News Enchanted Parks & EPR Acquire Seven Parks from Six Flags

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paintervision said:
What's left would be Roar, Wild One, Great Chase, and Rajun Cajun.. Nice rides but I don't know if these could carry a park on their own... they'd have to put a lot of money into a park like this, and you'd be competing with Hersheypark, King's Dominion, and Great Adventure for a lot of the same market. I don't see this as making a ton of sense, compared to properties that are in better shape and more isolated from competition.
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I honestly think that extreme downsizing (basically cutting off the entire "back half" of the park, everything on the far side of Wild One), going back to the Adventure World/Wild World structure, might be what allows this park to survive under smaller ownership. Hype up the fact that they have oldest operating coaster in the Americas and you'll get some small tourist draw, too. Set budget prices as an alternative to KD/BGW/Hershey, market to locals, and it could be just as successful as other "small parks."

Idlewild is an hour from Kennywood and three hours from Hersheypark, and survives.
Lake Winnie is an hour-45 from SFoG and two and a half hours from Dollywood, and survives.
Canobie Lake is two hours from SFNE, and survives.
The old SFA is an hour-45 from KD and two and a half hours to Hersheypark, and could survive under the right direction.

Adventure Park USA manages to stay in business, and I think a new "Wild World" could survive as well, especially with the water park. Just don't try to make the park more than what it is or compete against KD/BGW/Hershey, which is what the Premier Parks era Six Flags tried to do.

Realistically, though, SFA is done for, and will likely not be bought and reopened. But that's what I would do, if I were in such a position to do so.
 
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Zachary said:
I highly, highly doubt SFA would be involved in a deal like this. If a park operator were to pick up SFA, it would have to be one with INCREDIBLY deep pockets, not just to buy the park (as the land is incredibly valuable) but also to spin the park back up. There's a huge difference between buying an aging, even slightly distressed-yet-still profitable and currently operational park like Six Flags St. Louis and buying an equivalent park that has already officially shutdown like Six Flags America.

SFA's staff is gone, SFA's pass holders are gone, there have been no preparations for a 2026 season, many attractions deemed not-relocatable have likely been neglected over the winter thus far, the park was put in a sort of "zombie mode" throughout much of 2025 in which it deferred a ton of maintenance, drew down their stockpiles to zero, etc.

IF the offers have been unexpectedly weak for the property and IF any park operators were even at the table to begin with and IF one of those park operators somehow ends up victorious at the end of this, it's my expectation that it will be a significant existing name (LEGO, Universal, Disney, Herschend, etc) or a new entrant backed by a TON of capital and likely IPs to push (Netflix, Paramount, etc). Basically I think the only way SFA is revived is by a company with deep pockets and a plan to heavily renovate the park. Trying to drag SFA back to life in its current state strikes me as a pretty doomed strategy, honestly.
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In this highly unlikely scenario that SFA were being resurrected and recapitalized, KD almost has to be part of that deal just to keep SF from having KD squeezed from both directions.
 
Don't want to get too bogged down in the SFA discussion here as there are better threads for that. In short though, I think a high-budget, high-cost, destination-style theme park likely wouldn't eat into KD's more-local, far more amusement park-y, often-more-cost-minded audience that much. Hard to know for sure though of course.
 
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paintervision said:
Speculation from Coaster101 about this whole thing. I'm not saying I agree with their conclusion but hey, anything is possible.
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This whole thing is so confusing..

Zachary said:
Don't want to get too bogged down in the SFA discussion here as there are better threads for that. In short though, I think a high-budget, high-cost, destination-style theme park likely wouldn't eat into KD's more-local, far more amusement park-y, often-more-cost-minded audience that much. Hard to know for sure though of course.
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I don’t get why people were talking about Six Flags America in the first place in this topic
 
Here's a good write-up from Audacy that discusses many possibilities, some of which have been discussed here:
www.audacy.com

If Six Flags St. Louis is sold, could it be to City Museum's owner? Trademark filings raise questions.

A closer look reveals the new trademark applications often align only with the water park or resort sides of existing Six Flags properties, leaving the main roller coaster parks unmentioned.
www.audacy.com www.audacy.com

To summarize, their discussions are:
-Enchanted Parks just operates the waterparks (I just can't see this happen as they are significant draws at some of these properties, especially Michigan's Adventure)
-Mentions EPR potentially buying the parks and Enchanted Parks running them. Also mentions the possibility that EPR buys all of the property, Six Flags operates the amusement park side and Enchanted Parks runs the waterpark sides.
-Mentions that a start-up up-and-comer like Enchanted Parks taking over the operations of the entire parks could be good things. Again, this is something that remains to be seen but it stated that a park like St. Louis could become the new "flagship" of the chain.
-Talks about the potential that a deal could fall through but that this kind of serves as evidence that Six Flags is interested in selling these parks. They mention some other players could be Herschend (prior to the Palace acquisition I would've chalked this up as more likely), or United Parks even mentioning a "Busch Gardens St. Louis" type park due to its location and brewery history.

Just sharing for discussion purposes. I still don't know what to make out of this and am just awaiting more updates.
 
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My fear is that they buy up the parks and then salvage them and sell off the land once everything of value is gone. I know that doesn’t specifically speak to why they would be getting trademarks, but it’s just a gut feeling. Maybe they want the water parks only and the resorts and plan to salvage those parks.

I know doom and gloom but those thoughts have been in my mind since the merger.
 
I think the biggest surprise to me as of right now is that Dorney isn’t on the list of trademark applications. There’s no chance it’s considered a core park, but it’s also never exactly been a threat to business at Great Adventure. Seems like the perfect park to sell off rather than close, especially considering they just don’t have the land to expand and become any true competition.

Granted, that’s ignoring whatever value the land may have.
 
GASM said:
I think the biggest surprise to me as of right now is that Dorney isn’t on the list of trademark applications. There’s no chance it’s considered a core park, but it’s also never exactly been a threat to business at Great Adventure. Seems like the perfect park to sell off rather than close, especially considering they just don’t have the land to expand and become any true competition.

Granted, that’s ignoring whatever value the land may have.
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Dorney Park is absolute cash-cow for the chain - it generates significant revenue with minimal investment. It's not going anywhere.
 
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Mojosdad said:
My fear is that they buy up the parks and then salvage them and sell off the land once everything of value is gone. I know that doesn’t specifically speak to why they would be getting trademarks, but it’s just a gut feeling. Maybe they want the water parks only and the resorts and plan to salvage those parks.

I know doom and gloom but those thoughts have been in my mind since the merger.
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That wouldn't work very well for a park like Michigan's Adventure. Sure the waterpark is the draw, but the adjacent land wouldn't be worth anything. There's a campground across the street and then a golf club on the other side. No one would want to buy it. Works great for an amusement park with advertising, but its not even ideal for a logistics warehouse otherwise.
MaxxForceFan said:
This point is false. Enchanted Parks doesn't operate anything yet and IAM is currently operating Diggerland.
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IAM picked up Enchanted Forest Water Safari first. They did acquire Diggerland the following year (last year) but I can see where the article gets the idea from because IAM started in the waterpark sector. But yes, I also disagree with it because it simply doesn't make any sense. Splitting it up and having two operations just seems like it goes against the purpose of divesting them in the first place (especially since the waterparks are a big draw at some of them). Besides, the trademarks include some IAM properties and their website does say they want to acquire water and amusement parks.
wasteman said:
I really doubt the land under any of these parks is valuable enough for them to want to do this, and if it was Six Flags would just do this themselves.
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Agreed, as stated above.
AmyUD06 said:
Dorney Park is absolute cash-cow for the chain - it generates significant revenue with minimal investment. It's not going anywhere.
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While I don't disagree that Dorney is a cash-cow for the chain, those are the exact parks that they are looking to get rid of. The ones that don't need much investment and make money but also won't ever make it into the next "tier" per how they plan to operate. Back when Cedar Fair used to publish EBIDTA per park numbers in the Ouimet era, Dorney Park was the fourth smallest chunk behind Worlds of Fun, Valleyfair and Michigan's Adventure (excluding California's Great America which was actually the smallest but that was because of the rent payments at the time). It was around Worlds of Fun and Valleyfair combined, which could bode well for your argument that it won't be going anywhere.

They also had mentioned that Michigan's Adventure was one of those "cash cows" specifically too as attendance and revenue kept increasing despite no investment. Of course, these were the Cedar Fair days. Things may be a bit different now but it is, no doubt, a cash cow. Where it fits with all of the remainder of the parks now since the merger is probably higher as I can see other properties not pulling in near that (especially coming out of the previous Six Flags era). Six Flags just wants to dump the dead weight and cash cows because they don't have a place in the chain.

With that said though, they may view Dorney as a park they can move out of that tier and into a tier where it can be viewed as a jewel. I am glad that it isn't presently on the list and I hope it doesn't. I don't want to see many more parks potentially added to this list but, I fear, there may be more. Just maybe not going to Enchanted but possibly somewhere else. Dorney has the market to help sustain it though and I feel like that is why it isn't on a list presently.
 
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All of what @CedarFairGuy said.

I don't understand the idea of splitting individual properties up between multiple operators. Most of these combo properties only work BECAUSE they're combined offerings and can utilize employees with duplicative roles between both the dry and water park segments of the business. Plus, "Mega Six Flags'" very justification for its existence is the benefits of scale. I can't fathom how another operator could possibly come in to generate more profits from part of a property than Six Flags could extract themselves holding the entire property. The whole idea seems absurd on its face from where I'm sitting but 🤷‍♂️, maybe there's something I'm not seeing.

Re: Dorney: Frankly, I don't expect to see a trademark suggesting a Dorney sale because if/when Six Flags decides to pull the plug, I believe it will almost certainly be a land sale backed by a bulldozer for all the same reasons that strategy was utilized for SFA. The land is super valuable, Gread Adventure's ceiling would be raised by Dorney's closure, and if Dorney was to be sold to another operator, it would be a direct, potentially potent competitor for Six Flags Great Adventure. So yeah, I'm not expecting a trademark, I'm expecting a closure announcement (eventually).
 
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I think 6F is trying to turn themselves into a United Parks style chain. To where all their parks are destination parks, and then they can sell off anything else that's not.
Because they've had such a long-running stereotype of run-down/gross parks in the GP's eyes (who they actually gaf about), I think they want that to change and now that they have CF under their belt, they're far closer to being a destination chain with CePo, Knotts, KD/KI, Carowinds, CW etc. So the whole "non-core" or "cash-cows" thing would be parks that may make them lots of money, but they reflect badly on the chain and reinforce the stereotype associated with the SF name. That's just a guess, but it'd make sense given their recent choices
 
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