Having been to a fair number of Fright Fest that used this model and had long lines with largely mediocre houses I advice you not to count any chickens before they hatch.
News Cedar Fair Merges with Six Flags
- Thread starter horsesboy
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2025 attendance (and/or their projections for 2026) must be dire, right...?
One of the primary narratives behind the Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger was that the new chain would be able to better leverage a larger collection of parks to SELL multi-park pass upgrade products. There's no chance in hell that the plan was to merge the two largest regional park chains in the country and then massively CUT the price of accessing other parks in this newly-doubled-in-size chain. This reeks of the legacy Six Flags strategy of racing-to-the-bottom on pricing to artificially boost attendance (and in turn, in-park spend) in the short-term without much interest in the long-term impacts of devaluing the product in the minds of consumers.
Seriously makes me think that the numbers must look downright grim internally right now...
One of the primary narratives behind the Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger was that the new chain would be able to better leverage a larger collection of parks to SELL multi-park pass upgrade products. There's no chance in hell that the plan was to merge the two largest regional park chains in the country and then massively CUT the price of accessing other parks in this newly-doubled-in-size chain. This reeks of the legacy Six Flags strategy of racing-to-the-bottom on pricing to artificially boost attendance (and in turn, in-park spend) in the short-term without much interest in the long-term impacts of devaluing the product in the minds of consumers.
Seriously makes me think that the numbers must look downright grim internally right now...
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I wonder how much of the issue is that they vastly underestimated the number of people that had passes to both companies and now have only one.2025 attendance (and/or their projections for 2026) must be dire, right...?
One of the primary narratives behind the Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger was that the new chain would be able to better leverage a larger collection of parks to SELL multi-park pass upgrade products. There's no chance in hell that the plan was to merge the two largest regional park chains in the country and then massively CUT the price of accessing other parks in this newly-doubled-in-size chain. This reeks of the legacy Six Flags strategy of racing-to-the-bottom on pricing to artificially boost attendance (and in turn, in-park spend) in the short-term without much interest in the long-term impacts of devaluing the product in the minds of consumers.
Seriously makes me think that the numbers must look downright grim internally right now...
2025 attendance (and/or their projections for 2026) must be dire, right...?
One of the primary narratives behind the Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger was that the new chain would be able to better leverage a larger collection of parks to SELL multi-park pass upgrade products. There's no chance in hell that the plan was to merge the two largest regional park chains in the country and then massively CUT the price of accessing other parks in this newly-doubled-in-size chain. This reeks of the legacy Six Flags strategy of racing-to-the-bottom on pricing to artificially boost attendance (and in turn, in-park spend) in the short-term without much interest in the long-term impacts of devaluing the product in the minds of consumers.
Seriously makes me think that the numbers must look downright grim internally right now...
I tried to play devils advocate for this, but everything I came up with made SF seem slimy:
Maybe it's just to get people in the door but then that means lowering food quality and jacking up all prices.
Maybe the access to all parks is just discounted tickets to many and free to a few but then the advertising they are using is misleading.
Maybe they want people in the door to just get excited by the new SF but then why not just discount single day tickets.
I tried to come up with many more where there was some angle that worked out for the better, but there wasn't a single thing that makes SF seem like they are doing the right thing right now.
I'm now curious as to with the way SF used to handle passes where people would buy them then never pay and still be able to get another pass artificially boosted their numbers making legacy CF think there was a bigger base than there ended up being and now this is to make up for the lack of actual paying pass holders from legacy SF.
If they are doing th
I resisted adding the all parks to my pass, and I’m glad I did. We live in Orlando and have SFOG gold passes we use a couple of times a year to visit Great Adventure and SFOG, but being able to buy a 2026 pass now with meal plan good across all parks the rest of this year and next year means we can hit KD, Dorney, maybe even Carowinds any time over almost 17 months. It’s an incredible value proposition. I’d imagine there are plenty of people who held off on the upgrade will now have an incentive to buy.
This summer has been slow for the big parks in Orlando, between the uncertainties of the economy and people just not having a lot of spare cash. With the rain pretty much every weekend this spring/summer in the northeast and one of their major parks (GAdv) being so diminished, attendance has to be in the crapper. Add to that TTD/Sirens Curse coming online later than expected, Alpen Fury missing almost half the summer— I’d guess it’s been a piss poor year for attendance.
I resisted adding the all parks to my pass, and I’m glad I did. We live in Orlando and have SFOG gold passes we use a couple of times a year to visit Great Adventure and SFOG, but being able to buy a 2026 pass now with meal plan good across all parks the rest of this year and next year means we can hit KD, Dorney, maybe even Carowinds any time over almost 17 months. It’s an incredible value proposition. I’d imagine there are plenty of people who held off on the upgrade will now have an incentive to buy.
This summer has been slow for the big parks in Orlando, between the uncertainties of the economy and people just not having a lot of spare cash. With the rain pretty much every weekend this spring/summer in the northeast and one of their major parks (GAdv) being so diminished, attendance has to be in the crapper. Add to that TTD/Sirens Curse coming online later than expected, Alpen Fury missing almost half the summer— I’d guess it’s been a piss poor year for attendance.
My contrarian view on the all park access is their data shows that only a small percentage of passholders are actually going to multiple parks, so it's not much revenue loss to provide it as a standard offering with the hope that it broadens attendance and in park spending at several parks. E.g. someone with a Dorney pass is more likely to explore Great Adventure this way instead of say HP or Knoebals.
Personally I think making decisions like cutting park presidents, upcharging Haunt mazes, and cutting popular events like WinterFest are cutting into attendance numbers.
With that being said, I don’t have access to the numbers that are influencing these decisions, but even if decisions like upcharging Haunt mazes makes sense from a business perspective, it carries with it an immensely bad look for the consumers. It reeks even more when you consider inflation is up and people don’t want to spend more right now.
With that being said, I don’t have access to the numbers that are influencing these decisions, but even if decisions like upcharging Haunt mazes makes sense from a business perspective, it carries with it an immensely bad look for the consumers. It reeks even more when you consider inflation is up and people don’t want to spend more right now.
Truthfully, trails being an upcharge is exactly why I only ever did one at Great Adventure, and really only did it because it was a chance to walk behind Chiller’s station years after it was gone and to see the long SBNO Autobahn and Musik Express. I feel like I may have even had a voucher for one free haunt trail that night, but who knows after 10+ years.
I’d be 50/50 on doing them or not if they were free as they’re not the reason I visit, but I really don’t think I’d pay to do one.
I’d be 50/50 on doing them or not if they were free as they’re not the reason I visit, but I really don’t think I’d pay to do one.
I’m not sure if someone mentioned this already, but Canada’s Wonderland is also selling their 2026 All-Season Fast Lane, which includes all Six Flags parks starting in 2026. This is a very welcome change as I was hoping they would stick with Cedar Fair’s system. The flash pass is annoying to deal with and the online system is pretty buggy. Just give me a wristband and call it a day.
The way I see it, they may be trying to entice people like me, within a day's drive of 2 SF parks and 2 CF parks, to just buy a pass instead of buying single day tickets, even if I may only visit each of those parks one or less times per year and would otherwise not purchase anything other than single day tickets. It also may be to entice people with lower passes to upgrade to get way more benefits, even if they may only be near another park in the chain once a year. When I was a kid, we purchased Busch platinum passes, solely to get access to SWO since we knew we would be visiting friends there one year. More recently, I got 2023 SWSA Platinum passes because we were visiting VA and FL each for a week and would want to go to all of those parks. With 40 some parks now in the chain, it is even more valuable to more people, especially who do yearly vacations near another park that may not have been in the chain before.
It does reek of desperation when the current $200ish all parks pass was underpriced.
I have a feeling this may be it. Try to get more people to buy in, realizing they're not going to other parks anyway. It can possibly get attendance up at somewhat nearby parks.
The cynic in me says it's to get people used to traveling further for their parks, so they can sell off some of the parks that are closer together.
Random thought about the cheaper pass and tied to the Haunt stuff, and I cannot take credit for:
If haunt houses are going to be $10-30 more to go to, plus the loss of Winterfest, $99 is really a deal, it’s the real cost of the pass for the summer.
But what if, and stick with me here, this is the litmus test for how far can this go. Let’s say 70% of pass holders go once, and 40% pay multiple times (I don’t know how this haunt pass will work). That’s a resounding success. Well because Soak City and many of the water parks have one entry in the park they can decide that’s an upcharge to go into. They can take an event like Carnival and put it in unused areas during the summer and charge extra for entry. Heck they can bring winterfest back, put all the good light displays and extras further pack in the park and charge more to go there.
Basically they can keep the pass cheap, make it look good, but to get anything than just entry to the park and access to rides you have to keep paying more. Microtransactions in real life.
If haunt houses are going to be $10-30 more to go to, plus the loss of Winterfest, $99 is really a deal, it’s the real cost of the pass for the summer.
But what if, and stick with me here, this is the litmus test for how far can this go. Let’s say 70% of pass holders go once, and 40% pay multiple times (I don’t know how this haunt pass will work). That’s a resounding success. Well because Soak City and many of the water parks have one entry in the park they can decide that’s an upcharge to go into. They can take an event like Carnival and put it in unused areas during the summer and charge extra for entry. Heck they can bring winterfest back, put all the good light displays and extras further pack in the park and charge more to go there.
Basically they can keep the pass cheap, make it look good, but to get anything than just entry to the park and access to rides you have to keep paying more. Microtransactions in real life.
So nickel and dime themselves out of customers and turn the parks into Fun Spots?
Or go step by step to the breaking point and walk back the last thing.
If you want to significantly increase pass prices, and they really should considering how low they currently are, this is the way to do it. Disaggregate the product while keeping base prices steady and then later reaggregate at a higher price where you wanted to be. It's essentially what the airlines have done and they are now filling premium cabins with paying customers.
It’s either that or they are trying to “artificially” boost attendance numbers across the board by making that pass so cheap that more people want to get it and show up.
I could toss this one out there as well: not having things like Haunt be part of the plan is their way of “lessening” the chances of Haunt problems in houses by making it less likely that they will get this type of upgrade.
Kings Dominion announces unprecedented benefit with 2026 Season Pass
DOSWELL, Va. — To celebrate the first anniversary of the merger between Six Flags and Cedar Fair, Kings Dominion today announced an unprecedented benefit with its 2026 season pass—unlimited access …
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Will be grabbing thisKings Dominion announces unprecedented benefit with 2026 Season Pass
DOSWELL, Va. — To celebrate the first anniversary of the merger between Six Flags and Cedar Fair, Kings Dominion today announced an unprecedented benefit with its 2026 season pass—unlimited access …