Ok here is a breakdown of the lots and lots of new news that was announced today.
First, SF has entered into an agreement with HIT entertainment which has rights to the popular brand "Thomas And Friends". For 2007 3 parks will get a Thomas and Friends play area which will feature Thomas based rides and meet and greets with Sir Toppam Hat etc. 3 more will be added in 2008 for a total of 6 parks with a Thomas area. Note : This is a completely new area and does not have anything to do with a park's railroad, if it has one.
Secondly, there was more talk of the Wiggles and SFGAdv as well as 2 other unnamed parks will get a new Wiggles themed play area with rides based off of the Wiggles characters. Also on their US tour the Wiggles will be promoting Six Flags and may possibly be selling tickets for Six Flags at the concerts.
Third, to help with the tween demographic (9-12) (It does say on the press release 12-24 but in the conference call Shaprio refered to the tween demographic with Tony Hawk for the 9-12 age bracket.) 2 new Tony Hawk themed rides 1 at SFOT the other to a unnamed park. More merchandise will be available to buy from his clothing line etc. More rides besides the 2 announced are expected in upcoming years.
Fourth, mtvU, MTV's University channel will be having a summer concert series at Six Flags around the country. This will be in addition to the Thursday concert series happening at all Six Flags.
Fifth, Cold Stone Creamery will be installed in at least 6 parks with SFNE being the only park installed with an actual cold stone on a trial basis. The other will use another way to make their ice cream. Also in this area Panda Express which currently has 6 locations will be increased to at least 12 locations throughout Six Flags.
Sixth, Heniz catchup is now the offical catchup of Six Flags. Also a Corporate Partner (Same level with Home Depot etc.) New deals with peel off labels for discounts.
Seventh, Holiday in the park will be expanded in Warm weather markets only. Coming this month to SFFT and SFMW.
Eighth, besides expanding Panda Express new offerings featuring Thai and Greek food will be offered in select parks.
That is the new information for operations park wide on a breakdown of whats available at individual parks :
SFOT- New show in collaboration with Cirque Productions that will occur summer nights at about 9 PM. Also will keep park open til 11 PM (Normally closes at 10 PM) With lighting and theming like that of Holiday in the parks.
SFGAdv - Safari will no longer be free, in part with this upgrade there will be more close up encounters with the animals, no price has been announced.
Great Escape- New Tornado ride that when it first opens will only be able to be ridden by season pass holders until June 22nd.
Ok and now to the main topic at hand... SFGAm...
Here is what was said with respect to SFGAm.
1. New show Operation Spygirl.
2. Land that the park owns that is considered "excess" land is either up for sale or is in preliminary talks with hotels for possible use. Will not allow fast food places etc. to be built on this land.
3. More to come later.
As to the sale of other parks. Total of 9 are for sale, prefer them to be sold as a group.
PARKS WILL BE SOLD AS A CONTINUING OPERATION. I.E. They will not be sold for land!
The decision to sell parks etc. will be made by Jan. 1st.
Also, NO TICKET PRICE INCREASES. And Magic Mountain is offering free Kid's season pass with their current promotion of Play Pass ( Pay for 1 day get a free season pass.)
Also more money will be made available for more staffing as well as better staff training. Shaprio said no matter how many new rides etc. they put in, customers come back based on great employees. Also has tied individual park GM's performance to their bonuses.
Ah yes and one more thing I almost forgot, besides adding Superman and the rest of the Justice League, select parks will also have a actual Hall of Justice and also will feature the Legion of Doom characters and similar hideout.
Thats about all I can think of right now, it was a long conference call about 2 hours.
Last edited by RagingBullFan on December 12th, 2006, 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
RagingBullFan wrote:Here is what was said with respect to SFGAm.
2. Land that the park owns that is considered "excess" land is either up for sale or is in preliminary talks with hotels for possible use. Will not allow fast food places etc. to be built on this land.
Am I the only one that finds it really funny that it is specifically mentioned they will not allow fast food places to be built?
RagingBullFan wrote:Seventh, Holiday in the park will be expanded in Warm weather markets only. Coming this month to SFFT and SFMW.
Holiday In The Park is new for 2007 at SFFT and SFMW. They will still only have HITP at SFOT this year.
I liked a few things RagingBullFan summarized. One is the installation of Cold Stone Creamery which has great ice cream. Cold Stone is a little pricey so I hope the prices arent raised in parks. The greek food sounds good too.
I think its a good idea to only allow passholders at The Great Escape to ride the Tornado until June 22nd. Hopefully season pass sales and attendace goes up due to this move.
Im glad to hear that the parks up for sale will continue to run. Its sad to see a park get demolished especially in the case of Astroworld.
Im happy there wont be any ticket price increases even though I get a season pass every year. Im pretty sure parking is going up but that wont stop people from coming.
SFGAm has said for years that they are out of room and dont have any more land. I always had a feeling SFGAm had more land(not including the previously owned land across the expressway)and Im happy Shapiro didnt continue the lie. Im just curious where around the park the land is. SFGAm didnt get as much as money as they should have for the land across the expressway and the same will happen again. Shapiro seems desperate for money so I guess he'll take what he can get.
The land in question is around the employee entrance. It is currently a heavily wooded area. Basically it stretches from the left of American Eagle and all the way around by the picnic grove. (Behind the current employee lot.)
With all that land available, that would be the perfect spot for Shapiro to build a hotel and indoor waterpark kind of like the Great Escape lodge. Or possibly do like Paramount did and invest in part ownership of a Great Wolf Lodge on that property.
With SFGAm and Gurnee Mills there, a SF owned lodge would probably do well.
I finally retired the Sarah Palin signature because she is now 100% irrelevant.
^True, but isn't there already a hotel coming up in Gurnee with an indoor waterpark that is supposed to be going hand in hand with Great America? Does Keystone ring a bell to anyone?
RIP: Trailblazer and Deja Vu...heck, even Alien Encounter
SFGAmfreak4life wrote:SFGAm has said for years that they are out of room and dont have any more land. I always had a feeling SFGAm had more land(not including the previously owned land across the expressway)and Im happy Shapiro didnt continue the lie. Im just curious where around the park the land is. SFGAm didnt get as much as money as they should have for the land across the expressway and the same will happen again. Shapiro seems desperate for money so I guess he'll take what he can get.
Some of that land they own is in the weirdest spots...
http://themeparkcritic.com/scripts/profile/ViewProfile.asp?ViewID=2909 A furious storm once roared `cross the sea, catching ships in its path, helpless to flee. Instead of a certain and watery doom, the winds swept them here to Typhoon Lagoon!
The thursday concert series and the mtvu concert series is a great idea to bring to the parks. (Any idea who will perform?)
Coldstone is a good idea, however like someone mentioned before it already is sold at a "six flags type" price. So if it gets raised any higher I know I won't bother with it.
Note the Holiday in the Park for SFFT and SFMW will be for 2007; he clarified it in the Conference call. He said not this year but next December, 2007.
For Cold Stone, Only 1 Park SFNE will have a Real Cold Stone. All other parks will have Pre Packaged Cold Stone Ice Cream. Also, Six Flags will have its Own Ice cream Flavor which will be sold at all Cold Store Stores NationWide starting this spring. It will be called "Six Flags Coaster Crunch."
For the Hall of Justice they are introducing it in 6 parks. The Legends of Doom will be only in one park as a test program to see if people like the Villains.
ok....here are my opinions for anyone who really cares......
1. Too bad we can't hold off development for a new kids area until 2008. I think that Thomas and Friends would be so much better than the Wiggles. It's just a personal thing for me. Wiggles creep me out.
2. Read above answer for this one. it applies here too i guess.
3. i think it's cool that the tony hawk thing really worked out. It seems like a good idea for the tween demographic.
4. This new concert special seems cool too. The only thing i don't like about it is that it only broadcasts on college campuses i think (correct me if i'm wrong), and it will take place in the summer, when only summer school kids are in session....who knows how this will turn out.
5. I'm iffy about this one. I like coldstone as much as many others do, but if it's already expensive, i don't think i will end up buying it at the park. Hopefully they won't raise the prices too much....it'll be like dippin dots, really outrageous.
6. More sponsors, can't complain about that.
7. I wish they could do this holiday in the park at our park. It'd be really cool. Besides the decorations like the STT tree and the Eagle thing, it'd be cool if the park was open for the winter....but i understand why it's not.
8. This may be cool. I'm not really a greek/thai food person, but it's a change from the average theme park food of hamburgers and hot dogs.
thank the lord for the no ticket price increase....it's been pushing my non-coaster friends away from coming to the park since we're all college students who don't have a lot of money.
I wish our park would be the Legion of Doom park. This would be awesome. Superheros and Villans together.....that would be a lot of fun. I'm a entertainment fan too, so I'd love to see villans around the park. Hopefully that works out.
Well we are getting a hall of justice supposedly and Shaprio said that most parks should receive a hall of doom. Since our park is the "model" park I don't see why we wouldn't get one.
LAFFfan4lyfe wrote:1. Too bad we can't hold off development for a new kids area until 2008. I think that Thomas and Friends would be so much better than the Wiggles. It's just a personal thing for me. Wiggles creep me out.
100% agree. Thomas and Friends would be a better draw in my opinion. While the Wiggles do creep me out as well, nothing can compare to the creepiness of TelleTubbies. That baby in the sun would give me nightmares if I were a kid.
If it walks like socialist, quacks like socialist, smells like a socialist, .... it's a socialist. Hope, and change we can believe in.
Landwise if they want more room I think they should just get rid of rides that nobody ride or food and merchandise places that nobody even shop or eat at all they should be able to figure out what places they are.
No price increase on tickets good idea I wonder how much foods will costs in 07 though he never even mentions them. Wiggles and Thomas to attract families good idea. Concert every Thursday and Mtv instead of that Disney jam that would attract guests specially if they put in a really popular band gives us something new to watch every week instead of the same show everytime you go to the park. So good ideas for 07 so far.
I love that college band/headliner band from mtvU, that could help launch bands from the area, not to mention bring in huge amounts of people to the park.
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
I agree with the rest regarding Cold Stone Ice Cream in that it is good Ice Cream but it already expensive before SF raises the price of it even more, And if it will be pre-packaged Ice Cream and not the same as you get in the store I wouldnt buy any nor would I if it is anymore expensive than it already is.
As for getting rid of excess land, they should be trying to acquire more land rather than getting rid of what they already have.
Im no fan of either the Wiggles or Thomas but hope it is succesful in drawing more families into the park, and the same goes for the concert series which has no interest to me but I hope it helps the companies bottom line.
Hopefully the SpyGirl show is good and worth seeing more than once, because other than some new characters I dont see anything else that is being done to our park that would encourage me to visit more often or tell others to do so.
Carlo wrote:Note the Holiday in the Park for SFFT and SFMW will be for 2007; he clarified it in the Conference call. He said not this year but next December, 2007.
For Cold Stone, Only 1 Park SFNE will have a Real Cold Stone. All other parks will have Pre Packaged Cold Stone Ice Cream. Also, Six Flags will have its Own Ice cream Flavor which will be sold at all Cold Store Stores NationWide starting this spring. It will be called "Six Flags Coaster Crunch."
For the Hall of Justice they are introducing it in 6 parks. The Legends of Doom will be only in one park as a test program to see if people like the Villains.
Pre-packed Cold Stone?! That's not fun, the best part of Coldstone is watching them make it and sing while doing it! That takes half the experience away!!
RIP: Trailblazer and Deja Vu...heck, even Alien Encounter
