Six Flags Stocks are down

[mattberg]

So with the talk on new rides in the future how much do you think this could affect our outcome? Maybe new paint isn't a bad idea. http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/201 ... no-disney/

[Iron Wolf 90-11]

There was also an 8% decrease in attendance this summer. http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/21/investi ... index.html

[RollingCoasting]

There was also an 8% decrease in attendance this summer. http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/21/investi ... index.html

So the year we get IgNight more people come to the park, yet this year they added Goliath, a record breaking Wooden Coaster and less people show up

[DeathbyDinn]

^
1. The article is about the entire chain, not just Great America
2. The 8% drop was only for the months of April, May and June. One of which we were not open for and two and half of which Goliath was not open for.

[tp41190]

Well considering how bad the chains look and operate now, this doesn't surprise me. They are starting to slip back into the habit of the late 90s/early 2000s where the quality/operations took and dive and they kept building new attractions.

Our park is starting to look terrible. Garbage everywhere, poorly maintained flowers, lights burned out, chipped paint, etc. Line wait times are now doubled due to flash passes. Parking is $25. It takes almost an hour to get into the park.

I'm not Cedar Fair fanboy by any means...but they sure have stepped up their game and are doing things the correct way.

Everyone is quick to say things like "oh well it makes the park money". The few thousand the park may make on the Platinum Flashpasses a day is not worth the pisse attitudes of the hundreds of people that get skipped in the station (whether directly skipped or not). It all adds up. While I have not been to every other Six Flags park in the chain in the past few years, I'm sure that our park follows the lead from somewhere.

[Brewersdawg828]

I think we all know that in most scenarios cut backs are the easiest way to save money. But, I think the theme park industry is one where you need to spend money to make money. You need to make the park more appeal and more of a destination park such as magic mountain. So I wouldn't be totally surprised if the parks added record breaking flats (which there aren't a ton of possibilities) to the parks that just got coasters such as great america or six flags Mexico and adding record breaking flags to other parks that just got flags or shows like New England and the rest of those parks. I also wouldn't be surprised if we saw another jump in parking as well as increases in season passes, daily tickets, a fee for the water park for everyone and even maybe an increases in flash passes.

[SFGAMNUT9302]

Well considering how bad the chains look and operate now, this doesn't surprise me. They are starting to slip back into the habit of the late 90s/early 2000s where the quality/operations took and dive and they kept building new attractions.

Our park is starting to look terrible. Garbage everywhere, poorly maintained flowers, lights burned out, chipped paint, etc. Line wait times are now doubled due to flash passes. Parking is $25. It takes almost an hour to get into the park.

I'm not Cedar Fair fanboy by any means...but they sure have stepped up their game and are doing things the correct way.

Everyone is quick to say things like "oh well it makes the park money". The few thousand the park may make on the Platinum Flashpasses a day is not worth the pisse attitudes of the hundreds of people that get skipped in the station (whether directly skipped or not). It all adds up. While I have not been to every other Six Flags park in the chain in the past few years, I'm sure that our park follows the lead from somewhere.

I agree 100% Hopefully this will not go un-noticed

[super7]

Six Flags parks have good coaster and thrill ride lineups, but nothing else to offer. Great America has one of the best thrill ride lineups in the country, but that's where it stops now.

Very few things for non-thrill riders to do there (not many gentle rides or live shows), so they have lost all of that business. The parks look horrible. Neglected buildings, neglected landscaping, and mismatched theming everywhere.

They are good parks to go to if you want to ride coasters and flat rides and don't care about atmosphere, or doing other relaxing things.

There are reasons Disney is the most attended parks in the world, even with their sky-high prices. Year round operation is part of it, but the quality of experience, attention to details and the fact that EVERYONE can do the high majority of their attractions is the rest of that formula. You would think that these regional theme parks would incorporate some of that into their business model.

These parks have become thrill ride "ghettos", and it would take a lot to get the lost business of non-thrill riders back into the park.

[Superman]

Don't read in to stock prices too much. They go up and down for sometimes no reason at all. They are still a profitable company which is a hard thing to become. I don't think this will change anything in any six flags park

[SFGAMNUT9302]

It's getting that perfect balance between great rides and a clean and high quality park experience. Hiring more employees to specifically work on trash removal, etc. Painting the rides, putting in pavers to replace that ugly black top, Having more Looney tunes characters around the park and more family friendly experiences. If Six Flags Great America went just 3 seasons without adding any new rides and spent their budget on things like paint jobs, Infrastructure, and landscaping, they could turn things around.

[w00dland]

I don't think the issues that we're complaining about are necessarily the reason that the stock has fallen. That is likely due to top line numbers and high profile incidents. The New Texas Giant accident is still on the mind of guests and investors due to the coverage that story got, and likely effected attendance to the parks (although we'll never know the real number on that). Remember that Six Flags is a brand - so if one park has a catastrophe, all of the parks will be effected. Then remember that half of the chain's major additions this year were delayed which likely effected attendance numbers for the first quarter of the season (I'd expect these numbers to rebound in the 2nd half due to some phenomenal weather the US has had this year)

That being said. If you come to the park without pre-purchasing tickets this year on a weekend, expect to wait 15-20 minutes to pay your $25 to park (getting rid of preferred parking and just charging everyone that price was a brilliant idea by the way) then prepare to wait at least an hour to buy your tickets with a coke can, and then an additional 45 minutes to an hour to actually enter the park! Get to the park at 11, and you won't enter until at least 12:30. Technology is supposed to make these processes faster, right? Shocking.

[RollingCoasting]

^
1. The article is about the entire chain, not just Great America
2. The 8% drop was only for the months of April, May and June. One of which we were not open for and two and half of which Goliath was not open for.

I know that it wasn't just GA, but I wasn't talking about other parks

[SFGAMNUT9302]

Well this is a perfect example of what they did at Kings Dominion in alot of sections of the park, just imagine if Great America applied this to CP, HTS, CF, YK, MG, OP, and YH how much better the parks overall image would look! SWT doesn't really need it, but it makes a huge huge difference in the appearence of the park. As far as the Flash pass system goes, I'll be honest, I never liked either the fast pass or the flash pass, It would be alot easier if they just charged say $100.00 for a pass, Sold X amount of them per day, and it was just unlimited go to the front of the line. That would simplify things, and if I'm not mistaken that's how the Cedar Fair system works.

[Jacklw6499]

If Six Flags ever goes bankrupt again, I really hope our park is sold to Cedar Fair. Wishful thinking that's all. However, It would open up so many possibilities as far as bigger coasters and more robust attractions. Cedar Fair also spreads the wealth pretty evenly (Excluding Valleyfair! and California's GA). If this did happen though, a lot of the attractions that were DC themed would have to be renamed as Cedar Fair doesn't own rights to DC. It's a sort of back and forth thing for me. Considering Cedar Fair truly runs all of it's coasters quickly. They know how to run a roller coaster. They can get trains out of the station in 40 seconds or less, while it has taken minutes for Goliath to finally send a train out. Again, my own thought sometimes contradicts itself, but in the end I think Great America would be a better place if it were owned by Cedar Fair.

[SFGAMNUT9302]

If Six Flags ever goes bankrupt again, I really hope our park is sold to Cedar Fair. Wishful thinking that's all. However, It would open up so many possibilities as far as bigger coasters and more robust attractions. Cedar Fair also spreads the wealth pretty evenly (Excluding Valleyfair! and California's GA). If this did happen though, a lot of the attractions that were DC themed would have to be renamed as Cedar Fair doesn't own rights to DC. It's a sort of back and forth thing for me. Considering Cedar Fair truly runs all of it's coasters quickly. They know how to run a roller coaster. They can get trains out of the station in 40 seconds or less, while it has taken minutes for Goliath to finally send a train out. Again, my own thought sometimes contradicts itself, but in the end I think Great America would be a better place if it were owned by Cedar Fair.

I do like the way the Cedar Fair parks have been heavily upgrading their infrastructure and parks apperances over the last several years, it would suck loosing all the DC and Looney Tunes themes. I wish Six Flags would star beautifying their parks a little bit more and take better care of the cosmetics of their existing rides. It's amazing how far that goes.

[VuDooJoey]

I think the big thing that brought attendance down was, as mentioned before, the delay of a lot of the new rides. Goliath didn't open until mid June, Zumanjaro didn't open until July, Medusa opened in mid June, Ragin' Cajun opened in late June, all of your water stuff you can't really do until it's warm out (which even for the warm states year round, it was cooler than usual). I think this next quarter will be the one to look at because weather and delayed openings are a valid reason for attendance to drop.

[Superman]

I am fairly certain that the fall in stock price has almost nothing to do with the infrastructure. And I am doubtful that it was even because of a decrease in attendance. Stocks go down because people manipulate the market, mimick well-known investors (Warren Buffet for example), and get nervous about a certain stock for any reason that may not even be legitimate. However, if this drop in attendance hurt the parks bottom line; it most certainly could be the cause of the fall in stock price.

Now aside from that mine rant haha, I think you guys all have great ideas about the infrastructure of the park, and I hope these things all happen. But doing some painting and landscaping will definitely not satisfy shareholders

[untalented893]

Now aside from that mine rant haha, I think you guys all have great ideas about the infrastructure of the park, and I hope these things all happen. But doing some painting and landscaping will definitely not satisfy shareholders

It would satisfy them in the long run indirectly though. These improvements would bring up attendance which would most likely bring up their stocks. Six Flags and Cedar Fair have complete opposite goals in mind with their parks. Six Flags tries to draw in more teenagers and thrill seekers while Cedar Fair cares about being well rounded and fun for all. Teenagers and thrill seekers generally care less about flat rides, kid's rides, shows, customer service (including wait times and employee training), and general atmosphere. I believe that Six Flags cuts corners in these areas so they can afford coasters more often to keep drawing in the teenagers and thrill seekers. I've been to many different parks across the country and Six Flags is by far the worst (in my opinion) chain I've come across, but I also care about more than just coasters. So really I don't fall in their target audience and aren't trying to appease me.

[Brewersdawg828]

Now aside from that mine rant haha, I think you guys all have great ideas about the infrastructure of the park, and I hope these things all happen. But doing some painting and landscaping will definitely not satisfy shareholders

It would satisfy them in the long run indirectly though. These improvements would bring up attendance which would most likely bring up their stocks. Six Flags and Cedar Fair have complete opposite goals in mind with their parks. Six Flags tries to draw in more teenagers and thrill seekers while Cedar Fair cares about being well rounded and fun for all. Teenagers and thrill seekers generally care less about flat rides, kid's rides, shows, customer service (including wait times and employee training), and general atmosphere. I believe that Six Flags cuts corners in these areas so they can afford coasters more often to keep drawing in the teenagers and thrill seekers. I've been to many different parks across the country and Six Flags is by far the worst (in my opinion) chain I've come across, but I also care about more than just coasters. So really I don't fall in their target audience and aren't trying to appease me.

As a 15 year old I completely agree with that

[Luxornv]

I've been paying attention to their stock price since December, and now I really wish I bought it then. They were trading around $32 until about late Feb. Then it surged to $42. It's gone down a bit since then, and now it's getting close to a point where it historically has gone down. I think the company is healthy. The stock closed down from open this morning, but they are still way up for this year.

[Superman]

Now aside from that mine rant haha, I think you guys all have great ideas about the infrastructure of the park, and I hope these things all happen. But doing some painting and landscaping will definitely not satisfy shareholders

It would satisfy them in the long run indirectly though. These improvements would bring up attendance which would most likely bring up their stocks. Six Flags and Cedar Fair have complete opposite goals in mind with their parks. Six Flags tries to draw in more teenagers and thrill seekers while Cedar Fair cares about being well rounded and fun for all. Teenagers and thrill seekers generally care less about flat rides, kid's rides, shows, customer service (including wait times and employee training), and general atmosphere. I believe that Six Flags cuts corners in these areas so they can afford coasters more often to keep drawing in the teenagers and thrill seekers. I've been to many different parks across the country and Six Flags is by far the worst (in my opinion) chain I've come across, but I also care about more than just coasters. So really I don't fall in their target audience and aren't trying to appease me.

I disagree; I don't think this would significantly improve attendance at all. When I go I see plenty of families in the park, in fact most people I see a are there with their family.