Six Flags & Cedar Fair are MERGING?! Pros & Cons (2023)
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- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
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Will they permanently close Six Flags America
And bring back holiday in the park??
Several parks will be sold or closed. I hate Six Flags. I do hope that Six Flags doesn't bring down the Cedar Fair parks. I'm very worried about this, mergers are never good. This will also cut down on competition between the parks. Competition is always good and makes the parks reach higher levels. Season passes will be outrageous.
Whatcompetition?
I'm less concerned about competition than I am parks being sold off. There are few cases where Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks compete directly for their markets. And even in cases like Magic Mountain vs Knotts, Great Adventure vs Dorney, America vs Kings Dominion, Saint Louis vs WOF....etc, those parks still aren't really competing with each other as directly as their physical proximity would suggest. They either have a large market with broader competitors or their main guest base doesn't actually overlap nearly that much.
The big issue is that the only reason for these types of mergers (as opposed to one company buying out another) is when they feel they need to shed assets because they are unstable so they merge to build a stronger base that can survive the cuts. I'm especially worried because some of these parks are in areas with extremely valuable real estate and the housing/property market in the country is very expensive right now anyway. I think there is a good chance that if parks get sold that several of them will be closed and the land redeveloped. This already almost happened to Magic Mountain despite it being the flag ship of its chain. Companies in debt will sell to the highest bidder. It's not like they'll only sell to someone who pinky swears to continue operating the park to keep the fans happy. In fact, to the extent that competition does matter, a park that is sold and continues to operate only becomes a new competitor. My biggest fear by far is park closures.
@@nancyfarkas3592competition between SF and CF
My main concern is parks being sold off. These types of mergers usually happen when both companies feel that they are financially unstable and they need to shed assets in order to survive but they're afraid that major sell offs will further destabilize them. So they merge to build a stronger base that can survive as they sell off assets. In this case, that means parks and rides.
With that comes the concern that some of those park sales will result in park closures. Some of these parks exist on very expensive property (as we already saw with CGA and even Magic Mountain was almost sold to be turned into housing a decade ago.) If the new Six Flags is trying to prevent its own collapse they will gladly sell parks to land and housing developers who want to build apartments, HOAs or strip malls if they offer a higher price than someone who wants to continue operating the park. And real estate has become very expensive across the board right now.
And if they are cash strapped, I don't think we can just assume a park is safe because it is popular. Knotts would probably be safe because it brings in so much revenue. Cedar Point would probably be safe because it is the region's largest attraction and if it closed it would directly affect property values making it less appealing for developers (though it's still a nice piece of property.) But some housing markets are quite hot recently like Charlotte, NC, the Dallas metro, Chicagoland and to some extent Atlanta. And less popular parks like Great Escape, Michigan's Adventure, WOF.... etc, may simply be assets to be sold off regardless of their housing markets.
been waiting for this!!!
I am actually very excited for this. We've seen similar success in 2017 when we Bass Pro Shops acquire Cabela's, and although this is a merger instead of an acquisition, I still think we can see a lot of good come from this as well. I don't know what six labs can provide Cedar Fair, but I bet Six Flags can learn a lot from Cedar Fair, such as better operations, improvements in atmosphere and cleanliness, and less ride closures.
I am concerned about them selling off parks a little bit, but if they were to do that, I think they would mostly sell off any unnecessary Hurricane Harbor waterparks. I don't think they would sell off any big major parks unless it was a last choice kind of situation. Although, if they were to sell off a few, my first choices would be to sell off Frontier City and Hurricane Harbor to (preferably) Herschend Entertainment, and La Ronde to the city of Montreal and have them hire somebody else to operate it.
I am extremely worried about the investments issue, especially with Six Flags America as my home park, though I do have Kings Dominion not to far away.
SF America is my home park as well. It’s only about 30 mins away, however we never go there. We make the choice to travel to Hershey Park, Kings Dominion or even Busch Gardens or SF Great Adventure instead. Between the bad operations and the fact it’s just not safe at night or on the weekends, would anyone really miss it? I hate to say that considering I’ve been going there since it was Wild World, but it’s true! It’s glory days are long gone and the land is worth a staggering amount of money. It’s an easy decision.
Great video! Im very interested in seeing what becomes of this!
Thanks!
@@CoasterDash You're very welcome!
Most of the small parks are safe. They may be sold to new owners, but they won't be shut down.
A park is shut down for one if two reasons (1) it's not profitable, (2) the land is just ridiculous valuable.
Michigan's Adventure is the butt of jokes, but makes profit for Cedar Fair. And the land around it is of low value.
CGA was sold to shut down as the profit Margins were razer thin (Michigan's Adventure actually made more net profit some years) with the high costs of business in Silicon Valley. And the Silicon Valley land it sits on is the most valuable in the country, save Manhattan.
The one potential one is SF America as the park underperforms significantly, has other chain owned parks in the area, and is fairly valuable land (Washington DC metro).
That doesn't mean the small parks might not be sold to other chains that specialize in smaller parks, nor would they get investments (Grand rapids doesn't really leave MA with much growth potential). But they won't be shut down. Save maybe SF America, and maybe SF La Ronde (which is under an awkward lease, and not owned by SF)
I’m just hoping six flags doesn’t adopt IROC. Six flags used to use IROC back in the day and they dropped it for a reason. I know six flags is known for “bad operations” but I don’t see that. Any cedar fair park that isn’t KI or CP, has horrible operations. Even then, CP and KI require ridiculous amounts of staffing to keep the lines moving.
What’s wrong with IROC
As someone in Northern California I will be super bummed to see CGA close down but if they can use some of the resources from there to improve and upgrade SF Discovery Kingdom.
Did you get to go to alton towers on your europe trip?
what i want to know is if employees will now get in to all the parks for free cuz that would be sick for me! What i'm excited for is the potential for parks to work with manufacturers they haven't in a while.
You know from video to video I've watched and listened to people cover this on different channels and the message is always the same. Generally speaking everything on the Six Flags side is messed up. Meanwhile everything on the Cedar Fair side is sunshine and rainbows. I just don't think it's that black and white. I personally think both companies can learn from one another and both can improve in some areas to make their respective parks better.
This has nothing to do with debt and will have no effect on competition, they never really competed. Regional themes parks main competition isn't other theme parks, it's other entertainment options in the local area, movies, FEC's, etc....and time and money, people have limited time and money for various local entertainment options.
One thing I want to mention is that Six Flags doesn't own Darien Lake or Frontier City, those are owned by EPR Properties which is a REIT so, Six Flags can't sell those parks they can only drop them leaving EPR to find another operator for them. My question is that Cedar Fair loves resort parks and Darien Lake is one of them with an on-site hotel, campground, cabins, concert venue, waterpark and of course the amusement park, would they offer EPR to buy that park and invest in it, or drop that park, or keep operating it as is?
Thanks for the clarification! I’m also curious about the direction of Six Flags Darien Lake
@CoasterDash Another possibility is that perhaps Six Flags can do trade deals with EPR, for example, SF could give them SFA, La Ronde, Michigan's Adventure for Darien.
Nice opinion 👌
they said 42 properties not parks! and that this merger will free up 200 million extra in spending money combined so they will be able to invest more
the park i fear is la ronde, I live in Atlantic Canada where our best coaster is a wildcat model from schwartkopf so la ronde has always been the best park to go to for thrills cause its the only one that's somewhat in driving distance, luckily i heard its in no danger but i still worry sometimes cause that park means a lot to me
Bet the season passes be sky high
My only point of excitement is the idea of one pass for all those parks. But it’s hard for me to imagination this domination of the market will not suppress investment.
Can someone explain the details about the pass that lets you into all 42 parks
There are none yet. Details haven’t been announced.
@@CoasterDash alright, thank you!
I’m not for or against this new development. I just don’t know, so I’m at a wait and see opinion right now.
I can’t wait to go to Six Flags Carowinds to lug around and fill up my stupid refillable bottle that I never needed before now cuz I already had a much better paper cup drink plan
Hope they survive the slow economy and refinance that debt to free up some capital for new rides.
I heard great America is actually expanding. So why are people worried?
If you're talking about SFGAM,yeah there could be expansion for that in the future,it you're talking about CGA.That park in going to close down in a couple years,so it probably won't get anything new untill it's closes.
Two Biggest chains in North America combining maybe there worried about the Middle East Parks
Unfair competition?
Took you a bit!
I think your con #1 is good because Seawold Hershey and Hershandould by them and get investment
Monopoly?
No
El Toro Ryan did a really good video explaining how it's not a monopoly
Not even close. Even if they bought out SeaWorld and BG, still less than 10 percent.
By the legal definition, not at all. Depending on where you live, it may feel like one.