I still think this new business model is going to crash and burn. Catering to the rich as opposed to catering to everyone like they did in th 90's just won't work for six flags. It's not gonna be Disney-level quality, no matter how long they try to make it Disney-level quality. Just accept that you have low prices and broad appeal. Take advantage of your wide stretch of parks and encourage people to parkhop at a low fee. That's not how to thrive, but it's how to stay afloat.
Yeah, many people think of Six Flags as the cheap, trashy park. They could change peoples minds by going above and beyond, but it that really gonna happen?
@@midwestmadlad3397 that's where they're failing If a family is willing to go to a six flags park More often than not they're also willing to go to a cedar fair park that's not struggling to change Like six flags is They're the parks for teens and teens really don't care about how clean or dirty a park is gonna be They're just gonna care about thrill rides and experiences If families are going to cedar fair parks and not six flags parks then six flags can't make money to change their parks So they'll crash and burn I think it would be better for six flags to increase their parks Quality while not completely isolating their main demographics which are teens and by increasing the quality they can also increase their family attendance
@@brandoncole5533bro cedar fair doesn't have a shit tons of parks. That's were you aren't getting it a family won't casually fly out to a cedar fair park when there is a six flags park that caters to families
Okay but teens still spend a ton at six flags, sometimes more than families. Teens love food and ALWAYS pick up drip. Hoodies and hats fly off of shelves where parents always say "No, put it down." Teens spend impulsively where families cut costs by bringing their own food.
One thing to note, SFDK is not *adding* animal exhibits. They're taking down the long faded exhibit cards and putting up new paint and TVs. Literally nothing physically new.
Honestly, i feel like Fiesta Texas is striving with the ever changing goal of Six Flags. The park has gotten so many refurbishment, even rides and attraction that the options for all demographics has gotten wide. Paying more for that quality is worth it. The same thing cannot be said with the other parks.
@@Starlit43 why are you mad at a comment? You’re absolutely a Great Adventure fanboy. Sorry peep squeak, Your park is not seeing that’s why attendance is not met and your star attraction has been down longer than newer ground up attractions being built. Sucks to be mad and biased like you🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹
Darien Lake is probably the most underrated of the Six Flags parks. I went on Memorial Day, and the entire park was spotless. It was a great day and I’m glad I got a season pass.
We visited Fiesta Texas today, and it was clean, well-run, efficient and fun. The staff was impressively well-trained. We managed to fit in 10 rides without Flash pass. The Looney Tunes rides needed some love, but the rest of the park was in good shape. (I miss the Wile E Coyote animatronics on the Road Runner Express)
They also added 6 new kid slides at the renamed Hurricane Harbor attached to Six Flags Fiesta Texas. I'm an adult without kids so I don't directly benefit from it, but as a season pass holder I hope it leads to financial success for the parks so I can continue to enjoy them
I went to nearly every Six Flags park last year, and it seems like local management is keeping some of these parks alive. Great America and Fiesta Texas were doing pretty well and everything about the operations besides one ride closure was top-notch. Sadly, a lot of parks such as Darien Lake, Frontier City, and even Great Adventure just weren’t bringing people in. Hopefully the new changes work out.
Over Georgia has started taking good care of Monster Mansion, they are doing a pretty good job on the refurbishment they started. SFOG has a decent one-two punch of dark rides with Monster Mansion and Battle for Metropolis.
Great America is my home park, and it has reliable rides and good ops. Not much trash around and overall an enjoyable experience. I haven't been to many other Six Flags parks though, so I have nothing to compare it too.
I grew up w/ SFGAm as my home park and honestly there is a lot of potential for the chain if SF does the things you've mentioned. Remove the ad spam, pretty up the park, improve ops, and add some variety in terms of experiences for families. It sounds like a lot but there's a reason people travel for Cedar Fair and Disney/Universal parks.
Six flags should literally just go the thrill route, at least here in socal. Too much competition for a family park and they already have some of the best coasters.
I like Six Flags, but it's really disappointing that they don't take better advantage of the fact they have parks all over the US by injecting some local flavor into each location. You can find at least a little of this at each park (some more than others) but too often the parks just feel like they lack cohesion and planning when you're inside them.
I have noticed a lot of TLC effort put in at SFNE this year. New lap bars and seatbelts on Thunderbolt, new loose article zipper pouches on the seat backs for Wicked Cyclone, they simplified park entry, making it more efficient and visually pleasing at the same time, and there are now non-smoking "relaxation areas", as well as better landscaping throughout the park. I hope they continue in this direction towards quality over quantity.
I feel lucky to have Six Flags Great America as a home park because everything seems to run smooth on most occasions. The park is also SLAMMED every time I go and I only go on weekdays so their attendance seems to be ok at that park.
Great America has certainly had its adversity over the past year with the abundance of management transitions and down sizing. Hoping all goes well this season but it sounds even more dicey.
Pray for Six Flags America. Despite closing 2 areas of the park, they rose prices, made the water park separate, and the park was still empty with walk ons and one train ops. If attendance doesn’t improve in the next two years, this park will be sold.
I just want to know how do you make a park like Magic Mountain a family park? It already has 20 roller coasters, and have some of the largest scale versions of said model. It's a coaster park, and it automatically will bring in teens. I could see them improving Baja Ridge and Samurai Summit, and really tap into the themes of those sections, but it still looks extremely intimidating. ANd don't forget its history of gangs as well, some people already steer clear because of its history.
as a long time lover of six flags, SFNE being my home park. i can see a pretty visible change this season, specifically in quality food, decor, and merchandising this year! i’m excited to see what’s in store for the future, cause this brand has so much potential
This time last year, everything negative you said about the chain was absolutely true, but this season has really turned things around. St. Louis is much cleaner, ride ops are really really great, and staffing is actually alright. Crowded, too. Hoping it keeps getting better!
Imagine if at Fiesta Texas they add a few really good dark / screen rides, maybe something DC themed or Looney Tunes but similar to Spiderman at Universal Orlando or Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway at Disney, add a few GOOD table service restaurants. On top of everything else the park has done recently, I feel like the park would explode in popularity.
I think other Six Flags parks should see what Fiesta Texas has been doing over the years with the TLC, ride refurbishment, and theming and maybe take a pages or two out of it
I feel like my local park La Ronde is way more popular with families than with teenagers or enthusiasts. Everytime I've gone all of the family rides have packed lines and the 2 B&Ms are pretty much walk-ons. So Six Flags trying to make the parks more family-friendly can actually be a good thing for coaster enthusiasts.
Havent been to six flags magic mountain in about 6 years but i can say that the adds and trash every where, i remember the floor on batman and tatsu right before you get off the ride had a chewed bubble gum colection on the floor, kinda kept me away for a while. My kids want to visit this year so might convince myself to take them but seeing prices i do hope they at least gave the park a proper cleaning. Also the staff always looked like highschool students for the most part but no one seemed to want to be there. Again this was 7+ years ago but every visit ive had was pretty much the same, that and playing the game "whats not working today" or "will it close down before i get to the end of the queue".
Six Flags St. Louis is my home park, and I have either been an employee or season pass holder since day 1 ( June 5th, 1971 ). Over the past 10-15 years, our park has literally gone to the crapper. I mean it seems like the supervisors don't give a crap about their seasonal employees anymore, and that's why I quit a couple of months before the 2020 season was over. I've been a season pass holder for the last two years and it's just gotten worse.
3:06 I can definently agree with. I don't think any parent wants to take their children to a theme park where the people in front and behind you are doing weed in vapes (true story btw).
It's a start, but these are small investments that will probably help boost their disastrous Return on Invested Capital. But most importantly they need to invest in their people first. Hiring has been a catastrophe for Six Flags even precovid, and now they're opting to pay the minimum to fill essential roles like maintenance with people who have no clue what they're doing and the people who could train them have mostly either retired or left Six Flags or been laid off. New rides or shows or festivals look great on paper but without the proper man power, they'll be poorly implemented.
Fun Fact: Many parents were dropping off their kids and leaving at Six Flags parks after the pandemic recovered. Many news stations called this a “babysitter park” because of the parents dropping of their kids to the parks. This was a partial reason of the ticket prices rising
"Almost every state" Either there are way more Six Flags or way fewer states than I realized. :P (I think 10 states have a Six Flags park if you included Frontier City).
I don’t live close to a six flags park ( closest for me are Six Flags America and Darien Lake, arguably the worst ones in America ) so it’s entertaining to watch this from an outsiders perspective. Six Flags really should sell a few parks.
Fiesta Texas is the only park in the chain that's nice enough to warrant a price hike. It's a genuinely nice park that's run well and it's in an amazing location. All of the other parks need a ton of refurbishment and better operations before they will be worth a price increase. It always amazes me how incompetent a multi-million dollar company can be. Everyone knows that Six Flags is the lowest quality theme park chain so why would people want to pay a premium price for a discount product? Six Flags could have hired a baked potato to take the lead and they would probably be in a better financial situation today.
I’ve been going to Six Flags New England every summer since I was 6 years old. I do think investing in more family rides is a good idea, as at first there wasn’t much I could go on besides kiddie rides. But most of the other common criticisms don’t make sense to me. Like the advertisements, for instance. How dare they fill the park with ads to keep ticket prices low enough, so that normal people can actually afford to go? Not everyone has the luxury of being able to spend a lot on season passes. Who cares that they’re trying to sell you coke? It’s not like it worsens your park experience any. The operations I could see addressing if it is indeed a problem. I can’t speak for other parks, but I’ve never noticed that becoming a problem at New England. The service too. Yes, it is mostly teenagers, but generally they’ve been pretty good at their jobs in my experience. Really the only common complaint I understand is the cleanliness issue. That’s just going off my experience with New England though
Six Flags has been, and always will be, known as the "discount chain" of amusement parks. It simply won't change. Even after all these years they're still trailing Cedar Fair in terms of ride quality and park experience. So they need to embrace their "discount chain" status or they're going to go under - there simply isn't enough room in the market for another high-priced, low-quality amusement park chain.
I have been to a six flags park. I used to go often when I was little but haven’t been in something like 5 years. Really would like to go again soon and use your skip the line videos to plan a day.
I get what you are trying to say that it’s a long term game BUT here’s my major critique of the new additions. The spaghetti bowl coasters while they look fun and cool do you really think both sides will run? A dueling coaster requires twice the number of staff as a normal coaster and they already struggle to staff their parks. The Dino ride might work if they put money into it, but that ride was already a drive through zoo with statues of animals along the route and the ride never had a wait; maybe Dino’s will attract more people but it really just feels like Six Flags jumping on the Dino’s alive trend from several years ago. I’ll also add the generally better run Lake Compounce 30 min away from SFNE has a Dino exhibit and they didn’t even maintain it so I have little hope for six flags. But I will wait to pass judgment. The animal exhibits at Discovery Kingdom are nice. I think I heard they are just rebranded areas, but idk never been there. But regardless is this going to solve Six Flags problems. No. No it won’t. I can tell you I decided not to renew my pass after 1. Seeing the price and 2. An awful trip to Six Flags America where half the rides were closed, the rides that were open had an hour wait, there were maybe three scare actors out and I was going through scare zones without a single actor present, and raging cajun messed up my knee (granted the Baltimore marathon that day didn’t help). And this was my second attempt to get to SFA after one day driving down getting to the gate to find out that despite it being nice and sunny out they were closed that day due to the weather. I’m sorry it’s annoying I don’t want to drive 1.5 h to find out the park decided to not open as planned. If six flags wanted to fix it’s problems it should focus on hiring more people first to run the rides and clean.
St Louis six flags have been upgraded in a lot of places around the park this year. I have been a member of six flags for over 13 plus years. I have faith in them. They will do fine.
When you take a step back and think on it, I agree with this. When they first emerged from bankruptcy, they immediately started flooding their parks with RMCs, Free Spins, and Super Loops. While we are thankful for the RMCs, the others shouldn’t have been copy-pasted so many times, then they’d have more originality and more money to spend. This new plan SB has in store would’ve worked out far better if implemented all those years ago when JRA was in charge.
Spot on! We did a day at Magic mountain and it was a dump. Barely any food options and bathrooms were run down...but the rides were outstanding. The next day we hit Knotts Berry Farm and it was the complete opposite. Fewer thrill rides, but we spend 4-5x as much on food and that as it was readily available with lots of good options.
Can you do a video on Six flags America? It’s in Maryland and it’s so fun. There are some rides that are bigger and scarier than others but there are good number of family, kiddie, and intense roller coasters! I got there all the time and I am still terrified of the big rides
In Mexico there have been a los of changes like adding new trains for our SLC, repaintings in old rides and improves in old parts of the park and in q lines, hope they add new thrill rides
I've visited a bunch of Six Flags parks in North America. Of course the quality of rides is quite different but what they had in common was, that the overall guest experience (e.g. wait times, operations, staff motivation...) was much worse than at Disney or most Cedar Fair parks. At Magic Mountain two coasters were not operating at all, Superman had technical issues all over the day, X2 was operating with one train causing extremly long wait times even with flash pass and operations at West Coast Racers were catastrophic. Of course the racing feature at Twisted Colossus didn't work as well.
Hello mr coasters! what did you think on the new jpegmafia x danny brown collab album? I thought it was great, my favourite tracks are god loves you and burfict! would love to know your opinions!
1)SF does not have a park in almost every state & haven't built a park in 40 years. They aren't building anything. 2)SF were not teetering close to another bankruptcy. The lack of good results, lack of organic growth, & laggi ng peers since around 2017 doesn't mean they were close to bankruptcy. They always had money to make their interest payments, unlike the late 2000's actual bankruptcy. 3)SF needed to raise prices regardless of the lack of improvements, they just raised too much to fast. A pass that gets you into every park in the chain for as low as $50 at some parks- $90 at the higher parks was ridiculous. The high volume low cost model failed them & that was apparent as of like the mid 2010's when they couldn't produce organic growth. It came to full head in 2017/2018 with legacy parks producing revenue & ebidta decreases. 4) Sf also raised prices so much cause they thought they could, every other company in every industry , especially the leisure & entertainment field was raising prices causes of inflation. People were spending freely after the pandemic of having to stay away from many forms of entertainment. SF miscalculated, they could have gotten away with smaller increases. They went extreme for what was regarded as a lower product than their peers. Selim has no experience in the industry & that showed on this & many other things he did.. 5)The rides for 2023 are all last minute stuff that they didn't have planned. Thus the choices were limited as large rides have longer lead times than november for the upcoming season, thus the Skyline coasters & water slide stuff.. Selim was planning just infrastructure, park improvements, aesthetics for 2023 until the very poor Q3 results & the activist investors getting upset as they saw SEAS & Cedar Fair producing record results(great time for the industry post Covid) as SF was at 2017 revenue levels.
As someone who goes to six flags STL very frequently in my last visit I saw a grand total of 5 families max it’s straight teenagers because that is what the big thrill seeking coasters cater to and with your walk on line the max me and my friends 4 people waited was 25 minutes for Mr Freeze reverse blasts
I went to SFMM the first day of springbreak and the park was crammed and superman, X2, scream, riddler, batman and full throttle were closed. The rest of the rides were only using 1 train and every ride had AN HOUR WAIT. like I am not waiting an hour for viper.
Granted I haven't been since 2021 but Magic Mountain was great last time I was there. Iirc Scream could have used a new paint job, the Riddler was harsher than I remember as a kid, and I didn't go on Venom which has had a bad reputation as long as I remember, but that's about it.
I had a season pass to CP last summer, i wanted to design roller coasters for my entire life. Plan changed but I’m still (clearly because i’m here) super into the industry and always will be. I grew up at CP and unless i was a little child I never left. I have never in my life been to a six flags park.
My homepark is Great Adventure. Haven't been back in 10 years. I will never forget 2015 when Magic Mountain new season addition was Twisted Colossus. What did Great Adventure get??? El Diablo, a traveling carnival ride (a slap in the face to Great Adventure) that lasted 3 years. Prime example of SF cheapskate nature. They used selim to vehemently establish the narrative that they were shifting away from thrill rides to "pretty up the parks." To me that's an indication that they just couldn't 1)afford to compete with their peers anymore and 2)keep up with the rising price tags of the present day evolution of thrill rides.
The safari jeeps in SFNE have the longest line of any kids ride already. Usually 30-60 minutes. Adding robot dinosaur theming will make the line longer. Honestly I don't think it was a great choice.
I don’t really like this move from them. Six Flags has always had its own lane as the thrill park, but now they are trying to take market share from Cedar Fair and SeaWorld/Busch, which I think will end in failure. I’ve visited 2 Cedar Fair Parks, 2 SeaWorld parks, and 2 Six Flags parks this year-Cedar Fair and SeaWorld parks are way too good at attracting families for Six Flags to reasonably compete, IMO. The atmosphere at those parks is completely different, it’s night and day.
4:50 hahaha nah screw the atmosphere, I was running laps on Jersey Devil so fast there wasn’t even a chance for me to miss the atmosphere 😂 But no I definitely get what you mean. On the one hand it was awesome Great Adventure was absolutely dead but yeah, if it means the whole chain is gonna end up closing then yeah, not very good at all
I’ve never been to a SF park. I live in Ohio, so it’s Cedar Point and King’s Island for me. But I pay attention to the industry as a whole. I’d love to make my first trips to Kentucky Kingdom, Dollywood, Hershey Park, Holiday World, and Knott’s Berry Farm soon. But there isn’t a SF park I feel that way about. And I think that’s a problem for them if a lot of other people feel similarly.
I'm a Brazilian enthusiast so i never went to a six flags park, but when i went to CA Knotts was awesome, clean with a great lineup and spectatular operations, and if every cedar fair park are like that then six flags will crash
I live in the UK and hope to get out to the states in the near future Disney,sea world universal and Dollywood look amazing to me but the only good thing about 6 flags seems to be the rides so i probably won't bother
I have only been to 1 six flags park, that was Over Georgia back in 2015. I havent been back since. I will go to a Cedar Fair, Seaworld or Herschend park any day, they are so much better.
Bro on Saturday a random guy came up to me and started cussing me out for stealing his food when I literally did nothing then security took him away 💀💀 most normal six flags day
Me and my friends all have passes for SFGAdv and I haven’t been there yet this season but last year I waited for Ka for about 20 minutes that’s about it
Is went the other day, didn’t notice the trash, but I did notice the ads and ride closures. How is Superman and Wonder Woman gonna be closed, and poltergeist was on and off, ON A SATURDAY. BTW it was Fiesta Texas
The answer to your question, NO. Why? Rhetorical question, I visit (and used to work for) Cedar Fair (I am loyal to my home park, Canada's Wonderland, and I hope to visit Cedar Point in the future)
I am at the place where the CEO is really going to have to work to prove that he knows what he is doing. His handling last year was so dumb that I wondered if he was intentionally tanking the company as a wall street short scam. One thing is obvious. He doesn't like theme parks. And seems oblivious to why people go to theme parks at all.
I went to great America a couple years ago and that’s all of the six flags parks I’ve been to until my summer road trip. Honestly I didn’t find it too dirty or run down. Idk if that place was the outlier or what? Guess I’ll find out when I go to New England and great adventure in the summer
Massive understaffing is an issue SF must address. Neither teens nor families have a good time with long lines and many food and drink stands closed. At SF America even game stations were closed.
I still think this new business model is going to crash and burn. Catering to the rich as opposed to catering to everyone like they did in th 90's just won't work for six flags. It's not gonna be Disney-level quality, no matter how long they try to make it Disney-level quality. Just accept that you have low prices and broad appeal. Take advantage of your wide stretch of parks and encourage people to parkhop at a low fee. That's not how to thrive, but it's how to stay afloat.
Yeah, many people think of Six Flags as the cheap, trashy park. They could change peoples minds by going above and beyond, but it that really gonna happen?
Six Flags is trying to be the Taco Bell from Demolition Man.
But that’s not who there going for they are moving from teens to families
@@midwestmadlad3397 that's where they're failing
If a family is willing to go to a six flags park
More often than not they're also willing to go to a cedar fair park that's not struggling to change
Like six flags is
They're the parks for teens and teens really don't care about how clean or dirty a park is gonna be
They're just gonna care about thrill rides and experiences
If families are going to cedar fair parks and not six flags parks then six flags can't make money to change their parks
So they'll crash and burn
I think it would be better for six flags to increase their parks
Quality while not completely isolating their main demographics which are teens and by increasing the quality they can also increase their family attendance
@@brandoncole5533bro cedar fair doesn't have a shit tons of parks. That's were you aren't getting it a family won't casually fly out to a cedar fair park when there is a six flags park that caters to families
Okay but teens still spend a ton at six flags, sometimes more than families. Teens love food and ALWAYS pick up drip. Hoodies and hats fly off of shelves where parents always say "No, put it down." Teens spend impulsively where families cut costs by bringing their own food.
This is so real me and my cousin spent $140 on squishmallows at six flags
And parents will often send teens with money, often a lot more than needed, or teens who just got a job will be happy to experience freedom
One thing to note, SFDK is not *adding* animal exhibits. They're taking down the long faded exhibit cards and putting up new paint and TVs. Literally nothing physically new.
Honestly, i feel like Fiesta Texas is striving with the ever changing goal of Six Flags. The park has gotten so many refurbishment, even rides and attraction that the options for all demographics has gotten wide. Paying more for that quality is worth it. The same thing cannot be said with the other parks.
Fr
The only park you have been to is fiesta Texas
@@Starlit43 SFOG, SFOT, SFMM, SFDK, SFA 🤷🏻♂️ you’d know if you’ve actually been to Fiesta.
@@weedle4736 yeah sure bud. 🤡🤡🤡
@@Starlit43 why are you mad at a comment? You’re absolutely a Great Adventure fanboy. Sorry peep squeak, Your park is not seeing that’s why attendance is not met and your star attraction has been down longer than newer ground up attractions being built. Sucks to be mad and biased like you🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹
I agree. I’m happy my home park of Great Adventure did park improvements, landscaping, repaints, food upgrading, just a nicer looking park
Also, Scream Break was great and geared to teens and adults.
Really ! A lot of people said that it would flop
I love you CZsWorld
Darien Lake is probably the most underrated of the Six Flags parks. I went on Memorial Day, and the entire park was spotless. It was a great day and I’m glad I got a season pass.
We visited Fiesta Texas today, and it was clean, well-run, efficient and fun. The staff was impressively well-trained. We managed to fit in 10 rides without Flash pass. The Looney Tunes rides needed some love, but the rest of the park was in good shape. (I miss the Wile E Coyote animatronics on the Road Runner Express)
They also added 6 new kid slides at the renamed Hurricane Harbor attached to Six Flags Fiesta Texas. I'm an adult without kids so I don't directly benefit from it, but as a season pass holder I hope it leads to financial success for the parks so I can continue to enjoy them
I went to nearly every Six Flags park last year, and it seems like local management is keeping some of these parks alive. Great America and Fiesta Texas were doing pretty well and everything about the operations besides one ride closure was top-notch. Sadly, a lot of parks such as Darien Lake, Frontier City, and even Great Adventure just weren’t bringing people in. Hopefully the new changes work out.
Over Georgia has started taking good care of Monster Mansion, they are doing a pretty good job on the refurbishment they started. SFOG has a decent one-two punch of dark rides with Monster Mansion and Battle for Metropolis.
@@mylesmcarthur642 yes! I just went to Over Georgia. Monster mansion was so good!
Great America is my home park, and it has reliable rides and good ops. Not much trash around and overall an enjoyable experience. I haven't been to many other Six Flags parks though, so I have nothing to compare it too.
@@mylesmcarthur642 glad to hear that! I love that ride.
@@ThemeParkAvenue the Georgia scorcher also got a new paint job and it is so nice
I grew up w/ SFGAm as my home park and honestly there is a lot of potential for the chain if SF does the things you've mentioned. Remove the ad spam, pretty up the park, improve ops, and add some variety in terms of experiences for families. It sounds like a lot but there's a reason people travel for Cedar Fair and Disney/Universal parks.
Bro, I'd love a Disney style park around here, i wish Six Flags Great America was themed as it used to be
Six flags should literally just go the thrill route, at least here in socal. Too much competition for a family park and they already have some of the best coasters.
2:51 yes I am a pass holder for Six Flags Great Adventure
I like Six Flags, but it's really disappointing that they don't take better advantage of the fact they have parks all over the US by injecting some local flavor into each location. You can find at least a little of this at each park (some more than others) but too often the parks just feel like they lack cohesion and planning when you're inside them.
I have noticed a lot of TLC effort put in at SFNE this year. New lap bars and seatbelts on Thunderbolt, new loose article zipper pouches on the seat backs for Wicked Cyclone, they simplified park entry, making it more efficient and visually pleasing at the same time, and there are now non-smoking "relaxation areas", as well as better landscaping throughout the park. I hope they continue in this direction towards quality over quantity.
I feel lucky to have Six Flags Great America as a home park because everything seems to run smooth on most occasions. The park is also SLAMMED every time I go and I only go on weekdays so their attendance seems to be ok at that park.
Great America has certainly had its adversity over the past year with the abundance of management transitions and down sizing. Hoping all goes well this season but it sounds even more dicey.
Great America has the building blocks for a themed experience, it's just that Six Flags have killed it over the years
Pray for Six Flags America. Despite closing 2 areas of the park, they rose prices, made the water park separate, and the park was still empty with walk ons and one train ops. If attendance doesn’t improve in the next two years, this park will be sold.
I just want to know how do you make a park like Magic Mountain a family park? It already has 20 roller coasters, and have some of the largest scale versions of said model. It's a coaster park, and it automatically will bring in teens. I could see them improving Baja Ridge and Samurai Summit, and really tap into the themes of those sections, but it still looks extremely intimidating. ANd don't forget its history of gangs as well, some people already steer clear because of its history.
as a long time lover of six flags, SFNE being my home park. i can see a pretty visible change this season, specifically in quality food, decor, and merchandising this year! i’m excited to see what’s in store for the future, cause this brand has so much potential
This time last year, everything negative you said about the chain was absolutely true, but this season has really turned things around. St. Louis is much cleaner, ride ops are really really great, and staffing is actually alright. Crowded, too. Hoping it keeps getting better!
I feel like none of this applies to Fiesta Texas. Here they kinda run independently.
Good ops
Clean park
Good service (mostly)
Imagine if at Fiesta Texas they add a few really good dark / screen rides, maybe something DC themed or Looney Tunes but similar to Spiderman at Universal Orlando or Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway at Disney, add a few GOOD table service restaurants. On top of everything else the park has done recently, I feel like the park would explode in popularity.
I think instead of catering to one over the other they simply need to cater to both audiences. Find the balance kind of like Dollywood or Hersheypark
I think other Six Flags parks should see what Fiesta Texas has been doing over the years with the TLC, ride refurbishment, and theming and maybe take a pages or two out of it
They need to sell half their parks and take care of their biggest one, add theming and new rides. How can a company be mismanaged for so long?
I feel like my local park La Ronde is way more popular with families than with teenagers or enthusiasts. Everytime I've gone all of the family rides have packed lines and the 2 B&Ms are pretty much walk-ons. So Six Flags trying to make the parks more family-friendly can actually be a good thing for coaster enthusiasts.
My dad worked at great america, he was a general manger and he has stories after stories about how messed up six flags was.
Knowing how the theming has been lost over the years, i can see why
Havent been to six flags magic mountain in about 6 years but i can say that the adds and trash every where, i remember the floor on batman and tatsu right before you get off the ride had a chewed bubble gum colection on the floor, kinda kept me away for a while. My kids want to visit this year so might convince myself to take them but seeing prices i do hope they at least gave the park a proper cleaning. Also the staff always looked like highschool students for the most part but no one seemed to want to be there. Again this was 7+ years ago but every visit ive had was pretty much the same, that and playing the game "whats not working today" or "will it close down before i get to the end of the queue".
IDK why, but the Kia Soul trains on El Toro are so hilarious to me XD🤣🤣🤣🤣😆😆😆😆
I feel like fiesta texas is the favorite child, it has good rides, constant additions, and clean
Six Flags St. Louis is my home park, and I have either been an employee or season pass holder since day 1 ( June 5th, 1971 ). Over the past 10-15 years, our park has literally gone to the crapper. I mean it seems like the supervisors don't give a crap about their seasonal employees anymore, and that's why I quit a couple of months before the 2020 season was over. I've been a season pass holder for the last two years and it's just gotten worse.
3:06 I can definently agree with. I don't think any parent wants to take their children to a theme park where the people in front and behind you are doing weed in vapes (true story btw).
It's a start, but these are small investments that will probably help boost their disastrous Return on Invested Capital.
But most importantly they need to invest in their people first. Hiring has been a catastrophe for Six Flags even precovid, and now they're opting to pay the minimum to fill essential roles like maintenance with people who have no clue what they're doing and the people who could train them have mostly either retired or left Six Flags or been laid off. New rides or shows or festivals look great on paper but without the proper man power, they'll be poorly implemented.
When the kiddy rides have a longer line than wicked cyclone you know there's a problem
Fun Fact: Many parents were dropping off their kids and leaving at Six Flags parks after the pandemic recovered. Many news stations called this a “babysitter park” because of the parents dropping of their kids to the parks. This was a partial reason of the ticket prices rising
It used to be "Dad went to get milk" Now it's, "Dad left six flags"
@@sr.chi7741 lmao
@@sr.chi7741 um no one is saying that LMAO
@@tanoravarnado3504 Everyone used to, now it’s a dead meme
"Almost every state"
Either there are way more Six Flags or way fewer states than I realized. :P
(I think 10 states have a Six Flags park if you included Frontier City).
Six Flags New England is like 1000 ft from the CT border so might as well add that one to the state total.
If you go to over texas on a sunday its a garuntee youll get on texas giant 3 times in the first hour
I don’t live close to a six flags park ( closest for me are Six Flags America and Darien Lake, arguably the worst ones in America ) so it’s entertaining to watch this from an outsiders perspective. Six Flags really should sell a few parks.
I know this isn't the respective video but what restrain would the ride tron at magic kingdom fall into
Fiesta Texas is the only park in the chain that's nice enough to warrant a price hike. It's a genuinely nice park that's run well and it's in an amazing location. All of the other parks need a ton of refurbishment and better operations before they will be worth a price increase. It always amazes me how incompetent a multi-million dollar company can be. Everyone knows that Six Flags is the lowest quality theme park chain so why would people want to pay a premium price for a discount product? Six Flags could have hired a baked potato to take the lead and they would probably be in a better financial situation today.
I’ve been going to Six Flags New England every summer since I was 6 years old. I do think investing in more family rides is a good idea, as at first there wasn’t much I could go on besides kiddie rides. But most of the other common criticisms don’t make sense to me.
Like the advertisements, for instance. How dare they fill the park with ads to keep ticket prices low enough, so that normal people can actually afford to go? Not everyone has the luxury of being able to spend a lot on season passes. Who cares that they’re trying to sell you coke? It’s not like it worsens your park experience any.
The operations I could see addressing if it is indeed a problem. I can’t speak for other parks, but I’ve never noticed that becoming a problem at New England. The service too. Yes, it is mostly teenagers, but generally they’ve been pretty good at their jobs in my experience.
Really the only common complaint I understand is the cleanliness issue. That’s just going off my experience with New England though
Six Flags has been, and always will be, known as the "discount chain" of amusement parks. It simply won't change. Even after all these years they're still trailing Cedar Fair in terms of ride quality and park experience. So they need to embrace their "discount chain" status or they're going to go under - there simply isn't enough room in the market for another high-priced, low-quality amusement park chain.
Bro six flags beats cedar fair in ride quality lmfao
It’s the best day when COASTOONS uploads!
I have been to a six flags park. I used to go often when I was little but haven’t been in something like 5 years. Really would like to go again soon and use your skip the line videos to plan a day.
I get what you are trying to say that it’s a long term game BUT here’s my major critique of the new additions. The spaghetti bowl coasters while they look fun and cool do you really think both sides will run? A dueling coaster requires twice the number of staff as a normal coaster and they already struggle to staff their parks.
The Dino ride might work if they put money into it, but that ride was already a drive through zoo with statues of animals along the route and the ride never had a wait; maybe Dino’s will attract more people but it really just feels like Six Flags jumping on the Dino’s alive trend from several years ago. I’ll also add the generally better run Lake Compounce 30 min away from SFNE has a Dino exhibit and they didn’t even maintain it so I have little hope for six flags. But I will wait to pass judgment.
The animal exhibits at Discovery Kingdom are nice. I think I heard they are just rebranded areas, but idk never been there.
But regardless is this going to solve Six Flags problems. No. No it won’t.
I can tell you I decided not to renew my pass after 1. Seeing the price and 2. An awful trip to Six Flags America where half the rides were closed, the rides that were open had an hour wait, there were maybe three scare actors out and I was going through scare zones without a single actor present, and raging cajun messed up my knee (granted the Baltimore marathon that day didn’t help). And this was my second attempt to get to SFA after one day driving down getting to the gate to find out that despite it being nice and sunny out they were closed that day due to the weather. I’m sorry it’s annoying I don’t want to drive 1.5 h to find out the park decided to not open as planned.
If six flags wanted to fix it’s problems it should focus on hiring more people first to run the rides and clean.
St Louis six flags have been upgraded in a lot of places around the park this year. I have been a member of six flags for over 13 plus years. I have faith in them. They will do fine.
When you take a step back and think on it, I agree with this. When they first emerged from bankruptcy, they immediately started flooding their parks with RMCs, Free Spins, and Super Loops.
While we are thankful for the RMCs, the others shouldn’t have been copy-pasted so many times, then they’d have more originality and more money to spend. This new plan SB has in store would’ve worked out far better if implemented all those years ago when JRA was in charge.
Spot on! We did a day at Magic mountain and it was a dump. Barely any food options and bathrooms were run down...but the rides were outstanding. The next day we hit Knotts Berry Farm and it was the complete opposite. Fewer thrill rides, but we spend 4-5x as much on food and that as it was readily available with lots of good options.
Can you do a video on Six flags America? It’s in Maryland and it’s so fun. There are some rides that are bigger and scarier than others but there are good number of family, kiddie, and intense roller coasters! I got there all the time and I am still terrified of the big rides
In Mexico there have been a los of changes like adding new trains for our SLC, repaintings in old rides and improves in old parts of the park and in q lines, hope they add new thrill rides
I've visited a bunch of Six Flags parks in North America. Of course the quality of rides is quite different but what they had in common was, that the overall guest experience (e.g. wait times, operations, staff motivation...) was much worse than at Disney or most Cedar Fair parks. At Magic Mountain two coasters were not operating at all, Superman had technical issues all over the day, X2 was operating with one train causing extremly long wait times even with flash pass and operations at West Coast Racers were catastrophic. Of course the racing feature at Twisted Colossus didn't work as well.
i feel like fiesta texas is doing the best out of the parks by far
Hello mr coasters! what did you think on the new jpegmafia x danny brown collab album? I thought it was great, my favourite tracks are god loves you and burfict! would love to know your opinions!
Fiesta Taxas shows that Six Flags is capable of being great
Yes but they need to replace selim with Jeffrey
I have my first trip planned I’m so excited it looks like Six flags has really upped it’s game
1)SF does not have a park in almost every state & haven't built a park in 40 years. They aren't building anything.
2)SF were not teetering close to another bankruptcy. The lack of good results, lack of organic growth, & laggi ng peers since around 2017 doesn't mean they were close to bankruptcy. They always had money to make their interest payments, unlike the late 2000's actual bankruptcy.
3)SF needed to raise prices regardless of the lack of improvements, they just raised too much to fast. A pass that gets you into every park in the chain for as low as $50 at some parks- $90 at the higher parks was ridiculous. The high volume low cost model failed them & that was apparent as of like the mid 2010's when they couldn't produce organic growth. It came to full head in 2017/2018 with legacy parks producing revenue & ebidta decreases.
4) Sf also raised prices so much cause they thought they could, every other company in every industry , especially the leisure & entertainment field was raising prices causes of inflation. People were spending freely after the pandemic of having to stay away from many forms of entertainment. SF miscalculated, they could have gotten away with smaller increases. They went extreme for what was regarded as a lower product than their peers. Selim has no experience in the industry & that showed on this & many other things he did..
5)The rides for 2023 are all last minute stuff that they didn't have planned. Thus the choices were limited as large rides have longer lead times than november for the upcoming season, thus the Skyline coasters & water slide stuff.. Selim was planning just infrastructure, park improvements, aesthetics for 2023 until the very poor Q3 results & the activist investors getting upset as they saw SEAS & Cedar Fair producing record results(great time for the industry post Covid) as SF was at 2017 revenue levels.
As someone who goes to six flags STL very frequently in my last visit I saw a grand total of 5 families max it’s straight teenagers because that is what the big thrill seeking coasters cater to and with your walk on line the max me and my friends 4 people waited was 25 minutes for Mr Freeze reverse blasts
I’ve only been to three Great Adventure, New England and America I hope to get to Over Georgia and Great America in the future
Nothing wrong with Target, but I think that's more Cedar Fair's space.
Six Flags should strive to be Wal-Mart...instead of Dollar General.
I went to SFMM the first day of springbreak and the park was crammed and superman, X2, scream, riddler, batman and full throttle were closed. The rest of the rides were only using 1 train and every ride had AN HOUR WAIT. like I am not waiting an hour for viper.
I don’t understand why salim is still there or ever an option. I think they want it to belly up
Granted I haven't been since 2021 but Magic Mountain was great last time I was there.
Iirc Scream could have used a new paint job, the Riddler was harsher than I remember as a kid, and I didn't go on Venom which has had a bad reputation as long as I remember, but that's about it.
I had a season pass to CP last summer, i wanted to design roller coasters for my entire life. Plan changed but I’m still (clearly because i’m here) super into the industry and always will be. I grew up at CP and unless i was a little child I never left. I have never in my life been to a six flags park.
Six Flags St. Louis is my home park it’s bad they care for money so seen Holiday in the park wasn’t a cash grab they got rid of it
Driving to six flags great adventure rn.
Your channel uploads good content
oh also I am first to comment
My homepark is Great Adventure. Haven't been back in 10 years. I will never forget 2015 when Magic Mountain new season addition was Twisted Colossus. What did Great Adventure get??? El Diablo, a traveling carnival ride (a slap in the face to Great Adventure) that lasted 3 years. Prime example of SF cheapskate nature. They used selim to vehemently establish the narrative that they were shifting away from thrill rides to "pretty up the parks." To me that's an indication that they just couldn't 1)afford to compete with their peers anymore and 2)keep up with the rising price tags of the present day evolution of thrill rides.
The only good park that is clean and mostly ad free is fiesta Texas which is really odd
But what are youre thoughts on aquaman power wave
3:08 my home park is Laronde,and I can assure you that is true 👍
The safari jeeps in SFNE have the longest line of any kids ride already. Usually 30-60 minutes. Adding robot dinosaur theming will make the line longer. Honestly I don't think it was a great choice.
Wish they would invest in some of their neglected parks, particularly those in the eastern US that aren’t named Great Adventure.
I don’t really like this move from them. Six Flags has always had its own lane as the thrill park, but now they are trying to take market share from Cedar Fair and SeaWorld/Busch, which I think will end in failure. I’ve visited 2 Cedar Fair Parks, 2 SeaWorld parks, and 2 Six Flags parks this year-Cedar Fair and SeaWorld parks are way too good at attracting families for Six Flags to reasonably compete, IMO. The atmosphere at those parks is completely different, it’s night and day.
Love this! Can you make a video about airiforce 1? That park will go bankrupt because of that “investment”
4:50 hahaha nah screw the atmosphere, I was running laps on Jersey Devil so fast there wasn’t even a chance for me to miss the atmosphere 😂
But no I definitely get what you mean. On the one hand it was awesome Great Adventure was absolutely dead but yeah, if it means the whole chain is gonna end up closing then yeah, not very good at all
An Empty theme park is the greatest thing ever
Sic flags did need to increase the price of their passes but they went from underpriced to overpriced and now back to underpriced.
I’ve never been to a SF park. I live in Ohio, so it’s Cedar Point and King’s Island for me. But I pay attention to the industry as a whole. I’d love to make my first trips to Kentucky Kingdom, Dollywood, Hershey Park, Holiday World, and Knott’s Berry Farm soon. But there isn’t a SF park I feel that way about. And I think that’s a problem for them if a lot of other people feel similarly.
If you are going to knots berry farm you should go to SFMM
I'm a Brazilian enthusiast so i never went to a six flags park, but when i went to CA Knotts was awesome, clean with a great lineup and spectatular operations, and if every cedar fair park are like that then six flags will crash
I live in the UK and hope to get out to the states in the near future Disney,sea world universal and Dollywood look amazing to me but the only good thing about 6 flags seems to be the rides so i probably won't bother
Magic Mountain is always crowded during Fright Fest.
I have only been to 1 six flags park, that was Over Georgia back in 2015. I havent been back since. I will go to a Cedar Fair, Seaworld or Herschend park any day, they are so much better.
There will be more b&me yes or no
okok coastoons i need you to be honest here did you totally just steal the whole “cart before the horse” thing from attraction ideas? lol
Bro on Saturday a random guy came up to me and started cussing me out for stealing his food when I literally did nothing then security took him away 💀💀 most normal six flags day
I personally love Six flags! The 2021 season was the best, the parks were not clean. But 2022 and 2023 was super clean!
Me and my friends all have passes for SFGAdv and I haven’t been there yet this season but last year I waited for Ka for about 20 minutes that’s about it
Magic Waters) is a water park owned by the Rockford Park District they sold it to six FLAGS
Is went the other day, didn’t notice the trash, but I did notice the ads and ride closures. How is Superman and Wonder Woman gonna be closed, and poltergeist was on and off, ON A SATURDAY. BTW it was Fiesta Texas
The answer to your question, NO. Why? Rhetorical question, I visit (and used to work for) Cedar Fair (I am loyal to my home park, Canada's Wonderland, and I hope to visit Cedar Point in the future)
I am at the place where the CEO is really going to have to work to prove that he knows what he is doing. His handling last year was so dumb that I wondered if he was intentionally tanking the company as a wall street short scam. One thing is obvious. He doesn't like theme parks. And seems oblivious to why people go to theme parks at all.
Idk man I went to sfog yesterday and it was the most crowded I’ve seen it in a while. 30+ min lines for most rides
I can finally eat dinner now you posted a video 😮💨
I went to great America a couple years ago and that’s all of the six flags parks I’ve been to until my summer road trip. Honestly I didn’t find it too dirty or run down. Idk if that place was the outlier or what? Guess I’ll find out when I go to New England and great adventure in the summer
Great America and Magic Mountain are probably the only 2 Six Flags parks that the chain pays any attention to
Yeah great America is pretty clean has good rides and is fun to go to
Massive understaffing is an issue SF must address. Neither teens nor families have a good time with long lines and many food and drink stands closed. At SF America even game stations were closed.
I use to go all the time...now I just travel to cedar fair Park and Dollywood
as a school kid like you is it okay if I only post once every two weeks and maybe once a week, even tho my videos suck
Nah bro I went to sfgadv on April 10th and every ride had a 3 hour wait 💀
I look forward every time u make a vid