Running a theme park news publication means working with media relations people at parks from all over the world. But over the past several months, many of emails as have been bouncing as the new Six Flags has been laying off media relations people at most of its theme parks. Six Flags has chosen to use a new regional management model, where one PR team handles media relations for several theme parks.
Now, Six Flags is doing the same with park presidents. My colleague Brady MacDonald at the Orange County Register has confirmed that Six Flags is laying off all 27 park presidents across the company. Like with PR, park management now will be handled on a regional basis, with regional administrators responsible for multiple parks.
At the two Six Flags parks in Southern California, Knott's Berry Farm president Jon Storbeck and Six Flags Magic Mountain president Jeff Harris will be leaving the company at the end of this month.
Of course, Six Flags' decision means that parks now might be without the high-level, "the buck stops here" leadership that they have had on site at moments when that leadership is necessary. Instead, regional management either will be handling things remotely, or previously lower levels of management will be empowered to make decisions.
"Six Flags Entertainment recently moved to a new regional operating structure," the company said in a statement to the press. "Under this new alignment, we have centralized certain functions and responsibilities at the corporate level. The company also made some changes to the roles and responsibilities of park leaders, sharpening the parks' focus on execution, the guest experience and associates."
Ultimately, this is all about saving money. But where will that money saved go?
Please tell us in the comments about what you are seeing with customer service, maintenance and operations quality at the Six Flags parks you have visited this season.
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@MikeW:
To borrow a phrase from @TH:
Standing and applauding
That's it. Close the Internet. We have a winner.
Under the circumstances I think consolidating some of these full time roles makes sense but eliminating the park president role in favor of regional presidents is a crazy idea that will undoubtedly make things worse. These are theme parks we are talking about, not Chipotle locations, each one has a bunch of different departments and employs thousands of people. How can you operate a theme park (and adjacent waterpark for most parks) without having someone directly responsible for it? The "park managers" they are naming are getting added responsibilities to their current jobs (like they are still doing their old job), basically giving them an insane amount more work when they already are way over worked and under paid.
I can tell you pretty much exactly what's going to happen: these people will want to visit all of their parks regularly, for the first like 4 months. Then after that they will be exhausted and be like "F this" and park themselves at their biggest park and try to run the other parks through zoom and have to rely on the word of the yes-men at the parks who are all trying to brown nose and protect their own paychecks. And the regional president wont be able to just leave his office and walk around and see how things actually are so there will be a "tragedy of the commons" situation. The guy that does the SFGAm region is also responsible for WOF, Valleyfair!, and SFSTL. Like...how?
Also in regards to travel the corporation is going to have to pay for these peoples airplane tickets/gas, hotels, meals etc which is going to not only cost money but also when there is a recession (or just a slight downturn in business) you know the corporation is going to be like "no business travel" and then they won't even have the option to visit their parks.
At Knott’s Berry Farm, the layoffs have also included a number of roles across every department. I was shocked to hear that one of the main chefs at the park and a number of managers in foods were let go. Knott’s food is one of the key components of what makes the park so special.
hard to believe that a merger like this is going to make things worse!
I agree with the Man25. Jon Storbeck is an excellent leader and a good man, formerly in charge of Downtown Disney. I predict that the loss of those chefs and Mr Storbeck will negatively impact the quality of the guest experience at Knott’s. This is sad news.
The way I look at this is Six Flags trying to normalize and sterilize the park experience. For those that haven't been around the country to the various parks in the chains (for the record I've been to every one in the US save for Michigan's Adventure, Darien Lake, and The Great Escape), each one has its own personality and individual strengths and challenges. One could argue that some of those strengths and challenges are shared between parks in the same region, but the reality is that each and every park is a different entity that needs effective local leadership to understand and handle.
For me, this seems incredibly hypocritical given the chain's recent announcement regarding the closure of SFA. Going to a regional management structure, is going to mean the smaller parks in each region are going to get ignored even more than they are now. Under individual park management the smaller parks could at least band together and share strategies for success, but with regional managers focused on their overall success have ZERO incentive to help those smaller parks. Honestly, it was likely the smaller parks were going to fall by the wayside under the previous management structure, but what I fear is that the character and unique aspects that define individual parks will be lost. Imagine SFFT losing their special touches that help draw their unique guest base (more seniors than your typical SF park) and additional capital spent on theming new attractions, or Knott's dumping Ghost Town Alive or some of their unique seasonal entertainment.
There are the obvious advantages to going to a regional structure in saving money by reducing the number of staff, but also consolidating resources and buying in bulk ona regional basis, which could save money on food, supplies, and other consumables (though you would think SF was already doing much of that on a nation-wide basis).
I think the bottom line here is that if you enjoyed some of the charm and quaint little touches that your home park had, expect those to disappear in the next year as parks become more and more the same across the country.
"I think the bottom line here is that if you enjoyed some of the charm and quaint little touches that your home park had, expect those to disappear in the next year as parks become more and more the same across the country."
This is my fear with Knott's.
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I read the opening in the voice of Grand Moff Tarkin.
"Regional governors will have direct control of their territories. Fear will keep the populace in line."