Six Flags and Cedar Fair have Merged. What's Next? 

Let's just hope they improve all the Six Flags parks, especially SFMM. SFMM needs major improvements to maintenance and landscaping. Too much concrete, not enough shade

Six Flags always felt cheap to me and I think that has to do largely with the lack of landscaping and theming. That's especially true of the parks that Six Flags has owned since the 70s where new additions are put in parking lots, covered in blacktop, or literally on top of a dying field next to maintenance yards. When you look at a Cedar Fair park they always put effort into beautifying everything the guests see and it pays off a lot in the overall atmosphere of the park. I hope this merger fixes these issues.

It's crazy that the merger actually happened... the og Cedar Fair parks will be like Kings Island-A Six Flags Park. Also, Happy Independence Day!

Mergers are basically never good for anybody other than shareholders.

As a guy that invest on stocks and read some 10Ks, I can say with some confidence the expression "financial flexibility" usually means cost cutting.

As long as it has a positive effect on Six Flags parks and not a negative effect on Cedar Fair parks.

0:44 The “Six” has the Cedar Fairs flag on it, looks like it is the combo logo after all!

It would be a big treat but imagine parks like Great Adventure or Magic Mountain receives a B&M Giga

As long as they throw ValleyFair or Michigan's Adventure a treat here and there, now...

i think this merger is the biggest bombshell to the industry since the old cedar fair bought the paramount parks.

Look at the bright side. More flags, more fun.

I can see why the merger happened. Unless your park is located in California or Florida (maybe Texas as well), you basically have about 4 months to make your money. That's a pretty risky business model. Having more locations helps alleviate that risk. I lived in Texas for four years and just visited some friends and went to Six Flags Over Texas. I was struck by how run down that park looks. And it's not just the park, but the area around it. Roach motels, pawn shops, payday loan stores, bad neighborhoods near by. It just didn't feel all that good, and that's with brand new NFL and MLB stadiums right next door. You'd think they'd pump some investment into that area, and they really haven't.

Mergers are never good. I've been through 3 of them. On the conference call it sounded like their main focus will be on the improvement of Six Flags parks. The Cedar Fair parks will not receive the investments they received earlier. Right now, they are basically lying to everyone . Several parks are going to be closed or sold. Also their won't be any competition between the two companies. There is no need to add record breaking coasters, especially parks like Cedar Point. I hope Hershend makes and offer on Cedar Point or Kings Island to keep their history and legacy.

The new logo reminds me of the United / Continental Airlines merger announcement, where the "United" name was jammed into the Continental logo and font. Looked like a blundering self-own out of the Onion. Luckily, public reaction was embarrassing enough for them to change it. Hopefully this logo is specifically for the corporate HQ in Charlotte, not the individual parks.

Should they have a plan about adding dark rides to the cedar fair parks who don’t have it and indoor water park resorts that the parks should want during cold weather?

Queue line shades at Cedar Point is all I'm asking for out of this merger. Too much probably... But high hopes

Happy forth of July everyone!

As a legacy Six Flags member, it is crazy to think that this merger is happening now. We'll just have to wait and see how things go from here.

This was a merger and not an acquisition and from their profit reports since 2020 we know they're both struggling financially. That means they're desperate. Generally, a merger of two struggling companies means they both need to shed assets to bring in revenue but they're afraid that they aren't big enough to survive large scale sell offs on their own but they might have a more stable base if they combine. This has me worried. Park sell offs seem like the purpose not just a possible side effect. And if that's the case, the focus would likely be on selling parks whose property would result in the highest price. A lot of people are thinking about places like Frontier City and Michigan's Adventure. But those wouldn't bring in the revenue the new company needs. But parks in the Bay Area, southern California, the Toronto metro area may bring in the most even if they are popular parks. And it's not like the company would refuse an offer from a housing developer in order to sell a park for less to another park chain. I'm not saying this is guaranteed. But people seem to think that two chains with massive debt will somehow have more money to invest in more parks if they combine. That's just not how it works and from a business point of view the opposite is far more likely.

This will only drag down Cedar fair parks. I said what I said.

I don’t necessarily love the lack of competition now but I am hoping this means Six Flags Over Texas will actually get a new, big coaster finally.

As someone whose home park is Michigan's Adventure, I'm cautiously optimistic. The park is out in the middle of nowhere, so there aren't going to be a lot of prospective buyers to redevelop it, so I think Six Flags is probably stuck with the property whether they like it or not. If they do sell it off, it would likely be to someone who would keep the park open. With that said, if they do decide to close other parks, MA is a prime location for some relocations, with a lot of room for expansion. Maybe it's a pipe dream to think that something might change after all this time, but I have some hope for the first time in a while.

“Six Flags, Busch Gardens, Disney World, Disney Land, ITS STILL CEDAR POINT TO ME.”

I know this is random, but maybe operations at Magic Mountain will improve so possibly duels on Twisted Colossus?

Good thing about this is…. cedar fair mite be Forced to bury the hatchet with INTAMIN & RMC. Their blacklisting of the manufacturers that put Cedar point on the map was stupid anyways

Touchless security for bags is just really laxed security, for convenience. I see people having so many things that are not allowed in parks now, than ever before.

it recently came out that CGA didn’t actually have existing plans to close the park, so i wouldn’t be so sure about them being on the chopping block. the land was sold with intent to lease it back so the cedar fair could avoid laying anyone off from pandemic losses.

As we all anxiously await the resurrection of Top Thrill 2…in the iconic words of Hannah Montana, we got the best of both worlds!

Honestly, I'm pretty pessimistic about this. These kinds of massive corporate mergers usually never turn out well for the consumers, and the press release makes me think the same for this. They mention increasing profitability and per capita spending, and attendance, but those very actions counteract eachother. The parks in both chains are already very expensive for value, both in entry and other charges like food, parking, etc. They're hardly good value. And yet they think of trying to squeeze even more cash out of customes! Thats anti-consumer practise, and is not a good thing to see with a chain that has such a stronghold over the entire North American theme park industry. Like in LA and the Northeast, sure they have a little bit of competition, but its not much at all! They still hold practical monopolies through most of the continent! Like most people if theyre gonna visit a theme park, the only options in their entire region, or even within several states radius, is gonna be a Six flags now! They could screw over customers as much as they want and still not care cause said customers have no alternative options unless travelling far across the nation. Honestly its a big problem with these kinds of stockmarket corporations in general! Everything has to be about eternal growth to pay back to shareholders! It takes value from the parks and customers and dont give it back to neither, but to people who havent done anything except be rich enough to own a share of the company. Having a stable, and suitable economy where profits dont grow eternally, is straight up unacceptable under those terms. I know we a lot of the time talk about European parks being much more customer friendly, but thats also in large part due to majority of the European theme parks being run by Families, or by non-profit organisations. Corporate chains do exist, but they have more fierce competition from the many smaller players in the field, and as such have to lower their own profit margins to be competitive. Thankfully that does happen in Europe, but in the US, that more often than not leads to corporate buyouts and or complete shutdowns! Just think of what happened to Geauga Lake, or what originally happened to Kentucky Kingdom. And the few independent parks that do exist outside of the Northeast are usually always too small to be any actual competition to a corporate park. I hope Im wrong but I fear July 1st 2024 is gonna be looked back at in the past as a really bad day for the North American theme park industry as a whole thanks to this merger.

I've only been to Knotts Berry Farm with any regularity, pre-and-post acquisition. This is mainly due to the fact I am never near any other park of theirs. (especially when it was Cedar Fair only) I am hoping Knotts gets the investment it so desperately needs, and not just Snoopy land lol.

Taylor are you gonna do a on ride reaction to the Titan ride at six flags over Texas!?

I will def see how this will work long-term. I do have concerns about selling lesser-known parks (hopefully to someone to keep it as independent or smaller chain parks). But I hope we see manufacturers work on good projects and upgrade the food, theming, experience, to improve the experience. In terms of copyrights, I could see the DC characters stay at the legacy Six Flags parks but retire the Looney Tunes brand in favor of Snoopy/Peanut characters. I think the new logo might apply to all park, but only used at the legacy Six Flags parks.

Hopefully Six Flags Great Adventure can get some improvements too! I know that six flags magic mountain is in need of improvements as well but great adventure has 300 acres of unused land as the safari is closed so maybe we could see something happen to that as well as the area around Kingda ka for instance as you can see the original parking lot under such a legendary coaster feels kind of criminal. Would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this though.

Great video! Maybe the old Cedar Fair parks will stay more like the old Cedar Fair Parks. And the old Six Flags Parks will stay more like the old Six Flags Parks.

I'm a 45 year old Clevelander. Your thumbnail broke my soul.

I hope to see snoopy dancing like the old man to the venga boys

I like the "Cedar Fair" font. They could keep the exclamation point with the six flags in it. The three "original" Six Flags parks don't have actual names...over Texas, over Georgia, St. Louis. All other parks had prior names when they joined the Six Flags family and just got Six Flags tagged on at the front. It has been fun watching people freaking out for the past several months. Kings Island isn't getting renamed Six Flags Cincinnati. TBH, I 've called KI by the name SFC multiple times recently just because it is funny to watch people's heads explode. Cedar Fair was a corporate name that most people didn't even know, so it makes sense to use the very well-known; sometimes hated, company name of Six Flags. I think a cafeteria style season pass offering would be amazing. For A dollars you get your local park. For B dollars you get your choice of 2 parks. C dollars gets your choice of 3 parks. And so on. Yes. Us coaster freaks and theme park weirdos are chimping at the bit for 1 pass that will get us into every park on Earth....we are not like 99 percent of the human population. Most people do not travel beyond their local park. The fun debate is what price will an all parks pass for new Six Flags tag in at?????? I think we can see live shows gat better as well. Pay one team of people to develop a series of shows and roll them out to all the parks where each particular show would fit in. Combine the prior show budgets from both companies and then cut it by a third...we still need to reduce expenses...gives the new company a spending limit which exceeds what each prior company was spending on their own. Let's talk about the 45 dollars fee to park the car.

King’s island and cedar point more popular than six flags parks and I am afraid of them upping the prices now

@2:00 definitely not a monopoly. They obviously have tons of parks but in terms of profitability they are so low on the totem pole. Disney parks make 14 billion a year or something crazy when six flags parks made on average 6 million dollars profit per park recently, cedar fair somewhere around 20? Dont come for me if these numbers are off but essentially disney is making 100 to 1000 times as much money. I for one am so excited to see how parks like great america, fiesta, and magic mountain that are already solid become nicer in a cedar fair way. Nobody has mentioned this but my biggest fear and inevitably will happen is putting those plugin seatbelts on all the b and m hypers in the six flags chain

It’s a little bizarre to me that there is no Six Flags or Cedar Fair park in Florida

Speaking of new IPs, I could see Six Flags to start working with Crunchyroll to bring in some new IPs such as Spy X Family, Ochi no Ko, The Rising of the Shield Hero, etc. to bring in some of the anime fans to visit their nearby Six Flags park.

RIP Cedar Fair. I was a big fan of would have preferred the Cedar Fair name.

The big wonder for me is about the two #1 parks in both companies portfolios of parks, Southern California's Knotts Berry Farm & Magic Mountain. Both parks are in desperate need of attention. Knott's modern tech infrastructure in their foods dept (mobile ordering), parking, needs at least 1 more high capacity reliable thrill ride (B&M Giga-Coaster). Magic Mtn needs to reclaim it's identity, it's lineup is aging as majority of it is rollercoaster tech is from the 90's during the big spending spree of 1988-2006. Both parks haven't had a major or modern addition since 2004 (silver Bullet) & 2006 (Tatsu). They are the cash cows for both companies, if they don't get the investments they've deserved, earned, and needed, if not now, when? Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Olympics.... I'm just saying...

So does this mean that cedar fair parks are gonna be called for example six flags cardowinfs, six flags cedar point and six flags king s island now? Amazing video !

I really hope we get a two-in-one pass for both parks. Here in California Six Flags Magic Mountain in Knott's Berry Farm are within driving distance of each other

I wish they would have gone with Cedar Flags

Did u guys address the recent Superman efk situation 😅

Im curious to see what they're going to do with their operation system. Are they going to keep the operations the same or switch to one?

The cedar fair and six flags have to turn into like six cedar fair flags. Maybe that would be a good name for the merge.

Wow it's not an April's Fool, this is really surprising indeed.

Blew my mind with the last question, “What’s your favorite Six Flags park? Cedar Point?” 😳😂🥵🤯

Hopefully this means the underserved parks in both chains can get some new rides.

This is the best thing for the industry and both chains. Goal is to reduce expenses through volume and optimization. Stoked to see what improvements look like from a business perspective in the coming years.

I wonder if they will charge $99 for an all parks pass. Maybe $145 for roughly 34 parks?

Not to be that guy but we actually are not in a recession right now. One has been predicted for a couple years but hasn't happened yet. Most of the things that factor into a recession aren't there, with unemployment being low and the stock market doing well. Inflation is a separate issue than a recession and the two problems are very often inverse of one another.

I think this is a win for Cedar Fair and they have he upper hand. It seems they just took the “Six Flags” name and that’s it. It really is just Six Flags in name only. You can also tell the new “Six Flags” website displayed on the video was the former CF corporate site, *NOT* the former SF corporate website.

I can’t believe there were no lawsuits over creating a monopoly. There are 7 major railroads in America, and 2 of those merging spurred thousands of lawsuits over monopoly concerns. But there are only 3 major park chains (Herschend is the 3rd) and 2 merging is fine??

so does this mean if I buy a season pass I have access to all six flags and cedar fair parks?

i think after a few years, and we get used to it, it will be the new norm and all parks will benefit

Whatever the new pass is, they better keep the paper cup drink option!

OKANA Indoor Water Park and Resort over 140 acres (built fully by the Chickasaw Nation at $400 million) and is one of the largest in the nation opening in the spring of 2025, Legends Tower complex should be completed on or before 2028, a billion dollar arena for the Thunder in 2028, American Heartland Theme Park and RV Resort is fixing to restart the construction process later this summer and is still planned to open up in the latter part of 2026, then, LA 2028 Olympics with 2-3 events being held here in OKC. Hope to see you guys here!

Our little family are CF Gold plus pass holders and visit 2 to 3 parks beside our home park. A all park pass would be awesome but we are only close to on SF park.

Six Flags.... more like... Cedar Fair

The one question I have: Will Intamin get another shot?

“We renin an economic recession right now?” What?

Will this mean more or less clones?!

my theory is everything is going to get worse as it usually goes when huge companies become even larger. cedar fair parks will become a bit worse, some small to medium sized parks will get sold off to companies not interested or experienced in running amusement parks. larger six flags parks will probably stay the same

I hope they don't mess with Knott's Berry Farm as a theme park. Maybe put some some elaborate themeing into magic mountain.

There's potentially a lot of positives that can come from this. Obviously combining capital is a huge boost for the company. Perhaps they also gain the ability to hire from a bigger hiring pooling, gaining flexibility to move workers around parks that are willing to travel/move. Parks that aren't by major cities tend to have trouble staffing especially before school lets out It opens up key accounts to both companies. We should no longer see manufacturer restrictions at all the parks. (Hello Intamin 🤝 Old Cedar Fair Parks) I wouldn't be surprised if they sell 1 or 2 of the small old Six Flags parks that don't make much money - which it would be great to see new money come in to those parks anyways. I personally don't think much will change at the old cedar fair parks themselves. If the best to come out of it is that we see DC merch at the old CF parks, that's good enough for me

If they want to increase guest attendance they need to work better on guest flow and management. If the paths AND queues are already full… increasing attendance won’t help anyone. I know so many people that grew up going to places like Disney world but now won’t even consider it because of the amount of people

Now I want to see a ranking of all Cedar Flags parks from you two.

I’m really curious about Six Flags America’s future. It really isn’t that easily accessible from D.C. when it comes to public transport. I think it’s like a 35-45ish minute drive depending on what part of D.C. you’re in. I really wish they’d extend the silver line more toward Baltimore. The bus route is absurd from the end of silver line to SFA 😅 Editing to add that anyone who’s familiar with the area knows how treacherous it is to drive in that area as well. I’ve never feared more for my life than I have while going in between D.C. and Baltimore lmao

I am going to upload a video about my predictions about how this will affect cedar point

Fast Lane vs Flash Pass?

Can you make a video about how valley fair is flooding

I recently got a gold pass for cga and I got access to all six flags parks, but no cedar fair parks. The pass system is weird right now

I mostly see a lot of the more smaller parks being destroyed sooner

What has Hershend done for Kentucky Kingdom thus far? Sure we have cinnamon bread and guest surveys going out, but all we have seen is the removal of T3. Keeping my fingers crossed for a Big Bear Mountain style launch coaster 🤞🏻

What will be the 1ST park they sell off?? Absolutely you should know not to believe everything you Read. Come On

You guys got me into roller coasters, I love your reviews. (I love seeing your Six Flags Great Adventure vlogs, it’s my home park) . You guys are amazing and without you I would not like roller coasters like I do now. Thank you!

Calling it now: Six Flags America closes their dry park. Batwing goes to Valleyfair! Joker's Jinx goes to Worlds of Fun Harley Quinn Spinsanity goes to Dorney Superman goes to Michigan's Adventure EDIT: Superman would actually be a shockingly good fit in Kings Dominion's lineup, now that I think about it. Would balance out the park well tucked behind Twisted Timbers!

I believe now all the parks will get some type of investment in the coming years let’s just wait and see what happens

Cedar Fair likes to spend big on coasters. Giga finally coming to Magic Mountain?

This merge will be a total success if they focus on improving the flaws of each corporation and give customers the option of a season pass/membership for all parks, improved landscaping and better food options on six flags parks. They will be able to get better deals from ride manufacturers, getting more rides with less investment. I really hope their decision go towards the customer experience

I haven’t been in the amusement industry lately but my Homepark is Canada’s Wonderland or I’m guessing it’s now called Six Flags Canada’s Wonderland and it sounds like Six Flags won the bigger part of the deal (0:22 that logo really locks it in)

Well I’ve been to two six flags parks : Valley fair & Knotts berry farm so not many but they are both great

Now Cedar Fair parks will get Six Flags hand-me-down rides. The quality of the Cedar Fair parks will start deteriorating, and parks will likely close.

I know people don't watch this channel for the economic insight but we're not in a recession as mentioned around 2:45. A recession is two or more successive quarters with negative change in GDP. That hasn't happened in the US since second quarter of 2022, more than two years ago.

That new logo tbh looks not good, the old SF logo was alot better.

In my honest opinion I really think it will be stupid for them to ax out Six Flags America it’s a home park. It sits in between two major areas Baltimore and DC which is a money maker for them. I think they should invest more into it

can't believe i have to celebrate the 4th knowing everything is now six flags☹️

I'm taking a 'wait and see' attitude towards this merger for now but I will say this: a friend of mine and I decided several years ago that we wanted to visit all of the CF parks someday and have been steadily working our way through them (crossing off Worlds/Oceans of Fun during our upcoming MO/IA theme park trip) but I've never had that same desire to visit all of the SF parks. I've actually never even BEEN to a SF park (we are going to SF: St. Louis during our MO trip so there's my first one) because I haven't really heard too many good things about them over the years. Also, when your home park is KI and you also live within shorter driving distances of KK, CP, Holiday World, and half a dozen awesome parks in western PA, driving out of my comfort zone to visit 'nearby' SF parks isn't too high on my must do list. We'll see what happens I guess. *shrugs* =\

Honestly I hope they get Jeffrey Siebert to teach all the park mgmt a matter class on how to run a park and clean up all the parks for the first year. And they need to take a year off rides from the big parks and put something great into the parks that haven’t had a major addition in a while cause if they don’t it’s less likely for travelers to go out of their way to that park and hurting attendance growth. SFA, Darien, Mi Adventure, SFSTl, and Valleyfair all need a new massive stand out coaster. SFA, how about a multi launch coaster like Maverick. Darien- get them a S&S axis. Mi Adventure a gerstlauer infinity or a small surf coaster. St Louis needs a hyper. And Valleyfair needs an invert, how about a massive Vekoma stc and throw in a family boomerang as well.

Brand new ballgame now!! I really hope it’ll go well. I stated in my personal video that I’m kinda glad that the Simon Malls didn’t buy its competitor (GGP, who was bankrupt during the ‘09 economic collapse). But this is theme parks. Let’s just see y’all 🐧

Honestly this could end up being very good. I think Cedar Fair’s C-Suite are much more likely to add innovative rides to six flags parks than Six Flags’ Corporate

100% will use that as the new logo for all of the parks, having one brand is way more important than nostalgia

I'd hope ceder fair will have a tiny sign on the buildings to buy entry saying 6 flags EG

We will likely see little in the way of good things for the consumer. Can you recall a corporate merger that directly improved your experience? I can't.... It was only done to ensure long term, quarterly profit growth. Not to improve guest experience, necessarily. If they think they can make more profit even at an acceptable expense of the consumer's experience, they will do it. Like, say, food prices in parks. Parking fees. Etc. Those are all in place because it's extra profit, that negatively affects the consumer, but not quite enough to make a difference in attendance. I don't think we will see that many negatives. Heck, maybe we will even see a couple good things for the consumer. But I'd wager it'll be nothing of note and in the end is just more corporate consolidation. Which I'm absolutely against. We really need to reign in consolidation to keep the free market competitive. 2 or 3 major corps controlling entire industries ISN'T a good thing. To be fair, it may be inevitable, regardless of what we do. But, corporate conglomerates are the modern day monopoly. Though, this is one industry that is still fairly regional/local, so it won't make much difference in that respect. I still don't like it. I'll always take 2 companies over 1.

Hi Taylor and Sarah, they announced the senior leadership team with Zimmerman as the ceo. They also announced the organization leadership team, they announced this to all the park employees. I work at cedar point, I don’t know if I can show you the list of these leadership areas.

Some of the legacy SF named parks will be gone eventually. Top of the list is the EPR lease parks which are poor performing, low revenue, low EBIDTA and actually have lower per caps than the other SF parks(stated by SF on conf calls in the past). Frontier city is running 11am to 6pm hours weekdays and is closed Tuesdays & Wednesday all summer b/c it's doing poorly. Each of the last 2 years SF has taken 16M impairment on Frontier City. They also have taken a 7 to 8M impairment on the Oklahoma City water park and impairment of 16M on the Houston water park. SF stated they do not except the situation to change in the future. Cedar Fair management is going to look for to get out of these 3 leases early(if nor cost prohibitive by penalty clauses), as well as the other 2 leases with EPR of Darien Lake and the Concord water park