By Will Feuer | Photographs by Tyler Dane Hansen for The Wall Street Journal
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- To see the new strategy of Six Flags Entertainment's theme parks, ride 15 stories to the top of Dr. Diabolical's Cliffhanger, where the roller coaster tilts your face toward the ground and pauses. From there, look down at the new flowers and freshly paved streets.
Its San Antonio park, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, refurbished a steam-engine ride called Miss Kitty, and a tame roller coaster called Boomerang. Workers spent the months leading up to its crucial summer season adding thousands of plants and trees, doubling the number of trash cans, installing hundreds of new tables, and speeding up food-service lines. A new Roller Coaster Coffee serves Starbucks, and the park is installing more shade and fans for anyone waiting in line for rides.
Such upgrades at its 27 North American locations mark a bet by new management to turn around plunging attendance and drive more spending.
Chief Executive Selim Bassoul, who took the helm in late 2021, says "park beautification" and new additions will help justify higher prices. The more pleasant atmosphere will also help Six Flags expand beyond its longtime customer base, thrill-seeking teens, and bring in more families, he says. He wagers that parents with young children will be willing to splurge on season passes that run as high as $170, and that they will continue to spend once in the parks for better food, shorter waits in lines and VIP lounges.
"It's going to be strollerpalooza," said Jeffrey Siebert, president of Six Flags Fiesta Texas. The park is preparing to open its new Kid Flash Cosmic Coaster, which the company assigns a "mild" thrill level. "Attractions for kids are just as cool as big roller coasters."
So far, raising prices has been a bumpy ride. Last year, when Bassoul raised the average price of admission to $35.99 from $28.73, many customers -- already battered by the highest level of inflation in decades -- decided a visit to Six Flags wasn't worth the price. The company recorded 20.4 million visits last year, 26% fewer than in 2021.
Bassoul has acknowledged to investors that the company overshot. He has walked back some of the price increases over the past year, including by reintroducing a scaled-back meal plan and offering ticket discounts. This year, Six Flags is pouring $150 million into upgrading the parks' ambience, counting on family-friendly amenities like cleaner bathrooms and more shady seating to attract new visitors and convince previous ones to give the parks another chance.
Walt Disney has also tested the limits of its theme-park customers' budgets in recent years, hiking the price of tickets, hotels and food at its attractions. Earlier this year, in one of Robert Iger's first moves after returning as CEO, the company made adjustments including adding lower-priced theme-park access and amenities. Walt Disney World last month announced that it plans to close its Star Wars-themed hotel by October. Travel-industry analysts have said the hotel's steep price tag kept even ardent fans at bay.
Regional theme parks in the U.S. have for the past two decades or so been considered a mature industry, said Dennis Speigel, a longtime industry consultant and CEO of International Theme Park Services. Destination parks like Walt Disney World and Universal Studios have grown more than their regional rivals such as Six Flags, Cedar Fair and SeaWorld Entertainment, he said. In recent years, though, British-based theme park operator Merlin Entertainments has found success with kid- and family-focused parks like the Legoland chain and newer Peppa Pig parks, based on the Hasbro character.
Bassoul has said he wants Six Flags to continue to cater to the middle class, one of the many groups reeling from higher prices on everything from food and gas to airfares. Last year, the average Six Flags visitor spent $63.93 on a day's visit, up 22% from 2021.
The test will come as financial results roll in for the period from April through September, when Six Flags typically generates about 70% of its annual revenue. It was during that key stretch last year that attendance fell sharply as the company raised prices on tickets, food and more. That weighed on sales, which fell below 2021 levels in the same six-month period, a time when rivals were still reporting year-over-year gains as Americans emerged from the pandemic. Six Flags' stock fell more than 45% last year.
Bassoul last year acknowledged that the parks had been too deeply discounted in years past and became overcrowded, often with teens. "We became a daycare center for teenagers."
Typically, Six Flags would focus its investments on launching new, thrilling rides that dare customers -- especially teenagers -- to visit and test their mettle. This year, though, the company is introducing just one big new thrill ride to its park near Dallas. The ride, Aquaman: Power Wave, is a water coaster that rocks riders between two 150-foot-tall towers at speeds up to 63 miles an hour. Other additions for the year across the parks include Caribbean Cove, which is limited to kids and their parents, and Ripqurl, a miniature version of its popular water thrill ride, as well as bingo and pie-eating contests.
Jason and Kelly Hennington of Houston drove three hours to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio with two of their four children, all under the age of 5, in April. Jason Hennington said he noticed upgrades throughout the park, including freshly painted buildings.
"We've gone a couple of times over the years and I couldn't even imagine having had kids with us for some of those trips because there wasn't a lot to do," he said.
Kelly Hennington added: "But now they have face painting and multiple kids' sections that you could walk to."
The Henningtons said the one downside to their visit was how long it took to get food in the park. They waited at least 30 minutes to order lunch on their Saturday visit, they said.
Long overdue investment in Six Flags' in-park kitchens is an issue that hits home for Bassoul, who previously served as CEO of food-service equipment maker Middleby for nearly 20 years. The company is pumping millions into upgrading food preparation at the parks' kitchens, said Jason Freeman, Six Flags' vice president of operations, public safety, engineering and maintenance.
Food options vary by park. At Six Flags New England, Baystate Fisheries serves up fish and chips and other seafood. At Frontier City in Oklahoma, Rusty Spur Cafe slings chicken strips and fries. Smoked turkey legs and Six Flags' Asian-inspired Chop Six chain are other mainstays across many of the parks. Six Flags is also trying trendy new items like Korean corn dogs and mocktails. The company is gearing up for Flavors of the World, a new food festival that will debut later this month.
"We have done a poor job as a company over the years reinvesting in food and food equipment," said Freeman, who has been with Six Flags since 1984. Food generates a substantial portion of Six Flags' sales, he said, and new equipment means lines will move more quickly and the food quality will be better. He said the company is working to reduce wait times, including by rolling out a new mobile-ordering app this month.
Freeman said the company will continue to invest in coasters for teens, but the focus is now on building out the parks' offering for their younger siblings and amenities for their parents.
"We own the market on teen thrill," Freeman said, "and now it's time to get back to families."
Siebert, president of Six Flags Fiesta Texas, said his "streetmosphere" budget is bigger than at any time during his 11 years at the company, enabling the park to replace cracked pavement and foliage that was left to sizzle in the Texas heat in years past.
"The trees looked like they had all been hit by lightning or chewed up by Godzilla," he said.
The most popular ride at the San Antonio park is Miss Kitty, a recently refurbished old-school locomotive that sometimes ferries over 10,000 guests a day from one side of the park to the other. The park is working on fixing Miss Kitty's long-broken sister train, named Greta. Siebert said he expects the two trains to run simultaneously next summer.
The park refurbished Boomerang Coast-to-Coaster, which Siebert said is good for 10-to-12 year olds and is often a kid's first ride with a loop. The park is also adding go-karts and expanding its kids' waterslide section.
Roller coasters with a "maximum" thrill grade, like the Iron Rattler and Poltergeist, continue to draw packs of teenagers to the park, and Siebert said he wants to hang on to them. Still, Six Flags could do a better job of retaining customers as they grow up, start dating and have their own children, he said.
Six Flags has tried to broaden its appeal before. Mark Shapiro, who served as CEO from 2005 to 2010, prioritized cleaning up the parks and rebranded them as a more family-friendly option. He says the company saw positive results, but Six Flags ultimately collapsed under the weight of its legacy debt load and filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
"Look and feel, ambience, environment -- that stuff really matters. Even if it's subliminal, it tells you the parks are clean and friendly," Shapiro said. "You need branded food and drink options that make families comfortable. You need your fireworks."
Six Flags traces its roots back to the 1961 opening of its first park in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. In the following decades, the company bought up other local theme parks across the U.S. as the parent company was traded among various conglomerates and private-equity firms. In 1993, Time Warner bought the company and sold it in 1998 to Premier Parks, which adopted the Six Flags name.
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