Kenban

ACE just sent out the details to members and posted them on their website for the spring conference. https://www.aceonline.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1823985 Tickets go on sale this Saturday March 16th. ACE Members: $213 ACE Members age 3-11: $192 Nonmembers: $266 $90 discount with an annual pass, members cannot buy tickets for non-members for a few weeks to give members time, it’s unlikely the tickets will last long enough.

Which does conflict with other information in the 2023 annual report. So first let me admit, I copied my chart from the 2022 annual report because that is what the newest report is on https://investors.sixflags.com/financial-information/annual-reports I did realize after I cleaned it up, you know the SEC filing is out there, its just not the fancy one with graphics. So I went and looked at that, it appeared nothing had changed and just posted the chart. Here's the problem with believing the 2034. This is from page 19 and continuing onto page 20 of the PDF version of the 2023 annual report from https://investors.sixflags.com/sec-filings. I personally suspect the lease will be renewed, and maybe it has been and the conflict in dates occurred because it was renewed while the report was being prepared.

NOTE: This is copy and pasted, from the annual report, then I tried to clean up the formatting. Here is a list of the Six Flags parks and how many of them they actually own and which ones are leased, and the foot notes explain when the leases will expire. Six Flags actually owns a lot less parks than people think. They fully own only 9 amusement parks, and 3 stand alone water parks, they own portions of 2 more amusement parks, the rest of the chain is just operating leases. The Six Flags Mexico lease even expires this year, it has been stated by Six Flags they are close to working out a new lease for the park, but nothing is guaranteed. So on a list of 24 properties, 13 of them have footnotes about leases and partial ownership.

As far as I know the tickets never went on sale. The registration page just says “Information will be posted soon.”

You’re right I was not remembering when Snake River opened correctly, I should have double checked. I still stand by the statement this would have never been built after 2020 though. It feels like this was longer ago than it really was, I really did think this operated for more than 3 years, even though I did remember Forbidden Frontier not being open in 2020. These dates are from Wikipedia so they should be right. Snake River Expedition was announced December 11th, 2019 and was supposed to be part of the 150th, and should have opened with the park in 2020. It ended up being delayed until 2021 because of the Pandemic and restrictions from that. I know the characters as part of Forbidden Frontier were Live Entertainment. I believe but could be wrong the people operating Snake River Expedition also were considered live entertainment, and not rides. The reason why I do not believe these attractions would be built today is in part the difficulty in staffing the park, and also the amount the park pays its employees. These attractions are just too expensive to operate right now, so even though they are new attractions, they were the first to get cut. They are also not really an attraction that someone would likely travel for. While I personally think these types of attractions really do improve people’s experiences at the park and can be memorable, they don’t really have any return on the investment directly.

It does. Canada’s Wonderland – Parking is included with the purchase of a Gold Pass and All Park Passport add-on.

Forbidden Frontier, and Snake River Expedition opened in 2019, they never would have even been built after 2020. I enjoyed the boat ride, it was much better in 2019 than at any time since then. Personally I would have liked it to be similar to the Jungle Cruise, place animatronics around the shore, have the boat captain make bad jokes throughout the experience. I suspect the boat ride is done for and never to return. But I could also see how removing it might help part of the island to return. Forbidden Frontier was out of the way, required a lot of walking to access, and had a single access point due to the need for the elevated walkway. There should have also been a bridge from Camp Snoopy. There is already a walkway on the island that dead ends directly across from where the boat dock is located. Build a bridge that is just above the water, it will be cheaper than a large elevated structure. The high ground play structure is very close to this point as well. Start there reopening the play structure and restrooms, then slowly turn the island into an extension of camp Snoopy.

Personally I just hope this highlights the need for more training, and more clarity surrounding annual passes and how they work at different parks.

I wish I had a good answer for you, my gut says people being told no is down to poor training, and likely employees who are just not familiar with the changes to the annual pass program. My experiences in the past suggests that training around details like this is just downright terrible. I am expecting people to have issues with early entry at Cedar Point this year as well. So why did it not work? My best guess is something is setup wrong somewhere, which is not really helpful. Would the same pass work in two months, maybe. Is it due to what park issued the pass? Is it something misconfigured at Knott's? Maybe it is something specific to that pass? The number of guests I have spoken with who complain about something not working on their pass is higher than it should be. I went to Kings Island with someone in October and their meal plan and drink plan worked, we went back in December for Winterfest and neither worked, the pass worked just fine for admission but suddenly none of the add on's worked. I recently spoke with someone who purchased two passes at the same time last year from Canada's Wonderland the add-ons only worked on one of the two passes, they just lived with it last year and are hopeful it fixes itself this year. This is part of the reason why I hate that there is no transparency around things added to passes, like the renewal Fast Lane, or bring a friend free tickets. Until you show up at the park and try to use something you have no idea if it actually attached to the card. Personally the majority of issues I have personally experienced with my passes are training problems, the pass worked fine, the employees had no idea how to handle the new drink plan, season long Fast Lane, prestige passes, etc. Most employees don't have problems but the guest should not have to try to walk an employee through what buttons to press on the register. The lack of consistency in policies from park to park also does not help.

It’s still listed in the terms and conditions that everyone gets free parking at all parks with purchase of the all parks passport. Most of the benefits including the lounge and what it contains are just promises on the website, the parking is actually spelled out in the actual legal terms which is more difficult to modify and has not been changed since last summer. I just cannot imagine walking back the free parking in 2024.

That's my hope at least. I have also wondered if part of the issue might be what park the pass was purchased from. I know there have been issues at Knott's in the past when using a pass from a park that has not yet opened for the season. My understanding is the pass that worked was from Canada's Wonderland. I could see a Kings Island or Cedar Point pass possibly having issues because their add-on's did not work last year. It has been a few years but I personally had issues at Knott's early in the year before Kings Island opened. Guest Services could see my meal plan but it would not work at restaurants and I had to get managers to over ride every time I wanted a drink or meal.

I just spoke with a friend who only has a gold pass and visited Knott's in January using the all park passport. According to them the parking worked, but they had a hard time finding the regular parking lot because the tunnel that goes under the street and leads to the main parking lot is closed. You can only enter the lot going one direction on the road that separates the park from the main parking lot. According to them the other many parking lots around the park are either for the hotel, stores, preferred parking, and are not included.

Here are some quotes from Knott's Berry Farms website, all of these were taken a few minutes ago, and are currently on the site. Here is the relevant quote from the 2024 Annual Pass Terms and Conditions The only thing I can think of is there has to be a mistake somewhere because its been very clear that all park passport includes regular parking at all parks in the chain, including Knott's. Any chance they tried parking in the wrong lot?

Because Six Flags attendance never recovered from the pandemic. They had an attendance in 2019 of 32.8 million. They are still over 10 million guests a year below their 2019 attendance. Cedar Fair had a 27.9 million attendance in 2019. So Cedar Fair is down a little over a million or roughly 4% of their 2019 attendance. Over the same period Six Flags is down 32%.

The one at Kings Island is the last one in North America, and the only one still in its original location.

Not sure if it matters if it’s ready. Vekoma has announced repeatedly that Good Gravy would open first, they used cars from the train as part of their display at IAAPA back in November. Where they again announced it would open first. Something has the manufacturer convinced, it will be first, even with Kings Island opening for the season first. I suspect Vekoma built a no earlier than date into the contract. Basically Soap Box Racers cannot open for media or guests before X date. The ride might be cycling, completely ready, and still not be allowed to open.

Fiesta Texas built a B&M Dive Coaster of similar scale that opened in 2022, and even purchased 4 trains even though it can at max operate with 3. Just so they can always have one train being rebuilt and still operate at maximum capacity. If they are willing to make that kind of investment, it honestly looks and feels a lot like we could still see rides like Iron Menace. Because they literally just built a very similar ride that with the extra trains, Iron Menace only runs two, likely cost more. Top Thrill 2 was a special case, but it’s also a similar investment to what Six Flags has done building their topper track RMC conversions, although these were done under previous management. Taking an existing ride and renovating it with a modified layout, new trains, etc. A better question is would they have done rides at the scale of Fury 325, Orion, Steel Vengeance, etc. The rides where Cedar Fair has built attractions on a scale that few other parks have been willing to do.

If this is accurate the best way I can describe this would be, disappointed. It feels like a waste of the main theater. Have I seen the show, no. But am I interested in seeing the show? Not really. This feels like a show aimed at children and families with children, and while its fine to target them with shows, it feels like the main theater should be utilized for shows that adults would want to go and watch. I would think the goal should be shows that appeal to the whole family. One thing that I have thought about before is chains like Cedar Fair, Six Flags, and especially the merged company should consider is having traveling shows. Smaller productions that are only at a park for a shorter period of time. That way a park could have several different shows throughout the season. A show like this would be perfect for a 2-4 week run, and I would think would be better placed in the theater in the kids area. A traveling show could do 3 days a week at the start of the season in the spring giving bigger parks entertainment options before weekly operations start. Do short stints at a number of different parks likely primarily focused at medium sized parks during the summer. Then back to bigger parks at the end of the season. If they really wanted to they could then utilize them around January to March at parks that are open year round like Knott's and Magic Mountain. Short runs gives people reasons to keep coming back, and gives a sense of need that if I don't go now I won't see this show.

More observations, I did not renew my pass, instead I purchased a new one for 2024. So the app has an expired passes button under my annual pass. Clicking it shows last years pass complete with the add ons and a Fast Lane voucher I never used from when I renewed the pass showing it expired in 2022. When everything is actually finished and working we might be able to actually see vouchers. Being able to see free tickets and vouchers tied to our passes would be good so we know everything actually worked and can just see when they expire. One last odd ball observation, the old pass has a different expiration between the Kings Island and Cedar Point applications. Suggesting the pass expiration is park dependent. Which I was not aware of. Not many parks are open past December 31 so likely does not really come up often.

I am pretty sure passes can be linked to multiple web accounts. It makes no difference who actually purchased them or pays for them. At some point in the past they were added to both accounts and never removed. The only oddity I have seen is I see no way to see the all park passport add-on, and in the Cedar Point app it lists my season long Fast Lane and the Kings Island app does not.

In the last few months barcode scanners at Fast Lane entrances have been installed at Carowinds and I think Kings Dominion. They already have scanners at the Fast Lane entrance to a number of rides at Cedar Point. The wristbands at Cedar Point have had barcodes for a while but they just have rarely been using them. Starting to look like they might by go chain wide this year, and actually see some use. EDIT: Just wanted to add there are signs the new app will allow guests to purchase single use Fast Lane in app and likely will have a barcode/QR code and guests will scan the phones at the Fast Lane instead of having the kiosks with paper receipts.

Canadas Wonderland literally just announced earlier this week the removal of theirs. The one at Canadas Wonderland is slightly newer having been built the year after Kings Island. https://www.canadaswonderland.com/rides-experiences/xtreme-skyflyer I would be surprised if the one at Kings Island is still around in 10 years. The entire area where it is located is ready for a complete remodel and the skyflyer is getting old, and sitting on a very good piece of land. I feel like the next big new coaster at Kings Island will be located in what is currently Action Zone and either the sky flyer or Congo falls will be removed to make room for the station. The problem with Action Zone is half the land feels like it’s ready to be removed, Invertigo, Congo Falls, Timber Wolf, and Skyflyer. I keep seeing people asking how much longer do any of these attractions have. There is a reason that retheming the whole land keeps coming up, and has been trending towards DC with the Six Flags merger.

I saw a picture of the coupon and it does say it is an additional 10% so it should stack.

I keep seeing monopoly thrown around, the problem is the parks largely exist as their own regional monopolies already. The majority of the competition between Six Flags and Cedar Fair occurs in discussions between enthusiasts. Guests primarily visit their local park, and in the rare instances where the chains do have parks close enough to compete they typically have other competition as well. Kings Dominion for instance is closer to Busch Gardens than Six Flags America. On a national level the two chains combined have a lower attendance than just the 4 main theme parks at Disney World. When guests are willing to travel they have already spoken with their wallets and picked someone else. I would be surprised if the Justice Department decides to do much.

All I can say is what I was told, and I will fully admit this is mostly from a few years ago, maybe I am remembering some details wrong. The thing is I have heard this from multiple people.