August 17, 2025 • 31 mins
Legacy Cedar Fair parks are moving to the Six Flags model this Halloween, requiring a new $10–$20 Haunted Attractions Pass for mazes—and an extra $15 for The Conjuring house. Even Gold Pass holders must pay, sparking backlash from fans who see it as a bait-and-switch. Philip and Scott debate whether this is a necessary step toward higher-quality haunts or a misstep that erodes trust. It appears that Six Flags is moving to the 'separately ticketed' model of Knott's Scary Farm instead of the 'mix-in' model of legacy Cedar Fair parks. But as Six Flags attempts to unify its Halloween portfolio - Will Guests Pay for What They Once Got Free? And while the company is still bleeding cash, where will the capital come from to bring up the quality of the Halloween events? 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 (00:01):
From our studios this week in Los Angeles and Tampa.
This is Green Tag the Theme Park and thirty. I'm
Philip and I'm joined as always by my co host
Scott Swinton of Scott Swinson Cret Development. On Green Tag,
we look at the week's top news and break down
why it matters for business professionals in the theme park space.
This week, we are actually going to continue the Six
(00:21):
Flags saga because they just keep they just keep doing things.
You know, I'm not sure they're good things. Maybe some
of them are good things, but it's.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
There are things. They're things, they're doing things, they're doing things.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
The news keeps rolling out, the news keeps rolling out,
and this week what we heard was interesting. The reason
I want to talk about this particular is because of
Scott's expertise, which he could help us break some of
this down. But in a nutshell, what we heard this
week is that Six Flags as a whole, they're going
to be instituting a charge to go to the Haunted
(00:53):
Houses for the Legacy Cedar Fair Parks.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Now the Legacy Cedar Fair Parks.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Previously, the Haunted Houses had been included with admission, so
like if you had a season pass, or if you
had a admission to the park on that day when
the Haunted House is opened. They weren't necessarily open all day,
but when they did open, you could just go to
them and get in line. So they basically treated them
like any other attraction that's at the park. Okay, they
were just kind of included. That's the way that a
(01:20):
lot of the legacy Cedar Fair parks operated. Now, however,
they're going to operate more like the Six Flags model,
which is where you're going to have to purchase a
attraction pass for the Hunted houses, and there are different
options for these attraction passes. But to make things even
a little bit more complicated, there are four locations where
(01:40):
they're going to be testing out a new upcharge experience
for the conjuring, and that's not included in the attraction pass.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So if you are at.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
One of those locations and you want to do Halloween,
you would pay for your admission ticket, then you would
pay for your Haunted House ticket. For the other Hunted houses,
then if you want to do the you'd pay additionally
for that one. So you'd have these potentially three levels.
So if this is sounding a little bit like the
lightning lane system. Trust your instincts, I think on this.
(02:11):
So plus then again there's also fast passes, So you
have like the regular line front houses, then you have
the fast pass line. Then you have the up charge
for this. So there's a lot of charges coming out
for this. So this has understandably upset quite a few individuals,
especially because it was not this was not made clear
(02:34):
when people purchase their season passes for this calendar year.
And I think that is really where you're seeing the
discontent in that some of the passolders are not.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Well. I'm just going to read some comments.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So this story is everywhere, obviously, and there's lots of
comments out there. I'm just going to read some comments
that range. So there's a folks that said that it's
going to lose a lot of customers this way because
they're not paying extra for haunted houses. That's one perspective.
Another perspective is saying they are cheating the twenty twenty
five season pass holders. They did not advertise this change
(03:10):
when selling them passes. I do not like the businesses
practice of Cedar Fair where they you know, they changed
their mind. That's perspective two. And then Perspective three is
basically saying that if you're going to improve the quality
of the attractions, there needs to be investment, and that
investment comes from stuff like tickets. So we have a
(03:31):
wide range from the pass holders about how they feel
about this, where there are some that seem to be okay,
as long as the investment is going to actually happen
in the haunts, right, then you have the other two perspectives.
The only other details that we have before we can
get into this discussion. The only the details really is
(03:53):
that a lot of the haunts at these legacy ones,
all the haunted houses, they're coming back our returning houses.
So I think that even further complicates the argument, right,
which is that why should you pay more or pay
anything or pay more for a haunted house that is
returning haunted house that has come back. And I think
(04:15):
the answer would be in the execution, which we don't
know yet because they're not open. So the reason that
I want to bring this up specifically with Scott is
because of Scott's background with Bush Gardens, his background with
Bush Gardens Tampa, and then after that having.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Worked with parks all over the world on.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Halloween and on this, this whole items that Scott Scott
has a lot of experience in this and a lot
of maybe he could help.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Us with some of the insight. That's the Well.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
First, I want to clarify that, you know, when we
say that this is completely new to Cedar Fair all
Cedar Fair parks, that's not one hundred percent true because
Nuts has always been a separate admission price.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yes, for for Halloween.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
That's true, that's true, right, yeah, so it's not not
as all and act Actually funny you mentioned that too,
because in all of these announcements there's like two little
asterisks and they're like basically they're like, you can purchase
this Hindhouse pass. It's it's ten dollars for this, fifteen
for this or whatever, and it's like asterisk asterisk, Like
not at Knots, because obviously Knots has its own pricing
(05:17):
which is more than any of this, and you have
to buy for Halloween a Knots anyway, So that's a
good point.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Well, and it's part of the reason that the Halloween
product at Knots has always been so much, so far
superior to all the other Cedar Fair offerings because they
had the revenue. They had the money coming in, so
therefore they could justify a higher spend. So let's start
with the last one that you mentioned. If they if
the intent is to elevate the six and we've we
(05:45):
have both been to six Flags haunts that have not
been up to standard. Yeah they you know, yeah fis
Queen and black Light, but and I wish I were joking,
but there are some The problem with the problem with
six Flags haunts for me is that they're really all
(06:06):
over the place. Yes, the quality level is just some
are excellent and some are just not. And sometimes even
in the same park, some are excellent and some are
just not. So if they're going to charge for them, yes,
that's going to bring in some additional cash or at
least justify the budgetary spend from the corporate side. The
(06:29):
flip side of that is the guest expectation is going
to be higher. You know, when you've got when you've
got a free haunt, Yeah, okay, it's a dark room
and a couple of people jump out and say, boom, fine,
I didn't pay anything for it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's okay.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It's going to force them, whether they realize it or not,
it's going to force them to up the quality level
or piss off a bunch of guests. As far as
the guests who are saying, you know, this is a
this is a bait and switch. Basically, you promised us
that this would be included, and now it's not for
this transition year. That's just something the company is going
(07:05):
to have to eat. You know, they're they're just going
to have to take that. And I will say, you know,
from a from a customer service standpoint, if you have
enough longtime season pass holders who gripe about it, deal
with it on a one on one basis and see
if you can get them, you know, your your Haunt
pass or whatever, just to get over this one year.
Because again, anytime there is a change like this, it's
(07:28):
got to happen where someone gets disappointed or someone feels
as though they've been screwed over. So do the best
you can six Flags to make it right with your guests,
But don't make a mass announcement saying anybody who's ever
heard of pass is now going to get a free
wristband to get into all the haunts. Don't go there
because that just kind of undermines what you're trying to
move towards, but deal with guests who are truly upset,
(07:51):
because as Philip has said, these are different levels of
frustration or different kinds of reactions, I guess as even
more fair. And so I think I think what they
would love to do somewhere down the road is to
make Halloween a separate admission.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So make everything like not basically like you think, everything
I'd like to.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Do, because again I think that's into I actually believe
based on my experience, that's kind of industry standard. I agree,
is that you know, you don't pay for each individual haunt,
you pay to go into the event. Your season pass
gives you a discount on that. We always at Bush
we always tried to make it that the deepest discount
(08:38):
was for season pass holders. There were there were some
flash sales, and I can't talk to it now because
I really don't know, but there were some flash sales
that that got close to that. But we always made
sure that our pass holders were the best taken care
of when it came to discounts to those separate ticket prices.
We went through this, you know, twenty almost twenty six
(09:01):
years ago. Now, I guess we went through this very
very almost twenty seven years ago, because we started a
year before. Anyway, we we went through a lot of
discussion to figure out how do we do this? You know,
is this a mix in? Is this a separate ticket
and what we discovered based on all of our research
(09:22):
and again old research, so this may have changed, but
based on our old research, and I still think to
a certain extent, it's true. It is much easier to
go from a separate ticketed event to a mix in
than it is to go from a mix in to
a separate ticketed event. And if that is indeed their
ultimate goal to make everything like nots, then this is
(09:44):
a stop gap measure. This is a this is a
we're going to test the waters and see how far
we can go.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
People.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
You know, every nobody, nobody wants to Nobody wants to
pay extra for anything.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I get that.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I mean no, that's just simply a customer customer things.
So be prepared, and I'm sure they are. I'm sure
six Flags is prepared to to live through this transition
year and and you know, try to deal with the
guests in the best possible way. Perhaps they can give
them something else to make them happy. Who's there's a
(10:18):
million in one ways to make a guest happy. You know,
everybody thinks, oh, guests get so angry about everything, blah
blah blah bla blah blah blah blah. Sometimes all you
have to do is sit down and listen to them. Yep,
because if they're angry enough to want to talk to somebody,
they need to be listened to. One of our park
presidents would hand out his business card and heed. You know,
(10:39):
he would tell angry guests, if you ever have anything
that's an issue, call me, I'm the park president. And
people used to look at him and go, why are
you doing this?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
That's crazy. You're gonna get all these.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I don't want to say crazy people. You'll get all
of these people who don't really have a gripe, but
who just want to say they have a gripe calling you.
And he said, honestly, that's not the case. Because they
have my card. Because they feel as though they have
direct contact to the guy in charge. They'll only call
if it's something really big. It's it's a it's a
(11:12):
weird perception thing. But I think, quite honestly, if we
want theme park haunt or theme park seasonal events in
general to continue to grow. This is going to be an.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Ongoing concept or an ongoing question. Yep.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You know we're talking about Halloween here, but.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You can also throw in Christmas. Christmas. Yeah, I was
going to bring that up. The only reason.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
See now, my recommendation still is charge do Halloween as
a separate admission, and then make Christmas the gift to
give back to your guests because Christmas has so many
things completely unrelated to the attractions industry that people have
to spend money on. So if you can come back
(11:58):
and show your goodwill and your kindness and your love
of the season and say, you know, we'll make it
just part of your your pass or part of your
day ticket and then you know, find find different ways
to do up charges. But you know, it sounds like
they're they're testing, they're testing the waters, you know. And
we said at the beginning of the show that six
Flags is just doing stuff, and that's good. Six Flags
(12:21):
should be doing stuff. They should be testing and finding
out what the new what the new parks are going
to look like, what the new business model is going
to be. Because again they've gone through a huge merger,
they've taken you know, two of two of the giants
of the industry and smashed them together. And some of
the things are going to work out very smoothly. Some
of the things are going to be a little rockier.
(12:42):
I think we said when we first heard about the merger,
if they can take the quality of if they can
take the quality of Cedar Fair and the efficiency of
six Flags, they can have a really great and financially
successful product. But the only way to do that is
to see what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I go back to when they first started fright fast
at six Flags six Flag Greade America in Gurney. They
didn't even have haunted houses. Back then, it was just
all street stuff. And then they had a Halloween show
and they had a Halloween parade, and then when they
added haunts, the haunts were always first of all, they
were IP based and secondly they were always enough charge.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
There was never at six Flags Great America when I
was going as a kid, there was never a free
haunted house there.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
They were always included.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I mean, they were always an extra ticket.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Last year I went to Cedar Fair, and I did
go when I was working is when I was working
in Detroit, at a haunted house, and then we all
road tipped over to Cedar Fair to go to or
Cedar Point, sorry to go to one of to go
to the Halloween event because it was open on a
(13:57):
day that we were not open, because it's you know,
it was inclined in the admission, right, And it's exactly
what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The quality is just all over. It's just not it's
not good.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
It's it's not by any stretch, the quality is not
good at all.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That's exactly what we're talking about, like the tension between
like it's almost I don't want to say it's a
no win it it's almost like a cash twenty two, right,
It's like.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
You it is for the first year. It is for
the first year.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, because because like I would never I don't even
think it would go back definitely to that event, but
I would certainly.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Never like pay for those at the quality they're at.
I think that's the thing. So I'm wondering.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I think my question is, is was there a better
way to do this? Like, like in my brain, I
guess as a marketer or as somebody who's listened to
you talk about the way you design events.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Now, I'm like, why didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
They go park by park even you could do this
park by Parker, But basically, why didn't they say, Okay,
we're going to take this one and we're going to
make the quality the level that people would pay for.
And the first year, like this year, it's going to
be included, and the next year we're going to be like,
we're doing these plus another hunt House, but it's going
(15:13):
to be a separately ticket event. So you give them
like a free sample, you show them here's the new
quality you can expect for our new events. And but
then also we're gonna it's gonna be even bigger and
better next year, but it's going to be a separately
ticketed event, you know, and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Do you remember the financial report that we talked about
last week. Yeah, it's the money money to do that.
There's no money to do that. There's no money to
do that. So it's really so I actually that's what
makes it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
There's no investment. No, no, But you're absolutely right. The
reason people are balking at having to pay for them
is because they know what the quality, or they feel
they know what the quality is that they're buying. They
think they're buying what they've gotten for free before. Yeah,
the way through this is to not make any promises upfront.
(15:59):
But when people do decide, because there's still gonna be
people who are going to buy and go and go
to the haunts, they are it. I will say it's
going to do a couple of things. Number one, it
is going to put more pressure on the quality, which
is good. You know sometimes pressure makes us get better.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Pressure makes a diamond. So the other side of it too,
is it's it's also going to control.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Q lines better. Yeah, it's gonna make the line.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
But because we're not gonna have you're not gonna have kids.
You know, you're not gonna have the twelve year olds
who are just getting out of line getting back into line.
I think there's also and I'm going out on a
limb here, so I have nothing this is anecdotal or
if not just opinion. I also think it's gonna help
with safety, because if you have to pay to go,
(16:47):
you are not going to just go every time and
know where all the actors are so that you can
scare them or trip them before they scare you. So
so I think I think that I think that may
help in the short term. But like I said, if
I were, if I were a betting man, I would
say that eventually they're going to try to get it
so that Halloween is a separate ticket.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I understand everybody. I understand nobody wants to pay for anything.
I mean, I get that, and I also I also
think we have to be sensitive about some of the
markets that these are in. You know, I mean a
lot of the with six Flags is you know, they
have so many parks in different markets. Some of those
regions are in areas that are you know, like stuff
(17:32):
is cheaper, right, I mean it's not like here where
I'm at in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I mean everything's expensive and you expect to pay for everything.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Right, It's like the environment of even parking is thirty
five dollars, right, It's like that environment. That's not the
case in other regions where so they're operating different markets.
But I think what I would say is despite all
of that, I do think a separately ticket event is
always a way to go, not just for the logistics
and for the safety and for all of those reasons.
(17:57):
But then you get into a situation where you can
you have a budget for investment, so you get people
paid to go to the experience, which means it controls
on the safety and the controls on the crowds and
all that. But then there's also a budget for investment,
which then allows you to create a tractions that are
worth going to. I think I think this problem that
(18:19):
they're in right now is like the haunts are not
worth paying for, but they have no budget to pay
for new haunts, and so what now They're going to
charge for stuff that they had last year? But then
that's just gonna throw people off in the brand. Like
I wonder if if an answer would have been, I mean,
this is radical, but like just cut Halloween entirely and
(18:40):
then say we're only going to open Halloween at these
few locations, and those locations we're going to charge for
and we're going to like move the set pieces and
move this stuff and try to rebuild it one at
a time.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Again, does that help? Does that help their overall brand?
I mean, if they're trying to be your local park,
that's that's going against their master plan, is that is
the antithesis of their master plan.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Then how do they get to a separately ticket at
event where they I.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Think I think it's I think what's going to well,
because it's gonna take three to five years.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Okay, it's gonna take three to five years.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I think they'll they'll get the they'll you know, they'll
get the extra revenue that they so sorely need, and
then they'll get a lot of guests pushback saying, Okay,
these houses are crap there, and they will get more.
These houses are crap because it's more crap if you
have to pay for it, yep, than if it's free.
If it's free, we tolerate crap. If you have to
pay for it, we don't. So and that's going to
(19:33):
force them, and it's probably already on their radar. It's
going to encourage them or or reinforce the need to
upgrade the quality. And then you know, then maybe another
year of uh separate ticket and then maybe the next
year is you only have two options, you have a
(19:53):
park pass or park plus Haunt. And then the next
year is you can get park after four ticket which
includes Haunt, and then you just make.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It a separate ticketed event. The following year.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I mean, you got to go in stages, and each
step along the way you're gonna have somebody who's gonna complain,
but eventually you can retrain your audience and that's the
that's the challenge.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, this all though, depends on the execution, which is
what we said about every original plan.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Everything does, everything does depend upon the air and I sorry,
go ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I was gonna say.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I think we talked about this several weeks ago, where
it's like they did have that really good plan from
the investor call and then things have not gone according
to plan. And I think something that we talked about
then is that it's up to the execution. But it's
also the fact that you know, these people can the
executives can sit in a room and you know, pontificate
(20:48):
and write a plan to the investors and all that.
But there this is the downside having so many parks.
You have so many parks that you have staff at
every park, and it's like you need the whole company
to move in a direction, and just there's this time.
It just it takes time to translate from there, and
I wonder, I just I guess I'm just I'm not
(21:10):
having seen so far that they have not been able
to get the staff to move as quickly to execute
their plan. I don't foresee that they're going to be
able to improve the quality enough at these Halloween events
this year to be able to justify even ten dollars
for them, So I think they might derail this well.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I think they're gonna have to just live with this
year and let this year be the You know, anytime
you change something. You know, if you own a restaurant
and a cup of coffee goes from a buck to
a buck twenty five, you're gonna have people I'm.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Never coming back here again. I'm not gonna pend an extra.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Quarter for a cup of coffee, And then you know,
two months down the road, they're back there and they've
forgotten what coffee used to cost.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
So you have to go through these. You have to
go through these rough spots. You have to go through these.
You know, we used to call them growing pains. You
gotta go through these growing pains in order to get
yourself right size and aligned with the rest of your company,
especially when you've got two diverse approaches coming together into
one company, and from a from a financial and an
(22:14):
operational standpoint, you want to homogenize those together to make
it so there's an economy of scale going on there. Yeah,
I will say that whenever we talk about whenever we
talk about six Flags, it seems that we get a
lot of response. We've had quite a bit of response
on some of the videos that we've posted a lot
of comments on YouTube, and Philip, you've kind of gathered
some of them and put them into categories. Can we
(22:35):
address some of those?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, So I did want to thank everybody for commenting
on the last video. A lot of comments. Is over
eighty comments, and a lot of very substantive comments, and
I'll be trying to answer.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I have smart people who listen to it. We only
have smart people who watch it. Yeah, only smartly.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, if you made it this far, that's true in
the video, that's true. But I do want to thank
everybody for putting their questions in there. They're very substantive.
I'm not sure I will have time to reply to
everything because it's in the hallowing season and we're pretty slammed.
But I did read through the comments and I have
put them into kind of a few buckets of items
(23:15):
that we did not address in the previous video.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
So I did want to get to that.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So the first is this theme where like Universal having
eaten into the Six Flags market share in the last
seven to eight years. That's been a theme at several comments.
And what I would say to that is, see again,
see what we talked about the regional elements. Like a
lot of this is like I think, because we're in
the theme park world, we're so focused on like Disney Universal,
(23:42):
Six Flag, I mean, we're so in this focus, but
like most of the Six Flags attendees are like regional
people who.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
We talked about this before when we talked.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
About the whole destination versus regional approach, right, So I
don't actually think that it's into their market that much
because really, if you're going to Universal or going to Disney,
it's a it's a destination. You're going to do that,
like you're going to work that into your plan, right,
and then otherwise you're going to stay within your region.
So it's more like you're choosing between the regional park.
(24:14):
So you're choosing between like Hershey Park and some of
the breed in that area, or Silver Dollar City, and
that I.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Would go so far as to say, uh, the only
place that's happening is where a Universal park and a
Flags park actually share demographic.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, actually share guests. Which Florida. Yeah, in California.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
California is really the only place I can think of
that that actually has a Universal, a Universal property and
a Six Flags property in Florida. No, there's there's no
way Universal has impacted the Six Flags attendance in any way,
shape or form. And even if they even if there
(24:58):
was a Six Flags park here. To fill 's point,
Halloween Hornet's is good, bad, or indifferent is the benchmark.
I mean, it is the It's the granddaddy. It's been
around the longest, it's been operating full blast. It kiss
keeps expanding. It's got a fan base that just doesn't quit.
(25:18):
So if there were a six Flags park that were
to all of a sudden pop up here in Florida, yeah,
it would take a it would It would be really
hard for them to chip away at that market. Trust me,
I tried it twenty six years ago with when we
created Ali Scream, and we did we decided, nope, we're
not going to go toe to toe. We're not going
to go to to toe. And the guest said, well,
it's it's all we'll come to see. So our differentiation
(25:40):
point was we were we would create original stories, news stories,
not just not just movie not just movie stories. That
was our and we focused They focused on big sets
and big scenic and we focused on intimacy and human scares.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So the you have to find carve out your niche.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
But to say that, to say that Universal has outside
of California, to say that Universal has pulled market share
from six flags, I'm not I don't see it.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, sorry that yes, California, Yes, yeah, California is the
only one, and it is not like that's not insignificant, right,
you have Magic Mountain and you have not all within
the same region. But also it's the smallest Universal park.
Well maybe Singapore is smaller, that's possible, Singamore smaller, but yeah,
it's it's definitely on a different scale, right, and there
(26:34):
it's much easier to draw your lines of differentiation, right
like you had the studio tour. It's still an active
studio here all that, and the lines are better. But okay,
it moving on. So the next kind of bucket of
comments I think had to deal with us not addressing
the meal plans, which is something we totally forgot about.
So last episode we talked about the concept of the
(26:57):
six Flag talked about in their investor meeting, which is
that they want to get more people in the park,
especially season pass holders, to get them to return more
often so they can then purchase items in the park,
and we talked about food and beverage and merchandise being
purchase options, and a lot of folks in the comments
pointed out that they also sell the meal plans, which
is like two meals per visit with unlimited visits and
(27:19):
then unlimited drinks each visit, and especially comments like how
are the how is the park supposed to make money
when they're giving away the gate and the food and so, Scott,
what do you think?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Well, I think that one thing you have to recognize is,
especially for things like seasonal activations, season pass holders don't
come alone. Yes, they bring friends, they bring family, and
they they're the ones who are usually the ringleaders who
will say, well, I've got to pass, so I'll drive
because I get free parking, and we'll go ahead and
(27:52):
do this, do that, do this, and so therefore those
people that they bring along with them won't have the
meal plan. And you know, I know there are people
out there who are going to say well, that's that's
an outlier, Scott, that's not that's not the vast majority.
Trust me, it is the vast majority.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
It's even if even if they bring one person who
pays full price, you know, a group of ten people
brings one person who pays full price and then buys
meals to try to keep up with the people who
have two meals and unlimited drinks. The other person's going
to try to keep up with them as long as
they're not you know, passing the cut back and forth,
which also happens, which also happens. But what they have
(28:36):
to do, especially at this transition period, is they have
to keep the turnstiles turning. They have to keep those
turnstyles clicking. So I don't know whether the meal plan, yes,
it is going to impact them. And I appreciate you
guys bringing it up that wash that was our our
miss on not not mentioning it. But I still don't
(28:56):
think it's going to be that much of it issue
because quite honestly, especially during Halloween events, people rarely eat.
They'll eat during the day, but they don't want to
waste their time eating at night because you know, they've
got to wait in a queue, and they've got to
get make sure they get to all the haunts, and
they got to there's a very limited time that they
got to do everything, So grab and go at best
(29:20):
sit down dinners are really hard for a Halloween event,
especially if you're only going once.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I think we're basically at a time. I think the
last bucket that we had was just that the problem
someone pointed out rightfully. So the problem is Cedar Fair
and six Flags had two different models, and we've talked
about I think we've kind of already discussed that, but
especially when we started the show with the Halloween model.
But that's this is exactly the problem, right, is that
they're cherry picking policies from one park and from the
(29:52):
other park, and then they're putting them at back and forth, right,
and they're like cross pollinating ideas, and that is, like
Scott said, anytime you make a just going to cause friction.
And so I think the question the thing I always
say is like it depends on the execution, Like what
are the haunts actually going to look like? What is
the thing actually going to look like? What what is
it going to be like when you go there? Because
(30:14):
I think that's that's where it's it's all gonna it's
all gonna come out, because some of these policies can
be really great implemented at the other counter parks. Right,
it just depends on what they how they actually do it.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Well, and and what's going to happen is no matter
they're they're for these first couple of years. They're kind
of darned if they do darned if they don't.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
The things, the things that have worked at at Cedar Parks,
at Cedar Fair Parks, and the things that have worked
at six Flags Parks are going to piss off the
people in the other parks. So you know, they've got
to find their way. And we, of course from the
very beginning, have suggested they should cherry pick. They should
take what works in both companies and try to try
(30:55):
to make it work together into into one company. But
that takes time. You can't just all of a sudden
change behavior like that. You can't change the behavior of
the guests. You can't change the guest expectations. You can't
change the people who run the parks and who work
in the parks. You can't change their mentality instantly. That
takes a whole bunch of time, and unfortunately time is
(31:17):
the one thing that we don't have anymore. We've now
run out of it. So this is the end of
this week's Green Tag Theme Park in thirty. If you
are an unhinged patriot who will join us run Hinge,
please do so because we will be talking a lot
more about some of the questions that we've been asked
over the past week and some comments that we've received
from some very dedicated listeners, and we really appreciate that.
(31:37):
So until next week, this is Scott Swinson and Philip
Hernandez with Green Tag Theme Park in thirty.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
We will see you next week.
From our studios this week in Los Angeles and Tampa.
This is Green Tag the Theme Park and thirty. I'm
Philip and I'm joined as always by my co host
Scott Swinton of Scott Swinson Cret Development. On Green Tag,
we look at the week's top news and break down
why it matters for business professionals in the theme park space.
This week, we are actually going to continue the Six
(00:21):
Flags saga because they just keep they just keep doing things.
You know, I'm not sure they're good things. Maybe some
of them are good things, but it's.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
There are things. They're things, they're doing things, they're doing things.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
The news keeps rolling out, the news keeps rolling out,
and this week what we heard was interesting. The reason
I want to talk about this particular is because of
Scott's expertise, which he could help us break some of
this down. But in a nutshell, what we heard this
week is that Six Flags as a whole, they're going
to be instituting a charge to go to the Haunted
(00:53):
Houses for the Legacy Cedar Fair Parks.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Now the Legacy Cedar Fair Parks.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Previously, the Haunted Houses had been included with admission, so
like if you had a season pass, or if you
had a admission to the park on that day when
the Haunted House is opened. They weren't necessarily open all day,
but when they did open, you could just go to
them and get in line. So they basically treated them
like any other attraction that's at the park. Okay, they
were just kind of included. That's the way that a
(01:20):
lot of the legacy Cedar Fair parks operated. Now, however,
they're going to operate more like the Six Flags model,
which is where you're going to have to purchase a
attraction pass for the Hunted houses, and there are different
options for these attraction passes. But to make things even
a little bit more complicated, there are four locations where
(01:40):
they're going to be testing out a new upcharge experience
for the conjuring, and that's not included in the attraction pass.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So if you are at.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
One of those locations and you want to do Halloween,
you would pay for your admission ticket, then you would
pay for your Haunted House ticket. For the other Hunted houses,
then if you want to do the you'd pay additionally
for that one. So you'd have these potentially three levels.
So if this is sounding a little bit like the
lightning lane system. Trust your instincts, I think on this.
(02:11):
So plus then again there's also fast passes, So you
have like the regular line front houses, then you have
the fast pass line. Then you have the up charge
for this. So there's a lot of charges coming out
for this. So this has understandably upset quite a few individuals,
especially because it was not this was not made clear
(02:34):
when people purchase their season passes for this calendar year.
And I think that is really where you're seeing the
discontent in that some of the passolders are not.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Well. I'm just going to read some comments.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So this story is everywhere, obviously, and there's lots of
comments out there. I'm just going to read some comments
that range. So there's a folks that said that it's
going to lose a lot of customers this way because
they're not paying extra for haunted houses. That's one perspective.
Another perspective is saying they are cheating the twenty twenty
five season pass holders. They did not advertise this change
(03:10):
when selling them passes. I do not like the businesses
practice of Cedar Fair where they you know, they changed
their mind. That's perspective two. And then Perspective three is
basically saying that if you're going to improve the quality
of the attractions, there needs to be investment, and that
investment comes from stuff like tickets. So we have a
(03:31):
wide range from the pass holders about how they feel
about this, where there are some that seem to be okay,
as long as the investment is going to actually happen
in the haunts, right, then you have the other two perspectives.
The only other details that we have before we can
get into this discussion. The only the details really is
(03:53):
that a lot of the haunts at these legacy ones,
all the haunted houses, they're coming back our returning houses.
So I think that even further complicates the argument, right,
which is that why should you pay more or pay
anything or pay more for a haunted house that is
returning haunted house that has come back. And I think
(04:15):
the answer would be in the execution, which we don't
know yet because they're not open. So the reason that
I want to bring this up specifically with Scott is
because of Scott's background with Bush Gardens, his background with
Bush Gardens Tampa, and then after that having.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Worked with parks all over the world on.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Halloween and on this, this whole items that Scott Scott
has a lot of experience in this and a lot
of maybe he could help.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Us with some of the insight. That's the Well.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
First, I want to clarify that, you know, when we
say that this is completely new to Cedar Fair all
Cedar Fair parks, that's not one hundred percent true because
Nuts has always been a separate admission price.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yes, for for Halloween.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
That's true, that's true, right, yeah, so it's not not
as all and act Actually funny you mentioned that too,
because in all of these announcements there's like two little
asterisks and they're like basically they're like, you can purchase
this Hindhouse pass. It's it's ten dollars for this, fifteen
for this or whatever, and it's like asterisk asterisk, Like
not at Knots, because obviously Knots has its own pricing
(05:17):
which is more than any of this, and you have
to buy for Halloween a Knots anyway, So that's a
good point.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Well, and it's part of the reason that the Halloween
product at Knots has always been so much, so far
superior to all the other Cedar Fair offerings because they
had the revenue. They had the money coming in, so
therefore they could justify a higher spend. So let's start
with the last one that you mentioned. If they if
the intent is to elevate the six and we've we
(05:45):
have both been to six Flags haunts that have not
been up to standard. Yeah they you know, yeah fis
Queen and black Light, but and I wish I were joking,
but there are some The problem with the problem with
six Flags haunts for me is that they're really all
(06:06):
over the place. Yes, the quality level is just some
are excellent and some are just not. And sometimes even
in the same park, some are excellent and some are
just not. So if they're going to charge for them, yes,
that's going to bring in some additional cash or at
least justify the budgetary spend from the corporate side. The
(06:29):
flip side of that is the guest expectation is going
to be higher. You know, when you've got when you've
got a free haunt, Yeah, okay, it's a dark room
and a couple of people jump out and say, boom, fine,
I didn't pay anything for it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's okay.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It's going to force them, whether they realize it or not,
it's going to force them to up the quality level
or piss off a bunch of guests. As far as
the guests who are saying, you know, this is a
this is a bait and switch. Basically, you promised us
that this would be included, and now it's not for
this transition year. That's just something the company is going
(07:05):
to have to eat. You know, they're they're just going
to have to take that. And I will say, you know,
from a from a customer service standpoint, if you have
enough longtime season pass holders who gripe about it, deal
with it on a one on one basis and see
if you can get them, you know, your your Haunt
pass or whatever, just to get over this one year.
Because again, anytime there is a change like this, it's
(07:28):
got to happen where someone gets disappointed or someone feels
as though they've been screwed over. So do the best
you can six Flags to make it right with your guests,
But don't make a mass announcement saying anybody who's ever
heard of pass is now going to get a free
wristband to get into all the haunts. Don't go there
because that just kind of undermines what you're trying to
move towards, but deal with guests who are truly upset,
(07:51):
because as Philip has said, these are different levels of
frustration or different kinds of reactions, I guess as even
more fair. And so I think I think what they
would love to do somewhere down the road is to
make Halloween a separate admission.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So make everything like not basically like you think, everything
I'd like to.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Do, because again I think that's into I actually believe
based on my experience, that's kind of industry standard. I agree,
is that you know, you don't pay for each individual haunt,
you pay to go into the event. Your season pass
gives you a discount on that. We always at Bush
we always tried to make it that the deepest discount
(08:38):
was for season pass holders. There were there were some
flash sales, and I can't talk to it now because
I really don't know, but there were some flash sales
that that got close to that. But we always made
sure that our pass holders were the best taken care
of when it came to discounts to those separate ticket prices.
We went through this, you know, twenty almost twenty six
(09:01):
years ago. Now, I guess we went through this very
very almost twenty seven years ago, because we started a
year before. Anyway, we we went through a lot of
discussion to figure out how do we do this? You know,
is this a mix in? Is this a separate ticket
and what we discovered based on all of our research
(09:22):
and again old research, so this may have changed, but
based on our old research, and I still think to
a certain extent, it's true. It is much easier to
go from a separate ticketed event to a mix in
than it is to go from a mix in to
a separate ticketed event. And if that is indeed their
ultimate goal to make everything like nots, then this is
(09:44):
a stop gap measure. This is a this is a
we're going to test the waters and see how far
we can go.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
People.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
You know, every nobody, nobody wants to Nobody wants to
pay extra for anything.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I get that.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I mean no, that's just simply a customer customer things.
So be prepared, and I'm sure they are. I'm sure
six Flags is prepared to to live through this transition
year and and you know, try to deal with the
guests in the best possible way. Perhaps they can give
them something else to make them happy. Who's there's a
(10:18):
million in one ways to make a guest happy. You know,
everybody thinks, oh, guests get so angry about everything, blah
blah blah bla blah blah blah blah. Sometimes all you
have to do is sit down and listen to them. Yep,
because if they're angry enough to want to talk to somebody,
they need to be listened to. One of our park
presidents would hand out his business card and heed. You know,
(10:39):
he would tell angry guests, if you ever have anything
that's an issue, call me, I'm the park president. And
people used to look at him and go, why are
you doing this?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
That's crazy. You're gonna get all these.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I don't want to say crazy people. You'll get all
of these people who don't really have a gripe, but
who just want to say they have a gripe calling you.
And he said, honestly, that's not the case. Because they
have my card. Because they feel as though they have
direct contact to the guy in charge. They'll only call
if it's something really big. It's it's a it's a
(11:12):
weird perception thing. But I think, quite honestly, if we
want theme park haunt or theme park seasonal events in
general to continue to grow. This is going to be an.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Ongoing concept or an ongoing question. Yep.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You know we're talking about Halloween here, but.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You can also throw in Christmas. Christmas. Yeah, I was
going to bring that up. The only reason.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
See now, my recommendation still is charge do Halloween as
a separate admission, and then make Christmas the gift to
give back to your guests because Christmas has so many
things completely unrelated to the attractions industry that people have
to spend money on. So if you can come back
(11:58):
and show your goodwill and your kindness and your love
of the season and say, you know, we'll make it
just part of your your pass or part of your
day ticket and then you know, find find different ways
to do up charges. But you know, it sounds like
they're they're testing, they're testing the waters, you know. And
we said at the beginning of the show that six
Flags is just doing stuff, and that's good. Six Flags
(12:21):
should be doing stuff. They should be testing and finding
out what the new what the new parks are going
to look like, what the new business model is going
to be. Because again they've gone through a huge merger,
they've taken you know, two of two of the giants
of the industry and smashed them together. And some of
the things are going to work out very smoothly. Some
of the things are going to be a little rockier.
(12:42):
I think we said when we first heard about the merger,
if they can take the quality of if they can
take the quality of Cedar Fair and the efficiency of
six Flags, they can have a really great and financially
successful product. But the only way to do that is
to see what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I go back to when they first started fright fast
at six Flags six Flag Greade America in Gurney. They
didn't even have haunted houses. Back then, it was just
all street stuff. And then they had a Halloween show
and they had a Halloween parade, and then when they
added haunts, the haunts were always first of all, they
were IP based and secondly they were always enough charge.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
There was never at six Flags Great America when I
was going as a kid, there was never a free
haunted house there.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
They were always included.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I mean, they were always an extra ticket.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Last year I went to Cedar Fair, and I did
go when I was working is when I was working
in Detroit, at a haunted house, and then we all
road tipped over to Cedar Fair to go to or
Cedar Point, sorry to go to one of to go
to the Halloween event because it was open on a
(13:57):
day that we were not open, because it's you know,
it was inclined in the admission, right, And it's exactly
what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The quality is just all over. It's just not it's
not good.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
It's it's not by any stretch, the quality is not
good at all.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That's exactly what we're talking about, like the tension between
like it's almost I don't want to say it's a
no win it it's almost like a cash twenty two, right,
It's like.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
You it is for the first year. It is for
the first year.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, because because like I would never I don't even
think it would go back definitely to that event, but
I would certainly.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Never like pay for those at the quality they're at.
I think that's the thing. So I'm wondering.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I think my question is, is was there a better
way to do this? Like, like in my brain, I
guess as a marketer or as somebody who's listened to
you talk about the way you design events.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Now, I'm like, why didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
They go park by park even you could do this
park by Parker, But basically, why didn't they say, Okay,
we're going to take this one and we're going to
make the quality the level that people would pay for.
And the first year, like this year, it's going to
be included, and the next year we're going to be like,
we're doing these plus another hunt House, but it's going
(15:13):
to be a separately ticket event. So you give them
like a free sample, you show them here's the new
quality you can expect for our new events. And but
then also we're gonna it's gonna be even bigger and
better next year, but it's going to be a separately
ticketed event, you know, and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Do you remember the financial report that we talked about
last week. Yeah, it's the money money to do that.
There's no money to do that. There's no money to
do that. So it's really so I actually that's what
makes it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
There's no investment. No, no, But you're absolutely right. The
reason people are balking at having to pay for them
is because they know what the quality, or they feel
they know what the quality is that they're buying. They
think they're buying what they've gotten for free before. Yeah,
the way through this is to not make any promises upfront.
(15:59):
But when people do decide, because there's still gonna be
people who are going to buy and go and go
to the haunts, they are it. I will say it's
going to do a couple of things. Number one, it
is going to put more pressure on the quality, which
is good. You know sometimes pressure makes us get better.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Pressure makes a diamond. So the other side of it too,
is it's it's also going to control.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Q lines better. Yeah, it's gonna make the line.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
But because we're not gonna have you're not gonna have kids.
You know, you're not gonna have the twelve year olds
who are just getting out of line getting back into line.
I think there's also and I'm going out on a
limb here, so I have nothing this is anecdotal or
if not just opinion. I also think it's gonna help
with safety, because if you have to pay to go,
(16:47):
you are not going to just go every time and
know where all the actors are so that you can
scare them or trip them before they scare you. So
so I think I think that I think that may
help in the short term. But like I said, if
I were, if I were a betting man, I would
say that eventually they're going to try to get it
so that Halloween is a separate ticket.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I understand everybody. I understand nobody wants to pay for anything.
I mean, I get that, and I also I also
think we have to be sensitive about some of the
markets that these are in. You know, I mean a
lot of the with six Flags is you know, they
have so many parks in different markets. Some of those
regions are in areas that are you know, like stuff
(17:32):
is cheaper, right, I mean it's not like here where
I'm at in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I mean everything's expensive and you expect to pay for everything.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Right, It's like the environment of even parking is thirty
five dollars, right, It's like that environment. That's not the
case in other regions where so they're operating different markets.
But I think what I would say is despite all
of that, I do think a separately ticket event is
always a way to go, not just for the logistics
and for the safety and for all of those reasons.
(17:57):
But then you get into a situation where you can
you have a budget for investment, so you get people
paid to go to the experience, which means it controls
on the safety and the controls on the crowds and
all that. But then there's also a budget for investment,
which then allows you to create a tractions that are
worth going to. I think I think this problem that
(18:19):
they're in right now is like the haunts are not
worth paying for, but they have no budget to pay
for new haunts, and so what now They're going to
charge for stuff that they had last year? But then
that's just gonna throw people off in the brand. Like
I wonder if if an answer would have been, I mean,
this is radical, but like just cut Halloween entirely and
(18:40):
then say we're only going to open Halloween at these
few locations, and those locations we're going to charge for
and we're going to like move the set pieces and
move this stuff and try to rebuild it one at
a time.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Again, does that help? Does that help their overall brand?
I mean, if they're trying to be your local park,
that's that's going against their master plan, is that is
the antithesis of their master plan.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Then how do they get to a separately ticket at
event where they I.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Think I think it's I think what's going to well,
because it's gonna take three to five years.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Okay, it's gonna take three to five years.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I think they'll they'll get the they'll you know, they'll
get the extra revenue that they so sorely need, and
then they'll get a lot of guests pushback saying, Okay,
these houses are crap there, and they will get more.
These houses are crap because it's more crap if you
have to pay for it, yep, than if it's free.
If it's free, we tolerate crap. If you have to
pay for it, we don't. So and that's going to
(19:33):
force them, and it's probably already on their radar. It's
going to encourage them or or reinforce the need to
upgrade the quality. And then you know, then maybe another
year of uh separate ticket and then maybe the next
year is you only have two options, you have a
(19:53):
park pass or park plus Haunt. And then the next
year is you can get park after four ticket which
includes Haunt, and then you just make.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It a separate ticketed event. The following year.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I mean, you got to go in stages, and each
step along the way you're gonna have somebody who's gonna complain,
but eventually you can retrain your audience and that's the
that's the challenge.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, this all though, depends on the execution, which is
what we said about every original plan.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Everything does, everything does depend upon the air and I sorry,
go ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I was gonna say.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I think we talked about this several weeks ago, where
it's like they did have that really good plan from
the investor call and then things have not gone according
to plan. And I think something that we talked about
then is that it's up to the execution. But it's
also the fact that you know, these people can the
executives can sit in a room and you know, pontificate
(20:48):
and write a plan to the investors and all that.
But there this is the downside having so many parks.
You have so many parks that you have staff at
every park, and it's like you need the whole company
to move in a direction, and just there's this time.
It just it takes time to translate from there, and
I wonder, I just I guess I'm just I'm not
(21:10):
having seen so far that they have not been able
to get the staff to move as quickly to execute
their plan. I don't foresee that they're going to be
able to improve the quality enough at these Halloween events
this year to be able to justify even ten dollars
for them, So I think they might derail this well.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I think they're gonna have to just live with this
year and let this year be the You know, anytime
you change something. You know, if you own a restaurant
and a cup of coffee goes from a buck to
a buck twenty five, you're gonna have people I'm.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Never coming back here again. I'm not gonna pend an extra.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Quarter for a cup of coffee, And then you know,
two months down the road, they're back there and they've
forgotten what coffee used to cost.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
So you have to go through these. You have to
go through these rough spots. You have to go through these.
You know, we used to call them growing pains. You
gotta go through these growing pains in order to get
yourself right size and aligned with the rest of your company,
especially when you've got two diverse approaches coming together into
one company, and from a from a financial and an
(22:14):
operational standpoint, you want to homogenize those together to make
it so there's an economy of scale going on there. Yeah,
I will say that whenever we talk about whenever we
talk about six Flags, it seems that we get a
lot of response. We've had quite a bit of response
on some of the videos that we've posted a lot
of comments on YouTube, and Philip, you've kind of gathered
some of them and put them into categories. Can we
(22:35):
address some of those?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, So I did want to thank everybody for commenting
on the last video. A lot of comments. Is over
eighty comments, and a lot of very substantive comments, and
I'll be trying to answer.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I have smart people who listen to it. We only
have smart people who watch it. Yeah, only smartly.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, if you made it this far, that's true in
the video, that's true. But I do want to thank
everybody for putting their questions in there. They're very substantive.
I'm not sure I will have time to reply to
everything because it's in the hallowing season and we're pretty slammed.
But I did read through the comments and I have
put them into kind of a few buckets of items
(23:15):
that we did not address in the previous video.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
So I did want to get to that.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So the first is this theme where like Universal having
eaten into the Six Flags market share in the last
seven to eight years. That's been a theme at several comments.
And what I would say to that is, see again,
see what we talked about the regional elements. Like a
lot of this is like I think, because we're in
the theme park world, we're so focused on like Disney Universal,
(23:42):
Six Flag, I mean, we're so in this focus, but
like most of the Six Flags attendees are like regional
people who.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
We talked about this before when we talked.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
About the whole destination versus regional approach, right, So I
don't actually think that it's into their market that much
because really, if you're going to Universal or going to Disney,
it's a it's a destination. You're going to do that,
like you're going to work that into your plan, right,
and then otherwise you're going to stay within your region.
So it's more like you're choosing between the regional park.
(24:14):
So you're choosing between like Hershey Park and some of
the breed in that area, or Silver Dollar City, and
that I.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Would go so far as to say, uh, the only
place that's happening is where a Universal park and a
Flags park actually share demographic.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, actually share guests. Which Florida. Yeah, in California.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
California is really the only place I can think of
that that actually has a Universal, a Universal property and
a Six Flags property in Florida. No, there's there's no
way Universal has impacted the Six Flags attendance in any way,
shape or form. And even if they even if there
(24:58):
was a Six Flags park here. To fill 's point,
Halloween Hornet's is good, bad, or indifferent is the benchmark.
I mean, it is the It's the granddaddy. It's been
around the longest, it's been operating full blast. It kiss
keeps expanding. It's got a fan base that just doesn't quit.
(25:18):
So if there were a six Flags park that were
to all of a sudden pop up here in Florida, yeah,
it would take a it would It would be really
hard for them to chip away at that market. Trust me,
I tried it twenty six years ago with when we
created Ali Scream, and we did we decided, nope, we're
not going to go toe to toe. We're not going
to go to to toe. And the guest said, well,
it's it's all we'll come to see. So our differentiation
(25:40):
point was we were we would create original stories, news stories,
not just not just movie not just movie stories. That
was our and we focused They focused on big sets
and big scenic and we focused on intimacy and human scares.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So the you have to find carve out your niche.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
But to say that, to say that Universal has outside
of California, to say that Universal has pulled market share
from six flags, I'm not I don't see it.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, sorry that yes, California, Yes, yeah, California is the
only one, and it is not like that's not insignificant, right,
you have Magic Mountain and you have not all within
the same region. But also it's the smallest Universal park.
Well maybe Singapore is smaller, that's possible, Singamore smaller, but yeah,
it's it's definitely on a different scale, right, and there
(26:34):
it's much easier to draw your lines of differentiation, right
like you had the studio tour. It's still an active
studio here all that, and the lines are better. But okay,
it moving on. So the next kind of bucket of
comments I think had to deal with us not addressing
the meal plans, which is something we totally forgot about.
So last episode we talked about the concept of the
(26:57):
six Flag talked about in their investor meeting, which is
that they want to get more people in the park,
especially season pass holders, to get them to return more
often so they can then purchase items in the park,
and we talked about food and beverage and merchandise being
purchase options, and a lot of folks in the comments
pointed out that they also sell the meal plans, which
is like two meals per visit with unlimited visits and
(27:19):
then unlimited drinks each visit, and especially comments like how
are the how is the park supposed to make money
when they're giving away the gate and the food and so, Scott,
what do you think?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Well, I think that one thing you have to recognize is,
especially for things like seasonal activations, season pass holders don't
come alone. Yes, they bring friends, they bring family, and
they they're the ones who are usually the ringleaders who
will say, well, I've got to pass, so I'll drive
because I get free parking, and we'll go ahead and
(27:52):
do this, do that, do this, and so therefore those
people that they bring along with them won't have the
meal plan. And you know, I know there are people
out there who are going to say well, that's that's
an outlier, Scott, that's not that's not the vast majority.
Trust me, it is the vast majority.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
It's even if even if they bring one person who
pays full price, you know, a group of ten people
brings one person who pays full price and then buys
meals to try to keep up with the people who
have two meals and unlimited drinks. The other person's going
to try to keep up with them as long as
they're not you know, passing the cut back and forth,
which also happens, which also happens. But what they have
(28:36):
to do, especially at this transition period, is they have
to keep the turnstiles turning. They have to keep those
turnstyles clicking. So I don't know whether the meal plan, yes,
it is going to impact them. And I appreciate you
guys bringing it up that wash that was our our
miss on not not mentioning it. But I still don't
(28:56):
think it's going to be that much of it issue
because quite honestly, especially during Halloween events, people rarely eat.
They'll eat during the day, but they don't want to
waste their time eating at night because you know, they've
got to wait in a queue, and they've got to
get make sure they get to all the haunts, and
they got to there's a very limited time that they
got to do everything, So grab and go at best
(29:20):
sit down dinners are really hard for a Halloween event,
especially if you're only going once.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I think we're basically at a time. I think the
last bucket that we had was just that the problem
someone pointed out rightfully. So the problem is Cedar Fair
and six Flags had two different models, and we've talked
about I think we've kind of already discussed that, but
especially when we started the show with the Halloween model.
But that's this is exactly the problem, right, is that
they're cherry picking policies from one park and from the
(29:52):
other park, and then they're putting them at back and forth, right,
and they're like cross pollinating ideas, and that is, like
Scott said, anytime you make a just going to cause friction.
And so I think the question the thing I always
say is like it depends on the execution, Like what
are the haunts actually going to look like? What is
the thing actually going to look like? What what is
it going to be like when you go there? Because
(30:14):
I think that's that's where it's it's all gonna it's
all gonna come out, because some of these policies can
be really great implemented at the other counter parks. Right,
it just depends on what they how they actually do it.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Well, and and what's going to happen is no matter
they're they're for these first couple of years. They're kind
of darned if they do darned if they don't.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
The things, the things that have worked at at Cedar Parks,
at Cedar Fair Parks, and the things that have worked
at six Flags Parks are going to piss off the
people in the other parks. So you know, they've got
to find their way. And we, of course from the
very beginning, have suggested they should cherry pick. They should
take what works in both companies and try to try
(30:55):
to make it work together into into one company. But
that takes time. You can't just all of a sudden
change behavior like that. You can't change the behavior of
the guests. You can't change the guest expectations. You can't
change the people who run the parks and who work
in the parks. You can't change their mentality instantly. That
takes a whole bunch of time, and unfortunately time is
(31:17):
the one thing that we don't have anymore. We've now
run out of it. So this is the end of
this week's Green Tag Theme Park in thirty. If you
are an unhinged patriot who will join us run Hinge,
please do so because we will be talking a lot
more about some of the questions that we've been asked
over the past week and some comments that we've received
from some very dedicated listeners, and we really appreciate that.
(31:37):
So until next week, this is Scott Swinson and Philip
Hernandez with Green Tag Theme Park in thirty.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
We will see you next week.
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