Six Flags Just Dropped Its 2026 Grad Nite Dates—Here’s Where Students Can Celebrate After Hours

[DonHelbig]

Would you like to see Kings Island and Cedar Point join the Six Flags parks with Grad Nites?

https://themeparksbydon.com/six-flags-grad-nite-2026-dates/

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

I don't see why not. KI and CP used to host grad nites I believe CP hosted one up until like 2017 or 2018 (correct me if I'm wrong). I don't remember the last time KI did. I think KI should host one. It would be a great opportunity for local schools around here. I'm just wondering if the park is scared to host it bc of past "incidents" involving school age kids making front page news at the park and they don't want that to potentially happen and ruin grad nite. 

[robintodd]

The park is perfectly right to fear "incidents".  Most of the negative press happened on Grad Nights.  I was going to the park back then it was more about drinking and drugs in the parking lot in order to "enhance" enjoyment of the park.  

That being said I must admit the amount of that kind of activity seems significantly less nowadays.  Best example I can site is the lack of "teen dance clubs", malls and other places teens would interact etc. Seems like teens are more into staying home on their devices rather than being out in public.  

Finally, in my opinion the LAST thing KI needs is an attendance driver.  With the advent of social media and the number of vlogs/podcasts there is no shortage of "what's new at Kings Island" news without the park needing to do anything.  Back in the 80s and 90s it was important to get the word out about Kings Island but nowadays, anyone who is interested in theme parks knows or can easily find out about KI.  I don't understand why some people complain about how crowded the park is by "giving away the gate" yet still want to see more marketing to drive attendance at an already busy park.  Does it really make sense to market a park and when people come from out of the area and find the park so crowded that it affects their experience in a negative way.  KI is unique in that not only is it in the middle of a populated area but it's a wealthier area than most parks are surrounded by (I notice this by noticing the neighborhoods and houses when driving to KI vs CP).  I still maintain the park could not add anything new for 2-4 years and NOT see a drop in attendance.  If they decide to up the price of season passes then it may make sense to market the park once attendance is an issue but until that time they will be wiser to spend money keeping up with the people in the park rather than attacting more people to an already crowded park.

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

I don't agree with the statements on the park not needing more attendance at all. While the park may get busy more often than not, we live in a world where consistent additions and upgrades are almost required to keep a place like Kings Island popular. Without that year-after-year constant investment I'd start to think we were becoming more like Dorney Park or Kings Dominion than Cedar Point and Carowinds. We'll see more on how that might turn out after this year if Cedar Point does indeed finally take a year off from additions.

As for bringing back Grad Nite, I think it'd be a good thing to try out again. Kings Island has gone through so much change since its last Grad Nite event and the habits of high school seniors has also changed. The park also has a stronger security presence, so if anything starts up there is a better chance of catching it before it's too late. This would also only take up 1-2 nights each year, therefore not adding to the number of people in the park during the day. Any additional guests would likely be those who would already come with their school during a standard park field trip. I personally went on the trip during my senior year of high school and had to contend with all of the other seniors in addition to all of the families who were already at the park for the day. If anything, adding a Grad Nite would take guests out of the park and make it less busy during the day in exchange for it being closed early for a special event one night per year.

It would be amazing if we could also get one or two other one-night special events each year to help bring in more money for the park. 

[Orion-XL200]

Working in school systems, I can say, the grad classes of this world and time, can't handle it, at least here in Ohio. 

[KIfan73]

I didn’t go to grad nite when I was a senior. I can still remember seeing my classmates getting “ready” for it by packing their trunks with beer for the trip.  Fast forward a few years and I chaperoned at grad nite very early in my teaching career.  Oh my.  I understand why they got away from it. 

[KI Guy]

On 1/23/2026 at 8:36 AM, robintodd said:

I still maintain the park could not add anything new for 2-4 years and NOT see a drop in attendance.  If they decide to up the price of season passes then it may make sense to market the park once attendance is an issue but until that time they will be wiser to spend money keeping up with the people in the park rather than attacting more people to an already crowded park.

That may be the case we really can't know for sure but increasing attendance is not the only consideration. They have to add just to maintain the park. Every attraction in the park with the exception of wood coasters has a finite lifespan.

Even if everything were to last as long as Vortex then the rides go away in these respective years:

Flight of Fear 2028

Invertigo 2031

Woodstock's Air Rail 2033

Queen City Stunt Coaster 2035

Diamondback 2041

 To just maintain replacement rate they are going to have to up the installations unless they can milk these rides for more than 32 years... Good luck with that.

[robintodd]

15 minutes ago, KI Guy said:

That may be the case we really can't know for sure but increasing attendance is not the only consideration. They have to add just to maintain the park. Every attraction in the park with the exception of wood coasters has a finite lifespan.

Even if everything were to last as long as Vortex that the rides go away in these respective years:

Flight of Fear 2028

Invertigo 2031

Woodstock's Air Rail 2033

Queen City Stunt Coaster 2035

Diamondback 2041

 To just maintain replacement rate they are going to have to up the installations unless they can milk these rides for more than 32 years... Good luck with that.

I didn't say they never have to add another roller coaster, my statement was they could not adding anything new in 2- 4 years.  Only Flight of Fear would fall in that timeframe.  With it being an indoor coaster out of the elements it's life could be longer than other metal costers. 

Remember Corkscrew at Cedar Point is still operating after 49 years (built 1976).  

It has been shown that metal coasters can have re-tracking done such as Fury 325 a couple years ago.

According to chatgpt:

• Common operational lifespan for a medium-sized steel coaster is often around 30–40 years before major refurbishment, retracking, or retirement becomes economically likely for a park.

• Some parks invest in continuous maintenance and retracking, allowing coasters to operate well beyond that range (50+ years) if they remain popular and structurally sound.

Interestingly enough the oldest operating all steel coaster is Little Dipper at Memphis Kiddie Park in Ohio (yes a kiddie coaster) was made in 1952.

Remember we had Firehawk and Vortex at one time.  Both "large" coasters.  The only replacement was Orion.  People still keep coming.  It's not all about coasters especially as KI tries to become more family friendly. 

That being said, I would expect a new coaster in 2028 or 2029 at the old Vortex spot.  

 

[KI Guy]

^ You may have missed my point which was that there are longer term effects when not investing. They may not see a drop in attendance those 2 – 4 years, but in the long-term the park can start to suffer.

Full retracking/refurbishment of steel coasters is exceedingly rare. I can only think of four occurrences off the top of my head. Usually by the time a steel coaster needs retracking it is no longer popular enough to justify a very expensive retrack. There may end up being a longer life for B&Ms and Intimins vs the old Arrows, but that is an unknown at this point.

The 8 or 9 year gap between coasters you lay out is just not sustainable if Kings Island is to remain the Kings Island we grew up with. Note that I do recognize the unusual circumstances the park finds itself in right now so this could be understood by the park with this being a one-off.

[robintodd]

11 hours ago, KI Guy said:

^ You may have missed my point which was that there are longer term effects when not investing. They may not see a drop in attendance those 2 – 4 years, but in the long-term the park can start to suffer.

Full retracking/refurbishment of steel coasters is exceedingly rare. I can only think of four occurrences off the top of my head. Usually by the time a steel coaster needs retracking it is no longer popular enough to justify a very expensive retrack. There may end up being a longer life for B&Ms and Intimins vs the old Arrows, but that is an unknown at this point.

The 8 or 9 year gap between coasters you lay out is just not sustainable if Kings Island is to remain the Kings Island we grew up with. Note that I do recognize the unusual circumstances the park finds itself in right now so this could be understood by the park with this being a one-off.

I see you point, just not that adding a roller coaster is a must for a park like KI.  One of the main concerns is that KI has a need for more flat rides.  Also the larger the park is the more it takes to keep up the current park without adding anything new.

Not sure where you're getting the 8 or 9 year gap.  The last coaster we had was 2024 and I'm looking at 2029 at the lastest (hopefully 2028) for the next coaster.  They have twice waited 5 years between coasters and 6 times they have waited 4 years.

The Kings Island we grew up with is different than the park now.  Then they were fighting to get recognition and the area around the park wasn't nearly as built up with homes as it is now.  They had plenty of undeveloped land and a much smaller footprint to keep up than today.  The KI of old not only had coasters but also quality shows to draw people.  Not all was good, however because KI always wanted to be the "first" which burned them at times with the original Bat being the biggest example of this followed by Son of Beast.  The fantastic times we grew up in with CP and KI each adding a coster every other year if not every year are gone for good (they were good times!).  A park can only have so many coasters, not only for employee and maintenance costs but I'm sure there is also insurance costs.  In the past they just needed to prep land and build a coster.  Now they may also need to add in the cost of getting rid of an existing coaster to add a new one. 

I did a quick look at coasters and when they were built listing the number of years since the last coaster.  (I was curious) and found the average number of years between coasters is 3.25.  If I missed any in the table below let me know but I found it interesting.  Again I may have missed something, let me know.  I'm a data nerd so I just had to look this up.  Now I need to look at it for CP.
 

Coaster	Year Built	Year Since Last Coaster
The Racer	1972
Woodstock Express	1972	0
Screamin’ Demon / Demon	1977	5
The Bat (1981)	1981	4
King Cobra	1984	3
Vortex	1987	3
Adventure Express	1991	4
Great Pumpkin Coaster	1992	1
Flight of Fear	1996	4
Invertigo	1999	3
Son of Beast	2000	1
Woodstock’s Air Rail	2001	1
Queen City Stunt Coaster	2005	4
Diamondback	2009	4
Banshee	2014	5
Mystic Timbers	2017	3
Orion	2020	3
Snoopy’s Soap Box Racers	2024	4
AVERAGE YEARS		3.25

 

 

[robintodd]

Had to do it   (Again, if I missed any, let me know).  Interesting how close the averages are.
 

Blue Streak	1964
Cedar Creek Mine Ride	1969	5
Corkscrew	1976	7
Gemini	1978	2
WildCat	1979	1
Wilderness Run (Jr. Gemini)	1979	0
Iron Dragon	1987	8
Magnum XL-200	1989	2
Raptor	1994	5
Rougarou (formerly Mantis)	1996	2
Millennium Force	2000	4
Top Thrill Dragster	2003	3
Maverick	2007	4
GateKeeper	2013	6
Valravn	2016	3
Steel Vengeance (rebuilt from Mean Streak)	2018	2
Wild Mouse	2023	5
Top Thrill 2	2024	1
Siren’s Curse	2025	1
AVERAGE YEARS		3.39

[KI Guy]

1 hour ago, robintodd said:

Not sure where you're getting the 8 or 9 year gap.  The last coaster we had was 2024 and I'm looking at 2029 at the lastest (hopefully 2028) for the next coaster.  They have twice waited 5 years between coasters and 6 times they have waited 4 years.

The 8 or 9 year gap was based on the time from Orion in 2020 to the next major coaster installation which you anticipate in 2028 or 2029. If the park did this the whole time, they existed they would have about 6 or 7 large coasters right now assuming none of them were torn down. That is not replacement rate. Again, I think this could be a one off.

Thanks for your numbers above. You did forget Firehawk in 2007*. That is worth mentioning because the seven-year gap from Son of Beast to Firehawk is for now the longest gap between large coasters in the park's history.

 

* Also the Bavarian Beetle, The Bat (1993), and Scooby's Ghoster Coaster.

[TheCrypt]

Thanks, robintodd, for compiling this list. It's super interesting to see this lineage listed out.

I distilled the list into what I think many would consider to be "the" major coaster installments--that is, big, landmark, adrenaline pumping attractions. (I also added The Beast and Top Gun to this list... )

The Racer (1972)

Screamin' Demon (1977)

The Beast (1979)

The Bat (1981)

King Cobra (1984)

Vortex (1987)

---

Top Gun (1993)

Flight of Fear (1996)

Face/Off (1999)

Son of Beast (2000)

---

Firehawk (2007)

Diamondback (2009)

Banshee (2014)

Mystic Timbers (2017)

Orion (2020)

What I see from looking at this data is that there have been three distinct surges of big coaster additions in the park's history: they were added consistently between 1977 and 1987; 1993 and 2000; and 2007 and 2020. It also looks like those coincide with changes in ownership: the transition from Taft to KECO is at the tail end of the first era, then the purchase by Paramount, and then Cedar Fair. It should also be noted that, overall, Cedar Fair seems to have made a special impact on the park in their time: all major coaster additions have been guest favorites and highly reliable. Their stretch of routine coaster additions also spans the longest amount of time compared to prior owners.

The data also shows that while Kings Island may have always catered to families, thrill seekers were never really excluded from the equation for a majority of park history. Even in those "off years" between big coasters, there have been other significant draws for thrill seekers like Delirium, Tomb Raider, Xtreme Skyflyer, and even the backwards Racer. This is on top of other family additions like the aforementioned smaller coasters, kids area renovations, the Lion Country Safari, the original Phantom Theater, Adventure Express, etc.

Overall, it's clear that the park has fared far better than many others. I also do believe that every addition we've had since Orion has been a net positive for the park as a whole. But it seems hard to not feel that there is currently an unusual and distinct lack of the fresh thrills the park has (mostly) always kept up with. The additions like Snoopy's Soapbox Racers, Adventure Port, and Phantom Theater are well-received, but in the past, there has often been a greater effort to add more extreme additions at the same time. The formula post-Orion is seemingly "one or the other," whereas the park we've been used to has often felt like "both" was an option.

We are now approaching the longest gap between major thrill attractions, not just coasters, the park has ever faced. Speaking just for myself, I do feel that gap a lot these days.

[robintodd]

1 hour ago, TheCrypt said:

Overall, it's clear that the park has fared far better than many others. I also do believe that every addition we've had since Orion has been a net positive for the park as a whole. But it seems hard to not feel that there is currently an unusual and distinct lack of the fresh thrills the park has (mostly) always kept up with. The additions like Snoopy's Soapbox Racers, Adventure Port, and Phantom Theater are well-received, but in the past, there has often been a greater effort to add more extreme additions at the same time. The formula post-Orion is seemingly "one or the other," whereas the park we've been used to has often felt like "both" was an option.

We are now approaching the longest gap between major thrill attractions, not just coasters, the park has ever faced. Speaking just for myself, I do feel that gap a lot these days.

I often wonder exactly how close we came to getting Siren's Curse.  My guess is that had TT2 operated consistently from the start we would have gotten Sirens last year.     

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

32 minutes ago, robintodd said:

I often wonder exactly how close we came to getting Siren's Curse.  My guess is that had TT2 operated consistently from the start we would have gotten Sirens last year.     

I heard a rumor that the park turned it down bc they would've had to cut trees too close to The Beast (assuming it was going to go in The Vortex site). I don't remember where I heard it though. Not to mention The Vortex site is not flat so they would've had to do some major work to be able to put it there. I also doubt Mr. Koontz wanted to remove any more major rides for it (which is why it didn't go in the Invertigo/Congo/TW area which it actually would've fit well there).

Also the park was already lined up for a waterpark expansion in 2025 which was more overdue than a major coaster. Siren's Curse likely wasn't decided on for CP until like mid summer after Mexico couldn't get it built.