SonofBaconator

Here’s my theory for what’s going to happen in the Mid Atlantic market. The chain is going to liquidate Six Flags America and shift their focus onto Kings Dominion which will become a test park. You will start to see WB IPs emerge such as Looney Tunes and possible DC. If they see significant positive feedback from guests, that’ll give them the green light to move ahead with other parks. That’s just my thought process

How soon will we see noticeable changes at the parks? Will Six Flags parks receive Peanuts World Wide LLC IP? Will we see certain parks rebrand- Six Flags Dominion, Illinois Great America, etc? Will there be any parks that are practically not changed? Will there be any parks that are sold off or torn down completely?

I don’t think it isn’t popular, I just don’t think it’s right for us. If they had a whole park themed to Batman: The Animated Series- I’d be there. The modern DC films just don’t seem to be getting any footing and I think that can hurt a brand like Six Flags/ Cedar Fair. I’m not a fan of established IPs in most parks anyway unless it’s in a kids area, I favor originality.

I hope they don’t use it. If Action Zone has to be rebranded then so be it but that’s the extent. While I enjoy Batman, I’m not really a huge fan of DC.

I argue their dated because a lot of the elements that they feature are not included in today’s television. You can’t show Elmer Fudd trying to shoot Bugs Bunny anymore, or Wiley coyote getting flattened like a pancake, etc. I think a lot of the elements that made the Looney Tunes memorable has since faded where Peanuts has stayed pretty consistent. From a family friendly aspect, Peanuts are a superior IP than Looney Tunes.

The Looney Tunes unfortunately lost their luster in the 2000s imo. Peanuts are more timeless and I argue more family friendly- there’s certainly aspects of the Looney Tunes that have become somewhat dated. DC has kinda flopped because their live action films have no direction. There was a time when Warner Brothers dominated and Looney Tunes and DC both thrived but those times have passed. I don’t think it would be wise to implement their IPs across the chain, maybe select parks as testing grounds.

Red is Six Flags Yellow is Cedar Fair From this map, you get a really good look at where things might go from here once things get finalized. There is certainly a lot of overlap in California, the Mid-Atlantic/East Coast, and even the Northeast. Some parks I think could coexist like Magic Mountain and Knott’s. Discovery Kingdom will eventually be the only park in the Bay Area once CGA’s lease is up. Then you have Dorney and Great Adventure in the NYC/Jersey/Philly market that seems to overlap as well as Six Flags America and Kings Dominion overlapping in the Maryland/Virginia market. One can make the assumption that Six Flags America might be liquidated and Dorney could potentially be sold off down the road.

I see Six Flags America, Darien Lake, Frontier City, Michigan’s Adventure, Dorney, and possibly ValleyFair flying the coop. I wonder if the addition of Iron Menace was CF’s way of making Dorney more appealing to potential buyers.

Don’t be surprised if certain parks get sold off in the coming years. I wonder how the new chain will prioritize what parks get what since parks like KI, CP, Carowinds, & Canada’s Wonderland now exist in a company that owns Magic Mountain, Great Adventure, Great America, & Fiesta Texas.

It would be cool if the que became the permanent, year round location for the old rides graveyard in the grassy areas as you come out of the tunnel.

I had thought about this too…instead of Kings Dominion would it be Six Flags Dominion? Instead of Six Flags New England, would it go back to Lakeside? Fiesta Texas?

There would be liquidations for sure. I’m not confident the smaller Six Flags parks like America would survive.

Each coaster does something different so it doesn’t really seem as saturated as I had originally thought. Thunderbird, GateKeeper, X-Flight, & Wild Eagle are all completely different rides with just wing trains if you think of it: Thunderbird is your standard launched coaster X-Flight is kinda has a flying coaster layout Wild Eagle is your traditional looping coaster GateKeeper can be seen as what an actual wing coaster should be

While I’m not for this, I’m personally not against this if it is done right. In my opinion, some Six Flags parks are essentially Cedar Fair parks already: Six Flags Great America and Fiesta Texas for example. If you take a SEAS approach where you split your brands, it would work…SEAS operates Sea World, Busch Gardens, and Sesame Place. So with that regard, some Six Flags parks would remain Six Flags while others would adopt a Cedar Fair mind set with individualized identities. This is all just a scenario but I don’t think it would be terrible. Let me be straight, I wouldn’t want Six Flags to touch any current Cedar Fair property, it would be the other way around where Cedar Fair is influencing Six Flags- I don’t want to see The Bat become Batman: The Ride.

To be honest, what’s a ride experience that’s missing from KI? I’m not saying what type of ride, I’m saying what experience- something that delivers something unique. For The Bat it’s the sensation of swinging through the air, for Diamondback it’s floater airtime, you get the picture. We don’t have an above the track looper which I argue delivers a different experience than an invert. We don’t have anything that gives hangtime (unless you solely count the last inversion on Banshee.) We also don’t have anything that has crazy ejector but I don’t know that we’ll see that since Intamin and RMC are great at that and CF isn’t working with them at this moment. I feel like when I described what experiences we’re missing (excluding ejector), I’m basically describing a Mack multi launch or a B&M dive.

Would you rather extend Winterfest into weekends in January or open the regular season earlier in the Spring? Or would you rather something else?

What needs to be done with it?

I think HalloWeekends should be how our park is modeled during the fall. At CP, they have the back of the park with Frontier Trail and Frontier Town as a dedicated scare zone while the rest of the park is more family friendly with other haunts being indoors near GateKeeper and the arcade. If KI were to replicate this, a part of the park would be strictly Haunt while others would be most Halloween atmosphere. (This is just an example, don’t tar and feather me): Also, I love the atmosphere at HalloWeekends- everything just screams Halloween. I understand CP can go all out because they don’t have another seasonal event to get ready for like KI does with Winterfest but I wish our park did things a little differently- for example, letting the troll near Diamondback operate during the day as well as night.

I don’t want ride closures due to staffing

I wouldn’t know, I ran a simulation of it on Planet Coaster a few years ago but that’s a computer game mind you.

Add a fourth train to Steel Vengeance and turn the transfer track into a block zone where the train stops before ascending the lift hill- though this would ruin the pops of airtime you get before the base of the hill.

Something I thought of yesterday that I would like to get everyone’s opinion on. When I go to Cedar Point, I often go for experiences that I can’t necessarily get back home. These rides include Steel Vengeance, Maverick, Valravn, and GateKeeper (also TTD when it was open). Of course I ride the other attractions at the park, but what I listed are typically immediate priority. I hope that whatever we get covers at least of the experiences that these rides offer: a 90 degree drop, near miss elements, quick transitions, multiple smooth inversions- anyone of these would be great.

Personally I feel like they were trying to compete with BGW for KD and they hopped on the Charolette bandwagon with Carowinds. I’m surprised too. I don’t know a lot about those parks respective markets but, typically if you’re in the entertainment/hospitality industry, holidays are a good time to make extra money. I could see an argument for why Valleyfair or Michigan’s Adventure don’t have their own Winterfest- weather might play a factor. Regarding WoF, IIRC they claimed it was a “business decision” which is maybe why they’ve held off on Dorney. My wonky guess is staffing plays a part in why they didn’t bring it back for Worlds of Fun.

Imagine if we got this!

Couldn’t the trains have weights of some kind added to amend that?