Six Flags board flipped - Snyder in

[Drewbie]

No news story on the front page yet, but Snyder's results were verified and Snyder and his Red Zone cronies are now in charge of the Six Flags board. I'd imagine this nullifies the sale of the company, but thus far it's only made the stock price jump 2% today.

Reading through what Red Zone sent me as a stock holder, I don't like what I see. They're killing Mr. Six, planning to cut back on capitol expenditures, outsourcing their food vendors, and other changes.

We'll see what this does to the company I guess.

Hey, as long as the stock goes up, I don't much care.

[Ryan F]

RIP Six Flags
1961-2005

[PKIDelirium]

I believe you mean.....

Kieran Burke, Good Riddance!

[joedonuts1011]

I realize that their intent is to cut spending, to ultimately turn a profit. However, I don't think killing the entire Mr. Six campaign is such a good idea. It is a successful campaign, and should not be abandoned. What is going to be next...no more Coke can buy one get one free days??

[ImmelMatt]

*hears epic Latin music in the background*

The end is near....

[siestakey]

No! Six Flags can't go out! Not like this!! Why Snyder?!?!?!?! Whyyyyyy?!

[coasterlove]

And people thought Six Flags was similar to the others with clones, lack of theming, etc, well you haven't seen anything yet then. Now we'll really have a generic park filled with fast food restaurants. You want a good burger at the park, hope you don't mind McDonalds. You're in the old west part of the park and you want some Mexican food, go ahead a grab a chulupa from the new Taco Bell. I think you get my point. While many of the SF parks may have one or two fast food restaurants there, it will be sad to see if it's nothing but now.

I also think it's stupid to get rid of Mr. Six. I didn't particulary care for him but a lot of people including kids did. And guess what, those kids are their future customers for years to come. Why kill an icon just after you got him started. I don't see adults wearing Ronald McDonald tshirts but their kids might like him. Same goes with a lot of places.

I never understood why people were so excited about Snyder taking over. It just means less attractions but more advertisements. Higher prices but a lesser experience. I honestly think that many of the people saying that are secretly hoping they become lesser parks simply because they are fanboys of another chain and fear some competition from SF.

And to those who claim otherwise, I'm going to laugh in your face if and most likely when you're still disappointed because they haven't gotten a new coaster or major ride. Because if you thought your park was neglected before just wait now. See, I don't have to worry because my homepark is strong and isn't going anywhere and since it's a very profitable park, we'll still get stuff either way.

Enjoy your new park and the old rides because that's all you're gonna have for a long time at some of their parks.

[Katie]

Snyder should stick to just football. There is no need to be in the amusement park business. When you can't get your own football team to the playoff's let alone a Superbowl, and then you think you can save a business that is way in debt? Oh Hell NO!

[coasterdude28]

Well, this pretty much sucks. I really don't like what I am hearing about Snyder. I get the feeling that he is only going to try to make himself some money, and not really better the company.

[Commonsense]

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Thanksssssss Godddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

[Leo C]

So I'll have a better chance to get HOOTERS wings at SF Great Adventure?
Now that I could be more closer to getting fast food/major brand restaurant choices at a Six Flags, I realize I don't really want to go there. What ever happened to "the escape" I'm supposed to be getting when I walk into a theme park? "It's Playtime!" was the attempt to recapture that mysticism. The emergence of Mr. Six softened my harden soul; hardened from the commercialization and neglect of the Six Flags properties. It was lost a few years ago. A Mc Donald's and multiple Plymouth Places dotted my Great Adventure. They're no longer there under the Mr. Six Campaign. I felt a genuine innocence and really wanted to see my Six Flags visit as a new "Playtime." No wonder Snyder would want to eliminate the marketing scheme. With these commericial applications we'll be going back in time - a time where Six Flags was losing. Don't kill Six Flags Snyder!!! Let's not go backwards!

Since Burke and company is on the way out, I will look at SFGADV's El Toro, SFOG's GOLIATH, La Ronde's GOLIATH, and SFMM's Tatsu as a great sendoff. What a way to go out with a bang! Thanks for all the great, a few were troublesome, appreciated coaster additions.

[89magnumxl200]

Like I've said before, maybe it'll keep him out of the Redskins front office enough so he'll let someone else handle the team. For the parks though, it's not looking good.

[Ryan F]

[QUOTE=Commonsense]Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Thanksssssss Godddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd[/QUOTE]
Would you like to explain your reasoning behind such an outburst of happiness?

[Chris L]

/\ He can't because he only sees one side of the situation. He sees the part where Kieran Burke leaves office, but he doesn't see the part where Dan Snyder takes over - which is pretty much another Kieran Burke, with a different face on.

EDIT: [B]NEWS JUST IN[/B]!

Dan Snyder, now as CEO and President of Six Flags, Inc. (soon to be renamed Red Zone parks) cancels all 2006 capital expenditure projects, including four rollercoasters at its Los Angeles, Jackson, Atlanta and Quebec market properties. All attraction parts currently on site will be liquidated - and all attractions currently erected will be taken down and put into storage for the time being.

All the parks will be rebranded as "Red Zone." (Red Zone Great Adventure, Red Zone Over Texas, Red Zone Magic Mountain, etc.)

In addition, Snyder also plans to rename the world's tallest and fastest rollercoaster - that debuted last year in Jackson, NJ - Kingda Ka into Snyder Ka. He also plans to cover all attraction vehicle surfaces with sponsor logos and advertisements. More to come.

/\ If you couldn't already tell, that was a joke ;)

[medieval]

Next year is going to be an interesting one...

[Thunderhawk]

Just when Six Flags was making a comeback. Well, time to go back to the dark ages, I suppose, friends.

"I coulda been a contender!!!"

[Leo C]

Good Joke Chris but you were so close to being cyber-strangled. Hehehehe. Snyder could go ahead and rename Kingda Ka - it has a phallic shape. I wouldn't be surprised if he'll be a big punk.

[James R]

haha, wow Chris. I first saw that and I thought you were serious about that "Red Zone Parks" thing... that scared me, hehe.

I personally am not overly concerned with other Six Flags parks. AstroWorld is obviously not going to get anything nice out of Six Flags at this point, so it's mostly a matter of vengeful retribution for me. I'm curious to see how this will all play out.

[Commonsense]

[quote="Chris L"]/\ He can't because he only sees one side of the situation. He sees the part where Kieran Burke leaves office, but he doesn't see the part where Dan Snyder takes over - which is pretty much another Kieran Burke, with a different face on.[/quote]

Umm yes I can, I am willing to give Snyder the chance to turn things around, Imo the only thing worse then SF is no parks at all and i'm willing to bet Snyder can make these parks better in the long run.

Yes it's possible this is just the same management different face, i'm willing to give it a chance though. SF Burke n Crew has showed me nothing to make me want to keep them aboard especially how they have destroyed my home park IMO, yes they may have added a ton of ok coasters but when it comes to a park as a whole it has been neglected. Hopefully Snyder will change that, if he doesn't then I'll just keep hoping that ond day somebody comes in that does. Hopefully they'll know what they are doing, come in and turn my home park into the amazing park it once was and should be.

[SFGAm Guru]

I'm proud to say I voted for Snyder's overtaking of the company.

Six Flags has also showed me nothing to want to keep the current board in. Yeah they had a better year this year but they've shown us no vision for the future. Snyder at least has a vision and he's the only one that has showed us any kind of progress toward the future. All the current board could do was downplay Snyder and not come up with any of their own stuff.

[Kyle L]

Out goes many years if struggling to find sucess with Six Flags...

In comes parks plastered with corporate brands!

[Marc]

Mr. Six was becoming cliche. Just like the "dude, you've got a dell" and the Budweiser frogs, Mr. Six is losing appeal.

[Chris L]

/\ Mr. Six is losing appeal? Says who?

[Drewbie]

[QUOTE=coasterlove]I honestly think that many of the people saying that are secretly hoping they become lesser parks simply because they are fanboys of another chain and fear some competition from SF.[/QUOTE]

Maybe so, but the only people that counted in this happening are Six Flags Stock holders and fan boys or not, they dont' want the value to fall further.

[quote=Marc]Mr. Six was becoming cliche. Just like the "dude, you've got a dell" and the Budweiser frogs, Mr. Six is losing appeal.[/quote]

Says yet another member of the MTV generation with a 5 second attention span. "I need new and different constantly or I get bored! Grrrrr!"

[Sir Willow]

I'll admit, I'm worried about it. Snyder doesn't hesitate to jump in and start meddling and screwing up things that he doesn't understand, and that's what he's wanting to do in a lot of areas here. Little investigation into what's really happening and how it works, and lots of spouting and bad changes. Just like his attempting to coach the Redskins. It wasn't til he backed off and let someone who knew what they were doing alone to actually do it that they started to play decently again. That's what I'm afraid will happen here.

Keep in mind, the amusement business is NOT like most other businesses. My consolation- he doesn't run the board (only 3 out of 7 seats, so not even a majority) And the CEO and CFO, while not on the board anymore, haven't necessarily lost their jobs.

What am I expecting? I'm expecting him to kill a wildly successful advertising campaign for one that is boring and doesn't do anything (like Mr. Six or not, he's been huge for the parks, people like him overall, and you can't deny, when you hear the music, you think him and Six Flags) And then I'm expecting him to do something that will make him millions while destroying the company and really sticking it to the rest of the stockholders and people who care. Which certainly wouldn't be the first time that he's done that either.

[Wes]

I'm just glad SFOG got their hyper already!!! :D

I know, that's mean.

Honestly though Six flags was spending money like it was going out of style in the late 90's and it finally caught up with them and left them in a pile of debt.

I can't see them not building more coasters or something silly like that, but you probably won't see a mega coaster every year anymore either.

[joedonuts1011]

[QUOTE=SFGAm Guru]I'm proud to say I voted for Snyder's overtaking of the company.

Snyder at least has a vision and he's the only one that has showed us any kind of progress toward the future.[/QUOTE]

Would you care to enlighten us as to the details of Snyder's plans? And don't say "to turn a profit." That's everyone's plan. How will he accomplish this? By bringing in brand name foods? By eliminating a succesful ad campaign? By cutting park hours? By cutting park expansion?

If Snyder is smart, which it certainly looks like he is not, he and his cronies will come up with ways to increase in-park-per-capita spending.

[coasterlove]

I see that almost everyone posting seems to be agianst Snyder taking over. Now I don't know if that's because that's only those who feel that way are those who are posting now or if people have changed their minds. Because I know a lot more people were in favor of him taking over. So much so, I'd say it was almost evenly split in opinion as for him taking control.

It's a sham that if people have changed their mind, it's not until now. Not that much would be different since so few of us had any say in the matter. I'd just like to point out that I was always agianst him taking over and was very outspoken in my opinion on it. I know I'm patting myself on the back but it's just it seems to me that some are jumping on the bandwagon of those against Snyder.I knew any ideas of his would be bad for those who enjoy Six Flags even if it does add more profitability to the company.

[raser]

Ok, here it is as I have some experience marketing things in a much smaller venue but I remember the principles that most new owners realise. 1. You need to find your core customers, ( For an amusement park you are looking at young children to young adults but don't forget some older adults as they will be there as well but the majority is the younger ones. )
2. Find out what is hot and makes your target customers tick.
3. Make your product something that your target customers want over and over. I think Cedar Fair (don't call me a fanboy as I will say they have done things wrong at times as well.) has learned from Disney that you need to make your parks a destination. It looks like in the future the other CF parks will be building resorts near their parks as it has seemed to work for the ones they have. Six Flags has started this in NY and I hope that this is not the only park to get this treatment. As for advertising I think that they need to focus on what they have. Start with shots of very young kids having fun in Looney tunes land or whatever it is called and slowly have the kids get older but still having tons of fun untill they are young adults enjoying the biggest thrills possible. At the end leave with a caption similar to
[B]Six Flags, growing up has never been so much fun.[/B]

[rjholla2003]

Since the hotel at Great Adventure has been given the green light by Jackson Township and SFI, you can bet dollars to doughnuts that the trend is starting to spread.