September 22, 2025 • 31 mins
Six Flags reported 298,000 more visits this summer, a 3% attendance bump compared to 2024. But guests spent 7% less on admission, pulling overall revenue down 2% even as food and merch ticked up. Management insists that trading short-term ticket prices for long-term passholder growth will pay off, pointing to early 2026 pass sales pacing ahead with prices up 3%.
Philip and Scott unpack why this strategy only works if guests return—and how seasonal event cuts complicate the picture. Knott’s Scary Farm dropped all Wednesday nights, while Magic Mountain cut Thursday Fright Fests, following news of other properties abruptly canceling both Halloween and Christmas, despite passholder expectations. Cost savings may help hit this year’s $860–910M EBITDA target, but at what risk to guest trust and long-term loyalty? PLUS - Scott is on-location at IAAPA Expo Europe! Listen to weekly BONUS episodes on our Patreon.
Philip and Scott unpack why this strategy only works if guests return—and how seasonal event cuts complicate the picture. Knott’s Scary Farm dropped all Wednesday nights, while Magic Mountain cut Thursday Fright Fests, following news of other properties abruptly canceling both Halloween and Christmas, despite passholder expectations. Cost savings may help hit this year’s $860–910M EBITDA target, but at what risk to guest trust and long-term loyalty? PLUS - Scott is on-location at IAAPA Expo Europe! Listen to weekly BONUS episodes on our Patreon.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
From our studios this week in Los Angeles and Port
and Ventura in Spain. This is green Tag Theme Park
and thirty. I'm Philip. I'm joined by Scott Swinson, a
Scott Swinson creat development. On green Tag, we look at
the top theme park news each week and explain why
it matters to business professionals. And this week we're going
to start with six Flags news, but then discuss a
(00:22):
little bit of the on location reporting from Scott, who
is at Ayapa Europe at Port Adventura.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yep, I'm here for the IAP stuff, the IAP training,
and then tomorrow will do a an Edge of tour
and then I'll head then we head back to Barcelona
to do the actual expo itself, where I'll be doing
another session and get a chance to walk the floor
so for at least for part of the day. So,
(00:54):
but let's let's talk about six Flags because I think
this is a very interesting story. Don't panic. I'll talk
a little bit about here too because I think it's
really cool.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, So we're going to start off this week with
a little bit of news that came out from six Flags.
Everyone has been reporting on and basically it's said the
attendance is up. So Six Flags attendance increased three percent
compared to last year. Following the bad previous earnings college
we talked about, they attributed some of their previous decline
(01:22):
to bad weather and presumably that has you know, passed
a little bit. They said that season passed sales for
twenty twenty six are strong and they have refirmed their
full year EBITA. Now here's the thing buried in all
of this. If you actually read the full disclosure, you'll
see that attendance is up, yes, but revenue is down
because people are paying less per ticket. So basically management
(01:45):
is arguing that they traded some short term ticket pricing
power for long term volume and passholder growth. And that's
what they're really trying to do, is they're just trying
to cheap. They're basically reducing the price the ticket, cheap
in the price of ticket to get more passholder growth,
and then they're saying that that's going to be more
long term because they're hoping these guests will spend more
over time. So the argument then, of course only works
(02:09):
if the quality is maintained, because otherwise the past holders
aren't going to come back. Enough to offset this this
pricing degradation. Right, that's that's me. Sorry, that's that's my
interpretation of it. So it's admissions per cap fell about
seven percent, like, so that that's a chunk that it's
(02:29):
fell due to the discounts and promotions. For that, the
mix also mattered, so there's more lower spending customers. So
it's skewing prices downwards. So I guess it's not all bad.
I think there are some things to consider, right. It's like,
I think all of this hinges on the quality. And
(02:51):
every time we've talked and I'm just going to say,
every time we talked about six Flags, everybody in the
Commons has said the quality is terrible. I haven't found
anybody who has said the quality has maintained. But we
don't have the guest satisfaction survey data with us.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Right, so maybe they don't.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Maybe you know, the guests are okay, they don't care,
or potentially they're attracting new or more price sensitive demographics,
you know, like they're bringing in people who never would
have paid full price and so they care less about
the quality. Right by that thing, So there's increasing that
and you know, we still don't know right how the
(03:28):
pass at engagement is going to go over time, So
I guess there's still a chance for the strategy to work.
I guess I'm just saying. I'm just saying that I'm
not even sure what we would look at to watch
the indicators. One indicator we might look at is Halloween,
and as we reported last week, they're removed all of
the Wednesday dates from Not Scary Farm before opening and
(03:51):
had to rebook people they weren't offering refunds, which I
thought was weird, and then they had to also they
removed all the Thursday nights from Right Fast at six
Flags Magic Mountain, and then they also just announced this
week that Sesame Place is closing already.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Today's the last day they're going to.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Be open for the season, which means they're not doing
Halloween of Christmas, which means yet again they have sold
season passes to people where they promise them longer opening
calendar than what they ended up delivering. So again I'm
just putting that out there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, all do you thinks got well, I think all
of these well, let's let's let's break it down, because
they're not it's it's it's difficult to paint these all
with the same brush. I think, although I think they
are parallel, I think they are very much related. Let's start.
Let's start with the the money's down, but the attendance
is up. Let's let's start with that basic they're in theory.
(04:48):
In my opinion, in theory, they're justification is is accurate.
It could potentially work to their advantage to draw more
people in. You know, there's always been that we talk
about north Star all the time, and when you're not
reaching your goals, quite often it is a popular choice
(05:13):
with large parks to switch your north Star. You know,
we're talking about let's let's make our north Star. We're
gonna make We're gonna make X amount of dollars. Okay,
But when you see that you're not gonna make that,
then you have to spend the narrative because quite often
you have to convince your stockholders we're doing okay, We're
doing okay, and quite honestly, they probably are doing okay.
(05:36):
They're not doing great, but they probably are doing okay.
What you have to recognize is stockholders don't get paid
in attendance. Stockholders earn their money in in revenue and profits.
So it will. Could this potentially work by opening up
their park to a newer audience, a different audience to
your point, Philip, an audience that may not have come
(05:58):
at full price? Yeah, yeah, that may that may work
for them, but how are they going to maintain that offen?
That are those guests who aren't able to come at
full price when they go back to full price, that's
right when they when they start to bring their ticket
price back to where it should have been. You know,
it's it's kind of the old adage. If you have
(06:19):
a fifty dollars pair of jeans and you sell them
for ten, you now have a ten dollars pair of jeens,
because nobody's going to pay the fifty dollars for them again.
So you have to be kind of careful with this
strategy because this strategy, you know, it's it's the same
the same idea, and and several parks have done it now,
which is the pay for a day, come back all year,
making a limited season pass of some sort excuse me,
(06:44):
the price of one admission. And on paper, it's a
great it's an easy sell because you can say, oh, look,
most guests in our area only come once a year, anyway,
So if we can get a second visit out of them,
then we'll earn more in culinary merchandise, bringing along a friend,
that kind of thing. Yep, sorry, I've been talking all day,
(07:06):
so it's hi. So I think that's an important thing
to keep in mind. I am not going to say
that this is disastrous news. I'm not going to say
that they're doing this to be deceptive. I will say
that this is kind of common practice. So when they
recognize we have to have something positive to tell our stockholders.
(07:29):
I think we've seen a different version of this with
other parks in the past. Sometimes it's hey, look at
all the new things we're building. That happens. Sometimes it's
look at our per cap. Our per cap is skyrocketing. Okay,
but that's because half the number of people are coming
(07:49):
to the park, and you know your overall revenue is tanking.
There's there's there is. I would say this much whitewashing
going on just to be able to say something good
for the for the stockholders. And again, you don't want
to lose the stockholders either. You got to make sure
that that they're going to be there to continue to support.
So you got to I don't want to say throw
(08:10):
them a bone, but you have to. You have to
do at least some positive spin. I will say, though,
I am so sick and tired of hearing that the
weather is one of the reasons. I know, I know,
I know. I will say it's funny that since you know,
being here with a bunch of theme park professionals from
(08:32):
around the world. We had a discussion yesterday that was
the stockholders are tired of hearing that weather is the issue.
They're not buying it anymore, they're not leaving it anymore,
and they're they're also saying kind of what we've been
saying is the weather is not going to change. The
weather is going to be the weather. And yes, it
(08:54):
will vary slightly from season to season. Yes there are
wetter seasons than others, there are drier seasons than others.
But what do we know. Well, you know what the
average temperature is going to be. It will fluctuate, but
you still know what the temperature is going to be.
You know that it's going to rain sometime, so you
have to have a plan for that. When we back
(09:17):
during back during COVID. Sorry I hate to use this
reference yet again, but back during COVID when I was
taking the Post Crisis Leadership certification, they basically said, you
have to make it part of your business model that
you planned for these contingencies. It's not like, oh my gosh,
the weather was so bad this year and it just
(09:39):
caught us totally off guard. Well, that to me is
more negative towards the planning of the company than it
is an excuse for not making your numbers. You have
to plan for the fact that it could be a
rainy season. You have to put that into your and
plan for it time. If you don't have to put
(10:01):
that plan into place, great, that's great. But you have
to budget so that you can put that plan into place.
Whatever that plan may look like, and it may look like,
you know, you do a last minute you do a
last minute change, you do a you plan to have,
you plan to have return visits, you know, because I
(10:22):
know nobody wants to do that. They they always it's like,
you know, a rain or shine, no refunds. But the
truth is, when you do that, then people leave and
just simply don't come back. Yeah, so you kind of
have to to weigh those And I'm not saying those
are the only answers, But I think it's I think
it's important for teams, leadership teams to recognize what is
(10:46):
our plan when it rains, because it's not what is
our plan if it rains? Or in Florida, it's not
what is our plan if it's hot? You know, just
like in Saudi, what is our plan when it's hot? No,
it's going to be hot. So I think I think
that that crisis planning, whether that crisis quote unquote happens
to be weather, or that crisis happens to be a disease,
(11:09):
or that crisis happens to be an economic downturn, or
whatever you need. There's enough business analysts out there. In fact,
I was working with one here at IAP who works
for a business analyst company that their primary job is
doing pre park evaluations. So is there a feasibilities there's
(11:33):
feasibility studies that say yeah, that's a good idea. Those
do include, by the way, those do include weather contingencies.
You know, what is the tea in a swat analysis threats?
You have to have that kind of mentality that you're
helping to prepare for it. So that was just a
long way of saying it is now a global issue
(11:54):
that people are going weather is no longer an excuse.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, well yeah, so if I'm in the summer, everything
I would say again, their tendance is up, but they're
spinning is down, and their long term strategy is that
people are coming back. And to Scott's point, they have
not like they blamed weather previously and now the weather
is fine, so they're not mentioning it yet yet keyword yet,
(12:19):
but they also have not made or announced any plans
to resolve that. So what's going to happen again next
year when the same weather happens again, right, and then
people don't come back? That their plan on coming back
and they've already degraded their pricing. I think that's what
Scott's saying. And then at the same time, again, this
all hinges on those guests coming back, right and spending more.
(12:40):
And if they don't have a plan for the weather,
or also if they don't invest in the quality in
the parks, then again this all comes back to the execution.
Are they gonna, like Scott's, are they going to make
a plan for what to do about these disruptions that
they just came out of, and are they going to
make a plan to invest or to get encourage people
coming back, and so far, all we have seen is
(13:02):
actions that do not align with that, like no plan
about the weather, cutting of seasonal events that encourage repeat visitation,
not investing in quality improvements, you know, like all the
things that they're saying they have not been doing. They've
just been doing stuff like Scott had said, that kind
of looks good to investors, like they've been going in
cutting costs, and they've been changing the goal post and
(13:25):
cutting costs so that it looks good, but the quality
has not improved so far, like I have, I've seen
nothing to say anywhere the quality any of the parts
has improved. And I've also not seen anybody say that online.
And then the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments
that we've gotten about about experiences at six Legs, nobody
has said that the quality has improved. So that's that's
(13:45):
the gamble. And then, of course, like to Scott's point,
we just got out of the one rough weather season
and we're going to go into another one soon, and
what are they going to do about that? And then
if people don't want to go out because there's no
covering there's no there's no heat, there's no protection.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Then that's going to hurt this plan. So that's it.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, And you know, it's interesting because certain parks in
certain areas actually in the past, and here at Port Aventura,
for example, they use weather as a selling point.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
We've got beautiful weather here. California has beautiful weather, Florida
has beautiful weather. Yeah. Well Chicago does not have beautiful
weather here around that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well yeah, So what I was gonna say is I
think that basically closes our stance on the six Flags item.
But I think the through line here is that Scott
is been walking around for Adventurer and been learning about
that park and been teaching there, and I think from
what I've heard that seems to be this seems to
be a park that is maintaining or improving quality, which
(14:53):
is encouraging visitation. So I think that's what we get
to hear from Scott because he's there on location to
actually look at everything and let us know how are
they doing and how are they improving their quality?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Well, and I have to I have to be transparent,
and I have to say that this is anecdotal, but
it's anecdotal from a a personal observation standpoint. A couple
of the things. First of all, if you have never
been to port Aventura World north of Barcelona or outside
of Barcelona. I don't even know where they were north,
but outside of Barcelona, it is a park that is
(15:26):
you should put on your radar. It is a park
that you know. Kind of going back through its history
when it first was conceived, Anheuser Busch actually had a
hand in and some of the some of the original
planning was based on the Bush Gardens parks that went
away very very quickly, and they're celebrating they're now celebrating
(15:48):
their thirtieth anniversary this year, so that's that's not really
a factor, but it was. It had Anheuser Busch influence
when the Bush Gardens parks were incredibly viable, were incredibly successful,
had very much top quality, and so that that sort
(16:11):
of mentality has stuck. It's a gigantic park, it is.
It's got so many different ips it's almost confusing. I
will say it is a little strange to have Woody Woodpecker,
the Sesame Street Gang, and Ferrari Land all in the
(16:34):
same park. But they do they do some very very
interesting things that are unique, at least from my perspective,
in this park. Now, other parks that you may say, oh, no,
X y Z Park does this, has always done this,
but I'd never encountered this some of the examples. Because
Ferrari Land has its own it has a gate from
(16:56):
the park and a gate from the outside. They act
actually open. They don't open until the afternoon and stay
open later at night. I think this is really smart
because Ferrari Land has a tendency to appeal to an
older audience, to an older crowd. So if the if
the guests want to come and do port Aventura, the
(17:19):
port Aventura Park during the day and then stay into
the night, move into into Ferrari and Ferrari opens a
few hours before they do the final fireworks or fireworks
and water show in port Aventura, and you literally just
walk into the park and then you can ride you know,
the Ferrari Launch coaster that's here, which is amazing. I
(17:42):
haven't ridden it yet, but I'll hopefully get to do
it tomorrow. Looks amazing. I'll say that, and go into
that realm, do the go karts over there, you know,
have that fun. So it's a staggered opening, staggered clothes
between two parks that don't really have separate entrances or
have a separate gate, but do have separate entrances and
(18:05):
access points, which I think is really interesting. Another thing
that is unique about this park is all of the
park hotels, and there are several All of the park
hotels have direct access to the park, so you don't
it's not even like it's it's it's more like epic
than it is anything else or Grand Californian. You know,
(18:27):
the where you literally go. And what's interesting is your
room key gets you access to the parks, so you
it is included in the hotel price, so you just.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
You just buying an extra ticket, right, just staying there
and then you get in ye yep.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And the hotels are laid out very nicely. Uh they're comfortable.
I won't say that they are there at least not.
The one I'm staying in is the highest of quality,
but it's certainly not the lowest. If nothing else, I mean,
this one is they're they're theming is stellar. This one
is themed like an old old West town. I'm staying
(19:11):
in the Gold River Hotel, and I mean if you can,
those of you who are watching it, if you can
see behind me, you know I have a patchwork quilt
and an iron bed and hurricane lamps, you know, So
they've gone to an effort to create. And then the
rest of the hotel. I'm in the main building, which
is called town Hall, and then the rest of the
hotel is a series of outbuildings, just like many Disney resorts,
(19:35):
quite honestly, a series of outbuildings that are all themed
as though you're walking through either a ghost town or
an Old West town, however you want to phrase it.
And then interesting thing is when you walk into the park,
because it's so seamless. When you walk into the park,
you walk into the park that's called the Far West,
so all the only thing that lets you know you're
(19:56):
really in the park, it's not even a visual. Thematic
thing is the you swipe your room key and going
to the park. So I love the seamlessness. I love
the fact that they took I won't call it Disney level,
but a Disney approach, let's put it that way. I
was walking with I was walking with Max from my APPA.
(20:18):
We were walking around the hotel and we both said
this feels like the way a Disney hotel would operate,
because it's got the same outbuildings, it's got the same
kind of They want to make sure that you feel
like you're still having the port Aventura World experience when
you're in the hotel. It's not a disconnect. You don't
(20:40):
have to ride a bus to it, you don't have
to take any sort of trait. You just literally walk
out of the park and you're at your hotel, which
is which I think is great. Other interesting things, I
love their commitment to sustainability and being green, and it's
(21:00):
it's it's in a lot of obvious things, and then
it's in and then it's to me even more obvious
in the little things, because you know, sometimes if you
do little things really, really well and you take that
attention to detail, it actually has a bigger impact than
if you say, I'm going to do this great, big thing.
And let me give you some examples. There are no
paper cups in the park. When you buy a drink,
(21:23):
it is in a plastic cup. It is a decorated
souvenir plastic cup, and you're thinking, oh, okay, they just
jack up the price, so you have to take the
plastic cup home, but when you buy a drink, you
also get a receipt that has a QR code on it,
and you can return the cup with the receipt and
get one year oh back. So it's it's kind of
(21:43):
like everything old is new again. If you were if
you're my age or older, you remember when you know,
soda bottles were like coke bottles were glass and you
pipe paid a deposit and when you return them you
got your deposit back. It's exactly that way with these.
Now I've chosen to keep this as a souvenir, which
again puts more money towards their bottom line because I'm
(22:04):
sure this cup does not cost them a euro so
and it doesn't end up in a trash heap. It
doesn't end up in a trash barrel, but the one
that has. And all of the people that have been
teaching IAP with me are just like Scott, would you
shut up about this? But these just kind of blow
me away. You know, every convention center has our convention
(22:24):
facility at a theme park has disposable pens that they
put out and with a concern about microplastics in the
oceans and how you know, disposable pens and disposable razors
are two of the biggest contributors to that. The pens
at port Aventuro World in their conventions that are made
of paper. They're kind of they're kind of made like
(22:46):
the the blending stick that you use when you do charcoal,
and then they've got a paper cap so when they
are thrown and they write really well. They're not garbage pens.
So at the end of the day, when you know
five people have either left them or thrown them away
or whatever, they're not contributing to the micro plastics problem.
(23:08):
Now I haven't dissected them yet. I'm pretty sure that
there is some plastic in the center to hold the ink,
but they're basically rolled paper to make up everything else.
And I think that's brilliant. I think that is on
brand for them. It is conservation minded and it's really
really smart. So it's that kind of attention to detail
that you know when Philip talks about quality that they're
(23:29):
showing us. Now, once you get into the park, the
park is built with these beautiful vistas all the different lands.
There's there's Polynesia, there's Mediterranean, there's Mexico, there is the
Far West, which is the American cowboy Town, and then
there's then there's Ferrari World, and there's there's Sesame Adventure. Now,
(23:51):
I have to say I've worked in several parks that
have had Sesame lands, Sesame street lands in them. This
is my new favorite. It is it's huge, it's well done,
and it has a dark ride that is a gamified
dark ride where you're trying to find the Golden Cookie
and or the Giant Cookie. And you you ride with
(24:15):
your family and strangers whomever, and you have a wand
that you point at the cookies and gain points, you know,
like men in Black and and you know, all the
I don't want to call them shooter games, but they
kind of are actmet at Warner Brothers World in Abu Dhabi,
so it's it's that kind of gamification. It's super fun.
(24:36):
They have another new dark ride that I'm very excited
to ride but haven't done yet, called Uncharted, and it's
it's going to be part of Tomorrow's Tomorrow's Edge tour,
so I'm excited to see that. But and then when
you talk to the staff, the way the staff is
trained is I think the biggest takeaway I'm gonna I'm
(24:59):
gonna remember about this park and the staff that you
engage with because they are dealing with people from so
many different countries. You know, those of you who are
watching from the US think about, well they're only you know,
the locals are all Spanish. Well that's simply not true.
Because of the location, we're so close to France and
they have a huge, huge influx of guests from the
(25:21):
UK as well. So sometimes communication, you would think would
be a little bit of a problem, But all of
the staff has been trained to engage with you, and
they know just enough French, English, Spanish, catalog, you know,
all the local languages to communicate and they make an
effort to do it. They are proactive in greeting guests,
(25:43):
they are polite when they do it. And here's again
another one of those weird little things that Scott only
Scott notices. One of the students at IAP said, this
guy has an eagle eye for detail. And I really
do thank you, Elaine College. The difference between a good
show and a great show's attention to detail. But anyway,
in one of the in one of the there's bridges
(26:03):
over the water effects kind of like at or the
water area is kind of like at at Iowa Islands
of Adventure. But there was a boat driving underneath and
it was a service boat that was bringing in one
of the one of the inflatable floats for the water
show at the end of the night, and it drove
(26:24):
underneath the bridge we were on and they saw that
we were watching them, and the driver of the boat
backstage behind the scenes, guy turns around and waves at
us and says hello to us. So I know that
seems like a stupid little thing, but if that is
the expectation, if that is the quality level that these
people are trained to, yeah, that's that's wonderful. That's wonderful.
(26:47):
I will say that this is one of the prettiest
parks I've been to in a very long time. And
I've seen a lot of parks around the world, but
this one is I was walking with with Olivia from
from Aquarey via the new water park that's going up
in Kadia City in just outside of Riod, and she said,
I can't believe how green it is now. Granted she's
(27:08):
been living in Saudi Arabia, so there's that, but it
is gorgeous. It is absolutely beautiful. So I realize I've
kind of raved on about the park in things that
the marketing team probably would not have said, Oh, that's
what we're going to sell. You know, let's talk about
our paper pens and our boat driver who waives at guests.
But if that's the kind of level of detail that
(27:29):
they're looking at, their theming is the same way. You
know every inch of this park right now, because they've
just started their Halloween event and this is the last
thing avatargy. I know, I've just kind of gone on
front a rant. I'm sorry, but I am so impressed
with this park that I wanted to share it with
you guys. And again, I think these are all good
takeaways that pretty much anyone can implement, and especially if
(27:51):
you're trying to elevate the quality of your park. But
they just started their Halloween event, and they handle it
in a very unique way. Their Halloween event is runs
concurrently with the park hours. It's it opens in the
afternoon and closes in the early evening. But it's it
focuses on decor. There's park decor everywhere. There are more
(28:14):
live pump more real pumpkins. There have to there are thousands,
thousands of them throughout the park. They have taken a
really simplistic but clever approach to the other forms of decor.
They have all of these skeletons that are posed in
scenes that match the land they're in. So in Polynesia
(28:35):
there are Polynesian dancer skeletons. In uh, the Old West
there is there's a series of three skeletons that are
doing a sack race. They have gunny sacks on their
legs and they're jumping. It's it's amazing. So it's decor,
it's street characters, it shows. There are multiple Halloween shows,
(28:57):
and then they do have haunted walkthroughs, which they call
Passages of Terror something like that. And so what they
do though, is they do charge. There's an up charge
for those so guests can come to the park who
don't want to do haunted houses, similar to what Six
Flags has done in the past. Actually, so what they're
(29:19):
doing now, are they? Yeah? Yeah, oh do all six
Flags but well nots doesn't but other six Flags do. Yeah, No,
they all do it. Now you have to pay extra
to go into the haunt. I mean, if you have
a not season pass, you can't go into hont houses
and they moved over the old Cedar parks used to
be included and now they're not interesting. So what they're
(29:40):
doing then is but they also sell a pass so
you can get either it's like seven euros per house
or there's four houses and it's twenty five euros for
all four. But they claim that they're twenty to thirty
minutes long. But's so crazy. I'm guessing there. I don't
know whether it's true or not. I have not done
(30:01):
the way. Yeah, they could be pulsying. Well, okay, I'm
going to wrap up my what.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
My takeaways from what Scott said, which is that I
think that when we're looking at what makes a quality thing,
because I think that's something we've been talking about for
a while, like how do you get these parks to
quality whatever? And like Scott said, that's not something that
usually is marketed, you know, but it's like more like
it looks good and it feels good, and there are
(30:31):
novel surprising moments throughout your stay, and that can be
a combination of as Scott said, the staff training. Like
there it feels good because you're welcomed, because they they
engage with you, because the staff is happy to see you.
But then it looks good in that like there's good
it looks good, there's green, there's vistas, there's good site lines.
(30:51):
It just looks like a good place to be. But
also the themed nature of the integration with the themings,
integrated all of that, and then those novel moments come,
like Scott said, from the seamlessness. It comes from seeing
the stuff like the skeletons. It comes like those elements
where it just it feels good and easy to be
at these parks and there's not You're not worried about
(31:13):
all of these things. We talked about creature comforts all
the time. You're not worried about where you can find
the bathrooms, and everything is dirty and no one says
hi to you and all these things. And when you
eliminate all of that, I think that's what we're talking about.
What we say like quality, and the question is can
six Flags get that quality that places like Port Inventuria
World have.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
That's a great way to sum it all up, which
is good because we're overtime anyway, which should come as
no surprise because Philip let me talk. So that's just
the way they go anyway. Guys, thank you once again
so much for continuing to listen or to watch us
here on Green Tag Park and thirty. We hope we
will see each and every one of you next week. Bye,
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
From our studios this week in Los Angeles and Port
and Ventura in Spain. This is green Tag Theme Park
and thirty. I'm Philip. I'm joined by Scott Swinson, a
Scott Swinson creat development. On green Tag, we look at
the top theme park news each week and explain why
it matters to business professionals. And this week we're going
to start with six Flags news, but then discuss a
(00:22):
little bit of the on location reporting from Scott, who
is at Ayapa Europe at Port Adventura.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yep, I'm here for the IAP stuff, the IAP training,
and then tomorrow will do a an Edge of tour
and then I'll head then we head back to Barcelona
to do the actual expo itself, where I'll be doing
another session and get a chance to walk the floor
so for at least for part of the day. So,
(00:54):
but let's let's talk about six Flags because I think
this is a very interesting story. Don't panic. I'll talk
a little bit about here too because I think it's
really cool.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, So we're going to start off this week with
a little bit of news that came out from six Flags.
Everyone has been reporting on and basically it's said the
attendance is up. So Six Flags attendance increased three percent
compared to last year. Following the bad previous earnings college
we talked about, they attributed some of their previous decline
(01:22):
to bad weather and presumably that has you know, passed
a little bit. They said that season passed sales for
twenty twenty six are strong and they have refirmed their
full year EBITA. Now here's the thing buried in all
of this. If you actually read the full disclosure, you'll
see that attendance is up, yes, but revenue is down
because people are paying less per ticket. So basically management
(01:45):
is arguing that they traded some short term ticket pricing
power for long term volume and passholder growth. And that's
what they're really trying to do, is they're just trying
to cheap. They're basically reducing the price the ticket, cheap
in the price of ticket to get more passholder growth,
and then they're saying that that's going to be more
long term because they're hoping these guests will spend more
over time. So the argument then, of course only works
(02:09):
if the quality is maintained, because otherwise the past holders
aren't going to come back. Enough to offset this this
pricing degradation. Right, that's that's me. Sorry, that's that's my
interpretation of it. So it's admissions per cap fell about
seven percent, like, so that that's a chunk that it's
(02:29):
fell due to the discounts and promotions. For that, the
mix also mattered, so there's more lower spending customers. So
it's skewing prices downwards. So I guess it's not all bad.
I think there are some things to consider, right. It's like,
I think all of this hinges on the quality. And
(02:51):
every time we've talked and I'm just going to say,
every time we talked about six Flags, everybody in the
Commons has said the quality is terrible. I haven't found
anybody who has said the quality has maintained. But we
don't have the guest satisfaction survey data with us.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Right, so maybe they don't.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Maybe you know, the guests are okay, they don't care,
or potentially they're attracting new or more price sensitive demographics,
you know, like they're bringing in people who never would
have paid full price and so they care less about
the quality. Right by that thing, So there's increasing that
and you know, we still don't know right how the
(03:28):
pass at engagement is going to go over time, So
I guess there's still a chance for the strategy to work.
I guess I'm just saying. I'm just saying that I'm
not even sure what we would look at to watch
the indicators. One indicator we might look at is Halloween,
and as we reported last week, they're removed all of
the Wednesday dates from Not Scary Farm before opening and
(03:51):
had to rebook people they weren't offering refunds, which I
thought was weird, and then they had to also they
removed all the Thursday nights from Right Fast at six
Flags Magic Mountain, and then they also just announced this
week that Sesame Place is closing already.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Today's the last day they're going to.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Be open for the season, which means they're not doing
Halloween of Christmas, which means yet again they have sold
season passes to people where they promise them longer opening
calendar than what they ended up delivering. So again I'm
just putting that out there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, all do you thinks got well, I think all
of these well, let's let's let's break it down, because
they're not it's it's it's difficult to paint these all
with the same brush. I think, although I think they
are parallel, I think they are very much related. Let's start.
Let's start with the the money's down, but the attendance
is up. Let's let's start with that basic they're in theory.
(04:48):
In my opinion, in theory, they're justification is is accurate.
It could potentially work to their advantage to draw more
people in. You know, there's always been that we talk
about north Star all the time, and when you're not
reaching your goals, quite often it is a popular choice
(05:13):
with large parks to switch your north Star. You know,
we're talking about let's let's make our north Star. We're
gonna make We're gonna make X amount of dollars. Okay,
But when you see that you're not gonna make that,
then you have to spend the narrative because quite often
you have to convince your stockholders we're doing okay, We're
doing okay, and quite honestly, they probably are doing okay.
(05:36):
They're not doing great, but they probably are doing okay.
What you have to recognize is stockholders don't get paid
in attendance. Stockholders earn their money in in revenue and profits.
So it will. Could this potentially work by opening up
their park to a newer audience, a different audience to
your point, Philip, an audience that may not have come
(05:58):
at full price? Yeah, yeah, that may that may work
for them, but how are they going to maintain that offen?
That are those guests who aren't able to come at
full price when they go back to full price, that's
right when they when they start to bring their ticket
price back to where it should have been. You know,
it's it's kind of the old adage. If you have
(06:19):
a fifty dollars pair of jeans and you sell them
for ten, you now have a ten dollars pair of jeens,
because nobody's going to pay the fifty dollars for them again.
So you have to be kind of careful with this
strategy because this strategy, you know, it's it's the same
the same idea, and and several parks have done it now,
which is the pay for a day, come back all year,
making a limited season pass of some sort excuse me,
(06:44):
the price of one admission. And on paper, it's a
great it's an easy sell because you can say, oh, look,
most guests in our area only come once a year, anyway,
So if we can get a second visit out of them,
then we'll earn more in culinary merchandise, bringing along a friend,
that kind of thing. Yep, sorry, I've been talking all day,
(07:06):
so it's hi. So I think that's an important thing
to keep in mind. I am not going to say
that this is disastrous news. I'm not going to say
that they're doing this to be deceptive. I will say
that this is kind of common practice. So when they
recognize we have to have something positive to tell our stockholders.
(07:29):
I think we've seen a different version of this with
other parks in the past. Sometimes it's hey, look at
all the new things we're building. That happens. Sometimes it's
look at our per cap. Our per cap is skyrocketing. Okay,
but that's because half the number of people are coming
(07:49):
to the park, and you know your overall revenue is tanking.
There's there's there is. I would say this much whitewashing
going on just to be able to say something good
for the for the stockholders. And again, you don't want
to lose the stockholders either. You got to make sure
that that they're going to be there to continue to support.
So you got to I don't want to say throw
(08:10):
them a bone, but you have to. You have to
do at least some positive spin. I will say, though,
I am so sick and tired of hearing that the
weather is one of the reasons. I know, I know,
I know. I will say it's funny that since you know,
being here with a bunch of theme park professionals from
(08:32):
around the world. We had a discussion yesterday that was
the stockholders are tired of hearing that weather is the issue.
They're not buying it anymore, they're not leaving it anymore,
and they're they're also saying kind of what we've been
saying is the weather is not going to change. The
weather is going to be the weather. And yes, it
(08:54):
will vary slightly from season to season. Yes there are
wetter seasons than others, there are drier seasons than others.
But what do we know. Well, you know what the
average temperature is going to be. It will fluctuate, but
you still know what the temperature is going to be.
You know that it's going to rain sometime, so you
have to have a plan for that. When we back
(09:17):
during back during COVID. Sorry I hate to use this
reference yet again, but back during COVID when I was
taking the Post Crisis Leadership certification, they basically said, you
have to make it part of your business model that
you planned for these contingencies. It's not like, oh my gosh,
the weather was so bad this year and it just
(09:39):
caught us totally off guard. Well, that to me is
more negative towards the planning of the company than it
is an excuse for not making your numbers. You have
to plan for the fact that it could be a
rainy season. You have to put that into your and
plan for it time. If you don't have to put
(10:01):
that plan into place, great, that's great. But you have
to budget so that you can put that plan into place.
Whatever that plan may look like, and it may look like,
you know, you do a last minute you do a
last minute change, you do a you plan to have,
you plan to have return visits, you know, because I
(10:22):
know nobody wants to do that. They they always it's like,
you know, a rain or shine, no refunds. But the
truth is, when you do that, then people leave and
just simply don't come back. Yeah, so you kind of
have to to weigh those And I'm not saying those
are the only answers, But I think it's I think
it's important for teams, leadership teams to recognize what is
(10:46):
our plan when it rains, because it's not what is
our plan if it rains? Or in Florida, it's not
what is our plan if it's hot? You know, just
like in Saudi, what is our plan when it's hot? No,
it's going to be hot. So I think I think
that that crisis planning, whether that crisis quote unquote happens
to be weather, or that crisis happens to be a disease,
(11:09):
or that crisis happens to be an economic downturn, or
whatever you need. There's enough business analysts out there. In fact,
I was working with one here at IAP who works
for a business analyst company that their primary job is
doing pre park evaluations. So is there a feasibilities there's
(11:33):
feasibility studies that say yeah, that's a good idea. Those
do include, by the way, those do include weather contingencies.
You know, what is the tea in a swat analysis threats?
You have to have that kind of mentality that you're
helping to prepare for it. So that was just a
long way of saying it is now a global issue
(11:54):
that people are going weather is no longer an excuse.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, well yeah, so if I'm in the summer, everything
I would say again, their tendance is up, but they're
spinning is down, and their long term strategy is that
people are coming back. And to Scott's point, they have
not like they blamed weather previously and now the weather
is fine, so they're not mentioning it yet yet keyword yet,
(12:19):
but they also have not made or announced any plans
to resolve that. So what's going to happen again next
year when the same weather happens again, right, and then
people don't come back? That their plan on coming back
and they've already degraded their pricing. I think that's what
Scott's saying. And then at the same time, again, this
all hinges on those guests coming back, right and spending more.
(12:40):
And if they don't have a plan for the weather,
or also if they don't invest in the quality in
the parks, then again this all comes back to the execution.
Are they gonna, like Scott's, are they going to make
a plan for what to do about these disruptions that
they just came out of, and are they going to
make a plan to invest or to get encourage people
coming back, and so far, all we have seen is
(13:02):
actions that do not align with that, like no plan
about the weather, cutting of seasonal events that encourage repeat visitation,
not investing in quality improvements, you know, like all the
things that they're saying they have not been doing. They've
just been doing stuff like Scott had said, that kind
of looks good to investors, like they've been going in
cutting costs, and they've been changing the goal post and
(13:25):
cutting costs so that it looks good, but the quality
has not improved so far, like I have, I've seen
nothing to say anywhere the quality any of the parts
has improved. And I've also not seen anybody say that online.
And then the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments
that we've gotten about about experiences at six Legs, nobody
has said that the quality has improved. So that's that's
(13:45):
the gamble. And then, of course, like to Scott's point,
we just got out of the one rough weather season
and we're going to go into another one soon, and
what are they going to do about that? And then
if people don't want to go out because there's no
covering there's no there's no heat, there's no protection.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Then that's going to hurt this plan. So that's it.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, And you know, it's interesting because certain parks in
certain areas actually in the past, and here at Port Aventura,
for example, they use weather as a selling point.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
We've got beautiful weather here. California has beautiful weather, Florida
has beautiful weather. Yeah. Well Chicago does not have beautiful
weather here around that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well yeah, So what I was gonna say is I
think that basically closes our stance on the six Flags item.
But I think the through line here is that Scott
is been walking around for Adventurer and been learning about
that park and been teaching there, and I think from
what I've heard that seems to be this seems to
be a park that is maintaining or improving quality, which
(14:53):
is encouraging visitation. So I think that's what we get
to hear from Scott because he's there on location to
actually look at everything and let us know how are
they doing and how are they improving their quality?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Well, and I have to I have to be transparent,
and I have to say that this is anecdotal, but
it's anecdotal from a a personal observation standpoint. A couple
of the things. First of all, if you have never
been to port Aventura World north of Barcelona or outside
of Barcelona. I don't even know where they were north,
but outside of Barcelona, it is a park that is
(15:26):
you should put on your radar. It is a park
that you know. Kind of going back through its history
when it first was conceived, Anheuser Busch actually had a
hand in and some of the some of the original
planning was based on the Bush Gardens parks that went
away very very quickly, and they're celebrating they're now celebrating
(15:48):
their thirtieth anniversary this year, so that's that's not really
a factor, but it was. It had Anheuser Busch influence
when the Bush Gardens parks were incredibly viable, were incredibly successful,
had very much top quality, and so that that sort
(16:11):
of mentality has stuck. It's a gigantic park, it is.
It's got so many different ips it's almost confusing. I
will say it is a little strange to have Woody Woodpecker,
the Sesame Street Gang, and Ferrari Land all in the
(16:34):
same park. But they do they do some very very
interesting things that are unique, at least from my perspective,
in this park. Now, other parks that you may say, oh, no,
X y Z Park does this, has always done this,
but I'd never encountered this some of the examples. Because
Ferrari Land has its own it has a gate from
(16:56):
the park and a gate from the outside. They act
actually open. They don't open until the afternoon and stay
open later at night. I think this is really smart
because Ferrari Land has a tendency to appeal to an
older audience, to an older crowd. So if the if
the guests want to come and do port Aventura, the
(17:19):
port Aventura Park during the day and then stay into
the night, move into into Ferrari and Ferrari opens a
few hours before they do the final fireworks or fireworks
and water show in port Aventura, and you literally just
walk into the park and then you can ride you know,
the Ferrari Launch coaster that's here, which is amazing. I
(17:42):
haven't ridden it yet, but I'll hopefully get to do
it tomorrow. Looks amazing. I'll say that, and go into
that realm, do the go karts over there, you know,
have that fun. So it's a staggered opening, staggered clothes
between two parks that don't really have separate entrances or
have a separate gate, but do have separate entrances and
(18:05):
access points, which I think is really interesting. Another thing
that is unique about this park is all of the
park hotels, and there are several All of the park
hotels have direct access to the park, so you don't
it's not even like it's it's it's more like epic
than it is anything else or Grand Californian. You know,
(18:27):
the where you literally go. And what's interesting is your
room key gets you access to the parks, so you
it is included in the hotel price, so you just.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
You just buying an extra ticket, right, just staying there
and then you get in ye yep.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And the hotels are laid out very nicely. Uh they're comfortable.
I won't say that they are there at least not.
The one I'm staying in is the highest of quality,
but it's certainly not the lowest. If nothing else, I mean,
this one is they're they're theming is stellar. This one
is themed like an old old West town. I'm staying
(19:11):
in the Gold River Hotel, and I mean if you can,
those of you who are watching it, if you can
see behind me, you know I have a patchwork quilt
and an iron bed and hurricane lamps, you know, So
they've gone to an effort to create. And then the
rest of the hotel. I'm in the main building, which
is called town Hall, and then the rest of the
hotel is a series of outbuildings, just like many Disney resorts,
(19:35):
quite honestly, a series of outbuildings that are all themed
as though you're walking through either a ghost town or
an Old West town, however you want to phrase it.
And then interesting thing is when you walk into the park,
because it's so seamless. When you walk into the park,
you walk into the park that's called the Far West,
so all the only thing that lets you know you're
(19:56):
really in the park, it's not even a visual. Thematic
thing is the you swipe your room key and going
to the park. So I love the seamlessness. I love
the fact that they took I won't call it Disney level,
but a Disney approach, let's put it that way. I
was walking with I was walking with Max from my APPA.
(20:18):
We were walking around the hotel and we both said
this feels like the way a Disney hotel would operate,
because it's got the same outbuildings, it's got the same
kind of They want to make sure that you feel
like you're still having the port Aventura World experience when
you're in the hotel. It's not a disconnect. You don't
(20:40):
have to ride a bus to it, you don't have
to take any sort of trait. You just literally walk
out of the park and you're at your hotel, which
is which I think is great. Other interesting things, I
love their commitment to sustainability and being green, and it's
(21:00):
it's it's in a lot of obvious things, and then
it's in and then it's to me even more obvious
in the little things, because you know, sometimes if you
do little things really, really well and you take that
attention to detail, it actually has a bigger impact than
if you say, I'm going to do this great, big thing.
And let me give you some examples. There are no
paper cups in the park. When you buy a drink,
(21:23):
it is in a plastic cup. It is a decorated
souvenir plastic cup, and you're thinking, oh, okay, they just
jack up the price, so you have to take the
plastic cup home, but when you buy a drink, you
also get a receipt that has a QR code on it,
and you can return the cup with the receipt and
get one year oh back. So it's it's kind of
(21:43):
like everything old is new again. If you were if
you're my age or older, you remember when you know,
soda bottles were like coke bottles were glass and you
pipe paid a deposit and when you return them you
got your deposit back. It's exactly that way with these.
Now I've chosen to keep this as a souvenir, which
again puts more money towards their bottom line because I'm
(22:04):
sure this cup does not cost them a euro so
and it doesn't end up in a trash heap. It
doesn't end up in a trash barrel, but the one
that has. And all of the people that have been
teaching IAP with me are just like Scott, would you
shut up about this? But these just kind of blow
me away. You know, every convention center has our convention
(22:24):
facility at a theme park has disposable pens that they
put out and with a concern about microplastics in the
oceans and how you know, disposable pens and disposable razors
are two of the biggest contributors to that. The pens
at port Aventuro World in their conventions that are made
of paper. They're kind of they're kind of made like
(22:46):
the the blending stick that you use when you do charcoal,
and then they've got a paper cap so when they
are thrown and they write really well. They're not garbage pens.
So at the end of the day, when you know
five people have either left them or thrown them away
or whatever, they're not contributing to the micro plastics problem.
(23:08):
Now I haven't dissected them yet. I'm pretty sure that
there is some plastic in the center to hold the ink,
but they're basically rolled paper to make up everything else.
And I think that's brilliant. I think that is on
brand for them. It is conservation minded and it's really
really smart. So it's that kind of attention to detail
that you know when Philip talks about quality that they're
(23:29):
showing us. Now, once you get into the park, the
park is built with these beautiful vistas all the different lands.
There's there's Polynesia, there's Mediterranean, there's Mexico, there is the
Far West, which is the American cowboy Town, and then
there's then there's Ferrari World, and there's there's Sesame Adventure. Now,
(23:51):
I have to say I've worked in several parks that
have had Sesame lands, Sesame street lands in them. This
is my new favorite. It is it's huge, it's well done,
and it has a dark ride that is a gamified
dark ride where you're trying to find the Golden Cookie
and or the Giant Cookie. And you you ride with
(24:15):
your family and strangers whomever, and you have a wand
that you point at the cookies and gain points, you know,
like men in Black and and you know, all the
I don't want to call them shooter games, but they
kind of are actmet at Warner Brothers World in Abu Dhabi,
so it's it's that kind of gamification. It's super fun.
(24:36):
They have another new dark ride that I'm very excited
to ride but haven't done yet, called Uncharted, and it's
it's going to be part of Tomorrow's Tomorrow's Edge tour,
so I'm excited to see that. But and then when
you talk to the staff, the way the staff is
trained is I think the biggest takeaway I'm gonna I'm
(24:59):
gonna remember about this park and the staff that you
engage with because they are dealing with people from so
many different countries. You know, those of you who are
watching from the US think about, well they're only you know,
the locals are all Spanish. Well that's simply not true.
Because of the location, we're so close to France and
they have a huge, huge influx of guests from the
(25:21):
UK as well. So sometimes communication, you would think would
be a little bit of a problem, But all of
the staff has been trained to engage with you, and
they know just enough French, English, Spanish, catalog, you know,
all the local languages to communicate and they make an
effort to do it. They are proactive in greeting guests,
(25:43):
they are polite when they do it. And here's again
another one of those weird little things that Scott only
Scott notices. One of the students at IAP said, this
guy has an eagle eye for detail. And I really
do thank you, Elaine College. The difference between a good
show and a great show's attention to detail. But anyway,
in one of the in one of the there's bridges
(26:03):
over the water effects kind of like at or the
water area is kind of like at at Iowa Islands
of Adventure. But there was a boat driving underneath and
it was a service boat that was bringing in one
of the one of the inflatable floats for the water
show at the end of the night, and it drove
(26:24):
underneath the bridge we were on and they saw that
we were watching them, and the driver of the boat
backstage behind the scenes, guy turns around and waves at
us and says hello to us. So I know that
seems like a stupid little thing, but if that is
the expectation, if that is the quality level that these
people are trained to, yeah, that's that's wonderful. That's wonderful.
(26:47):
I will say that this is one of the prettiest
parks I've been to in a very long time. And
I've seen a lot of parks around the world, but
this one is I was walking with with Olivia from
from Aquarey via the new water park that's going up
in Kadia City in just outside of Riod, and she said,
I can't believe how green it is now. Granted she's
(27:08):
been living in Saudi Arabia, so there's that, but it
is gorgeous. It is absolutely beautiful. So I realize I've
kind of raved on about the park in things that
the marketing team probably would not have said, Oh, that's
what we're going to sell. You know, let's talk about
our paper pens and our boat driver who waives at guests.
But if that's the kind of level of detail that
(27:29):
they're looking at, their theming is the same way. You
know every inch of this park right now, because they've
just started their Halloween event and this is the last
thing avatargy. I know, I've just kind of gone on
front a rant. I'm sorry, but I am so impressed
with this park that I wanted to share it with
you guys. And again, I think these are all good
takeaways that pretty much anyone can implement, and especially if
(27:51):
you're trying to elevate the quality of your park. But
they just started their Halloween event, and they handle it
in a very unique way. Their Halloween event is runs
concurrently with the park hours. It's it opens in the
afternoon and closes in the early evening. But it's it
focuses on decor. There's park decor everywhere. There are more
(28:14):
live pump more real pumpkins. There have to there are thousands,
thousands of them throughout the park. They have taken a
really simplistic but clever approach to the other forms of decor.
They have all of these skeletons that are posed in
scenes that match the land they're in. So in Polynesia
(28:35):
there are Polynesian dancer skeletons. In uh, the Old West
there is there's a series of three skeletons that are
doing a sack race. They have gunny sacks on their
legs and they're jumping. It's it's amazing. So it's decor,
it's street characters, it shows. There are multiple Halloween shows,
(28:57):
and then they do have haunted walkthroughs, which they call
Passages of Terror something like that. And so what they
do though, is they do charge. There's an up charge
for those so guests can come to the park who
don't want to do haunted houses, similar to what Six
Flags has done in the past. Actually, so what they're
(29:19):
doing now, are they? Yeah? Yeah, oh do all six
Flags but well nots doesn't but other six Flags do. Yeah, No,
they all do it. Now you have to pay extra
to go into the haunt. I mean, if you have
a not season pass, you can't go into hont houses
and they moved over the old Cedar parks used to
be included and now they're not interesting. So what they're
(29:40):
doing then is but they also sell a pass so
you can get either it's like seven euros per house
or there's four houses and it's twenty five euros for
all four. But they claim that they're twenty to thirty
minutes long. But's so crazy. I'm guessing there. I don't
know whether it's true or not. I have not done
(30:01):
the way. Yeah, they could be pulsying. Well, okay, I'm
going to wrap up my what.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
My takeaways from what Scott said, which is that I
think that when we're looking at what makes a quality thing,
because I think that's something we've been talking about for
a while, like how do you get these parks to
quality whatever? And like Scott said, that's not something that
usually is marketed, you know, but it's like more like
it looks good and it feels good, and there are
(30:31):
novel surprising moments throughout your stay, and that can be
a combination of as Scott said, the staff training. Like
there it feels good because you're welcomed, because they they
engage with you, because the staff is happy to see you.
But then it looks good in that like there's good
it looks good, there's green, there's vistas, there's good site lines.
(30:51):
It just looks like a good place to be. But
also the themed nature of the integration with the themings,
integrated all of that, and then those novel moments come,
like Scott said, from the seamlessness. It comes from seeing
the stuff like the skeletons. It comes like those elements
where it just it feels good and easy to be
at these parks and there's not You're not worried about
(31:13):
all of these things. We talked about creature comforts all
the time. You're not worried about where you can find
the bathrooms, and everything is dirty and no one says
hi to you and all these things. And when you
eliminate all of that, I think that's what we're talking about.
What we say like quality, and the question is can
six Flags get that quality that places like Port Inventuria
World have.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
That's a great way to sum it all up, which
is good because we're overtime anyway, which should come as
no surprise because Philip let me talk. So that's just
the way they go anyway. Guys, thank you once again
so much for continuing to listen or to watch us
here on Green Tag Park and thirty. We hope we
will see each and every one of you next week. Bye,
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