Six Flags has sold many theme parks since 2004 (Let's ignore Autoworld, Power Plant, and Atlantis for this matter), But what park do you think was a mistake for the company to sell?
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Bellewaerde Six Flags Belgium Six Flags Holland Warner Bros. Movie World, Germany Warner Bros. Movie World, Spain Walibi Aquitaine Walibi Rhone Alps Walibi Lorraine Wyandot Lake Six Flags Astroworld Six Flags Darien Lake Six Flags Elitch Gardens Frontier City Six Flags New Orleans Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Wild Waves/ Enchanted Village American Adventures
I think Astroworld was the biggest mistake personally.
I'd say Astroworld is the one and only mistake on the list, the park was god awful and always an absolutely miserable experience to go to, but the locals loved it and showed up en mass even without any real capex.
All the rest made perfect sense for SF to drop and they're better off for it.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 222, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 822, Wood: 178, Total: 1000
^I agree it was one of the the three Six Flags parks in Texas. Did they really need three parks in Texas alone? Six Flags just sent a bunch of old and used rides there if I remember correctly.
Iron Wolf 90-11 wrote:^I agree it was one of the the three Six Flags parks in Texas. Did they really need three parks in Texas alone? Six Flags just sent a bunch of old and used rides there if I remember correctly.
Yes and No, Since 1990 (According to Theme Park Timelines and Excluding Pay Rides)
New 1992- Adventure Rivers Of Texas 1996- Dungeon Drop 1996- Looney Tunes Land (Lets count this as 1) 1999- Serial Thriller 1999- Big Kahuna 1999- Hooks Lagoon 2003- Swat 2003- Diablo Falls
Used 1990- Ultra Twister 1991- Condor (Unknown) 1993- Batman The Escape 1995- Mayan Mindbender 1998- Taz Texas Tornado
Houston is a massive population center, and even with all those used rides, people literally have no where else to go, so they showed up. I wanna say too that the park closed in part due to a parking dispute with the operator of the astrodome.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 222, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 822, Wood: 178, Total: 1000
Iron Wolf 90-11 wrote:^I agree it was one of the the three Six Flags parks in Texas. Did they really need three parks in Texas alone? Six Flags just sent a bunch of old and used rides there if I remember correctly.
The size of Texas is equal to multiple states. Houston is a huge population area. They were stupid for tearing that park down instead of improving it and making it a destination.
Six Flags made a boatload of cash off selling that land to help provide space for new stadium and commercial development. If they were smart, or had any real financial reserves at the time, they could've relocated the park further away from Houston and still made a fortune there, but they had 2bn of debt on their backs and could barely operate as it was...
Top 5 wood-5-Goliath 4-Ravine Flyer II 3-Phoenix 2-Voyage 1-El Toro Top 5 Steel- 5-Velocicoaster 4- Maverick 3- Fury 325 2-Steel Vengeance 1-X2 Coaster Count: 444
w00dland wrote:Six Flags made a boatload of cash off selling that land to help provide space for new stadium and commercial development. If they were smart, or had any real financial reserves at the time, they could've relocated the park further away from Houston and still made a fortune there, but they had 2bn of debt on their backs and could barely operate as it was...
I don't know if 57 million dollars is a boatload of cash. And that commercial development land is still waiting to be developed apart from a rodeo show.
Both parks had great potential. I would lean more towards Astroworld though.
Im sorry but $57 Million isn't crap when you think about it. Most full funtion theme parks are sold at $100 Million plus. So I think the parking situation with the Astrodome and Reliant Stadium was the main motivation for the park closure. The park performed decently and had good attendance. It was poor planning on the people that initially designed the park and thought it would be a good idea to combine the parking lot for a major theme park with a professional sporting facility.
The park had a decent line up of attractions and the lines werent to crazy either.
As of right now its a pile of dirt and grass. I'd like to think that if they want to bulldoze something as beautiful as Astroworld, you'd think they'd have a for sure plan of action and have at least something semi-interesting put in there for the people of Houston...but no almost 10 years later it just sits empty.
Anything else is a slap in the face to Roy Mark Hofheinz. Tell me about another Mayor building a theme park for its city?