[QUOTE=Phil]Having the season pass so cheap allows for more of an "inner-city" crowd.[/QUOTE]

Here-here! One of my biggest gripes about Six Flags is how they sell their annual/season passes so cheap! Having them cheap is great for me, since it saves me money, but in doing so, it is also inciting a lot of negative factors which these parks DO NOT yet fully comprehend. And some of these you can read in the second paragraph of this post. I am incredibly confident that they could offer the passes at a much higher price, and still pull in revenue from pass sales. I believe they cheapen their passes with the mindset that it means increased in-park per capita spending, which consists of a good portion of Six Flags' total earnings at each park. A guest with a season pass is a guest that WILL return to your park, and will most likely than not, spend money on overpriced food and merchandise. HOWEVER, Six Flags doesn't see that it is a terrible mistake in the long run.

And your statement about that offering cheap passes only allows for an increase in an "inner city" crowd is definitely true - and considering how most Six Flags parks are "thrill parks" the majority of these cheap season pass holders are adolescents with too much free time and make their local Six Flags park a regular "hangout" place. And I don't want to generalize, but it is this target market of immature teenagers that own these cheap passes that are responsible for all the bad things us enthusiasts hate at Six Flags parks - the excessive vandalism, line jumping, garbage in the midways and queues, etc...

And all the riots, knife fights, gun shots, and gang activity at the parks are all good examples of that

I completely agree. I think SF could raise their season passes to about $70-$80 and still sell the same amount of passes they do now.

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Six Flags Great Adventure passes are $75 this year, and since this is the only SF park I've been to, it's the only one I can talk about.

Yes, raising the prices will in some small way force poorer (and, if the posts in this thread are to be believed, problem-causing) teenagers not to come to the park (we all know rich teenagers never cause any problems). So yes, a raise to, let's say, $100 will keep out a small fraction of teenagers; but is a $25-50 raise in price really going to do anything? It'll affect a small fraction of people, but not most. This isn't really a solution.

Anyway, why should theme parks do that? Their core audience, like it or not, is teenagers (at least for chains like Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and Paramount). They should cater to them, really, if they want to be profitable; if having season pass prices at $75 will get them to the park to buy drinks and food, then it's worth the $25 dollars less for the season price.

I do agree the season passes should be more along the lines of $100, but not for the reasons of this thread. Rather, as someone said above, they'll probably sell about the same amount, boosting their revenue. Now that is a good reason to raise prices, but it won't control the crowds.

The reason the crowds are bad is because the people are "bad". Go to any concert, or any number of bars in any number of cities. There's bad elements everwhere. I see it as a fact of life whenever I go anywhere where there's alot of people in public places. I don't think there's a major park that I've spent more than one day at where I haven't found segments of the crowd "questionable".

The only solution is to deal with it, or stop visitng the parks.

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^ or to hire/enforce adequate security

You can say it has to do with socioeconomics, distance, prices... It doesnt. It has to do with the park and their security policies. PC is closer to Charlotte (1.5 million metro) then most parks are to their cities, and you don't see problems. The main problem with crowd control is dealt on the park and the way they delegate security - and Six Flags simply doesn't do a good job. Paramount and Cedar Fair parks maintain and keep their parks 'clean' of problems because they are sensible enough to prioritize security...its simpler then everyone makes it out to be.

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Stanley Cup. CHAMPS.. CAROLINA HURRICANES
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Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo, and Edmonton went home EMPTY HANDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll just say this. I go to Carowinds and the course of an entire day i see a security guard (or in carowinds case sometimes city police) every 10-15ft. Same goes with Cedap Point. Security was everywhere.


I'm not bashing SFoG just saying the last few times i have been i have seen very little or even one trip i never saw a single security guard and i was at the park for 10 hours that day. I did finally see security cruising the parking lot when the park closed.

Things might be different now, I havn't been to SFoG in 2 years.

I just think it's a security problem at SFoG. I saw hundreds of security guards at:

Hershey Park
Dorney Park
Disney (of course)
Universal

I even saw a great security presence at SFA last time i went in 2000

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With passes to SFOG so cheap, a lot of people use it as a type of daycare. Parents just drop the kids off and leave.


It also allows it to be a hangout for teens.

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TV/Event Guide Editor

Ya'll got a great big AMEN from Hammy here! I'm agreeing with all this 100%, and glad to know that I'm not the only one who's thought that all along.

I'd be more than happy to pay $10 or $20 bucks more for my season pass if it provided a better overall experience, which I believe it would.

Maybe this'll be one of SixFlags' improvements, since I think most of us can see they're improving over the last couple of years.

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