@ Though obviously this creator does not have access to all the details related to the new combined company, they do a good job making reasonable statements based on information that is known. At the end of the day its all for fun!
Good overview of the strategies at play. In the next few years, we should also expect to see some branded hotels at the bigger parks. Increased coaster investment depends on these parks becoming two-day destinations.
Project Accelerate is just the successful Cedar Fair Seasons of Fun plan, just adding the cost efficiency and synergy of the merger. Look up the presentations the last 6 or so years on Seasons of Fun since it was implemented.
SF Magic Mountain needs some heavy investing. Not only do they need to keep up with Disney, Universal, Sea World, and Knott's, but they have the 2028 Olympics coming to town. They need to make a great lasting impression of the brand on first-time visitors.
Mm should tear down about 10 of their coasters... superman,x2,viper,gold rusher, rapids; goliath, batman, scream, not a coaster but rapids, apocalypse only because they cant seem to fix it, weat coast racers sucks and full throttle should use the golden bear plot for its second half insteadnof the probably half assed axis, and twisted should add a helix of sort in screams plot so they have time to make it duel consistantly
i think magic mountain is absolutely going to be one of the flagship parks for SF in the coming years. But I do think they are a little different than the rest of SF's lineup in that Knott's is almost exclusively family-focused and is so close by, that I think SF could focus more on coasters and thrills for this park and rely on marketing their all-park passport for the family aspect.
I think the only way to out do the early days and then the 90’s guest numbers for great adventure would be to go absolutely nuts with theming. The GP needs more than just great coasters to be drawn back. If they did Universal level theming for the entire KA Lantern area people will flock back in droves. I hope they visit Phantasia land for inspiration… 🤔🤘
If they really want to compete with Disney and universal they have a lot to do. For most of their parks there isn’t anything to do beyond thrill rides. Much, much better food, entertainment. (Parades, night shows, live music, etc), dark rides, much better ride theming, and even hotels are gonna be needed. Nome of the regional parks are anywhere near s good overall as Disney world, or universal. They have a steep uphill battle ahead of them
Regional theme parks aren't competing with Disney and Universal, which are destination parks. Regional theme parks competition is mainly other local entertainment options that aren't parks. Regional theme parks get 90% of their attendance within 100 miles of the park. Disney and Universal are just the opposite. Also, financially there is no comparison and thus another reason there is no competition. Disney's profit from their parks division is 10Billionyr. Even combining Legacy Cedar Fair & Legacy Six Flags, as they are now, their Gross Revenue is 3.5Billion.. Disney has almost 3X profit as the largest regional park operator has gross revenue.
One other elephant... or whale... in the room to mention: Discovery Kingdom. Its expansion has always been limited by the size of its marine animal exhibits. For this reason, they're 4th from LAST in the chain in total coaster track length at 15,666.1'. For reference, that's about 570 ft less than La Ronde's track length (taking the average of Le Monstre's two sides) and only about 755' more than Michigan's Adventure's coaster length. Since they're the only park in the combined chain with dolphins, sharks, sea lions, and so on, the legacy Cedar Fair management will want to offload those assets. They did it before when buying Six Flags Worlds of Adventure - Six Flags kept the animals and sent them to other parks. They could try selling the entire park to United Parks, but with CGA closing, they'll likely want to stay in the Bay Area market by keeping this property. Could see Kong close along with Flash so the park could receive Vampire from La Ronde. Then, space in the former marine section and Kong plot could be used for a major multi-launch coaster over the entrance.
Cedar Fair legacy parks were already investing 220M in 2024 and 240 to 250M in the 2 years following. So, they were already planning just under 500M in 2 years for their parks. SF legacy parks are another story, they always lagged in Capex behind CF, despite SF legacy having way more parks, hence why SF parks haven't built a 20M coaster since bankruptcy, the parks were kept up poorly, food was subpar, they bought a bunch of inexpensive cloned rides, etc... It's also why SF was in poor financially shape and needed to merge with Cedar Fair, which was producing record financials post pandemic in 2022. 2023 and Q2 2024, last quarter before the merger. The increased Capex is actually Cedar Fair legacy doing what they were doing, numbers already shown. The big difference is SF legacy parks are going to get 250M/yr while they were getting 130 to 140M/yr.
they probably need to grow the resort side of things at the other parks. there's not that many hotels around Carowinds for example. if they're gonna take from the Orlando pie, these parks gotta get hoteled up
Agree completely! Almost all of their resort/hotel properties are in Sandusky! They need to expand that elsewhere. I think they will plan that but the problem is that so many of the parks have been around for such a long time that much of the surrounding land is developed, so they will need to be patient for the right opportunities to develop these resort properties, but there is no doubt in my mind they have that as a part of their plan
Regional theme parks aren't competing with Disney and Universal, which are destination parks. Regional theme parks competition is mainly other local entertainment options that aren't parks. Regional theme parks get 90% of their attendance within 100 miles of the park. Disney and Universal are just the opposite. Also, financially there is no comparison and thus another reason there is no competition. Disney's profit from their parks division is 10Billionyr. Even combining Legacy Cedar Fair & Legacy Six Flags, as they are now, their Gross Revenue is 3,5Billion.. Disney has almost 3X profit as the largest regional park operator has gross revenue.
United Parks not able to spend capital like SF/CF combined is wrong. United Parks has been spending around 220M/yr lately and have very few parks(5 major ones), hence their roller coaster buying spree. The fact is they are actually rolling in money. While they are spending 200M/yr in Capex, they are also buying back stock at ridiculous pace of 350 up to 500M/yr b/c they have so much extra cash and they don't have a dividend. United Parks actually wanted to acquire parks, as they have the money, but were rebuffed by Cedar Fair. They were actually sniffing around SF before the merger, as SF was in declining financial shape, but United wouldn't want all the parks, they would just wanted some or all of the major ones, which was never going to happen
Family's are the key. They are the ones that spend the money. Call them GP or whatever you want but they are the ones that hit the same parks numerous times a year. Yes you have the "Enthusiast" that will try to hit all the parks and all the coasters and might eat some food and grab some swag for a certain ride. LOL I never would have thought that I would have spent the amount of money for my kids to be happy at a park. Back in the day I just wanted to hit every thrill ride as fast and as cheap as I could. Now its about slowing down and making sure the next generation is there to do the same as me.
Yes that is the crucial problem that I think a lot of the enthusiast community misses. The General Public is the target demographic and families bring in way more money. I went to Cedar Point dozens of times in 2024 and maybe rode a total of 10 coasters the entire season. That's what happens when you have a family!
The number of parks is a big problem. It’s going to spread that money pretty thin, whereas Disney and Universal have just a handful of parks they are plowing that money into.
Absolutely. I think they will probably be shedding at least half a dozen of the lower preformers from their portfolio in order to better distribute their investment dollars.
Regional theme parks aren't competing with Disney and Universal, which are destination parks. Regional theme parks competition is mainly other local entertainment options that aren't parks. Regional theme parks get 90% of their attendance within 100 miles of the park. Disney and Universal are just the opposite. Also, financially there is no comparison and thus another reason there is no competition. Disney's profit from their parks division is 10Billionyr. Even combining Legacy Cedar Fair & Legacy Six Flags, as they are now, their Gross Revenue is 3,5Billion.. Disney has almost 3X profit as the largest regional park operator has gross revenue.
Its an interesting topic to talk about. I think a lot of it is due to how swiftly and heavily they are swinging this hammer. They are trying to clear all the space and get the bills paid up for all their developments not even in the next two years, but in the next 5. I imagine there's so much more going on than even has been announced.
They are moving at a rapid rate and don't have time to extend closing dates to appease a few fans that might want a last ride. Lesson here is to never take these rides for granted.
@@cedarpointless They are just getting rid of high maintenance costs, low ridership and old stuff. ie...They are taking out 5 rides at Great Adventure....3 of them didn't even operate in 2024, Green lantern is an unliked/low ridership stand up. KA is high maintenance cost, high downtime and has had continued decreased ridership for years. Not to mention it's become increasingly rattly ever year. It was at the point that it was virtually unrideable in any row except 1 and 2. The further back, the more rattly and was a headache maker.
You have to understamd what is fixng to take shape in less than 3.5 years from now. The LA28 Olympics and yes, 2 of those major events will take place right here in OKC (the nations 20th largest city) the LA28 committee stated that, this will be just like hosting 17 days of Super Bowl events both in the LA metro and in OKC. FC has that 60 acres of undeveloped land and was recently cleared out. OKANA Indoor Water Park and Resort ($400 million on 140 acres) built by the Chickasaw Nation, is opening this March, that will take away from the attendance, that Resort is the 4th largest in the nation. American Heartland Theme Park and Resort took care of their issues that had and all they are waiting for now, is the Oklahoma State legislature to pass that $35 million water and waste grant to the city of Vinita. But that has to wait till Feb 2025 when they return back to session. The last time they tries to pass it was last year (2024), 1st phase it passed, but just barely failed in the 2nd phase of the voting process.
International sporting events are irrelevant. Parks do not base in plans or Capex based on them Frontier City is a money pit and a bad operating lease deal signed by Jim Reid Anderson, All the EPR lease parks have been a financial disaster. Frontier City in particular, they are taking 16M/yr in impairment on that park for several years in a row and stated they don't expect that to change. Hint, the parks numbers are horrible. That's why they ran even more reduced hours in 2024 prime season than 2023 and 2022. They are trying tio mitigate losses by closing the parks 2 weekdays during June/July, which is prime season. They were also closing as early as 6pm weekdays on the days they were open and 7pm on weekends. The OK City water park is also a money pit with massive impairments costs yearly.
Great video as always!
Thanks! Means a lot!
I love you and see your vids all the time
Video full of basic errors and not understanding the actual business and finances of the companies/industry.
@ Though obviously this creator does not have access to all the details related to the new combined company, they do a good job making reasonable statements based on information that is known. At the end of the day its all for fun!
I like your channel name a lot 😂
Made me laugh
Thanks! My family helped us come up with it.
@cedarpointless maybe I should change my own channel name 😆
Hear me out, cedar flags starts making dark rides to compete with Disney and universal
Have you watched our previous video? 😅
@ Yeah! I think they should give every cedar flags park a dark ride to provide an experience when the weather/climate won’t allow!
Good overview of the strategies at play. In the next few years, we should also expect to see some branded hotels at the bigger parks. Increased coaster investment depends on these parks becoming two-day destinations.
3:41 its a tiny waterslide 😭
Project Accelerate is just the successful Cedar Fair Seasons of Fun plan, just adding the cost efficiency and synergy of the merger. Look up the presentations the last 6 or so years on Seasons of Fun since it was implemented.
SF Magic Mountain needs some heavy investing. Not only do they need to keep up with Disney, Universal, Sea World, and Knott's, but they have the 2028 Olympics coming to town. They need to make a great lasting impression of the brand on first-time visitors.
Mm should tear down about 10 of their coasters... superman,x2,viper,gold rusher, rapids; goliath, batman, scream, not a coaster but rapids, apocalypse only because they cant seem to fix it, weat coast racers sucks and full throttle should use the golden bear plot for its second half insteadnof the probably half assed axis, and twisted should add a helix of sort in screams plot so they have time to make it duel consistantly
@@joshfreund6008if they did that the park would surely close its gates for good 😂
@@joshfreund6008I don’t think you know anything lmao
i think magic mountain is absolutely going to be one of the flagship parks for SF in the coming years. But I do think they are a little different than the rest of SF's lineup in that Knott's is almost exclusively family-focused and is so close by, that I think SF could focus more on coasters and thrills for this park and rely on marketing their all-park passport for the family aspect.
@@joshfreund6008 you can't be serious? 🤣
I think the only way to out do the early days and then the 90’s guest numbers for great adventure would be to go absolutely nuts with theming. The GP needs more than just great coasters to be drawn back. If they did Universal level theming for the entire KA Lantern area people will flock back in droves.
I hope they visit Phantasia land for inspiration… 🤔🤘
Theming Theming Theming! We're in the same mindset. Already working on a video around this topic....
@ I think they’re thinking about it to draw the city folk out with something special! Shameful how GA has been so empty for so long…
If they really want to compete with Disney and universal they have a lot to do. For most of their parks there isn’t anything to do beyond thrill rides. Much, much better food, entertainment. (Parades, night shows, live music, etc), dark rides, much better ride theming, and even hotels are gonna be needed. Nome of the regional parks are anywhere near s good overall as Disney world, or universal. They have a steep uphill battle ahead of them
My favorite part of this comment is that it basically covers every single video topic I have done so far and have planned!
Regional theme parks aren't competing with Disney and Universal, which are destination parks. Regional theme parks competition is mainly other local entertainment options that aren't parks. Regional theme parks get 90% of their attendance within 100 miles of the park. Disney and Universal are just the opposite. Also, financially there is no comparison and thus another reason there is no competition. Disney's profit from their parks division is 10Billionyr. Even combining Legacy Cedar Fair & Legacy Six Flags, as they are now, their Gross Revenue is 3.5Billion.. Disney has almost 3X profit as the largest regional park operator has gross revenue.
One other elephant... or whale... in the room to mention: Discovery Kingdom. Its expansion has always been limited by the size of its marine animal exhibits. For this reason, they're 4th from LAST in the chain in total coaster track length at 15,666.1'.
For reference, that's about 570 ft less than La Ronde's track length (taking the average of Le Monstre's two sides) and only about 755' more than Michigan's Adventure's coaster length.
Since they're the only park in the combined chain with dolphins, sharks, sea lions, and so on, the legacy Cedar Fair management will want to offload those assets. They did it before when buying Six Flags Worlds of Adventure - Six Flags kept the animals and sent them to other parks.
They could try selling the entire park to United Parks, but with CGA closing, they'll likely want to stay in the Bay Area market by keeping this property. Could see Kong close along with Flash so the park could receive Vampire from La Ronde. Then, space in the former marine section and Kong plot could be used for a major multi-launch coaster over the entrance.
Cedar Fair legacy parks were already investing 220M in 2024 and 240 to 250M in the 2 years following. So, they were already planning just under 500M in 2 years for their parks. SF legacy parks are another story, they always lagged in Capex behind CF, despite SF legacy having way more parks, hence why SF parks haven't built a 20M coaster since bankruptcy, the parks were kept up poorly, food was subpar, they bought a bunch of inexpensive cloned rides, etc... It's also why SF was in poor financially shape and needed to merge with Cedar Fair, which was producing record financials post pandemic in 2022. 2023 and Q2 2024, last quarter before the merger. The increased Capex is actually Cedar Fair legacy doing what they were doing, numbers already shown. The big difference is SF legacy parks are going to get 250M/yr while they were getting 130 to 140M/yr.
they probably need to grow the resort side of things at the other parks. there's not that many hotels around Carowinds for example. if they're gonna take from the Orlando pie, these parks gotta get hoteled up
Agree completely! Almost all of their resort/hotel properties are in Sandusky! They need to expand that elsewhere. I think they will plan that but the problem is that so many of the parks have been around for such a long time that much of the surrounding land is developed, so they will need to be patient for the right opportunities to develop these resort properties, but there is no doubt in my mind they have that as a part of their plan
Regional theme parks aren't competing with Disney and Universal, which are destination parks. Regional theme parks competition is mainly other local entertainment options that aren't parks. Regional theme parks get 90% of their attendance within 100 miles of the park. Disney and Universal are just the opposite. Also, financially there is no comparison and thus another reason there is no competition. Disney's profit from their parks division is 10Billionyr. Even combining Legacy Cedar Fair & Legacy Six Flags, as they are now, their Gross Revenue is 3,5Billion.. Disney has almost 3X profit as the largest regional park operator has gross revenue.
United Parks not able to spend capital like SF/CF combined is wrong. United Parks has been spending around 220M/yr lately and have very few parks(5 major ones), hence their roller coaster buying spree. The fact is they are actually rolling in money. While they are spending 200M/yr in Capex, they are also buying back stock at ridiculous pace of 350 up to 500M/yr b/c they have so much extra cash and they don't have a dividend. United Parks actually wanted to acquire parks, as they have the money, but were rebuffed by Cedar Fair. They were actually sniffing around SF before the merger, as SF was in declining financial shape, but United wouldn't want all the parks, they would just wanted some or all of the major ones, which was never going to happen
Family's are the key. They are the ones that spend the money. Call them GP or whatever you want but they are the ones that hit the same parks numerous times a year. Yes you have the "Enthusiast" that will try to hit all the parks and all the coasters and might eat some food and grab some swag for a certain ride. LOL I never would have thought that I would have spent the amount of money for my kids to be happy at a park. Back in the day I just wanted to hit every thrill ride as fast and as cheap as I could. Now its about slowing down and making sure the next generation is there to do the same as me.
Yes that is the crucial problem that I think a lot of the enthusiast community misses. The General Public is the target demographic and families bring in way more money. I went to Cedar Point dozens of times in 2024 and maybe rode a total of 10 coasters the entire season. That's what happens when you have a family!
Umm they already compete with Disney and Universal.
The number of parks is a big problem. It’s going to spread that money pretty thin, whereas Disney and Universal have just a handful of parks they are plowing that money into.
Absolutely. I think they will probably be shedding at least half a dozen of the lower preformers from their portfolio in order to better distribute their investment dollars.
Regional theme parks aren't competing with Disney and Universal, which are destination parks. Regional theme parks competition is mainly other local entertainment options that aren't parks. Regional theme parks get 90% of their attendance within 100 miles of the park. Disney and Universal are just the opposite. Also, financially there is no comparison and thus another reason there is no competition. Disney's profit from their parks division is 10Billionyr. Even combining Legacy Cedar Fair & Legacy Six Flags, as they are now, their Gross Revenue is 3,5Billion.. Disney has almost 3X profit as the largest regional park operator has gross revenue.
You didn't mention the rapid pace they're closing rides with no notice. A little advance notice would be good...
Its an interesting topic to talk about. I think a lot of it is due to how swiftly and heavily they are swinging this hammer. They are trying to clear all the space and get the bills paid up for all their developments not even in the next two years, but in the next 5. I imagine there's so much more going on than even has been announced.
They are moving at a rapid rate and don't have time to extend closing dates to appease a few fans that might want a last ride. Lesson here is to never take these rides for granted.
@@cedarpointless They are just getting rid of high maintenance costs, low ridership and old stuff. ie...They are taking out 5 rides at Great Adventure....3 of them didn't even operate in 2024, Green lantern is an unliked/low ridership stand up. KA is high maintenance cost, high downtime and has had continued decreased ridership for years. Not to mention it's become increasingly rattly ever year. It was at the point that it was virtually unrideable in any row except 1 and 2. The further back, the more rattly and was a headache maker.
You have to understamd what is fixng to take shape in less than 3.5 years from now. The LA28 Olympics and yes, 2 of those major events will take place right here in OKC (the nations 20th largest city) the LA28 committee stated that, this will be just like hosting 17 days of Super Bowl events both in the LA metro and in OKC. FC has that 60 acres of undeveloped land and was recently cleared out. OKANA Indoor Water Park and Resort ($400 million on 140 acres) built by the Chickasaw Nation, is opening this March, that will take away from the attendance, that Resort is the 4th largest in the nation. American Heartland Theme Park and Resort took care of their issues that had and all they are waiting for now, is the Oklahoma State legislature to pass that $35 million water and waste grant to the city of Vinita. But that has to wait till Feb 2025 when they return back to session. The last time they tries to pass it was last year (2024), 1st phase it passed, but just barely failed in the 2nd phase of the voting process.
International sporting events are irrelevant. Parks do not base in plans or Capex based on them Frontier City is a money pit and a bad operating lease deal signed by Jim Reid Anderson, All the EPR lease parks have been a financial disaster. Frontier City in particular, they are taking 16M/yr in impairment on that park for several years in a row and stated they don't expect that to change. Hint, the parks numbers are horrible. That's why they ran even more reduced hours in 2024 prime season than 2023 and 2022. They are trying tio mitigate losses by closing the parks 2 weekdays during June/July, which is prime season. They were also closing as early as 6pm weekdays on the days they were open and 7pm on weekends. The OK City water park is also a money pit with massive impairments costs yearly.
It's ineffective when they're closing Kingda Ka and possibly the sky way at SFGAdv, as the company will start to lose money facing majority boycott.
Lol..silly thoosie