Are you dying to make some money?
Six Flags has $300 for you — but you're going to have to play dead for a while to get it. The amusement park chain is expanding its Fright Fest "Coffin Challenge" to parks across the country after 25,000 fans signed up for the challenge in St. Louis.
Here's the deal: You spend 30 hours lying in a coffin at the park. If you make it to the end, you get $300. That works out to $10 an hour, which is below minimum wage here in California, but I suppose that law applies only to the living.
The $300 isn't the only reward for completing the challenge, though. Winners also will receive 2019 Gold Passes as well as Express Haunted Maze Passes. Six Flags also will provide meals, snacks, and drinks to participants. Perhaps most importantly, the park will provide mobile phone charging, too.
Hey, it's not like they're trying to kill you or anything.
Oh, but they will send some of the Fright Fest Freaks by from time to time to, uh, "entertain" you. So how "liveable" would this experience be?
I can't help but think back to the 18 hours I spent in an airline seat for my flight back to Los Angeles from Abu Dhabi in July. This would be 12 hours longer than that, but at least I would get to stretch my legs. With a fully-charged mobile phone and an Internet connection, 30 hours in "bed" doesn't sound all that bad, even if it's a dirt nap. And Six Flags will provide six-minute bathroom breaks every hour when you can get out of the coffin, too.
But will the coffin remain open for the full 30 hours, or will the lid be closed for any of it? That's the real deal breaker right there.
Not everyone who wants to try the challenge will get the chance. Fans have to sign up online and Six Flags will select six participants at each park, with the "die-in" taking place over a weekend in October. You can follow the links from SixFlags.com to each park and then to the Coffin Challenge sign-up pages. (Here's the Magic Mountain sign-up page.)
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"But will the coffin remain open for the full 30 hours, or will the lid be closed for any of it? That's the real deal breaker right there."
I think it's going to be closed (at least for large percentage of the time.) If not, while you'd still have some who be wary of doing this challenge, it truly lessens the claustrophobic atmosphere I assume they are trying to set.
You'd have a lot more people who will lay in an open container than a closed one!!
Come on Six Flag's, step it up. It should be a 13 coffin challenge, closed lid, no breaks, no food, etc.; dead-is-dead, who can play dead the longest.
You praise the PR folks, but then make a case that a publicly traded Six Flags should increase the prize? Did you not see that 25,000 fans signed up for six spots in St Louis? People would do this for no prize.
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I'll start off by saying this. What a fantastic idea to promote both the parks, and the Halloween event. My hats off to the PR department....however...
Six Flags is a publicly traded company, that as of 9/27/2018 was trading for $69.90 a share, with a market cap of almost 6 billion. Their last recorded gross profit was about $740 million dollars, EDIBTA was $578 million.
All that to say...$300 bucks and a gold pass, for 6 players per park? Who have to spend 30 hours and might not all make it anyway? Really? Are you providing bread and water for food? Is the free wi-fi connected to a dial-up modem? Will the participants have to pay for a ticket to get into the contest? Are you paying the $300 in installments?
How about coming off of a little more money for those diehard fans. Make it really worth their while.
On the other hand, I'm short on sleep and could use a really long nap, and I have a Netflix/Amazon Prime rotation that I don't have enough time to manage. It's a pay cut from hell for me, but it just might be worth it.
God it's good to be back.