In recent years, Six Flags has been trying to buy other major amusement park chains. In 2018, they tried buying SeaWorld Entertainment Company, but SeaWorld wasn't interested. In 2019, they were interested in merging with Cedar Fair. It appears that the companies met over it, but they never actually made any deals.
In 2020, Six Flags didn't try to buy any chains, but that was likely due to the pandemic .If we look at what Six Flags did during the pandemic, though, it appears that they may be doing a lot better than other chains.
In 2021, due to many reasons, Amusement Parks have been extremely popular. Long story short, people aren't going to Movie Theaters as much because of the rise of Streaming Services like HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, and Peacock during the pandemic. People have more money to spend after staying home for, in many cases, over a year. People want to get affordable entertainment for a while, so Amusement Parks are now extremely popular .
Six Flags has been doing very well. They have parks in great areas already. People are often willing to travel around 90 minutes from home to go to an amusement park, from what I can tell. Of the top 10 most populated cities in the US, all but San Diego are within 90 minutes from a Six Flags. Not looking at whole Metro Areas, that is almost 24.5 Million people near a Six Flags in just 9 cities.
Furthermore, due to high population and high population density, some of the cities near Six Flags Parks (Like New York, LA, and Chicago) had to be under a more extended lockdown. Because of that, more people have been working from home and been going out less and, as a result, would like to go to places like amusement parks.
Due to those reasons, Six Flags has been getting very large numbers of guests. People are pointing out that parks like Six Flags Darien Lake, Six Flags Great America, Six Flags Great Adventure, Six Flags America, and Six Flags Magic Mountain keep reaching capacity.
Because of those reasons, Six Flags is starting to do pretty well. If Six Flags keeps doing this well, I see them trying to buy another chain, but now, they need to find a chain to look for .
That is where we get Palace Entertainment. Palace Entertainment is basically relying on just Kennywood and Lake Compounce right now, but that won't be very sustainable for the company .
People are mad that Kennywood keeps raising their ticket prices while some of the best rides there are being removed. Because of that, people would rather spend less and get more at other nearby amusement parks. Some people are even willing to drive out to Hersheypark or Cedar Point, which are 3-4 hours away from Pittsburgh, when they'd usually go to Kennywood.
As for Lake Compounce, the park looks fun and is pretty popular, but they have to compete with Six Flags New England, and that is not going to be very easy for them. Six Flags New England is more popular and Lake Compounce has some similar issues to Kennywood: they are removing popular rides while raising ticket prices .
Palace Entertainment is also currently neglecting some of their other parks. For example, look at Idlewild. Their most recent addition was in 2018 and was 1 new, small PTC train for Rollo Coaster that the state made them get after an accident. Before that, their most recent addition was in the early 2010s. Keep in mind that the park is owned by a massive park chain that operates a ton of amusement and water parks nationwide in the US.
In general, Palace Entertainment is likely failing right now and I think that the chain will go under . Now, I want to talk about why it makes sense for Six Flags to buy the chain .
The main reason is that Six Flags will have an oppurtunity to get to more major cities and will get much more in profits.
Now, I want to take a look at some of the places that they will basically control the amusement industries in.
First off, we have the New England area. They already own Six Flags New England, but owning Lake Compounce eliminates most of their big competition there. Owning Story Land also helps them a lot since they can compete with other amusement parks in New Hampshire.
Next, there is the Greater Pittsburgh Area. If Six Flags does this right, they can own all 3 major parks in the area AND get them all to some of their highest attendance. If they can market memberships to Pittsburghers, they might be able to get massive attendance in not only Pittsburgh, but they might get people to travel to SIx Flags America, Darien Lake, and Great Adventure. This might get them to sell more merchandise, which can help Six Flags a lot.
Many people in the Pittsburgh Area HATE Palace Entertainment and Parques Reunidos, and I think that they'd prefer having a new company that frequently invests in the park running the Kennywood and Idlewild.
Currently, Idlewild is also pretty much ignored, but it has great potential. It is right near Pittsburgh and people grew up going to Idlewild and riding the classic rides there. A lot of people also would be nostalgic for Looney Toons, so visiting a newer version of Idlewild with Looney Toons may be able to attract massive crowds.
The final thing that I want to mention is that, if they purchase Palace Entertainment, they will have parks within 90 minutes of all of the top 10 highest populated cities in the US. Currently, they are mssing San Diego, but Castle Park is 90 Minutes away from San Diego. That gets a Six Flags Amusement or Water Park within 90 minutes of all of the 10 most populated US Cities.
The final thing to mention is how much this helps Six Flags when it comes to waterparks. Palace Entertainment owns 8 Waterparks in the US (plus 1 in Australia). This includes America's largest waterpark (Noah's Ark Waterpark in Wisconsin Dells). They also own Sandcastle Waterpark, which is great during hot summer days in Pittsburgh and can be very popular. Palace also owns a waterpark in Long Island, one in North Carolina, 1 in New Hampshire, and 3 in California.
These will all help Six Flags out a lot and will keep Six Flags as the largest Waterpark chain in the US (Possibly even making them the world's largest, though I couldn't find sources listing the current largest) .
In conclusion, Palace Entertainment might be a failing chain and Six Flags buying them will be very helpful to Six Flags, allowing them to run the amusement park industries of certain areas. To me, the question isn't really if this will happen, but more of how soon is it going to be.
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