amount of six flags?

[hiho]

How many Six Flags Parks are there?

[Terentius]

Have you checked their website?

Did you mean a specific continent or worldwide?

You could check www.coasterforce.com I think they have them all listed

[RCT101]

anyone care to count? im too lazy :p

[Terentius]

SF/ America
SF/ Astroworld
SF/ Belgium
SF/ Darien Lake
SF/ Elitch Gardens
SF/ Great America
SF/ Great Adventure
SF/ Great Escape
SF/ Fiesta Texas
SF/ Frontier City
SF/ Holland
SF/ K / Kingdom
SF/ La Ronde
SF/ Marine World
SF/ Magic Mountain
SF/ Mexico
SF/ New England
SF/ New Orleans
SF/ Over Georgia
SF/ Over Texas
SF/ St. Louis
SF/ W/ of Adventure

22 parks on coasterforce, with the following text:
Six Flags, Inc. is the world's largest regional theme park company. The company owns and operates 38 parks throughout North America, Latin America and Europe. Through a subsidiary, Park Management Corp, Six Flags, Inc. manages and operates Six Flags Marine World near San Francisco, California.

[Frito]

Just go to the Six Flags Website (http://www.sixflags.com) for all the listings of thier parks, there's a bunch with more added each year. They also list all the parks they own, but doesn't carry the Six Flag's name at this time.

[RCT101]

they need to build one in tennessee *cough* near knoxville *cough*. it would get great amounts of guests. there are not enough coasters around here lol "i need coasters!!!":eek:

[hiho]

Originally posted by Frito
Just go to the Six Flags Website (http://www.sixflags.com) for all the listings of thier parks, there's a bunch with more added each year. They also list all the parks they own, but doesn't carry the Six Flag's name at this time.

Whey you said they add more. Do they build more or buy more.
If they build, how much money and time does it take to build a park?

[RCT101]

good question. Im sure it takes a while to build and i don't know the answer to your question lol:D

[hiho]

Well I always thought that it must take a lot of time and money!:)

[Squid2]

Depends. It seems that the trend recently is to buy existing parks and rename them, eventually. They have built several parks from scratch as well. As for their future plans, your guess is as good as mine.

Squid2

[Frito]

They haven't built many parks from the ground up lately. SFI trend now is to buy existing parks and build 3-5 coasters within 1-3 years.
Maybe they should stop expanding and work on the problems they haven't dealt with, say operator unattentiveness for one.

[hiho]

How many accidents does Six Flags have a year? And that is International.

And why do they need so many parks? They dont need that much!

[Harpo]

Six Flags wants to corner the market for amusement parks. As a result, they've bought out lots of "Mom and Pop" parks (i.e. independently owned and operated parks).

Cedar Fair has also purchased some Mom and Pop parks, but they have a different philosophy. Six Flags apparently is interested in quantity, while Cedar Fair is interested in quality. That's why Cedar Fair reported a 2002 net income of $71.4 million on $502.9 million in revenue, while Six Flags reported a 2002 net loss of $127.6 million on $1,037.9 million in revenue. On a per park basis, that means Cedar Fair makes an average revenue of about $83.8 million per amusement park, while Six Flags makes an average revenue of $26.6 million per amusement park. Even if you split Cedar Fair into their 6 amusement parks and 5 separate-admission water parks, they still have a revenue per park of $45.7 million, nearly double that of the Six Flags per-park revenue.

Additionally, Cedar Fair doesn't run up as much debt. As of the 2002 stock reports, Cedar Fair has $365.1 million in long term debt, while Six Flags has $2.3 billion in long term debt. (Yes, that's a b, as in "Boy, is that a lot of money!")

But, Six Flags is hoping for "market share" and growth. That's something that Highland Appliance was seeking -- Highland Appliance went out of business because of getting too deep in debt. K-Mart was also seeking growth through acquisitions, and it led them to bankruptcy. I suspect the debt is why Six Flags is understaffing their parks to the extent that they can't keep all the rides open. I think they've expanded too quickly, and now find themselves having trouble paying off their debt.

Being that I love roller coasters, I hope they manage to pull out of it rather than going bankrupt. I would hate to see lots of coasters suddenly wind up sitting idle or being torn down because of parks having to close and be sold to land developers as part of a bankruptcy settlement. Should such a thing happen, some of the parks would probably be purchased by other park operators, but quite a few of the parks may not be attractive enough to other operators.

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds.

[hiho]

Yes that does not sound like a good idea by expanding so fast. Six Flags sould have taken care of some of their parks when they had much fewer parks.

[CoasterXtremist]

Originally posted by Harpo
Six Flags apparently is interested in quantity, while Cedar Fair is interested in quality.

I'd take quality over quantity any day. :up:

[hiho]

Of course. Saftey and then fun are the top priorities!

[Xzentrificenceo]

Originally posted by CoasterXtremist
I'd take quality over quantity any day. :up:



Why can't they have both? Ok I will be the first to admit that SFI needs some fixing, but if they can get the parks running the way they should then I would say that they are they are much better than CF. don't take me as some SFfanboy but just look at what they can offer. A season pass holder has access to all but 2 ride parks and the water parks(need a pass for each one) that is about 35 different parks I can go to for just $52. Can CF give me that much bang for my buck? SFI does put quallity rides into their parks. Ok I know the while clone thing again, but if the rides were carpola would they build them that many times? I don't think so. The current debate with clones is Scream/Medusa, to thins I say have you riden either of them? I have been on Scream at least 13 times this season. I can say I know why they have built this ride 3 times now, it is a great coaster, with some very nice elements(ZERO G ROLL). As for the Batman rides again another great B&M design, so why not have it easy for many to ride? I am all for their parks having some of the same rides in them, that way when I visit other parks I can skip a ride if needed and focus on the rides that are unique to that park. So I say let them build the clones as long as they do invest in new rides for their flagship park.;)

[hiho]

Originally posted by Xzentrificenceo
Why can't they have both? Ok I will be the first to admit that SFI needs some fixing, but if they can get the parks running the way they should then I would say that they are they are much better than CF. don't take me as some SFfanboy but just look at what they can offer. A season pass holder has access to all but 2 ride parks and the water parks(need a pass for each one) that is about 35 different parks I can go to for just $52. Can CF give me that much bang for my buck? SFI does put quallity rides into their parks. Ok I know the while clone thing again, but if the rides were carpola would they build them that many times? I don't think so. The current debate with clones is Scream/Medusa, to thins I say have you riden either of them? I have been on Scream at least 13 times this season. I can say I know why they have built this ride 3 times now, it is a great coaster, with some very nice elements(ZERO G ROLL). As for the Batman rides again another great B&M design, so why not have it easy for many to ride? I am all for their parks having some of the same rides in them, that way when I visit other parks I can skip a ride if needed and focus on the rides that are unique to that park. So I say let them build the clones as long as they do invest in new rides for their flagship park.;)

Well that answers at least part of it. But we still havent got a reply from the CF point of view.
Man I wish I could go to as many parks you can. I have been to about 3 parks, SFMW when I was little(I actually remember going there!) Worlds of Fun, Kansas (Yes I use to live there) and Santa Cruz boardwalk.

[Harpo]

Actually, I've been on Medusa at Six Flags Great Expenditure in New Jersey (July 5, 2001). My comments about the ride were pretty basic: "Floorless steel coaster, similar to Batman Knight Flight in Ohio. Good ride."

The fact that I said "Good ride" and not "Great ride" is significant. It means that I don't consider the ride to be world class, but I found it enjoyable.

Why would I prefer Cedar Fair? Well, I can't get around the fact that, of the 398 coasters on my list, numbers 1 through 4 are Raptor, Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, and Magnum XL-200. All four are at Cedar Point. My two favorite wooden coasters are GhostRider at Knott's Berry Farm (a Cedar Fair park), and Wildcat at Hersheypark (a non-Cedar Fair park).

Based upon my experiences, if someone told me to pick one of the two companies, then THEY would pick which park I would visit, I'd easily pick Cedar Fair. I've visited 18 Six Flags parks, and, of all those, I've had only one visit that I'd rank as above average. That visit was to Six Flags St. Louis.

Admittedly, a large part of that is due to operational problems. If Six Flags could work out those operational issues, they would have some parks that I would be happy to visit. However, that's a big "if," especially since they seem to keep getting worse rather than better. As Dan Rather said during the 2000 Presidential Election... "If if if. If bullfrogs had pockets they'd carry sidearms. But, they don't, so they don't."