The owner of Dollywood and Silver Dollar City is about to take on the largest expansion in its history. Herschend has signed an agreement with Parques Reunidos for Herschend to acquire Palace Entertainment's U.S. properties.
That means that historic parks such as Kennywood, Lake Compounce, and Dutch Wonderland now will become part of the same chain as Dollywood and Silver Dollar City.
"This year, we're celebrating 75 years of bringing families closer together—and looking ahead to the next 75," Herschend CEO Andrew Wexler said. "Today's announcement marks a natural expansion and continuation of that vision. By growing wisely and staying true to our purpose, we are building a future where we can continue creating memories worth repeating for generations to come."
The acquisition continues the trend of consolidation in the United States theme park industry. Last year, rivals Six Flags and Cedar Fair merged, adopting the Six Flags name while maintaining most of the Cedar Fair management team. Herschend's purchase of Parques Reunidos's Palace Entertainment parks will expand Herschend's market size, pushing the company's reach to more than 20 million annual guests, according to Herschend.
That would place Herschend close to SeaWorld owner United Parks in annual attendance, as the two fight for fourth place in the U.S. theme park market, behind Disney, Universal, and the new Six Flags.
"Herschend is the ideal organization to lead Palace Entertainment’s unique properties" Palace Entertainment CEO John Reilly said. "Herschend is best in class in providing a high-quality guest experience within its parks. Palace Entertainment's team members and its parks are in great hands as we make this transition."
Herschend’s Board Chair, Chris Herschend, said, "Being a family business for 75 years has given us a deep understanding of what makes properties like these special - not just the rides and attractions, but the people who pour their hearts into them every day. These historic and beloved properties have been family traditions for generations, and we are honored to help carry that legacy forward."
To that end, Herschend management said that it is planning no immediate changes to daily operations at the soon to be former Palace Entertainment parks. When the deal closes, Herschend will own or operate the following theme parks,
As well as the following water parks:
The deal also includes FECs and aquariums. Herschend's acquisition of the Palace properties also brings Herschend into the Southern California market for the first time, though the company still will have no presence in Central Florida. Herschend left that market with the sale of its old Dixie Stampede attraction in 2008.
To keep up to date with more theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider's weekly newsletter.
And to help support Theme Park Insider while saving money on discounted theme park tickets, please follow the ticket icon links on our Theme Park visitors guides.
I called this in the comments to the "Another amusement park chain might be for sale" article from last August. I wrote that if Herschend could manage such a significant expansion, that company would appear to be the best fit to absorb the Palace portfolio.
My thinking is The Great Escape Park in Queensbury NY, which appeals primarily to young families, includes a hotel with an indoor water park and is located within a popular regional tourist destination, would be a great fit in the newly expanded Herschend.
Silver Dollar City and Dollywood are two of the best parks in the country but it seems like they forgot they own Wild Adventures, all they have done is remove their biggest coaster and replace it with nothing. Kentucky Kingdom is getting an upgraded kids area this year, but again they took out T2 and didn't replace it with anything (not that i'm mad about them taking it out, but its been a few years now and still nothing).
Maybe since Kennywood is an iconic park they will invest some money into that one, but I feel like this company doesn't care much for its smaller parks. I will say though Palace was a total dumpster fire so I guess anything is an improvement over that.
Definitely interesting to see this go down. I would like to think they’ll do a great job with managing Kennywood. I wouldn’t be sad if they would buy my hometown park Frontier City in OKC. I feel like its size would complement their portfolio and they could make some serious improvements to it.
This does seem to be a natural fit for Herschend given the care they've taken to preserve and enhance both Dollywood and Silver Dollar City. However, I do worry that as a chain like this expands, can they properly allocate resources to the properties that need it most while still showcasing and growing their biggest money-makers? This has happened to theme park chains around the world where smaller parks are consistently left in the lurch by chains, and denied funding for even small projects on cost/benefit grounds. I doubt Kennywood (or Kentucky Kingdom to a lesser degree) will be impacted or viewed as "red headed stepchildren" in the combined chain, but some of the smaller, but still popular, parks like Lake Compounce, Idlewild, and Dutch Wonderland might get pinched out. Those parks were already short on support from Palace, but will Herschend find the budget (and will) to show these niche parks some love. Idlewild and Dutch Wonderland are already in pretty competitive markets with the former having to compete with Kennywood and the latter competing with independent Hersheypark, United-owned Sesame Place, and Six Flags-owned Dorney Park, so it will be interesting to see how Herschend handles these properties. Lake Compounce's closest competition is SFNE, but the Six Flags park decidedly caters to a very different guest than Lake Compounce.
You must be registered and logged in to submit a comment.
So, has Six Flags' Richard Zimmerman called Wexler yet, to offer to sell him any more smaller, regional parks?
My dream has been for Herschend to get Knott's, but I suspect that would never happen due to Scary Farm. Still, I look forward to seeing if Castle Park steps up with this new corporate parent.