DispatchMaster

Or maybe the park crunched the numbers and decided their operating hours could be cut and it would not affect attendance, revenue, etc. Which is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate business decision.

Indeed, there is clearly a large cohort of people who are convinced complaining about the value of something online is way more effective than, you know, just not purchasing that thing instead. See above. And again, it's always the self-important passholders who visit the park 150 times each season and spend $4 per visit who do the vast majority of the complaining that the park doesn't value their patronage or whatever. It's as adorable as it is predictable. Meanwhile, millions of guests with a much, much higher per cap will visit the park once or twice, have a fantastic time, and come back the following year. It's almost like the park would prefer one guest over the other!

Would you prefer they understaff rides, attractions, and eateries, or pull back slightly on hours? There's no shortage of evidence that a lot of the same people would complain in either case. Worse still, it's often passholders who visit a ton and spend very little (i.e. have a nonexistent per cap) who do almost all of the complaining.

And at that point, some nonzero number of those in the no-longer-renewing group will have designated those entertainment dollars to be spent elsewhere, and it will be that much more difficult to regain those customers. Cheap passes/admission is a race to the bottom.

I don't imagine a Cedar Fair executive would publicly admit that they lost significant revenue as a result of their pricing strategies, so I take those comments with a silo of salt. The fact of the matter is that they took a wildly popular product that was selling beyond capacity and reduced the selling price of that product. I simply do not subscribe to the Walmart-ization strategy. Furthermore, the "also wrong about how many passes were sold" seems like outright, patronizing BS when CF has regularly trumpeted "record season pass sales" and/or "higher season pass mix" in annual/quarterly reports since the introduction of the Gold Pass.

Providing season-long access to a park that was at or near capacity during Halloweekends at a price point close to single day admission almost certainly left a ton of money on the table. If you can't meet demand at $X, you don't lower the price. It might not work at every park (e.g. MA, KI, etc.), but CP could have cranked the gate & pass price up quite a bit before they would have seen a drop off in attendance. Six Flags tried the "give away the gate, make it up on volume") strategy, and they've effectively been purchased by Cedar Fair as a result of that "strategy". Just because it works for Walmart doesn't mean it makes sense in the entertainment industry.

I don't know if you're wrong, because I have zero faith in Zimmerman given his track record, but I certainly hope you're wrong. CP is in no way, shape, or form "tapped out" in terms of revenue. Zimmerman's Gold Pass "strategy" was a mistake. They should never have greenlit a ~$100 season pass at a property that had healthy attendance at higher prices. And Michigan's Adventure is one of the most profitable properties in the portfolio in terms of margin. The reason they don't install new rides very often isn't because MA is neglected. It's because MA does excellent business as-is, and does not need more frequent investment. And CP didn't slow down on new attraction installs because of the Paramount purchase. They slowed down on installs because the park is relatively mature in terms of their ride lineup, and because new ride installs require the removal of an existing ride, given they are constrained by maintenance capacity.

That's the hope, but it relies on each chain recognizing their weaknesses relative to the other chain, which is often not easy.

Isn't that simply stating that the source for the press release were "Cedar Fair" and "Six Flags Entertainment Corporation"?

Not according to this: I think you misread the opening paragraph:

Enthusiasts have this fantastical opinion that a nontrivial number of Park X's guests are cross-shopping with Park Y, to the point they're convinced KI and CP are in competition when they are quite obviously not.

If a SIX park and a FUN park coexisted profitably prior to the merger, there is absolutely no reason that they can't coexist after the merger. Selling MA would be about the dumbest move imaginable, given it enjoys some of the CF chain's highest margins relative to revenue.

Yes, well known as a bunch of crappy parks with parking lot coasters and dismal operations. Well known is not the same as being a premium brand. This is bad from every angle aside from perhaps the CF board, who have apparently had this in mind for a while. It would explain the SIX-like destruction of the gate with the Gold Pass, and Ouimet's sudden departure right after agreeing to a new 3-year term. It looks like CF wanted to pump up the numbers using the SIX model (low gate price, try and make it up on volume), and when that turned ugly (look at today's CF earnings report), SIX pounced on them. Just a disgusting turn of events from what Ouimet did to improve CF.

I don't see how this is a good move for CF in the long term, though it does explain the Zimmerman-led, Six Flags-esque moves in recent years - the destruction of gate integrity via the Gold Pass being the most obvious. More troubling than that is that this does not feel at all like a "merger of equals" considering CF unitholders don't get a vote, and that the new entity will be Six Flags, while the two companies have similar valuations despite SIX having twice as many parks in the portfolio. This reeks of short term desperation from FUN, and SIX taking advantage of that desperation.

Ouimet resigned. First of all, you're putting an awful lot of weight behind what looks like a normal, innocuous "wish everyone well" comment. Secondly, this merger does not fit Ouimet's MO at all. In fact, I'd guess this merger is the reason he resigned so suddenly following his new 3 year seat on the Board.

Even with the ridiculous presumption that CF is a mustache-twirling evil villain, they have a financial interest in keeping guests safe from harm. So too do CF's underwriters. What does that have to do with anything? StR was a multimillion dollar disaster from start to finish. That MF hasn't tried to kill its passengers doesn't change that. Nor does it change what happened with I305, Rita, Xcelerator, the other time Dragster injured guests, S:RoS, Perilous Plunge, the other other time Dragster almost killed people, Maverick's heartline, and on and on. And on top of all that, they are by all accounts a terrible company to work with stateside.

The idea that two parks can't or won't have the same model coaster is patently absurd. Why would they do that after all the disasters? Shoot the Rapids wasn't very long ago...

Is the "lighter train = rattle" thing confirmed or is this just a theory?

B&M delivers exceptionally well built, reliable, and efficient products. So that's a great rut to be stuck in. Or a B&M wing coaster, which would be another good fit for The Vortex plot. I don't get the desire for a Mack Extreme Spinner. Spinning rides have limited appeal compared to something like, say, Copperhead Strike.

Yes, the Gold Pass provided 30 minutes of Early Entry to both the Cedar Point and Shores, and those benefits were extended through at least 2021. No, no visits this year. We went last year, but were not eligible for EE, because we weren't passholders and were staying off-property at Kalahari.

Castaway is heavily geared toward little kids, so it's not shocking that they'd stress keeping the kids' stuff open over everything else. Kalahari is better if you're over the age of 8, which now that I think about it I am not confident you are... Although, I've heard that Kalahari has been facing the same staffing issues as literally everyone else, everywhere, has been. But we had a good time there last year in any case. Also, Kewpee is awesome.

They absolutely did grant Gold Passholders 30 minutes of Early Entry, no resort stay needed, in 2020, 2021, and I think 2022. Not certain about 2022, but that's irrelevant, because we made our decision in 2019 not to renew, based in large part on the lack of EE. And Gold can still get the full hour of EE if they add the All Park Passport, at a price point about 25% less than Platinum (adjusted for inflation). The result is the same - Early Entry's value has been diluted.

Stage construction was nearly complete when the decision was made to remove WildCat, with the goal of expanding the midway there. So they kind of did it backwards, and given the opportunity for a re-do, they may well have flipped things around.

That was never a very good place for a stage, so hopefully it gets moved sooner rather than later. They could tweak Perimeter Road a bit and put the stage on the other side of the midway there, hopefully far enough away from Valravn that it wouldn't interfere with that ride's operation. Pretty sure they don't use sprayers.

Why do you assume they aren't doing it "correctly"? They're very experienced pros, who if nothing else have a financial interest in completing the job as efficiently as is safely possible.