IS SIX FLAG'S LOSS CP'S GAME OR SIGN OF WHAT'S TO COME?

I suspect that Magic Mountain is a victim of it's own success. They concentrated heavily on the thrill rides and, naturally, a younger crowd flocks to the park.

And, it is easier for a younger crowd to flock to MM than for a younger crowd to flock to Cedar Point. I suspect that MM is on a rapid transit line of some sort. Cedar Point is not. That might make the experiences at the two parks significantly different right there.

I don't think this is a sign of things to come. It would be if other park companies follow the same business model as SFMM did. But, I think other park companies are starting to see the error of their ways when it came to ignoring...or placing a lower priority on...the family demographic. The addition of the water park at SFMM might have been too late to make a significant impact to the overall direction of the park.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Six Flags was taking Geauga Lake down the same course with adding thrill rides to a park that had a heavy youth draw. Cedar Fair stepped in an is now trying to reverse some of that damage so the park doesn't see a similar fate.

I don't know I'd say Magic Mountain is a dump, it just has many problems (most of which could be easily fixed). When I went there last year, only half of the coasters were working when the park opened which brought in many complaints. During the middle of the day, only maybe 12 were working. The next day 14 were working, but DejaVu was down for rehab, and flashback... I luckily got on 14, but wouldn't have if I was there only one day. If you travel a long way to conquer SFMM's coasters, you will get mad if you can only get on a handful.

There aren't many other good rides in the park, but there are some. Gear Works, while old, was still enjoyable and the log ride (Arrowhead Splashdown) was quite good. It is true they really need to update their flat ride selection, but there are a few jr. coasters and other rides to entertain youngsters and families (they might just have enough for a few hours though).

Unruly guests is a big problem at SFMM, and the worst thing about it; the employees don't seem to care. While I was in a line for X, it was broken so this is a large line outside of the entrance, many people were paitently waiting their turn to get in. When it did open, many teens and other guests raced ahead of the people in line and ran right onto the bridge to the ride. While this was clear linecutting right in front of employees, not employee spoke up and I'm sure they repeated this throughout the day.

Once rides do open, it is a pain to stand in line for them. They usually have the rides running at minimum capacity and walk slower than I've ever seen before. Colossus had one side running, with one train. This made the line Colossus. X opened with one train running, and they decided to take 1/2 an hour to put the second one on when all the guests were in line. The second one didn't speed things up because employees thought they had all the time in the world to check restraints, which again brought in many complaints.

I also saw merchandise as a big problem. There are many guests wanting to spend money but poor merchandise makes them search in vain for a nice shirt or mug. Most merchandise was generic Six Flags logos on white t-shirts, which is very disappointing. Almost no individualized merchandise for a particular ride in the whole park. Merchandise should be enticing enough to attract people who aren't specifically looking for things, let alone the ones who want to buy something.

Having said all this, I didn't think the park was particularly dirty, and I thought the park had a great atmosphere. A handful of employees were very nice and made conversation. When rides were working they were great. I had a great time at Six Flags Magic Mountian, and want to visit in the future. I can understand however, if you visited and only 11 roller coasters were working t how it can damper your day.

The bottom line: SFMM has great potential, but it needs someone to run it well. It won't be easy, and that is why SF wants to toss it. If employees run rides quickly, if a pool of well trained mechanics tried to keep things running, if security kept a much closer eye on guests to ensure good behavior throughout the park, this would be a very highly rated park. However, I can't see it being worked into a family park as SF wants. Disney and Knott's has the families, with Disney having more young people and Knott's having some thrill seekers. An Xtreme park is the only way I see Magic Mountian fitting into its current location. It can be done, and it can be done to result in profit in my opinion. Attendance, while not good for a year round park, is good enough so that a little change could bring in a profit. Having said that, if SF really does want to sell it, and it isn't a bluff, who is there to buy it? CF just took on 1.2 billion so I'd say they are out. It just doesn't fit in Disney's, AB's, or Universal's portfolio. Paramount is through. It might lead to developers as the most likely option unfortunately.

SFMM is great park to me even now, and with change could be amazing. I hope it will get a chance to stick around so that those changes can occur.

Race for the Fry said:
Hmmmmmm, I had no trouble getting in 15 coasters in a 2 day trip to SFMM... 9 is a little bit of an exageration, no, its ALOT of an exageration.

The first time I went to SFMM - Ninja, Superman, Psyclone, Deja Vu, one side of Colossus, and Batman were all down for the day. X was down for the morning, but opened in the afternoon.

That's 6 coasters down, which left 9 "adult" ones open.

So, you can stick your "exaggeration" in your pipe and smoke it.

That's a horrible record. I've been to maybe 25 parks or so in lo these many years, and the only other place I went to that had so many rides consistently down was Conneaut Lake. And that's a bad comparison, because CL is teetering on the verge of financial colla... WAIT, PATTERN DETECTION ENGAGED!

e x i t english said:

The first time I went to SFMM - Ninja, Superman, Psyclone, Deja Vu, one side of Colossus, and Batman were all down for the day. X was down for the morning, but opened in the afternoon.

That's 6 coasters down, which left 9 "adult" ones open.

So, you can stick your "exaggeration" in your pipe and smoke it.

Thats the only thing holding me from going to ride Tatsu. I know that my one day I'll get to spen there, damn near everything will be down. That somehow does not seem worth the price of a plane ticket.

One good thing about Cedar Point is that if something goes down they try their hardest to have it up as as soon as possible. SFMM, X goes down and it might not open up for a week when it could be opened in 2 days.

The typo in the headline is pretty funny. Six Flags' loss is SIX FLAGS' game;). As someone who lives twenty minutes from one of the original three parks, I've seen the worst of this company's decisions and how it affects the way the park looks and is run and is in turn perceived by the public. It all boils down to their gobbling up of all those parks in the nineties. They purchased smaller parks to expand the chain while still having to maintain the existing parks. And they didn't do a very good job.

I know some will say that I'm biased because SFStL is my home park (and for Goodness sake, PLEASE change the name back to Over Mid-America!). But the following is some of what I have seen happen to this park. I worked at SFOMA as a seasonal in the late eighties and attendance was HIGH! The park exceeded capacity on the days of the Beach Boys' concert and the Dirty Dancing Tour concert. (Working in food service SUCKED those two days.) The problems started with the change to Warner Brothers themeing. SFOMA originally had the six themed areas of Missouri, Illinois, USA, France, Great Britain, and Spain, the six nations' and states' flags that have flown/still fly over this area. The front mall is themed to the 1904 World's Fair. When Batman was installed they changed the USA section to Warner Bros Studio Backlot. Then the Spanish section was changed to DC Comics Plaza with the installation of Mr. Freeze. The Studio Backlot is on the EAST side of the park and DC Plaza is on the WEST side of the park. Then, this year Superman Tower of Power is the rethemed Dungeon Drop from Astroworld at the NORTH side of the park. How much sense does that make? The themeing has not been maintained, and ride and building maintenance have been neglected. The imbalance in the increase of ticket prices and improvements and additions is why they have lost many people's loyalty and patronage. The VALUE has DECREASED.

The landscaping of the park is great. St. Louis is one GREEN park, built at the base of a hill rising up as you go from the front mall at the south to the Chicago area of the Illinois section at the north back end of the park. There are LOTS of trees. The park itself is a pleasant place to be to relax when not riding rides. The problem is the lack of ongoing maintenance of rides and buildings and the lack of expansion. As ticket prices have gone up, the experience has not increased comparably. Rides malfunction and are removed and not replaced. The teacup-type ride has been SBNO for ten years. There are currently six large roller coasters, one kiddie coaster, and just a handful of other rides. The new Bugs Bunny National Forest addition this year removed the park's rotor while almost doubling the number of non-coaster mechanical rides in the park. What does that say about the drought of improvement here?

There are rumors that SFStL has been skipped over several times for new coasters. Supposedly Goliath at SFOG was supposed to come here, then they changed their minds. The park seems to be about ten years behind where it should be as far as expansion and amount of rides. There is quite a bit of land to the east that the company is probably going to sell to help with the debt reduction. Hopefully the rumor that it's just a few acres up front that would probably never be used for rides is true. If not, this is probably the death knell for the park. Without room for expansion they will lose more customers than their neglect up to this point has already done. People aren't going to buy removal of a ride to put in a new one as an "addition". It's just a replacement. You can't increase prices and expect people to remain loyal with that kind of philosophy and action.

The company's stance on why improvements are fewer and farther between at the mid-size parks seems to be based on park attendance and revenue. And then when attendance goes DOWN after four or five years with nothing to keep the people coming back they say it's not worth putting in new rides because attendance isn't high enough. Don't they understand attendance is down because of THEM? The imbalance in their attention to the parks and the fact that the parks that get new rides year after year after year aren't experiencing the attendance jumps that pay for those new rides within a season or two seems pretty obvious. They have made some INCREDIBLY stupid decisions and dug themselves into a hole that is impossible to escape with their current philosophy.

Some major investor/s who can bail out their current debt and not expect to see the money back for a couple decades is what is necessary right now. Believe me, if I had the two billion I'd be making them a deal right now. The company and its executives seem to not see the long-term investment at all here. I realize they are in a BAD situation with their creditors right now and are having to make some drastic decisions, but some of them are going to cost the company even MORE in the long run. If they are going to survive they need to examine the attendance and revenue figures and treat the parks with a little more equity.

Do I think SFStL and the other mid-sized parks should now become the MAIN focus of the company's expenditures? No, but they need to make up for their neglect. Maybe for the near future they NEED to add the rides here the way they have at GAdv, GAm, and MM if they expect to regain the loyalty of the St. Louis area families and interest of tourists who would come to the park if it had more/better rides. Again, I believe their justification for holding out on the money because of waning attendance and profit is ridiculous and the TRUE cause OF the waning attendance here. Will someone emerge who understands that it isn't about reducing the patronage of unchaperoned teenagers and increasing the patronage of young families but VALUE of the day spent by all? I don't know. I hope so.

Sorry if I've repeated a few statements throughout this LONG post. I went with what I was thinking at the moment, and now that I'm going back over it realize that it's not what I would turn in as a final essay for a grade or judging. Sorry for that, but it took a long time to write and I'm not up for that much editing right now. That's just my view of what they have done to lose their attendance at this particular park, and I know they have made a LOT of stupid decisions that have alienated a LOT of former loyal patrons.

coasternerd: go out there anyway, and schedule a day at knotts as well. Try to get down to Mission Beach to get a ride in on Giant Dipper. And enjoy the LA area. Hollywood sucks, but the rest of the area is great, and you could easily make a weekend or short week out of a trip, and not come home disappointed even if SFMM is broken down.

It's worth the money to fly out there and go to Knott's alone.

Yes, Knott's is worth the visit. Its a great park, and not quite as problamatic in terms of ride reliability as SFMM.

I was at Knotts on a weekday this last January, and every single ride was running. It's a great park, if very landlocked and getting a little tight around the belt. It's a nice experience, and the coasters are worth it. Their Camp Snoopy is one of the prettiest kid's areas I've ever seen. Don't miss the mine ride (can't remember what it's called) -- it's not a coaster but it's great fun.