jzarley

I’m going to the preview on 3/31 My friend who works for the resorts is taking me during her TM preview visit. I’ve been warned that there are no photos allowed, and there’s an embargo on when trip reports can be posted. But, I’m psyched!

Yes! I think I visited a total of three times—2x before they added the Borg 4D film and once after. It really can be considered the predecessor of the current day fully integrated single themed lands (like Harry Potter at Universal, SW Galaxy’s Edge at the Disney Parks, etc.) that combine attractions, retail, food & beverage and employees “acting the part” around a common storyline. They were really years ahead of their time. I totally agree with you—ST:TE showed exactly what Paramount Creative could do when given the resources. I also could never understand how the Paramount Parks were never able to produce anything even reasonably close. (Despite the announcement hype coming every year with each new PKI announcement that never even came close in reality.) I realize that ST:TE was a year-round attraction in one of the largest tourist destinations in the world vs. regional seasonal theme parks, but still—the parks never produced anything close to that quality. I also never could understand why the Star Trek brand (arguably, probably the most valuable IP Viacom/Paramount owned) was never really utilized to its potential in the parks. Sure, they did the half-assed themed relocated coaster at Carowinds, but that was about it (aside from the walk-around characters early on the Paramount Parks life). I’m curious as to what the annual attendance at was at ST:TE in its best year? I’m sure it was still dwarfed by the attendance at (P)KI.

I think another interesting question might be who the potential buyers would be. SeaWorld (aka United Parks) made a play for Cedar Fair ahead of the SF merger, so that’s a possibility for some of the parks if any come on the market that would be complimentary. At their latest earnings call they noted that they were once again putting the resorts development activity on hold again (I’m convinced they’re never actually going to build a hotel at this point) so maybe that pause is to free up some capital. Although, it’s been rumored since late last year that Parques Reunidos was putting Palace Entertainment on the market and I thought that would be more of a big bang of an acquisition for them. A few years ago I would have thought Merlin would be a definite possibility and maybe still are, but they’ve been doing a lot of cost cutting and RIFs lately. Still cutting costs in one area doesn’t mean you aren’t going to spend for an acquisition. They just hired a new CEO (internal promotion who previously ran the international Midway attractions business) so that’s may be a way for her to make an immediate impact.

Have you heard anything about AP previews for pass holders? I bought a single day AP ticket (for 6/20) back when they went on sale but hadn’t heard anything else about AP previews. A friend of mine is in management for Universal Resorts (aka Loews) and have heard they’ve started some Team Member previews, but I’m not sure what that all entails. Personally, I’ll just be happy when the construction on Sandlake is finished and the intersection of Universal & Destination Blvd reopens again!

I’m a little disappointed to hear about Famous Daves—not that FD was that spectacular, but mostly since if nothing goes into the old Melt space they will be down one more full service restaurant this year. In our annual trip to CF we usually go on a Thursday/Friday in late August and stay at the Breakers—usually hit Fridays the first night then dinner at FD on Friday evening—guess we’ll need to come up with a new plan this year :-)

Did the standardized corporate logos for the parks start with the Paramount branding, or did it occur before that? I wasn’t really aware of the parks as a “chain” (only KI as a standalone) prior to the Paramount acquisition.

I’ve now worked for three theme park companies, of which Merlin is one. Of the three, it was by far the worst professional experience.

There are few things more fun and whimsical than minor league hockey promotions I remember years ago, the Columbus Chill (predated the NHL Blue Jackets) would play at the fairgrounds arena which was a crappy venue, but the games were packed and always a lot of fun! I love the Blue Jackets and Nationwide Arena is great, but it just doesn’t have the same scrappy, fun upstart feel that the Chill always had. I live in Orlando now and the Orlando Solarbears give off a similar vibe.

They’re really restricting the packages they’re selling right now. Currently, the only thing on sale to the GP is a 3 or 4 day UO multi-park ticket, but only one of those days (for both 3/4 day packages) can be used at Epic Universe—the remaining days can be used in any combo you want for USF & IOA. They’ve only opened true single day tickets so far for AP holders. Now, I imagine that will change before you go next November and there will be more flexibility. I’m waiting to hear how much the AP will be going forward once you can add on Epic.

Single day Epic Universe tickets went on sale yesterday morning for current UO annual pass holders. I got my two for 6/20–since Universal is sort of famous (infamous?) for troublesome park opening operations, I thought I’d give them a few weeks to work out the bugs

I’ve never watched your podcast before—it’s really enjoyable. I’m with Ryan that the requirement to not tear down the house seems like a weird thing to request. I wonder what the original sellers’ thinking was on that? I’m guessing it was some sort of homestead that had been in their family for a long time. I have a feeling that requirement would have a difficult time being enforced at this point—first of all, someone from the original sellers would have to care enough to mount a challenge. Plus, KI has been sold three times since the original Taft Broadcasting land purchases—I doubt if that stipulation was included in the sale to Carl Linder, then the sale to Paramount, then the sale to Cedar Fair. But, I guess at this point, what’s the point in spending the money tearing it down? It’s hidden away from view inside the fort, and it gives the park a nice bit of folklore (not to mention you guys a fun topic for your podcast )

Wow. This was an amazing (and troubling) read.

The only “competitors” Disney and Universal really think about are each other. SeaWorld (AKA United Parks), Merlin, Palace and Herschend will most likely see an opportunity to pick up some parks that the new Six Flags will want to sell to pay down some of the debt resulting from the merger.

Of course, being a film’s distributor and having the theme park rights are two different things. With the exception of the most recent one, all of the Indiana Jones films were distributed by Paramount, but Disney still had the theme park attractions. The reason being is that Lucasfilm retained the theme park rights and licensed them to Disney. (Of course now Disney owns Lucasfilm outright). It’s unlikely Paramount would have been able to do anything with the Marvel IP in their parks because of the exclusive licensing (at least East of the Mississippi) that Marvel had granted to Universal. I’m pretty sure Captain America and Iron Man are part of those “core group” of characters covered by Universal’s licensing. On a related note, I think the only attraction where Paramount demonstrated their real potential was with Star Trek: The Experience in Vegas. That was a fantastic attraction for its time—a predecessor to the highly themed areas parks are doing today (Cars Land, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.). Everything done at the regional parks always felt half-assed—regardless of all the promises of the “most fabulous, fantastic, Hollywoodized attraction ever” with each new attraction’s announcement each year.

Exactly! At this point what is currently Viacom/Paramount very well may be carved off and sold off in pieces

It’s not unusual in these types of mergers/acquisitions to sell off some of the remaining assets after the close of the sale to avoid market duplication, or (more importantly) pay down some of the assumed debt. Has there been any speculative conversation here about which parks we think could be up for grabs? I have to assume they’ll do everything possible to keep the “marquee” parks (KI, Knotts, CP, Wonderland, SFMM, etc.) under the new SF umbrella, but there’s still a lot of others that could possibly be sold to help pay down debt. Of course, to sell something you also have to have a buyer—I’m assuming both SeaWorld (excuse me—United Parks & Resorts) and Merlin would both be in the market to acquire some parks (I’ve worked for both, so feel pretty comfortable in that prediction), and also think Palace Entertainment would be in the mix. I think potential buyers will relate directly to what is offered for sale. For instance, I don’t see SeaWorld or Merlin having a lot of interest in Michigan’s Adventure, but that park does seem like a good match for Palace. On the other hand, SF Fiesta Texas could be a good match for SeaWorld (ahem, UNITED) since there could be economies of scale for a market where they’re already operating a park. Just some random speculation (but it’s always fun to speculate )

I have a preview ride scheduled on 6/23. It has honestly been so long since I had ridden Splash Mountain (I tend to skip the water rides—I hate to get wet then walk around the park ) that I really can’t remember any of the detail, so this will almost feel like a completely new ride for me. (Until I watched the POV, I did not recall the original ride time being so long—but it obviously was.)

That could be a great theme—and one of the reasons why the area I’m looking most forward to at Epic Universe is the Dark Universe classic monsters area.

I’ve been meaning to catch an Orlando Solar Bears game myself, but have just never gotten around to it. I’m glad to hear you found it a fun time. I used to love the minor league Columbus Chill games at the (awful) old fairgrounds arena—it was small and cheap and a very good time. I like Blue Jackets games too…but they don’t have that old feel of the Chill games.

I worked with Joel Manby when he was CEO at SeaWorld (we bonded over sharing the same first name ). Joel is a pretty good guy himself—one of the best CEOs I’ve ever worked for.

Herschend is also not a public company, which really impacts how a board has to approach things like ROIC, revenue and cost structures. Look at the difference between BEC and the standalone (and public) SeaWorld/Busch parks.

I never realized that either! I always have the watch face up against the reader instead of to the side like tr0y has it in the video. I’ve always heard the sound but never realized it was doing an animation too :-)

I haven’t heard of an actual NDA per say, but it’s not unusual for there to be some sort of separation agreement in place—especially if there’s some sort of stock equity, vested LTI or other separation payment involved. For example, when I left SeaWorld I had a one year non-compete (meaning I could work for no one that SEAS considered a core competitor for a year after leaving—which was pretty much every theme park company) and a 2-year non-solicitation (meaning I wouldn’t recruit ay of their employees) and non-disparagement agreement. I honored all of those. I didn’t work for the next theme park company until six weeks or so after my one-year expired, and I’ve never had a reason to disparage the company—I still like and respect the people I worked with there.

Is it SF owned/developed or is it owned by a 3rd party that is licensing the Six Flags name? The new SeaWorld “park” (most of it is indoors) in Abu Dhabi is like that—a third party built, owns and operates it, but SEAS licensed their brand and provided consulting during development. If that’s the same scenario in Qiddiya there’s probably no reason for it not to move forward with the merger

I think it is really difficult now to keep a kids’ area that is relevant and constantly popular today. There are so many sources of content that the current “big thing” is frequently changing. Right now I think Bluey is the in thing for the preschool demo (unless he’s been replaced by something newer now too), a few years ago it was Peppa Pig, before that something else. The earlier IP (HB, Looney Tunes, etc.) was able to stay relevant a lot longer because there weren’t limitless replacements from hundreds of sources constantly in the pipeline. I’m not sure how the DC IP agreement with Six Flags is structured, but typically these IP agreements are not “blanket” (meaning you can’t use the IP as much as you want, anyway you want)—instead it’s typically by individual use case. If that’s the case here, would it make financial sense to convert The Bat to Batman if there’s an incremental IP cost (plus the capital cost of converting the ride) involved? I’m not sure the cost of a change like that would result in a revenue boost that would justify it (especially once people realized “oh, it’s still just Top Gun” ;-))