Are amusement parks dying?
Is it just me, or are the seasonal amusement parks not nearly as busy as they used to be? As a young adult in the 90s/early 2000s, the parks seemed to be way more crowded and have a bigger cultural relevance back then. Growing up in the midwest the three biggest parks were Cedar Point, SFGAm, and PKI, and all three parks were opening huge new (frequently record breaking) coasters on a regular basis. The parks had huge crowds and long lines almost every day.
With the failures of many big record breaking coasters, and the huge maintenance and operations cost of these parks, its not really sustainable to be building coasters of the scale and frequency that they used to. I believe as a result teenagers/young adults have lost interest in seasonal parks as their biggest coasters are the same ones as 20+ years ago. TTD is still the tallest coaster at CP (opened 23 years ago), Raging Bull is still the biggest coaster at SFGAm (opened 27 years ago), and while Orion is the biggest coaster at KI, its about the same size as Millennium Force which is not far away (opened in 26 years ago). People my age had huge new coasters to look forward to every few years, whereas it seems like teenagers nowadays don't have much to be excited about, and as a result are losing interest. If you were to tell me 20 years ago that 20 years from now, in DejaVu's spot, there will be a new coaster that was about the same height and more boring, it would have disappointed me.
Meanwhile parks like Disney and Universal have been investing big $ into highly themed immersive experiences and have been killing it from a business perspective. The parks in the northern half of the country seem to have peaked attendance wise in the early 2000s.
There could be many things playing into this: is the K-shape economy also a factor? Parks that cater to the "middle class" (whatever that means now) are getting poorer, while parks that cater to the upper class are doing really well? How much is the mismanagement of Six Flags providing a poor experience for such a long time playing into this? Does the low birth rate factor in?
Replies (4)
I'd say that failure to incorporate appreciable improvements in technology has impeded Six Flags' (and many of the other regional operators) ability to reach a broader market. For decades, building bigger, faster, and more challenging kinetic energy rides was enough to bring new generations to the parks. That isn't true anymore. With just a few hundred dollars investment, many of the people who once went to amusement parks are now connecting and competing with like-minded folks across the globe in online games and entertainment.
Amusement parks are at a distinct disadvantage when resources can be poured into a multisensory game with an audience of tens of millions while parks have to build and maintain an infrastructure of rides and attractions with a potential audience of only a few million. The dynamic has changed and only the top end of the theme park industry like Disney and Universal can truly compete with their unique IP and the financial ability to incorporate technology into their ride systems.
And, like Russell, I believe that the amusement park industry is going to have to shrink and change at the same time. In which direction, I'm not entirely sure. I've looked back at the days when a Ferris Wheel, a 100' first drop woodie, bumper cars, and a Skeeball bank were considered a good time at the park to where we are today, and I have trouble seeing a sustainable path forward for many parks. Predicting the desires of potential consumers is a difficult task in this strange world that we live in where people want more interaction yet less contact with their fellow human beings.
A combination of a horrible economy combined with corporate mismanagement. Park staffing issues are also a problem, employees aren't paid well so often times lots of food & drink areas are closed, or if staffed, are messy and have very poor customer service. Combined with soaring prices, people just don't have the time or luxury, or even patience to go. Disney being the exception, as it's a global destination with deep pockets, they just don't have the same challenges as smaller parks and probably never will.
Are amusement parks dying? No, I don't think I'd go that far. Are amusement parks transforming, which may have the end result of shrinkage? I think that's a more accurate way to describe what's going on.
A lot of parks, especially the corporate regional theme parks, no longer seem to focus as strongly on guests who are coming for a full day visit once or twice a season. Instead, many seem to have shifted more toward guests who buy an annual pass and visit for a half to two-thirds of a day several times throughout the summer. Temporary seasonal events have displaced permanent large scale capital in an effort to drive repeat visitation, and because so many of their guests can come whenever they want, there's no need for everyone to show up at the same time of year, thus days that were traditionally busy aren't as crowded and days that used to be dead tend to see more guests than in the past, thus it all somewhat balances out. This also matches up with the trends of younger generations, who tend to prefer activities in shorter bursts rather than dedicating extended periods to something.
Let's take a look at the three parks cited above. Back in the mid 2000s, both Cedar Point and Kings Island saw around 3 million visitors per year. According the the 2024 attendance survey, those parks saw 3.6 and 3.3 million guests, respectively, thus more people are visiting now than were visiting twenty years ago. I don't have the most recent data from SFGAm, but if I remember correctly the last published number was still ~200k higher than what they were in the mid-2010s.
Now, one thing that has definitely changed is that the number of entertainment options the average American has access to is far, far greater than it was two or three decades ago. Since the 00s, the number of options in the themed entertainment sphere has significantly expanded beyond a traditional theme park, and I do think we're rapidly approaching a point where sensations previously only accessible by traveling to such a facility can now be experienced a la carte, thus parks are needing to reinvent where they invest capital and what types of experiences are actually appealing to the modern visitor. Many parks in the US are in fairly mature markets, meaning it's difficult to draw in more raw visitors, so instead the focus is on total visits. There is also a bit of a consolidation factor (for instance, CP, KI, and SFGAm now all run under one operator instead of three), which means it's less important for each individual park to have something show stopping every couple years and more important that the chain opens a couple of these each season at parks with the most growth potential while investing in quality of life upgrades and replacement of older, unpopular, or outdated attractions rather than simply trying to outdo what they've already got.
This is an interesting topic, and I would tend to agree that there are multiple causes for the perceived decline in regional theme parks. Six Flags' mismanagement of their properties is definitely a part of it, and it has been exasperated by their merger with Cedar Fair, which has placed a majority of regional amusement parks under the control of a single company that doesn't necessarily have the greatest track record. However, while SF has played a major role in the recent changes in the industry, their approach was justified, and I think most savvy business people would make the same decisions if they were faced with similar conditions. In the 80's and 90's, regional theme parks were thriving as alternatives to declining businesses like bowling alleys, arcades, and community pools. Having a park in virtually every major market meant SF could touch a majority of Americans and provide a product that was growing. That growth and projection of further growth justified and supported investments that were made through the 90's and 00's that defined the "Coaster Wars" era where cable networks actively promoted regional parks (and some destination parks). However, for as emboldened as SF (and other regional operators) felt in continuously investing to push the envelope of thrills, they created a "sameness" amongst their properties that undermined the whole point of the "Coaster Wars". When the 2008 financial collapse happened, SF and other regional operators had a customer base that expected continual investment at cut-rate prices, which could no longer be delivered in the new financial reality. Fast forward to the '20s, and SF's merger with CF is seen as the only way for the regional theme park business to survive because of increases in labor costs and overall costs to maintain parks that had been neglected over the prior decade when money was tight.
However, for as much as SF deserves blame, they were merely following the trends that customers were giving them. The popularity of coaster/theme park shows gave them the justification to invest in bigger, faster, better attractions and SF just gave people what they thought they wanted, which came at the cost of quality and overall customer service. SF and other regional operators were willing to compromise other parts of their business to chase records so they would be featured on national programming, which would naturally draw a larger audience than was typically expected from a regional park. SF wanted to have a chain of parks where guests would travel hundreds of miles for unique experiences like Disney and Universal, but with each incremental exceedance of various records created a sameness of the experience that didn't justify a trip beyond a customer's home park. All of these investments that were made to turn regional parks into destination parks came at the cost of the overall experience and customer service that soured guests of the chain, and seeing core parks continuously getting investment while smaller parks were left to rot further deteriorated perception of the regional amusement park concept. However, guests are just as much to blame for this decline, because they continued to send signals to SF and other regional operators that bigger, faster, longer was better and continued to insist of paying less and less, which had to come at some cost. The regional theme park is probably one of the few businesses where the cost to the consumer has lagged inflation. While admission to Disney and Universal parks have doubled or tripled in the past 10-20 years, you can still get a season pass for a SF park for @50% more than what it cost in the late '00s/early'10s. There's no way a company can balance the books when costs for materials and labor are skyrocketing but revenues are stuck in 2010.
I also think there's been a dramatic change in entertainment over the past decade that has diminished the value of the regional theme park. Just as arcades, skating rinks, movie theaters, and bowling alleys have become relics of the past, regional amusement parks are falling victim to the same forces that change the way people entertain themselves. That doesn't necessarily mean regional theme parks will disappear, because arcades, movie theaters, and bowling alleys still exist and in some instances thrive, but placing such a large percentage of the industry in the hands of one company with a checkered past does not necessarily bode well for the future of the industry. SF is going to have to make some tough decisions and do a better job of servicing their customers to give them what they "need" and less of what they think they "want". I'm skeptical whether SF is up to the task, but I do think there are some signs that they're starting to understand that the industry has changed and that they need to leverage their size and negotiating power while still finding ways to cater to their local audiences.
Ultimately, I think we're due for some more shrinkage of the market, and whether that results in divestiture of more assets or park closures, I think the recent slowdown in new attractions will be the status quo for the foreseeable future. However, I think the concept of the regional amusement park will survive, but may look different 20 years from now.