it's not the first grad night at the park, but it will be the first grad night under the Six Flags umbrella which makes sense to promote this as the first.
Yes, an accident happened in the 80's, but this is 25 years later, why not try it again?
I am all for this and hope it works out!!!!
I finally retired the Sarah Palin signature because she is now 100% irrelevant.
Great, know I know how my mom's grad night went! (horrible)
(sings)If you want to be my Chang-y, doesn 't matter if your black or white, or brown, or blue, or green, or red, or orange, or mauve, or yellow... 2010 trips- Dollywood, SFGAm, maybe SoCal
I agree with Chitown that I see nothing wrong with starting to have the event again. Special events like this is what brings people to the park to begin with. The goal then is that these same people will come back again during the rest of the season.
Really I just wanted to point out that it is not the "first" Grad night at the park. But, I will say I again agree that it was under Marriotts, and not Six Flags, which is why the "first" does fit.
Do we have any forum members who will have the honor of graduation next spring? Just wondering how many we have, and if you would be attending this event.
I'm graduating this Spring, and I have organized a large group of people (100+) that would be interested in going. I need to figure out how to get invited, and the pricing (season passes?) for the event. Hopefully it won't be anymore crowded that a Friday night in October.
^ I would e-mail SFGAMspecialevents@sixflags.com with a subject of Grad Night question, and explain what you are looking to do. They should be able to provide you more information as far as price, time, etc.
By the way, that e-mail address was in my first post on this, but for some reason, (at least in the version of FireFox that I'm using), it only shows up if I highlight it. That could be why you did not see it initially.
I did see the link, and I think that the invisible link is a problem with the website because it doesn't show up for safari and IE, at least for me.
I emailed them about a week ago, and again yesterday. They did not respond, so, unless they are overloaded with emails, they might not really check the events email. I tried calling, but the person I wanted to talk to was not there, so I guess I'll try again later!
Yeah what about people graduating from college, I'm done in the spring. Not that I would go I'm just saying why just focus on people graduating high school?
My guess on college would be the age and/or maturity issues. Having a mix of 13/14 year olds, 17/18 years olds and then people over 22 would be odd. And if it is anything like Disney's Grad Nights, I would never want to go there as a college grad with high school grads.
Well, I think you know what I mean especially since College Grads can legally buy it and smuggle it in, or get trashed ahead of time and head into the park. For High School, if anyone shows any signs of being drunk, they can kick them out and call the police (if they already aren't at the park). Also not saying all College Grads are all raging alcoholics or anything, just there is always that element and being 21+ easily facilitates that.
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
