Season Pass Prices

[GrtAmkid]

This may have been discussed elsewhere on the site, but why the large discrepancy between season pass prices from one Six Flags park to another? Is the pass price determined by popularity of a particular park? Median income for the particular area?

[ttd rox]

While I don't know for sure, I'm guessing it's a bit of all of that. For an example, you will find cheaper season passes at SFstl, SFDK, and SFNE than say SFMM, SFGAm, and SFGAdv. It's all about location, popularity, and also how well the area the park is in does. The reason why SFGAm is always among the priciest is because it's outside the 3rd largest city in America and there aren't any other theme parks in the area. SFMM is still pricey being just north of LA and it's a popular park, but they also have multiple theme parks in southern California.

Again, I don't know for sure but I'm assuming they base it off location and popularity. Plus, if people keep coming back to a park like SFGAm, why not keep the price higher than the other parks? If Six Flags starts seeing a decline in a certain park, they are likely to lower the prices or offer a deal for that park the following year.

[BP317]

It really depends on the demographics, competition, and pricing strategy.

Most parks follow a very corporatized marketing strategy of trying to sell a lot of season passes for a discounted price and making back those revenues with parking and lockers in the case of water parks. Which is pretty evident with SFGAm, where they advertise all the time "cheapest season passes in 10 years!" The price of parking though has gone up to try and offset the loss in admission-revenue. Also in addition to being the only theme park in Chicagoland, SFGAm has a lot to offer (huge park and huge waterpark), so it warrants being the most expensive.

Now look at a park like Magic Mountain's season pass without parking which is only $62, and that is with the second largest metropolitian area in the country. Taking a closer look at areas with more competition, Six Flags in Maryland which is competing with Busch Gardens/Kings Dominion, SF tries to market themselves as the cheaper alternative and focus more on lower incomes. Mark Shapiro flat out said in an interview once that they saw a huge opportunity to market more to Mexican's in Southern California. The main difference between SFA and SFMM being that Magic Mountain with LA's huge population they are more willing to put huge re-investment in the park to feed it's niche in the market, and also makes the park more marketable nationally.

Sea World/Busch Gardens parks do something similar to SFMM where they all offer a buy one day get the rest of the year free ticket....aka the "we know you probably won't be willing to pay to come back again this year but we kind of need you" ticket which seems to work. Especially when people are vacationing to an area and are there several days and only planned to do the park one day, but then decide to add another because of the free ticket (where they pay for parking and food/snacks etc).

It's hard to make sense of what goes on because Six Flags has been on such shaky ground for the past decade and the economy has been, and probably will continue to be horrible for quite some time. The conventional wisdom regarding the pricing of admission/season passes though is to raise it a little bit above inflation each year, but with the economy and inflation they way they are now conventional wisdom can be thrown out the window.

[Ilovthevu']

I think it has to do with performance of the park, and the amount of attractions a park has. The top 3 Six Flags in the US are SFGAdv, SFMM, and SFGAm. SFMM is sort of a Six Flags problem child. Sure, SFMM gets in the top 3 attendance of Six Flags, but really it should be even higher. The park is open a lot more than SFGAm, and SFGAdv.

You take a park like SFKK which is no more as a Six Flags park, and that season pass was dirt cheap. SFStL was also a little cheaper than SFGAm, and the reason is because of the performance of the park, and really the number of roller coasters / flat rides those 2 parks have / had. Also, in regards to amount of attractions, you also need to take in account quality of attractions. SFGAm has 4 B&Ms, and SFStL has 1 B&M. They are pouring more money into SFGAm rather than SFStL for instance.

SFOT I'm sort of concerned with also. To me, that's a great park but yet it's not making the top 25 with SFGAdv, SFGAm, and SFMM, and I don't know why really. Is it because the weather is way too hot in Texas during the summer for people visiting SFOT, or does it need to expand a little bit more?

In regards to the price again about SFGAm season pass, our price is higher because you are able to get the waterpark "free" with admission along with again having so many flats, and so many roller coasters. Magic Mountain has a lot of roller coasters, but they have been taking away some of their flats. The log ride was the next casuality at that park. It's a water ride, but you get the point. SFMM with waterpark season pass is about $90 whereas a non-waterpark pass is about $60.

If you venture out to the other Six Flag's parks, you will see why SFGAm is one of the highest season pass prices. For instance, if you visit SFOG that park has some great coasters in my opinion, but their aren't that many flats, and the waterpark is a small drive away, so you can't get in that waterpark for "free" with season pass. The flats that I remember over there are the Orbit, a train like Scenic Railway, antique cars, the Whirligig themed to Batman, bumper cars, drop ride, balloon ride, Jester's Wild Ride type of ride, cable ride in the air I think, a log ride, a roaring rapids ride, and a Carousel. They had a Scrambler, and the ride like the Edge like SFGAm had, but those are gone. So, compared to our park, NO Triple Play, NO Tea Cups, NO Pirate Ship, NO Ricochet, NO Condor, NO King Chaos, NO Revolution, NO boat ride, NO Buccaneer Battle, NO Sky Trek Tower, NO Scrambler anymore, NO Fiddler's Fling, NO East River Crawler, and as I said NO waterpark right next to the regular park.

If you go to any other Six Flags park unless maybe Mexico I think, you will not find as many flat rides as SFGAm. Cedar Point which is in another chain might have a tiny bit more, but it's either SFGAm or Cedar Point for most flats that I know of in a big chain park.

[GrtAmkid]

Makes sense, I am not complaining, too much. I bought passes for my entire immediate family (5) last year, and definitely intend to do the same this year. I have never been to any of the other Six Flags parks around the country, so I guess I didn't really have much to compare to, ride wise (quality and quantity). On top of that, I have been visiting Great America regularly since 1981, so I guess my thoughts probably were "all Six Flags parks were like this", guess I was wrong.