The amusement park chain sold several parks last year, and earlier this month announced in an SEC filing that it would cut $60 million in spending this year.
But the San Antonio paper reports that those cuts might not be all, the chain might turn to park sales, either to other park operators or to real estate developers, to raise cash while cutting operating expenses.
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It also doesn't make any sense since the park has invested capitol to move Batman from New Orleans to become Goliath in San Antonio.
They were in a much better position to make some money. Time Warner put some cash into it and it looked like it could make it long term-maybe I am wrong. They had just started to get some synergy when they sold off to whoever was next.
Premier used the purchases of silly little, off-the-wall properties and it was just a ruse. The other parks were all part of a pyramid scheme to make it look like the company was strong and moving forward-bought just to make the year over year revenue increases look good.
Now, it isn't pretty-sell, sell, sell if you can. The properties may not be worth much anymore, but expanding the corporate office with higher paid salaries doesn't ever work.
They have gone after corporate-wide sponsorships (a good idea) that can make some cash, but it isn't enough to make a real difference, it looks good in a news release, but what kind of cash is committed to the bottom line-almost none.
It is sad, but not really unexpected....
Cedar Fair's model still works pretty well. The company is a little stretched right now from it's spending spree, but their smaller parks do just fine fiscally speaking right along with their larger parks because they are responsible with improvement. Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Knotts get the attention, but there is a park north of the border that has quietly become the most attended park in the chain.
This loss of finances is going to be hitting even the major players such as Disney in the future...especially when it comes to families meeting the transportation cost of getting to that park, let alone the cost of parking, lodging, getting in, food,souvenirs, et al.
That being said, Six Flags has it's chain anchor there in Dallas area...and, one Six Flags per state may be enough to the corporate line of thinking for financial operation gain. The distance between San Antonio and Dallas isn't that great...I've literally done Fiesta one evening and by the next afternoon (after driving from San Antonio that given morning) enjoyed the afternoon and night at SFT)...whichreally isn't easily said for a state such as California where Six Flags also operates two properties - MM and that which used to be known as Marine World in the Bay Area...I can easily see the theme park/animal park in Vallejo being closed by Flags in the near future in order to meet operational costs...
Even now, Six Flags has decimated and closed the back half of Magic Mountain...not that the loss there is great, Psyclone was already removed...Deja Vu had low capacity, and, the remainder was a craft shop village...If they (Six Flags) were to close the Vallejo operation, then, I could easily see the relocation of the major coasters from there to Valencia in SoCal...and, hopefully, if that speculation were to happen, they would bring ROAR south rather than leveling it.
In the sense of Fiesta, there aren't many coasters that could readily travel as easily, sad to say...and, as the Park already has the infrastructure built, it would be sad to see no other company come in and take operation of it and re-develop the property into something different than that which Six Flags had operated in order to give a different theme park experience in Texas for families to have a reason to travel to and enjoy.
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The alternative, it seems to me, is to go down-market and position simply as day-visit parks to locals, in which case I think they'd be better off still repositioning as a premium water park chain, with maybe a few "dry" rides on the side. Much lower costs there, and still the ability to get into the family market, which they could not get otherwise going as a local's park.
The day-visit local's amusement park business is where Six Flags was before, overrun with teens spending little, with high maintenance and security costs and little hope of attracting big-spending family vacationers.
Even Cedar Fair is having a tough time making this model work, outside of the very well-established flagship Cedar Point, Knott's (saved by Disney spillover) and maybe Kings Island (which had a strong flagship history of its own before Cedar Fair bought it).