BeeastFarmer

Fascinating things going on with Live E in Texas... Fiesta Texas has flipped from Holiday in the Park to the Mardi Gras celebration. In the past, they have had a parade, This year, it is the Spectacle of Color Parade. I saw video posted and it is the Grand Carnivale parade! New! - Mardi Gras Parade: Spectacle of Color - Six Flags Fiesta Texas Over Texas had the pre 2024 Park Lighting ceremony for their Holiday in the Park. Weird seeing Bugs Bunny welcome the family of the night and Peanuts music with Bugs.

As expected, the new land will run from the clock tower to Storm Chaser. Excited to see how the park evolves in the next few years.

Sysco make give a bulk purchase discount for coffee. The chicken tineys look like they come from there. (Vs the hand breaded chicken tenders we used to have)

Unless they decide to save costs and use a blend of Sanka, cigarette ash and unused mulch for the coffee.

You might be able to share Don's office by the Royal Fountain on International Street: That's a million dollar office, better than any corner office or Starbux lounge. (Photo from a thread here on KIC)

See text below. For some reason, the URL would not paste into this post. Not to sound like a harbinger of bad news, but I don't think this will be isolated to Cedar Point. I think they will cut this bonus out at the legacy Cedar Fair parks that offered it. IIRC, KI also did this. The potential loss of seasoned employees will further erode the guest experience. I shudder to think how cutting wages at the legacy Six Flags parks will shake out. It's a fine line, and I don't want to violate KIC TOS, so @IndyGuy4KIplease moderate or edit the following as you see fit: I am typically for free market driven initiatives. This is that. But they are driving so much to get the synergies promised to shareholders/unitholders. How much further will they degrade the guest experience? Cedar Point cuts pay By Justin Dietz Special to the Register Jan 15, 2025 3:00 PM Editor’s note: Justin Dietz is a Register correspondent representing cpfoodblog.com and @funfoodblog on X. SANDUSKY — Some Cedar Point employees will be experiencing a 25% drop in pay for the upcoming season. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Cedar Point struggled to find employees when the park began to reopen. At that point, the park increased payroll by offering to hire new employees at $20 per hour, something it promoted substantially. Pay consisted of $15 per hour plus an added $5-per-hour bonus that later became known as legacy pay. Some other seasonal employees who have worked at the park for years also received the pay increase. While pay for new hires at Cedar Point continued to fall post-COVID, employees hired under the legacy pay structure have continued to receive the hourly bonus if they returned each year up through the 2024 season. This month, however, returning employees hired under legacy pay have been notified that the $5-per-hour pay bump is going away. The Register has received several messages from employees that Six Flags, the new parent company following the 2024 merger, has cut employees' pay effective immediately. Employees are now expected to return to work at their base hourly pay. Since most of the 5,000 summer jobs at Cedar Point are considered seasonal, those employees do not earn overtime pay. Seasonal employees who chose to stay at Cedar Point dorms also pay roughly $300 to $500 per month for accommodations. Due to already low local staffing levels, Cedar Point relies heavily on the J-1 Visa program to hire seasonal help to staff the park. Hiring international workers allows the park to avoid paying taxes on their wages. In addition, since foreign workers have to be sponsored, it is much harder for them to leave the job once they have arrived. J-1 workers also pay their sponsor a fee to work in the U.S.

I could be wrong, but from installs like this, it's typically an agreement with the park to get some reduced electric, carbon credits and good PR. A holding company typically develops these and then sells it to a utility provider. It makes sense when there is a main trunk line. Six Flags doesn't necessarily use the power generated, but they get credit back on their consumption. The utility company gets a mini power plant, so they look good to the shareholders. The holding company makes a pretty penny on the sale to the power company, plus they can sell the "energy shares" on the market so other companies can use the carbon credits. Six Flags can also tout how clean they are becoming, while ignoring carbon waste in other places. Customers can get covered parking and probably some EV chargers. Around here, battles are going on between locals, development companies, and zoning boards. The development companies quietly buy thousands of acres of farmland for solar farms. Local government looses jobs and tax revenue. It's quite contentious. I wish we could scale up and use industrial/commercial rooftops and parking lots. That would preserve farmland. But the money evidently is not there to make this feasible.

I have a solar array that provides all of the electricity needs on my farm. It's grid tied, meaning that it feeds into the grid and I get at 1:1 credit from them. I also build up a bank of credits that gets applied in months such as this. I absolutely love my system. It's my understanding that this is similar to what magic mountain and great adventure do . They would need to cover the parking lot so that the panels face south. The parking lot, iirc, is about 40 acres? That could produce quite a bit of electricity. It would coast dearly to install.

Six Flags wants to keep things "comfortably crowded" per the third quarter conference call. Doesn't sound good tom me,

Generally, I'd agree. But in this specific case, there is no confirmation of ride removals. What is the history of removals with HFE? Does the specific park have any say? Besides the rapids ride, I did not ride or care for the rumored removals at KK. So my skin in the game is limited vs someone who's favorite ride was Eye of the Storm, for example. But, in the big picture, the rumored removals will pave the way for a much better Kentucky Kingdom. And ride removals without notification is not a new thing. Old people like myself often put Taft/KECO on a pedestal as model park operators, but Don Helbig has mentioned a few times on Tower Topics that back in the day, people would come to opening day and a beloved ride was gone. He would have been tipped off and got a last ride a couple of times if my memory is correct.

NYSE symbol SAX.

@Vortex1987, how many parks or chains are you going to go away from with all these threats? Ed Hart saved Kentucky Kingdom and did a great job until covid ruined it. I don't know for certainty, but I would conjecture he and his investment group could not absorb the loss and had he not sold or transferred the management contract to HFE, the park likely would have closed. HFE came in and people were expecting Dollywood North. We got cinnamon bread. But it appears they wanted to learn the market to see where to make investments. No ride removals are confirmed that I know of. Perhaps they are going to keep Cyclos and Eye and move them to different locations. It appears to me that they are changing the focus from amusement park to theme park, hence the name change. It has long been rumored that the park really wants their own parking lot. Perhaps they or the fair board have been acquiring land on the water park side. This could signal a new lot and entrance with an expanded waterpark there. Lots of land where T3 was, plus the water coaster, plus the rapids ride plus the Batman theater over to storm chaser. I have a feeling the new nature land will be in the area between flying Dutchman and storm chaser. If they relocate rides from King Louies to this area that opens up the "front" of the park for a new land with new rides in 26. There's also a high probability of the bisecting road to eventually go away as the fair board implements their new master plan. As much as "we" want thrills, the money is in families. Ed even banked on that ..he said he strived to run the park to keep Moms happy. Time will tell and I could be very wrong, but I'm very happy about the future of Kentucky Kingdom Theme and Water Park. HFE seems to evaluate and then implement with surgical precision. This is unlike the current FUN who seems to just wing it. Patience, grasshoppers. Crying and worry happens during the darkness, but joy comes in the morning.

And Siren's Curse will not open with the park in May.

Glad for ya'll. It's been pretty rough down here

Did Mason avoid the freezing rain from the storm?

What records is this attraction breaking?

And they don't get tricks n treats, Oktoberfest etc, correct?

Is that Winterfest 2024 or 2025?

I'm not buying any pass to Six Flags for 2025.

They strike again! According to KDFANS.com, a demo permit has been filed for Berserker, their 360 degree rotating Intamin Viking Ship. It was a WinterFest ride, not sure if it's open today or tomorrow. They seem to care not about respecting park patrons...surely they've heard the backlash from patrons about these unannounced closures. Shame on you, Richar Zimmerman! Shame on you, Bridget Bywater! Shame on you Kyle (forgot his last name) if you are still working there!

Thank you! Your observation/remark is brilliant. It made me chuckle when I read it this morning. ( But saddened at the same time because of what's happened so far and what's to come).

Good observation! The area from the carousel/ Flying Dutchman to Storm Chaser is the prettiest area of the park, but it's also the most dead area of the park. It would make sense to beef it up. There's also space in this area for a playground, not so much in King Louie's Playground. I thought this area was supposed to become a Fireman's Landing type of area from the survey that was sent out, with the Drop Tower being moved there. Nonetheless, I'm happy to be a passholder again and looking forward to the next couple of seasons!

Is the new Kentucky of and going to be in that area? With 11 rethemed rides, I thought it would be King Louie's Playground.