Theme Park

Six Flags Is No Bargain Even at a Buck

There seems to be no end to the parade of ego-fueled acquisitions of Six Flags. Shapiro has some good ideas but is a very inexperienced CEO, he has mishandled communication with investors and gives the impression that if all his initiatives were really successful they would still be losing money. He has no experience dealing with a large base of service employees and appears to be out of touch with them, and his quarterly calls are full of dramatic yet irrelevant excuses why they aren't doing better. (The brand was more damaged than we thought, we had incredible unprecedented weather events, etc.)

Six Flags has let themselves get distracted with too many executives working corporate sponsorship deals (which are profitable but a tiny portion of their revenues) , purchasing and running Dick Clark Productions, and commissioning questionable 'original creative content' like "Spy Girls" instead of concentrating on training and hiring, improving their systems, executing solid promotion, pricing and group sales plans, or coming up with the needed product and capital improvements.

Particular to the blogger's visit, if Six Flags had more visitors like you they would not be in trouble! You generated a $90 per cap, the average guest spending across their system I believe is under $40 (excluding their misleading 'revenue per cap' which includes advertising and sponsorship revenue.) There are many more visitors who use season passes and spend hardly anything when they visit to balance out single day visitors who have more urgency to spend since they are not planning to return right away. So you are quite correct that most visitors cannot afford the type of visit you took.

I agree that their balance sheet issues are quite serious but they were obviously well known at the time Snyder made his investment, he thought he was smarter than all the other owners but he is looking like just another statistic.