Not even the devil himself can escape the Rona.
Six Flags' Jersey Devil Coaster won't open this year but will wait until 2021 for its debut, Six Flags has announced. The single-rail RMC Raptor was slated to open this summer at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, but construction was delayed due to the coronavirus, and with the park having to limit capacity, Six Flags has decided just to wait until next year.
With sister park Six Flags Magic Mountain originally planning a RMC Raptor in 2021, it's possible that we now will see two of those coasters debuting at Six Flags parks on opposite coasts next year. But that depends upon the Los Angeles-area park going ahead with its unannounced plans and not either postponing them for a year or canceling them outright.
Theme park chains have been slashing their capital budgets following the Covid shutdowns across the country and the result tourism crash. SeaWorld management has suggested that it might delay some of its as-yet-unopened 2020 coasters until next year, and Cedar Point announced that it will delay its 150th anniversary celebration - and associated new attractions - until 2021.
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Great Adventure is pretty much my home park and this doesn't surprise me in the least. Once construction on Jersey Devil had been halted and the park's opening had been pushed back three months, a 2021 debut for the raptor was practically a given. I say practically because in this uncertain climate there's no guarantee that it will happen. New attractions are designed to draw visitors and boost revenue; and with limits on capacity for the foreseeable future, how many visitors can parks realistically hope to draw?
I'm pretty confident at this point that anything larger than a flat ride that wasn't testing pre-pandemic probably won't open until next season. There is very little incentive to invest in a major new ride that isn't ready to roll, as it likely would come at the tail end of a shortened season. Far better to have it ready to debut at the start of next year, by which we will hopefully have fewer restrictions (not optimistic enough to say none) and there will be more interest among the public for activities like theme parks.
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Tourism in the Northeast is going to be rough for a long while with quarantines for anyone traveling from states with higher number of cases. Broadway just announced no shows for the rest of 2020 and it's still up in their how movie theaters will work.
Still interested in Six Flags Great America as Illinois has been cited as one of the best states handling this yet still up in the air when the Gurnee park will open as a lot of tourism from nearby states having their issues so a lot up in the air now.