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Earbuds on both ends will stop the echo, just a heads up. 😊

Six Flags Great America has not been owned by everyone and anyone. They opened as Marriot's Great America and in 1984 Six Flags purchased it. They would never get rid of this park. It is one of the most profitable Legacy Six Flags park in the chain. If anything they will build this park up because of the attendance this park gets.

While this was pretty generic stuff on the plan they did say they plan an end of Q1 analyst day with more specifics and their new long term plan. The lat analyst day was 2018 when they came out with the Season's of Fun plan,,,which was essentially make the parks more like Knotts. They started massive investment in food/restaurants across the chain and added a bunch of special events at each parks during the season. They increased theming across the chain by adding new themed areas at Cedar Point, Carowinds, Wonderland, Kings Island and just theming their big coasters more even with backstories in the case of Steel Vengeance and Copperhead Strike

He did mention on Halloween can be expanded and how they did it at Cedar Point to drive attendance, revenue and hotel stays by adding thursday night and friday full day to Cedar Point's schedule the last 2 years. They also talked in the past about optimizing operating days and how they did at Cf parks by planned cutting lower profit early season days(particularly at smaller parks) and adding fall days in markets where it makes sense. I could easily see that happening at some of the bigger metro area SF parks. A thursdday night firghtfest or all day friday in the fall might be tested in some markets, if they can get the staffing.

SF legacy attempt at Speedy Pass was a disaster, It would work correctly maybe 25% of the time. Also, it was not at all speed, regular attendant line almost always moved faster. Cedar Fair parks that have multiple self scan lanes for parking..ie...Kings Island, Cedar Point, etc,,,worked much better. They also retained some lanes with attendants, but the number was reduced. I use the self scan every time I go to Kings Island without an issue.

IT integration is not as easy as it may sound. SF legacy parks IT system is nothing like CF's. I know from personal experience that if you're not at your home SF legacy park their guest relations can't get into the system to really look up or change things.SF parks systems are designed to be insular ie...if you have a season pass at 1 park you can't do an add on at another SF park online or in person. I had this issue with a friend that had a pass and I tried to buy them an all season flash pass. They couldn't add it on. We had to at the park completely cancel out the purchases and rebuy the products, of course at a higher price than they were originally. They have no "cross talk capability". In contrast, I can have a pass purchased at any CF park, then buy an add on from any other CF park online or in person without an issue. CF's system is global, they can literally look up your info, purchases, transactions, product usages at any park in their guest relations, SF system doesn't allow that. SF's entire system is going to have to be changed to work with the much better CF legacy system. They didn't want to try that complete overhaul mid season nor while they just started selling 2025 products in August, 1 month after the merger completion. They alluded to a harmonized system by possibly 2026 season.pass

They believe they can increase attendance even if some parks leave b/c they think some big SF legacy parks are severely under performing their potential...ie...Great Adventure given their location between NYC, Philadelphia, etc... should be a 4.5M attendance park. They also said SF legacy parks have about 1/2 the market penetration of CF legacy parks. SF legacy parks are near some major metro areas and are not seeing the attendance and thus financial results they should..ie...Over Georgia(Atlanta), Over Texas(Dallas), Great America(Chicago), Great Adventure, Magic Mountain(lags Knotts by well over 1M guests). Many of those markets not only have subpar attendance but low price points, Over Georgia $65 passes, Over Texas $75 passes, Great Adventure $79, Magic Mountain $89(while Knotts in the same market is $135). CF legacy small parks have higher price points than SF legacy big/top parks.

Zimmerman in talking about portfolio optimization did reference the 2 water parks they sold off in the early 2010's and also the CGA land sale. That's what really fueled the park sale/closure talk from the media . IMO, if anything goes it will be them trying to get out of the EPR lease park deals...Frontier City, Darien Lake, and the 4 stand alone water parks . Old SF management even referenced over the years those lease parks had lower Revenue, Ebidta margin and per caps than the other SF legacy parks. The potential problem with getting out of those leases which run to 2033 or as long as 2037 is what are the opt out or potential penalties for early termination. Those parks with low per caps, Ebidta margin are the antithesis of CF business model. I don't see any CF legacy parks going, some of the SF legacy parks could be in danger, but not for a few years. Also, given they have already confirmed their desire to exercise the options to buy out the partners at Over Texas & Over Georgia in 2027/2028 they will need capital, each park's buyout is in the 332M range.

The actually did break out the numbers/performance of each legacy chain and it is clear SF legacy was a drag. Revenue- 1.35B total...CF legacy 792M SF legacy 558M ADJ Ebidta 558M total ..CF legacy 352M SF legacy 206M Net Income 111M total..CF legacy 108M SF legacy 3M Operating Income 263M..CF legacy 172M SF legacy 91M Attendance 21M CF legacy 11.8M SF legacy 9.2M Deferred Revenue 359M CF legacy 215M SF legacy 144M --- CF overall outperformed SF legacy despite a reporting calendar shift which they lost 71 operating days compared to 2023, which made many CF numbers down compared to 2023m which was also an a record Q3. --SF legacy lagged CF legacy, which has been the case for years, despite having more parks 27 to 15 and more operating days 1591 to 1494

Happy anniversary!🎉

I feel this did make money. Let's say there were 4,000 or close to tickets sold. Every guest essentially paid admission and express plus a hundred for all you can eat food and parking. I think Scott nailed it here. The event could not have bad press. It will never be as good as the first time(until more nights some day) I did the event and my bus for Cabana Bay at 2:20 am. Which means there were ancillary spending. This event made money. Particularly for a first year. I had this and Rush of Fear as a rain back up. I bought food I did not get to and a few gift items.

The misses and I have done HHN for 15 years and Ultimate Scream with Express for the last 4-5 years. This year we did premium scream night. It was a singular event that is a deal at twice the price. We have passed on RIP as we didn't like being required to either buy out for all the RIP spots (private) or go with the group and whomever it includes. We did 25 houses that night, the show and sampled a good amount of food. I think the failure, if there was one, was the marketing. People didn't understand the value (do the math as you say). That said, part of the value almost requires you highlight the issues with the regular event (overcrowding, conga and long lines). I agree and am sad to see the opening weekend crowd certainly wasn't as good to be around this year, especially for a September crowd. October crowds are seemingly more problematic, but normally September is the HHN fan community.

I have a comet shirt

Yay!

Ohhhh and what I heard was that GWS or GSW forgot the acronym global is helping six flags since they know it’s too much for them they have them so hopefully they can get them up on time but idkkkkk getting close haven’t seen anything new but signs off old mazes and a new maze location possible by the wonder woman coaster maintenance bay

Exactly and the studios will have more negotiation power if universal wants an ip I doubt they charged them universal money that’s what I’ve been thinking they definitely took less for some reason

The business model is really known. It's Cedar Fair management and they are going to try to incorporate their highly successful Season's of Fun plan in the SF legacy parks. CF legacy parks under the plan the last 5 to 7 years have invested heavily on food, aesthetics of the park, better theming of rides, special events at the parks essentially every month and new integrated themed areas. CF management has always been about keeping parks local to their region, besides their true destination park of Cedar Point. The other parks have sought to tap into local/regional identity. There is a reason Cedar Fair never put the corporate name on parks and kept acquired parks with their previous names. They never did Cedar Fair's Kings Dominion, etc... That lack of the corporate name did come with a negative, the casual person doesn't know what parks they owned, unlike you knew b/c Six Flags put that in their parks' name when they acquired them, The Six Flags name is thus more widely known by the general public than Cedar Fair

While they call it a merger of equals, it's not! Cedar Fair have 51% stake, but have 10 of the 11 Executive Team. CEDAR FAIR IS ESSENTIALLY COMPLETELY RUNNING THE SHOW! The only position of SF is Chief Integration Officer, which is a made up position during the merger that will surely go away within a few years as the "integration" of the 2 companies will be completed in all aspects. The CEO and the executive team run the parks, which are all CF. This is a complete management takeover by Cedar Fair people, while the Six Flags name is being retained for corporate. Hence, since it's all Cedar Execs retaining their roles CEO, CFO, COO, down to Head of Procurement . HR, etc,,, things at legacy Cedar Fair parks aren't going to change. They are going to keep doing what has made them successful. The changes will come ideally at SF legacy parks. The fact that the Exec team is 10 of 11 Cedar Fair people means Selim Bassoul nor his Board thought much of his Execs and wanted the Cedar Fair management team to do a massive takeover and/or this was a demand by Cedar Fair. You don't see a merger executive teams this lopsided in "merger of equals", this is the level of lopsidedness of an acquisition of a company in financial/managerial trouble.

Where do you get the notion both chains have been struggling? Look at the financials. SF has been struggling, Cedar Fair has not. SF regressed to 2017/18 levels, lost half their pass base in 2022, attendance drop of 7M, etc... Cedar Fair produced record om pass base and financials in 2022(post covid revenge spend year) and backed that up with only sligthly less numbers in 2023.

id love to know more details on the UK one.

I was able to get the Premium Scare Night for the $325 price point (AP rate), but I had to call Universal and have them refund me from the original $350 price point online.

Interesting breakdown of the financials with theme parks! Just subscribed!

NOT surprised at all All the disgusting rude tourists and influencers blocking traffic, disturbing businesses Influencers ruining one country at a time all for views and likes!!

I can’t wait for Isle of Berk. It looks so immersive and has such a variety of entertainment. This will be my favorite land. We Have Dragons!!!

Both companies states on their Q4/Full year earnings call recently they are operating 2024 as normal. They talked about 2025 in regards to Capex and projects the same way. Those things are already planned and will go forward Wouldn't expect much of any synergy happening till 2026

Cedar Fair's increased Q4 attendance was from higher 2024 pass sales. Those fall purchasers of 2024 passes, if they are new people, not renewals are getting September to thru the Halloween Events for free or for some parks thru Dec 31st if they have Winterfest. The lower per caps are influenced by attendance mix, more season pass people lower per caps as a general rule.

The CEO and CFO are Cedar Fair people. CF has always been a better run that SF. Expect the CF protocols and management style to be implemented across SF legacy parks. Cedar Fair doesn't tries to staff properly for food and rides. SF purposely doesn't to save money and the guest experience is poor b/c of it. CF management will surely try to mitigate some of the worst of SF protocols....ie...having 1 person have to check the complete side in 12 row coaster, which hurts ops. ie...SF food operations are logistically set up to fail as they have 1 person trying to do 2 jobs and thus the person has no initiative to do their job well, as they were designed to fail via the set up of the food location. SF employees generally look miserable b/c they are logistically hampered by the company, it's not that way at Cedar Fair.

Cedar Fair's core patron and SF are not the same. It's why CF can charge for passes, meal plans, season Fast Lane, etc...than SF. Cedar Fair for a decade has moved more towards families via the Season's of Fun strategy and the resort/hotel at 5 parks. That's why CF has done much better than SF. CF was producing records in every financial parameter in 2022(Revenue, EBidta, net income, per caps, etc...) and only dipped slightly in 2023, while SF in 2022 was regressing to 2017 levels and 2023 was only slightly better, actually worse in net income YTD

Frightfest at SF is poorly run, understaffed and "weak" props. Knotts Scary Farm or Haunt at cedar Point is infinitely better and surely more profitable. Knotts Scary Farm is an absolute cash cow as it's not included with passes and people that are pass holders besides non pass holders are willing to pay to go. It's packed. Knotts runs circles around SFMM on Halloween and in general.

Essentially SF failed at their "premiumization" plan, among their many other failures the last 20 years & they needed CF. Selim Bassoul knows CF can do the premiumization he desired and failed at. Selim was also in trouble with the poor results the last 2 years and was likely about to be fired if 2024 didn't see a major turn. Cedar Fair has done a premiumization of their parks the last decade with the implementation of their Seasons of Fun model and building out the resorts/hotels at their destination parks.. Cedar Fair has spent extensively on better food & unique restaurants, aesthetics, added special events/festivals. They have done major themed areas at recently at Knotts, Cedar Point, Kings Island, Carowinds, Wonderland and Kings Dominion. Since the CEO and CFO are CF people they will institute the same upgrades that have occurred at CF parks to the top 1/2 SF parks of Magic Mtn, Great Adventure, Great America, Over Texas, Fiesta Texas, Over Georgia. Selim gets his premiumization and Cedar Fair finally gets a southern presence they wanted, especially Tx. They also keep someone else from buying SF, which was a real possibility given their poor results and activist investors tired of the stock declining. Even before the pandemic SF stock had went from $72 to $33 in 18 months leading up to the March 2020 pandemic closures. The stock had recovered the least from the pandemic of the regional chains as their pandemic low was $8 and they were at $20 prior to the merger announcement. CF hit a pandemic low of $14 but had bounced up to $38 before the merger

Six Flags and Cedar Fair aren't competing with Universal & Disney which are destination parks. Universal and Disney's quarterly profit is more than SF, Cedar Fair or SEAS revenue for an entire year. Regional theme parks competition is mostly other entertainment options ie...FEC's, movies, local events, etc... in the 90% of attendance comes within 100 miles. Cedar Fair and SF do not even compete with each other except in 2 markets

Also, your guest is on point with Six Flags going back to their original business model of creating a home park mentality. Look at Canada's Wonderland, the most successful home park in the CF family. The locals are what keep that park #1 visited seasonal park in North America.

If Six Flags (the merger) focuses on thrills, ride experience, testing the limits... in other words, not try to become a Disney clone, they will thrive. Roller coaster enthusiasts want bigger, taller, faster. With Cedar Fair's conservative approach and Six Flags creativity, im confident that (with the closing of some parks which is likely inevitable) they will develop world class theme parks, albeit, with time!

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It's Anti American as it violates their First amendment rights as SCOTUS ruled businesses have in the Citizens United decision!