SF Conference Call

[Director_Guy]

Six Flags, Inc. Mid-Quarter Conference Call
Thu, Jun 22, 2006, 5:00 pm Eastern

http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/0/69480.html

It's pretty interesting if you care about where the business is going. Talks about rides not opening, selling parks, and how 'the bad teens' aren't around so much.

And holy crap....they might sell Magic Mountain *hear attack*

Discuss.......

[Ilovthevu']

In the opinion of Shapiro, it's all about the rides that the park has already. If some rides are junk, they should be taken out, and put new rides in. There are cheaper flats out there that aren't 1.5 million dollars that would be perfect for these parks. They also need these expensive flats in the park. What would be a wrong with a Darton Cliffhanger, a Chance Yo-Yo, a Chance Zipper, a Majestic Bumper cars, and so on. I shouldn't always just be the $1 million flat ride. Condor used cost $750,000. Yes, operations aren't always great, but rides are important.

For Six Flags Magic Mountain, you have to be very stupid to sell that park. If they don't want all those rollercoasters in that park, then move some of them to other parks as new rides. They shouldn't sell that park if it's almost on top of attendence. It would be dumbest move ever!!! Yes, there might be some bad rides at that park, but they could easily put more family rides. They have a Scrambler, had a Tilt-a-whirl, swings, boat swinging ship, couple water rides including a raft ride, log ride, boat ride, Himalaya, Gravitron type of ride, FreeFall ride, bumper cars and Round Up ride. They could just add more flats.

[Galvan]

^ More insite from the expert Ilovthevu'!

I think you have selective hearing because never once in the whole 2:15 hr call did Mr. Shapiro say he was going to sell any of those six parks.

He also read a letter from a customer that went to Fright Fest at SFMM and basically stated all the issues that particular person saw including two teenagers having sex in a Ferris Wheel.

The point is, SFMM has been marketed as a Thrill Park, and Extreme Park and a babysitter for teenage thugs and definately not a Family Park, which is the new vision for Six Flags.

While I agree that selling off SFMM would be a rediculous move,It is increasingly apparent that these People obviously have some clue as to what they are doing with there business and definately have a little bit of an edge in the business knowledge department then you Vu'.

[Ilovthevu']

What Ferris Wheel does Six Flags Magic Mountain have? The kiddie ferris wheel? Maybe, it was Six Flags St. Louis. He never said that they were having sex. They could been doing other things sexual. I see Six Flags Over Georgia has having quite a number of roller coasters, and not that many flats for kids. It's the same thing. The roller coasters that parks have is for teens. They shouldn't running all of them out of the park. They should accommodate both. He's talking about the area, and how much he thinks he can get for it.

[Binks Drake]

If I may comment, he did say they've had offers on all six of the parks he mentioned, and they are evaluating them, they may or may not sell all of them.

[EagleFan344]

Hmm so X could be running more than one train soon...

[DejaVuGurl1203]

They may either sell or close the six parks. Link to the story:

http://www.nbc5.com/news/9415159/detail.html?taf=chi

[rct2wizard360]

Last thing I want is another SFAW case...

From what I hear, SFA is prime real estate.
Confirm?

Man, this could be really depressing.

[CoasterDude12-2]

If it weren't for Tatsu and X, I really wouldn't care if SFMM closed. I hate that park. I've been there twice, and I don't plan on going again except maybe to ride Tatsu and X.

[Bob O]

Here is a link to another story on the possbile sale of SFMM.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business ... -headlines
For a company that is bleeding money like SF is and when you have a park that goes agaisnt your marketing strategy, it may not be a bad idea form the companies viewpoint to sell. It would cost the company ALOT of money in advertising and reconfiguring the park to get it away from a thrill park to a family style park that the company believes is there future.
To remove some rides and add others to give it a different atmosphere would cost alot, then you have spend millions of dollars for many years in the expensive CA pr market to change people's perceptions that the park is a magnet for unruly teens to a family friendly park.
And when you have competition in the area from other destinations like DL/Knotts/Universal/Sea World that are more family friendly it makes the job alot harder. And when you have land that is veryvaluable you can see why the company would consider this.
Then factor in selling some rides to parks in the chain or other companies then this isnt a outlandish ideas at all.
PS-I just hope if they do sell the park and get rid of the rides that SFGAM could obtain SROS or X as an addition to SFGAM (lol).

[DejaVuGurl1203]

Wow, I hope you're kidding. SROS has no chance of being at SFGAm. X, on the other hand, I doubt it, but I don't know.

[Coaster Alex0805]

When I checked at 1:42 Six Flags Stock has dropped to $5.82 the change was 1.63% drop, Anyways the parks that they are looking into potentail strategic options, Six Flags Darien Lake; Six Flags Waterworld, Six Flags Elitch Gardens, Wild Waves and Enchanted Village; Six Flags Splashtown; and Six Flags Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor. Are parks that must not be meeting their goals, and I know were all saying "Hey they would never close down Magic Mountian." Well if it's on that list its up for consideration, MM's land is WORTH MAJOR $. but I think there last case senrio would be to close of MM and Sell of the rides or send them off, but I'm sure there might be a park out there that want's it

[Becky O 33]

I goofed up about SROS, that ride isnt at SFMM ,for some reason i had SFA on my mind and screwed that up.

[Ilovthevu']

What does that show when your biggest park that has spent the most money might be torn down, or not be with Six Flags anymore? A struggling company losing one of their biggest attendence drawers in the chain. Is this guy here, or is he stuck in Disney World? With this sale (if this sale), the stock is going to go way down. It's just as bad as not letting people come back in the park anymore after they have left.

The problem with this guy is that he thinks Six Flags is Disney. Disney has one or two roller coaster rides at the parks, and that's it. The rest are all flats. However, the thing he's not understanding is that those flats (not rollercoasters) cost a whole lot of money. Splash Moutain was 90 million, while Mission Space was 100 million. Tower of Terror was way up there too.

The greatest quote known to man goes like We will not spend large amounts of money on roller coasters. Disney just did it with Expedition Everest at 100 million.

The moral of the story is, that in order to be a great park, you need to spend money. Disney does this even though I don't think that those parks are greater than Six Flags at all.

In the call, he says something like we may get less people coming to the park because of our StRaTeGy , but we might still make more money. If less people are coming to the park, next year probably even lesser amounts of people will come to the park. Attendence dropping is horrible!!! It's bad news in the long run. He's just trying to spin it around.

Back to the real problem are RIDES and operations (at small parks such as SFKK, SFStL-not enough), not the stupid entertainment.

[RagingBullFan]

What does that show when your biggest park that has spent the most money might be torn down, or not be with Six Flags anymore? A struggling company losing one of their biggest attendence drawers in the chain. Is this guy here, or is he stuck in Disney World? With this sale (if this sale), the stock is going to go way down. It's just as bad as not letting people come back in the park anymore after they have left.

The park has the most attendance because it is open YEAR ROUND. With us at nearly the same levels of attendance with a much shorter season, you tell me which is the better park?

Also Magic Mountain is larger and requires more money for upkeep, pair that with the only slightly higher attendance and you have no profits. If a group was looking to buy these 6 parks say all together, you also do need a gem or two in there to drum up interest. This is a park I think SF could loose and have it be for the better.

The problem with this guy is that he thinks Six Flags is Disney. Disney has one or two roller coaster rides at the parks, and that's it. The rest are all flats. However, the thing he's not understanding is that those flats (not rollercoasters) cost a whole lot of money. Splash Moutain was 90 million, while Mission Space was 100 million. Tower of Terror was way up there too.

This is in no way a fair compairison, Splash Mountain and Mission space are much more than just "rides" a very large amount of the money spent on those rides went towards the themeing/branding of those rides. I'd bet about $15 Million on average went towards the actual ride structure itself. I could see SF doing something like PKI's Tomb Raider : The Ride type deals, its not Disney, but at the same time it is very engaging and it doesn't bankrupt you.

The moral of the story is, that in order to be a great park, you need to spend money. Disney does this even though I don't think that those parks are greater than Six Flags at all.

You don't have to spend Disney levels of money to vastly improve your offerings. At the same time Six Flags will never be Disney and Shapiro knows that he wants to just make it close but be a competitive comparable product. That and Disney parks walk all over Six Flags there is no comparison between the two.

Back to the real problem are RIDES and operations (at small parks such as SFKK, SFStL-not enough), not the stupid entertainment.

No the real problem is NOT rides (operations partly but not a big deal) the big problem is MAINTENANCE. Money that has been needed to do upkeep to keep things looking nice has not been invested into any of the Six Flags parks for a long time. Vast overhauls of backend systems and structures are needed. Putting more money into maintenance also helps with some of the operational issues in terms of having more units available for rides. And Entertainment plays a HUGE role. At Epcot their Illuminations show at the end of the night has people coming to the park just before close just to see that one show. Even at Cedar Point their nightly laser show is fairly impressive. We don't need an Illuminations caliber night show but putting up a high standard like that to meet can help draw in an entire new crowd. And that crowd is willing to pay $$$ for something that is impressive and they can't get just anywhere.

Ugh, I'm done ranting for now let me say if you knew 1/2 of how things really are you would be singing an entirely different tune.

[RBull4life]

In order to spend money, you must have money to spend. Sure Disney spent $100 million on Everest, but the main point is that they had the money to spend. Six Flags does not. If you go out and spend $40,000 on a new car, and most of your money goes to pay for that car, you are not going to go out and spend another $40,000 on another car, and another, until you can't afford the cars anymore. Thats what the old regime at Six Flags did with coasters, and look at what happened to the company.

Six Flags is no Disney, but they make money don't they? And how do they make this money? By not having teens make sexual acts on their rides, or running amoke throughout their parks, they make it a family experiance. Sure, that may not sit well for thrill seekers, but Shaprio is doing what he has to do to make the chain better.
Come on people, I am no rocket scientist, but geez. If you owned a company with several locations across the U.S., and the company was bleeding money, what would you do? Would you go out and spend more money, and go further into debt in hopes that it would improve your capita, or would you find a way to keep the company going by doing, however unpopular, anything to turn a profit?

[Galvan]

When is Ilovthevu' going to realize that Six Flags has turned a corner, and that is where Families NOT Rollercoasters are king. SFMM is no where near a family park especially when thug punk teens run amuck inside the park.

[LaTiNoObSeSeDSFGAm]

SFMM brings in alot of attendance but not the type of attendance Shapiro wants. The major percentage of attendance of people going to SFMM are teens. Also from trip reports I heard about SFMM, is another reason why they should close it down. All the problems with only one train running and the "bad" teens running around. However I do think if they tear down some of the less popular rides at SFMM and build very good flat rides then SFMM may not be a Disney but it can be a better Cedar Point. Just in my opinion.

Another thing is that Shapiro wants Six Flags to be like Disney which is a good thing but, Disney has two major parks ( in America??? ) and one is the most successful which is in Florida. Then you got Universal. Those parks are runned by movie companies. Maybe if Six Flags was still owned Warner Bros it would be easier to get what Shapiro wants. Also, everyone goes to Disney because of the famous reputation it was for being a "magical place" and the fact that they only have that one park in Florida ( the other in California noone really pays attention about ) every one goes to it as a resort. Think about it if Disney had 20 or so parks like Six Flags did then there attendance wouldnt be as high as it originally is because then it would be just another back yard theme park. Six Flags is a backyard theme park, easy for teens to go when there bored or just have nothing to do. And another thing about Six Flags is because its a theme park where people have it in their backyards, literally, you get families of all kinds of classes. You get families of the high, middle, and low class. Mostly middle. As to Disney because its that one park in Florida, many families go there are the high class ones because they can afford a trip to Florida and go to a high priced theme park. The reason im saying this is because if Shapiro wants to bring in more families take down the parks that noone really pays attention to like SFKK, SFNE, SFNO, all those other parks that are just a waste of money. Keep the major parks such as SFGAm, SFGadv, SFMM, SFOT, and SFStl. Yeah it may be a few parks but think about it, if those five parks are the BEST five parks this nation gots, then people from other states and from the high class families would come just to see these great "family" parks Shapiro wants.

Another thing is that we have more than 20 parks but there basically the same thing. How many Batman, Superman clones are there. How many Gotham City theme areas are there. Why would you have a famiily from california visit SFGAm when they basically got the same, better, park right there in their back yard. If we have those parks I mentioned above with a different atmosphere of family rides and entertainment, that would lure in out of state visitors for an actual vacation to Six Flags and that would bring in money.

Sorry if I confused anyone with my writing...

[RBull4life]

^ I don't think you confused anybody. Well said my friend.

[Ilovthevu']

I see no reason why you can't go for families and teens. If you are in debt, you need the money no matter what.

I do agree that SFKK should be sold. It's a piece of junk. SFStL needs to be updated somewhat, but the stuff it has, is pretty good. As field trip people have said going there, it is a small park, and there isn't much to do there. If you like rerides, it's a great park. I do like this park, but it needs more. Don't forget about Six Flags Over Georgia either. Keep it. I don't think SFNO could be sold due to some sort of lease agreement??? The roller coasters don't look that great at that park though.

It's funny how someone says that SFMM is a thug park. I haven't seen anything thuglike when I was at this park in March. So, where do you come from calling it a thug park? Six Flags Great Adventure might not have 16 working roller coasters, but it's just as bad with 13, isn't it???

All this time, the whole problem was buying too many parks, making the bigger parks bigger, and thus forgetting about the smaller parks, and buying too many WRONG roller coasters. They might have even have come with the park already.

If SFMM is sold, and the rides are dispersed through the chain, do you understand how the attendence will change at these other parks? They have X, Deja Vu (very popular when open ), B&M Floorless, B&M Standup that is pretty smooth, B&M Inverted Coaster (SFKK would like this.), B&M Flying coaster, Colossus isn't that bad, I don't know about Flashback, and I think Pysclone is supposed to be rough (If it's like Georgia Cyclone, I would love it.) Ninja is really fun, and Superman The Escape is a bore. Many of these rides are awesome!!! Some of the roller coasters at these other parks look just bad. I look at them, and I don't even want to go to these parks.

Treating the small parks like dumps put SF in this position. Of course, I wish SFMM doesn't change. If it's going to change, I hope it's a Cedar Fair park then.

SF's actually poured too much money into this park, and some maintenance got killed in the process. This shouldn't be that hard to fix. However, look at all these rides, and you can see why this ride pulls in the 3-4 million a year. If SFOG was open all year, I bet you that they wouldn't even beat SFMM attendence.

[CoasterDude12-2]

^Just so you know, Psyclone has NO airtime, and is the roughest and most horrible ride I've ever been on. (And to think it actually has B&M trains)

But let's just say Six Flags sells SFMM and tears it up like SFAW (in my opinion a longshot), you scrap Flashback, Psyclone, Colossus, and Revolution. You could stick Batman at Fiesta Texas (they don't have an invert), that would jumpstart attendance there. You put Deja Vu at SFNE and people flock there. Point is, if you add one new coaster at smaller parks, people will ride it, new or used, with 11 different "big coasters", 11 parks get much higher attendance. Whether or not that will add up to SFMM's attendance is debatable, but who knows. In fact, If SF were to paint Viper blue, they could sent it here and name it Shockwave and most people wouldn't know the difference. (but its not gonna happen)

[w00dland]

You guys are taking that whole "selling parks" thing WAY to seriously, if they do anythign with SFMM it's either going to be selling the entire park to another chain OR gutting the park of the rides it doesn't need. I could easily see Scream! show up at another park soon, the park has a bunch of inversions as it is and it's incredibly similar to Viper.

As for the smaller parks, espicially SFA, I could see that park getting sold and the rides showing up at other parks ala SFAW.

Six Flags is going to make a turnaround, July and August are still coming up where anythign can happen.

[Bob O]

If SF can reduce the debt they hold off by selling parks that dont fit in with the companies current vision, that will give the company the ability to spend the resources they have on fewer parks.
I think this is a postive development for the company and while they may not be able to afford the totally immersive experience's that one can find at Disney parks, they should be able to offer attractions similiar to DarkCastle at BGW.
Parks like PKI have done very well going after the family by making there kid's area's top-notch and Holiday World has also done great by being a very clean park that is family friendly with only a few coasters, as has BGW.
SF needs to strive IMHO not to have parks boast about the quantity of the coasters they have, but strive to have top-notch coasters. You can do very well having a few excellant coasters that have good capacities and run very reliably then alot of coasters that are often down or not very good. And then add in some good shows/kids area's that are good and then some good flat/dark rides. When your claim to fame is 17 coasters and being the Xtreme park, that isnt going to draw families and Shapiro realizes that in the CA market it may be too expensive to change the ride mix and then pay to advertise this to bring in familles.
And if they try to sell SFMM, what company would pay to buy it in its current shape with Cedar Fair likely out of the picture??
I dont see the other major players like Disney/Universal/Busch being interested in this park.

[Chitown]

Actually Bob O., according to another article I read, the owners of the Legoland parks which also have a stake in Universal are rumored to have shown interest in the SFMM property.

However, in my opinion, they won't be able bid for the value of the property the way real estate firms will be able to because they are ready and able to line up to bid for the 250 acres.

I see quite a few coasters finding new homes in the future.

[Galvan]

^ According to some estimates, land around Valencia goes for as high as 1 million per acre.

Now if Im Shapiro and i am hearing this info, Id sell SFMM for nothing less then 1 million per acre.

250 Million for SFMM? SOLD