If another park chain were to purchase Kings Island

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

If Herschend Family Entertainment or United Parks & Resorts (or another chain) were to purchase or somehow otherwise acquire Kings Island, what do you think could change? This is a purchase people have been suggesting online since they've seen Six Flags as a degrading force to the parks, so I thought I'd ask.

Outside of the obvious things such as the removal of Peanuts and Six Flags trademarks in addition to changing/removing the meal plan and things like that, I think we would see the following:

• A return of the original logo, or just a new logo altogether to better fit with the HFE or UPR branding.
• A more "independent" operation for the park. It seems that, to an extent, some of the larger HFE parks operate more like their own individual companies under a larger parent corporation.
• Less "highly intimidating" roller coaster or ride names (with HFE) like Copperhead Strike or Dominator. Kings Island doesn't have many names I could see changing since KI generally uses "creature" names for big coasters. See the renaming of Storm Chaser and Thunder Run at Kentucky Kingdom for why I'd be worried about that.
  • I could be completely wrong with my wording for this, but it feels like rides at some HFE parks have "tamer" names. Wind Chaser and Wilderness Run could just be casualties of the area being rethemed.
• Maybe we could see an attempt to make Kings Island into more of a regional destination theme park, like Busch Gardens or Dollywood. Extending the park's reach further into more markets could be a goal of a non-Six Flags company.
• A shift in focus:
  • Even more focus on families with HFE. Innovative rides and attractions could still be installed (like Dollywood is getting), but I don't expect more record-breakers.
  • A higher focus on thrill-seekers with UPR. Maybe some record-breakers and thrilling coasters (like Pantheon) could be installed.
• Maybe a change in how high the park sits on its operator's tier list. If enough parks in another chain sit higher, it's possible that KI could see more or less (or better/poorer) investment than it currently sees.

 

My personal wish would be for a new Kings Entertainment Company to form and take on some of the parks, but I can understand how hard it might be to do that. I imagine it could be a good combination between HFE/United/Cedar Fair if done right. Another upside would be the addition of another big-ish operator to offset from the Cedar Fair/Six Flags merger. 

Go wild with this theoretical thought experiment. I'm curious to see what everyone thinks could change!

[WoodVengeance]

For the Herschend route: I would expect them to treat Kings Island as one of their premier parks alongside Dollywood and Silver Dollar City. Here are some of the things I could see happening:

• New (old) logo to differentiate itself from its former Cedar Fair / Six Flags ownership, either reusing the first logo or coming up with a brand new one altogether
• Kids area removes all the Peanuts or Looney Tunes IP and is rethemed to something similar to Wildwood Grove or Discovery Meadow (Phantom Theater stays as-is)
• Cinnamon Bread location added somewhere in Rivertown
• Trams could possibly return to the parking lot, as they're still used at Dollywood and SDC
• The park adds more family attractions, since that's the market Herschend wants to appeal to the most. It would also help differentiate it more from Cedar Point up north, which would still be owned by Six Flags and catered more to thrill-seekers
• Either a new resort gets built to attract non-locals, or Herschend buys the Great Wolf Lodge next to the park and converts that into a new Kings Island resort
• Action Zone gets rethemed to an all-new theme from Herschend, maybe an expanded Oktoberfest section as a way to celebrate Cincinnati's german heritage

All of this, however, is completely hypothetical. I don't expect Six Flags to sell off Kings Island considering its one of the chain's top parks. I also don't know if it would be good for Herschend either, since they just tripled their park portfolio due to the acquisition of the Palace parks. It's still fun to speculate on, though!

[SonofBaconator]

Honestly, this would be the best case scenario for KI in many ways:

• It would indeed become a premier park since its a considerable distance from Dollywood and Silver Dollar City
• The old logo would certainly return
• The chain would more than likely adopt a new IP for the kids area that could be also be used for DW and SDC
• Food quality and entertainment options would get better
• Winterfest would get better but unfortunately Haunt would be downgraded to a family event, unless Herschend decided to cross into the scary.
• Cross promotion with Kentucky Kingdom and Newport Aquarium would be low hanging fruit
• Theming would certainly improve
• Don't expect many thrill rides
• Holiday World would $h!+ a brick

But as @WoodVengeance said, KI is too much of a cash cow to sell off...and even so selling them off would make them a competitor to CP.

In a way Six Flags needs KI more than KI needs them in some respects.

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

In reference to the idea of Haunt being downgraded, I'm curious to see how Phantom Fall Fest goes this year at Kennywood and the other former Palace parks that have it. The future of those events would probably tell us what could happen to Haunt under Herschend besides a name change. I don't think they'd use an IP for the kids area if they can help it though, since that's not really HFE's jam.

Now if United were to be a buyer, I could definitely see them bringing Howl-O-Scream to replace Haunt. Sesame Street would replace the Peanuts as well. I have to wonder what they'd do about the name though. While it's very likely they'd keep the Kings Island name, none of their theme parks operate under a non-Busch/SeaWorld/Sesame Place name.

Either way, admission prices would almost certainly double across the board within 5 years.