jzarley

I can say that people internally are happy about it (especially in Orlando). I was also really happy to hear about Dana Walden being promoted to President and Chief Creative Officer—I had been worried that we would lose whichever didn’t get the CEO job and either one would have been a big loss.

I’m not sure I completely understand, but I see a white background on the drop down menu items. Maybe it’s a browser issue? (I’m using Safari for iPad…)

An interesting article (there’s a paywall, but you get a few free articles first…) about how the proposed acquisition of Warner Brothers by Netflix could impact park licensing of WB IP. I’m sure all of the impacted park companies have multi-year agreements that account for changes of ownership, but few licensing agreements last forever (unless it’s Marvel at Universal east of the Mississippi ). I do have to wonder if part of SF’s strategy in keeping the Peanuts licensing was concerns over what might happen to WB’s IP library (a sale has been on the horizon for several months now) just to hedge their bets and keep some IP in their back pocket just in case… https://www.vulture.com/article/what-netflix-buying-warner-bros-means-for-wb-theme-parks.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part

FWIW—the posts I’m seeing from all my former colleagues at SeaWorld (and a few that had jumped to Palace at some point) on LinkedIn have all been overwhelming positive on the news. I think it’s always telling when people you used to work with say good things about you and congratulate your new place of employment for getting you . During my career I’ve had a mixed bag of executives I’ve worked for I’d say that about—but John would be one of the positive ones. Regardless, he’s going to have a tough road in front of him at SF—a perception of failing customer service and crushing debt would be a huge challenge for anyone.

So, I do know John—I worked with him at SEA both when he was COO under Joel Manby and as acting CEO after Manby was forced out. He was not CEO when Blackfish came out (I believe he was still park president at San Diego when that occurred)—Jim Atchison & the remaining old guard at BEC were still in place when Blackfish dropped. Joel was brought in as CEO (from Herschend) to try to reverse the mistakes that had been made after Blackfish—if I recall correctly, he then promoted John to COO from the San Diego park. Personally, I like John—I thought he should have been named CEO after Joel and before they hired Gus from Carnival (who I was not a fan of). John started his career as a popcorn seller in college at BGW (he enjoyed telling that story ) so he grew up in park operations when SeaWorld/Busch were at their best. I’m a little biased probably, but I think this is a good choice.

Universal released some more details about their kid’s resort under construction in the DFW Metroplex from IAAPA this week. Thoughts on the descriptions and concept art? My initial thought is that this park appears to be a significant step down from the immersive theming done at the “full” parks—which makes sense. I haven’t seen any expectations listed for annual attendance, but I can’t imagine they expect it to come anywhere close to the destination resorts, so it makes sense that the investment would reflect that as well. Still, the concept art feels a little “flat” and more regional-parkish than typical Universal standards. (Although, my complaint with DreamWorks land at USF is that it seems a little “flat” as well…) https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/202511/11173/

Texas also has the advantage of population—both in the state overall and the individual MSAs (I’m assuming SFFT pulls pretty well from the Houston and Austin markets as well). San Antonio is also a pretty long drive from DFW—close to 5 hours if I recall correctly. San Antonio has been able to support two large theme parks in the same market for many years with both SFFT and SWT (granted, SWT is the lowest attended of the SeaWorld parks…) Doesn’t SFOT have some weird ownership situation (or maybe did int he past?). I seem to recall something about the park actually being owned by a local ownership group separate from the other parks. I may be remembering that incorrectly, but that sticks in my mind for some reason… I’m really curious about how the new Universal “kids park” will do in the DFW market—I’m sure there will be some crossover, but wonder if the target demographic is so different from SFOT they won’t really impact each other much?

I still have a bit of PTSD whenever I hear the word “Blackfish” I wonder if the talks with CF occurred when Jim Atchison was still CEO, or if this was something initiated after Joel Manby came in 2015? (If the release of Blackfish wasn’t public knowledge yet, I’m guessing it was under Atchison.) I’ve long maintained that if Blackfish would have happened when Busch Entertainment Corp owned the parks, the entire situation could have played out differently. Anheuser-Busch would have had the messaging and communication expertise to counteract the effects of the documentary (or, at least address it head on). After all, AB makes an addictive product that kills people and everyone still seems to love them… But the timing was such that it occurred right after the spin off, and the leadership at the time just didn’t have the expertise to address it. Not only that, but I fully believe that after years of being the “good guys” who loved and cared for animals, they just couldn’t believe that public perception about them could change. Of course, we know how that turned out…

True, but my hope would have been that they would have spun off the new company (the combined SEA/FUN) into a new IPO that may have gotten Scott Ross & Hill Path to take the profits and exit. (I realize that may just be wishful thinking…) To be honest, I’m really surprised Hill Path didn’t cash out a long time ago—they bought most of their shares in the sub $20 price point and the stock now routinely (for a few years now) trades in the plus $50 range (and a few brief times in the +$60 range). I would have thought the fund investors would have wanted to take their profits and cash out a while ago.

So, basically a status quo to pre-merger I wasn’t really for it at the time, but in retrospect I think CF would have been better off accepting (with price negotiation) SeaWorld’s buy out offer a few years ago. I know “United Parks” (sorry, still hard for me to say that) has their own issues (as I’m acutely and personally aware), but those parks are still in a lot better shape financially than the legacy SF ones. Both are similarly sized chains and I don’t think either one would have negatively impacted the other as much as SF is negatively impacting CF.

That video felt very AI-created to me

I don’t think they’re far enough into the investigation to really know yet (or, at least not ready to report any findings). I’ve ridden it 3x and realize that I can’t really remember now what the restraints were like—if I recall, they are an over the head lap restraint (similar to VelociCoaster). I don’t recall anything odd about the spacing between the rows or anything. I read a comment on one story that said he had transferred from a wheelchair into the ride, but I don’t know if that’s true or just something a random person commented on the internet.

It’s horrible! When I first heard the news this morning, I assumed (as I’m sure a lot of people did) that it may have been someone with an unknown serious health issue that was triggered by the forces of the coaster. I was shocked when the cause of death came back as multiple blunt force trauma.

Merlin did outsource food service a few years ago (in the UK & US), but instead of outsourcing each unit to different franchisees they outsourced the whole F&B operation at each park to Aramark. All of the food service employees were terminated from Merlin and converted to Aramark employees. This was done toward the end of my time there, and I have no idea whether or not they realized the cost savings/operational improvements they expected, or if they eventually backed off that strategy. Similarly, one of the last projects I worked on at SeaWorld was the reorganization to outsource all games to a third party company. It was a similar situation in that a single third-party was selected to run all of the games, and the existing employees were converted to that company. In this case, I thought the strategy made a little more sense, since the vendor specialized in games and had some economies of scale and training. The goal in both cases was that the outsourcing would be transparent to park guests. Most parks (I’m assuming Six Flags as well) outsource some of the more specialized skill positions that they don’t want to recruit or train for (like caricaturists, face painters, etc.) I’m not saying whether these strategies were good or not, but it’s not a unique approach in the industry.

I think you’re exactly right on this. No offense to Peanuts, but it’s not exactly the most valuable IP out in the market (although, I’m sure more valuable than the Berenstain Bears would be ) and the licensor is taking a nice cut on all of the merch sales I’m sure (in addition to the licensing fee SF is paying them), so it probably made sense for both sides to reach a deal that worked for everyone. For Six Flags I’m sure it was a cost comparison issue—was it cheaper to renew or re-theme all of those legacy CF kids areas? Plus, re-theming would have taken a pretty big bite out of an already stretched capital budget over the next few years, whereas I’m assuming licensing costs would be classified as more administrative/legal expenses. (I realize, money spent is money spent, but trust me—those types of classifications matter a lot to the Finance bros ) That being said, I’m really happy they landed here. Peanuts are a classic, and it would have been a shame for them to lose their park presence and history with the parks (especially KBF).