Cedar Fair interested in Astroworld.

Griswold · #1 09-24-2005, 01:52 AM

CF wants to buy Astroworld. You can find the news on thispagecannotbedisplayed dot com. Your opinions? Yea or Nay? Discuss. No big whoop.

Zingoman · #2 09-24-2005, 02:24 AM

I thought the property was being sold off. I didn't think that buying it and operating it was an option. I guess we will have to see what developes.

Sir Willow · #3 09-24-2005, 11:41 AM

Actually, the only real news there, slightly misinterpreted by *****, is that Daniel Snyder said that Cedar Fair was interested. Cedar Fair hasn't said a thing about being interested in the park.

So consider the source of that news- a guy fighting to take over a company and who isn't known for being the most honest.

**Leo C** · #4 09-24-2005, 04:32 PM

That would surprise me if Cedar Fair took the park. Dan Snyder may be throwing just wood in a fire, making up stuff.

Dan G · #5 09-24-2005, 07:51 PM

I don't think Cedar Fair would take another park under it's wing just two years after taking over Geauga Lake. Right now there are in a rough transistion trying to return Geauga Lake to it's old glory and for the past few seasons things haven't went as good as the company hoped. I think Cedar Fair would give GL&WWK a few more years to start getting attendance up before venturing off and taking over more parks. Keep in mind the reason why Six Flags is in the hole right now is because when Premier Parks took over, they took over just about every available park in the United States. Cedar Fair obviously realizes scooping up a crap load of parks isn't the best idea, because that is what put Six Flags in the situation they are in today.

Chris L · #6 09-25-2005, 11:36 PM

[QUOTE=Griswold]CF wants to buy Astroworld. You can find the news on thispagecannotbedisplayed dot com. Your opinions? Yea or Nay? Discuss. No big whoop.[/QUOTE]

There's a difference between "Cedar Fair is interested in AstroWorld" and "Cedar Fair wants to buy AstroWorld." You don't know that they want to buy it. What we know is that Dan Snyder (we don't know how credible he is) [i]said[/i] that Cedar Fair is interested, meaning they "supposedly" shown interest in the property - meaning to evaluate it, and to see the terms of acquisition.

And if anyone remembers, they were in talks with Visionland park owners in taking over the park financially and in magement - and the acqusition, which seemed sure, fell through.

Mr. Six · #7 09-26-2005, 12:45 AM

If CF bought it, this would be there first park in the area. They would need to do some major additions, including a new parking lot possibly. I dont think it is likely that they will buy it, but they could.

bk2004 · #8 09-26-2005, 12:48 AM

I'm surprised they have an interest in AstroWorld in the first place knowing how much work would have to be done in order to keep it successful.

Chris L · #9 09-26-2005, 12:50 AM

/\ And I'm sure they still remember how hard it was to get Geauga Lake back onto its feet. It took awhile before the park actually turned some kind of a profit for the partnership.

And Mr. Six - the Cedar Fair/AstroWorld "acquisition" hope is definitely not going to happen. That parking lot issue will most likely be the biggest reason.

**James R** · #10 09-26-2005, 01:31 AM

The parking lot issue is solveable. (sp?)

The deal that SF had with Reliant had expired, which was the reason they were back to negotiations.

If Cedar Fair were to purchase the park, the parking problem could simply be solved. Just purchasing land (which is plentiful in the area) and getting a tram system. Take a look at Schlitterbahn for example. They shuttle thousands of people back and forth between their 'East' and 'West' section with ease. Or they could pick up the negotiations again and work out a deal for another ascertained amount of time.

Dan G · #11 09-26-2005, 03:54 PM

[QUOTE=Chris L]/\ And I'm sure they still remember how hard it was to get Geauga Lake back onto its feet. It took awhile before the park actually turned some kind of a profit for the partnership.[/QUOTE]

Chris you are very right, if Cedar Fair and Geauga Lake hadn't added Wildwater Kingdom this year, there definitely wouldn't have been any improvement in the attendance. Thankfully they did and they were able to increase attendance by 19% from last year which is decent. No one ever said the transition from SFWoA to Geauga Lake was going to be easy and so far it hasn't been, but Cedar Fair has done a good job thus far with the park. I still say to give them a few more seasons to get things together and hopefully Geauga Lake will return to it's old glory and start generating more profits. Once Kinzel retires in 2007, we won't have to worry about Cedar Point getting all the attention. Hopefully we'll see GL get some new rides in the coming seasons, it should help the park out a lot. I'm also hoping by next season we see a 20% attendance increase from this year once Phase II of WWK is complete.

As for AstroWorld, there abolutely no way the park could survive if Reliant Stadium doesn't allow the park to use the parking anymore regardless of who's running the park. The parking situation may be one of the main reasons, but SFAW has been struggling for the past few seasons and it's quite obvious that they are losing more money than they are actually gaining so that is why SFI has decided to part ways with the park. Even if CF took over I really don't see it improving that much seeing how the park is in such bad shape as it is. Six Flags sure like to give up on parks, when a park is so deep into the hole and Six Flags can't do anything about it they just part ways, we saw the samething thing with Geauga Lake. Geauga Lake got lucky and got picked up by a decent chain though, I really don't see the park opening again if someone doesn't do anything about their current situation. As you can see by the picture below, the park is surrounded on all sides by various buildings, theres just nowhere they could build a new parking lot especially considering the size of land they would need to build a big enough lot. That truly is out of the question. To be honest, I don't think Cedar Fair will buy the park. They are already in transition of improving Geauga Lake and turning it back into a decent park, I really don't think they can afford to buy this park and somehow turn this around for it as well. In the end I think they would lose too much money and would probably give up on the park after awhile. At least Geauga Lake is showing improvement, I don't see it going anywhere.

[url]http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/4695/sfaw5kt.jpg[/url]

**Byron** · #12 09-26-2005, 04:29 PM

[QUOTE=EastCoastn07]SFAW has been struggling for the past few seasons and it's quite obvious that they are losing more money than they are actually gaining so that is why SFI has decided to part ways with the park. Even if CF took over I really don't see it improving that much seeing how the park is in such bad shape as it is. Six Flags sure like to give up on parks, when a park is so deep into the hole and Six Flags can't do anything about it they just part ways, we saw the samething thing with Geauga Lake. Geauga Lake got lucky and got picked up by a decent chain though, I really don't see the park opening again if someone doesn't do anything about their current situation.[/QUOTE]

Seriously, why does everyone always say this? If AstroWorld was doing even half as bad as everyone seems to think they are, SF would have sold it a long time ago, before Geauga. The park falls around the middle of the chain in attendance, maybe slightly higher. The season pass prices are the 4th highest in the entire chain, and the ticket prices are rather high, too (I believe they're $42, not sure where that ranks with the other parks). Because SF Corporate refuses to give the park any money, there is no way SF could possibly be losing money on this park. In these last few years, they have finally gotten a little bit of general improvement money thrown at them, but still not enough to offset the huge profit they must be making off of this park. Just because a park is not getting rides does not mean it's not making money. Hell, Geauga got tons of rides and it wasn't making a dime.

Chris L · #13 09-26-2005, 08:40 PM

/\ That's not true. When Six Flags snapped up Geauga Lake and transformed it into Six Flags Worlds of Adventure and made all those investments its initial year, the attendance at that property spiked big time for about two seasons. It was the following years down to its sale to Cedar Fair that showed a decline in returning visitors due to supposedly poor customer service and operations. So to say "Geauga got tons of rides and it wasn't making a dime" is false.

Dan G · #14 09-26-2005, 09:25 PM

^ Very true...Actually something I agree with you on. :D

Fisherman · #15 09-27-2005, 12:33 PM

Byron's right about AW's attendance though...apparently they even did better than SF Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. The picture SF is painting of AW having poor attendance in reality is no different than the post-9/11 attendance slump nationwide at all parks. I really think parking and land are the issues here. Personally though...I'd LOVE to see what Cedar Fair could do with my home park... SF owns the former car dealership next door to the park which they now use as employee facilities. (that satellite photo is a couple of years old BTW...it still shows Texas Tornado...Globexplorer's map is more recent). Personally, I think they could easily build a large parking garage structure (similar to Universal Orlando's) on that property. Unfortunately, SF no longer has rights to that land on the SE corner of the park next to the amphitheater. They used to launch fireworks there for the fireworks show but I believe they were just leasing that lot. Houston Metro apparently owns it now. But...apparently there are several abandoned warehouses behind the park which would be ideal for parking space if they used trams. Those of us who love AW can only hope that Cedar Fair can save our park.

-Derek