r/Themepark • u/rubykadair • 12d ago

Six Flags is cooked?

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/15/us/six-flags-injuries-invs

honestly i really trust coasters and am very confident in the engineering and safety but this article was pretty eye opening for me. im in atlanta right now and i was planning on going to six flags but after reading this article im wary. what are your thoughts on the matter?

0 Upvotes

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36 comments sorted by

27

u/Evening_Rock5850 12d ago

Six Flags, both before and especially after the merger, is on a mission to reach a coveted 30+% margin while charging next to nothing for tickets and passes. They throw strategies at the wall to see what sticks and tend to not make the sort of maintenance spend that needs to be made. They tend to try to operate by reducing expenses as much as humanly possible to hit that coveted margin.

But... rollercoasters are safe. Even at Six Flags. Both things are true.

I wouldn't have any hesitation to ride a coaster at a Six Flags park today.

14

u/No-Negotiation-6929 12d ago

Critical to safety maintenance is specified in great detail by ride manufacturers and I would be shocked if Six Flags was skipping it.

If the result of the Goliath incident investigation is a finding that Six Flags is not performing manufacturer specified critical to safety maintenance, I will probably stop bringing my family to their parks.

6

u/Evening_Rock5850 12d ago

Agreed. SFEC isn't an example of a well run company but they understand the liability of the business they're in. They're doing the bare minimum; but the bare minimum includes the critical safety stuff. The lack of maintenance is mostly going to result in poorer ride experiences, peeling paint in queue lines, roughness, etc., and not a lack of safety.

The result of the investigation will be interesting. But what makes more sense at this stage is undetected metal fatigue or some sort of catastrophic failure; moreso than a blatantly heinous thing like SFEC skipping over manufacturer required maintenance leading to a failure. If it IS the latter however; I would agree.

1

u/ElectronicLoad745 12d ago

What about the Texas Giant case ? We never had a public investigation report, what makes you think we are going to get one now?

5

u/BackgroundSpite222 12d ago

I know firsthand after the merger, several unionized full time year round ride maintenance people who had spent their entire lives as career ride maintenance specialists were let go, replaced with seasonal and part time maintenance “technicians”. This was a giant drop in confidence for our family in being life long cedar fair pass holders. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a cost cutting measure, but I think it is one where the cracks start showing through and it will cost them in the long run.

6

u/Evening_Rock5850 12d ago

It's such a shame.

And it's a cycle seemingly every major business goes through and none of them learn from.

"Our most expensive thing is payroll, so let's focus on reducing that. Start by cutting the expensive people."

"Why isn't anything working?"

"Apparently the expensive people are the ones who knew how to do this. We're hemorrhaging money because we don't have the expensive people anymore and the cheap people aren't fixing it. Who could've seen this coming?"

"We're going to hire expensive people again."

(Once you reach this step, please return to the first step.)

5

u/MisuCake 12d ago

The coasters when operated and maintained properly by manufactures are safe, the issue is that none of those things are currently a priority with Six Flags. A restraint fully flying open is insane. Especially on a B&M.

26

u/CurbYourNewUrbanism 12d ago

Truly an all-time legendary mistake for Cedar Fair to get mixed up with them.

5

u/stevehuffmanisapeedo 12d ago

Late stage capitalism baby. It's why french fries are cold and airplanes fall out of the sky.

0

u/[deleted] 12d ago

4

u/realzoidberg 12d ago

Other than those at the top, there is no fat left to cut.

9

u/Horror_Response_1991 12d ago

For another week or two until everyone forgets and moves on because this is an extreme outlier.  It would take many deaths to establish a pattern that would scare people.

1

u/Polo_Jeet 7d ago

Shares continue to tumble and are down again today making it -22% on the week.

Amusement parks are a capital intensive business, working class consumers are cutting back, increasing insurance premiums, huge liability risk, low margins, no growth catalysts.

Wouldn’t be surprised if there is another handful of parks either closed or sold off in the coming years. The business is failing

1

u/Enigmastic 12d ago

I think 3 roller coaster ejections with fatalities as the only major park chain is pretty damning. Fuck em, they clearly are incompetent and cannot be trusted. 

6

u/TokyoDrifblim 12d ago

Coasters are 100% safe when they follow regulations and safety protocols and are kept maintained. Whether the park is actually doing that is another question. I don't trust Six Flags Georgia as far as I can throw them (I live here)

3

u/Das419 12d ago

There needs to be secondary, redundant seat belts on every single ride.

1

u/shredXcam 12d ago

Do you have an engineering study you could post that concludes this is effective ?

2

u/richiebee8877 12d ago

It definitely can’t hurt . I appreciate them on diamondback & Orion.

1

u/shredXcam 12d ago

It couldn't hurt is a good analysis.

Driving 55 mph could lead to a fatal accident so we should lower all highways down to 45!

But at 45 mph we could still have a fatality so we should lower then to 35 mph.

The astm standard F2291 is where we should start. Understand what the standards are and then figure out what testing/analysis were performed to create those standards and understsnd how this ride falls under it.

1

u/Das419 11d ago

2N redundancy is a good default position to take, but this measure would go a long way to create a public perception of safety on these rides.

1

u/Das419 12h ago

glad you agree.

4

u/ShawnReardon 12d ago

That article is mostly complete nonsense. Every theme park is going to have reported injuries. Sometimes I hurt myself getting up from my desk. We dont have to report that to the state though.

When a journalist covering this manages to say seatbelt without implying their purpose is to hold you in the ride I'll listen to their safety advice.

Could Six Flags have fucked this up? Yep. Could it also be that sometimes things just go badly? Also yes. But to try to establish that they have a culture of not giving a fuck because they correctly report incidents is just disingenuous to the reality of theme park rides.

2

u/ThaddeusJP 12d ago

Everyone in here talking about the parks but you really need to look at the SHARE price - FUN is BOMBING since the merger.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FUN/

July of 2024 it was $57.63. Its now $8.87.

The last week alone its down 23% due to the park death and other bad news (X2).

End of the day the Shareholders are the ones who will really freak out AND drive the changes to the park - and that could mean selling more parks, shutting down rides, etc.

3

u/sdmichael 12d ago

No. Most of this has been sensationalized and misleading. Fear is what sells papers. Just ask Hearst.

Why so many cheerleaders for parks to fail?

2

u/livvybugg 12d ago

Pretty shady of them to say the people on the Texas giant disaster heard a “pop” when that lock never even came open

2

u/SingerSingle5682 12d ago

People keep saying this, but has there been any info about the investigation? How are you guys so sure there was no mechanical failure?

2

u/ElectronicLoad745 12d ago

They never published it

1

u/SingerSingle5682 12d ago

That’s what I thought. But every article about it has people insisting the rider didn’t strap himself in properly intentionally and there was no mechanical failure.

I was wondering if there was some tweet or something from a witness they were basing this on or if they were just making it up.

1

u/deebster2k 12d ago

While I dont fully trust SFOG I went to see for myself with no issues.

Also if you read deep enough into this article there is a disclaimer that the news description is not very conclusive and highly misleading with how broad it is. Covering a variety of years situations and other parks and other issues. It is intentionally written to be click bait and push readers to a conclusion based upon facts that may not be related.

If you want to judge SFOG wait for the report on this to come out. Its too fresh and new to conclude much other than there was a major failure of the individual restraint (pretty messed up and highly suspect).

Tbh though I dont really trust any of the legacy six flags parks and place far more faith in cedar fair parks.

1

u/boxofstuff 7d ago

Am I the only one who knows about accident and negligence insurance?

-4

u/Nordic4tKnight 12d ago

They will most likely have to file for bankruptcy and some of their parks will sell off.

6

u/Evening_Rock5850 12d ago

I'll bet like $5 that what ends up happening is another bankruptcy, and a private equity takeover.

The takeover will result in selling the entire portfolio to a big REIT like EPR; and then leasing the parks right back to Six Flags. There are some investor groups who are chomping at the bit to do exactly that. In fact it's one of the thing the JANA partners have been looking for; and they may be able to find more folks on board with it.

That's bad, long-term, for the parks and for the company. It raises operating expenses for every single park. Obviously, REIT's aren't charities. The rent they'll charge will exceed the value of the property and will be charged for as long as the company operates the parks. But, it'll infuse billions of dollars in cash in the very short term, which can be plundered for a quick payout and then the company left to rot.

4

u/No-Negotiation-6929 12d ago

By far the most likely outcome of a bankruptcy and would be extremely negative for the future of their parks.

1

u/shredXcam 12d ago

Hopefully if this happens they split the chain into multiple companies.

Sadly if they do enter a reit, it'll be the end of the parks as we know it for the most part.

They'll get red lobstered

1

u/dcduck 12d ago

Magic Mountain and Knott's are sitting on some pricy real estate.

2

u/spurchange 12d ago

Same with Canada's Wonderland. The RE holdings themselves are likely worth more than the whole company incl assets and obligations ($870m)

2

u/SuperStubbs9 12d ago

I know they just sold off 7 parks in the last year: Valleyfair, Worlds of Fun, Michigan’s Adventure, Schlitterbahn Waterpark Galveston, Six Flags St. Louis, Six Flags Great Escape, and Six Flags La Ronde.