Can Six Flags discount its way to industry success?

This seems like a desperate attempt to quickly raise as much cash as they can.

SFMM's website also has:

All season Fastlane SFMM only: $500
All season Fastlane all parks: $1,000

All day dining (1 day) every 90 minutes: $50
All season dining, 1 meal per day, SFMM only: $80

All season dining, 2 meals per day with minimum 4 hours between meals, SFMM only: $100 (they seem to be selling this as gold and premium with the same benefits and same price?? So its the same thing on their website twice, with two different names, but the same price)

All season dining, 2 meals per day with minimum 4 hour interval between meals, all parks: $155
(and again they sell this same thing with same price under two different names, gold and prestige)

Keep in mind NONE of the dining plans include drinks, snacks, or desserts. BUT they offer drink passes as well

1 day unlimited drink souvenir bottle (refill every 15 minutes): $20

All season unlimited drinks in paper cups (refill every 15 minutes), no souvenir bottle, doesn't say if SFMM only or all parks: $37

All season unlimited drinks in paper cups (refill every 15 minutes), includes ICEEs, coffee, and hot chocolate but not valid at Starbucks/Caribu Coffee/Tim Hortons. Doesn't say if its good at SFMM only or all SF parks: $54

1 day photo pass: $25
All season photo pass, appears to be SFMM only with no option for all parks: $35

The takeaways:

-They appear to have taken "best of" what upsells sold well at SF parks and what sold well at CF parks.

-They have very cheap APs but offer a lot of expensive premium upsells for those who want a more premium experience, which is something SF did in the past but not CF.

-The all season paper cup thing I think was a CF thing that is now an all SF thing. However it doesn't specify if its only good at SFMM or all parks, there is no upsell for all parks as an option.

-The 1 day dining with a meal every 90 minutes was a CF thing that they are now doing at SF. Although if you buy the all season dining that is not an option, you have to wait 4 hours between meals with a maximum of 2 meals per day. That was a SF thing.

-This is on Canada's Wonderland and SFMM's websites only right now. As far as I can tell all the other parks are still offering their normal old SF/CF passes. ALSO my "home SF park" of SFOG as well as a few other SF parks have completely removed all hours for September and October and it says the park is closed now, but still has FF listed as an event on their website, but not HITP. My assumption is when the other parks announce their 2026 passes they will do what MM and CW are doing but as of now they don't have 2026 passes on sale yet.

It'll be interesting how SF Legacy Memberships will be treated.

I decided to dig up the investor day presentation Six Flags did back in May and refresh myself on some of the strategic initiatives they went over at that time. Notably, these stood out related to attendance and pricing...

-Target increase of 10 million visitors across the chain by the end of 2028 (~58 million vs. 2024 attendance of 50 million...pre-pandemic was 61 million).
-At least 70% of guests visiting on advance purchase products (~60% of total visitation from passholders, ~30% from day tickets, and ~%10 from group sales). Currently, about 50% of guests visit on day tickets and 50% on passes or group sales.
-Advance sale of products is the most resilient way to combat increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.
-To be competitive against other entertainment choices and resistant in an unfavorable economy, cost goal is ~$8 per hour.
-Primary focus is to increase the performance of underperforming parks near the ten largest urban centers in North America. Aim is to increase them from 15% of chainwide attendance share to 25% of the chainwide attendance share.
-Fifteen parks in the chain have an attendance of 1 million or more guests per year. Of those, eight are considered to be underperforming given the population of the market they serve. Parks that don't meet this attendance threshold are only viable if they can be used to feed into larger parks.
-Increased food and beverage sales, especially alcohol sales, is the #1 priority in the near term to increase guest spending. Target is to increase F&B revenue by 15% per day guest and 40% per passholder. More appealing drink plans are a core element of this.
-Increased sales volume of merchandise and upcharge offerings is the secondary goal for guest spending. These are much harder to achieve if the parks are less busy.
-Current average revenue from a day guest is ~$85. Average revenue from passholders is currently ~$50 per visit and ~$275 per season.
-Targeted growth over next three years: +$260 million from F&B, +$160 million from pass sales, +$110 million in other guest spending, +$55 million from group sales, +$15 million from other (total +$600 million, which would be a 20% increase).

After reviewing all that, this strategy is starting to make a little more sense. It seems they're aiming to increase the number of passholders by discounting the passes, and in doing so hoping the add-on options will be a more lucrative sell to visitors. This is exactly the strategy Six Flags used previously, and it can be pretty viable in the short term, but the company got in trouble when it started to become a long term strategy. Hopefully the new management recognizes that and is able to provide a product at a quality level that they are able to raise prices regularly without spooking their clientele, as once people get used to an inexpensive product it can be very difficult to change that trend.

AJ really hits on the important point here that this cannot be seen as a long term strategy. As I noted, there's nothing wrong with offering big discounts, especially in a year where the chain is not going to offer a lot of new attractions as evidenced by the delay of the SFGAdv coaster to 2027. As of right now, the only confirmed attractions for 2026 will be the SFoT dive machine and the Quantum Accelerator at SFNE that was delayed from an initial 20215 opening. It's possible SF might move some attractions around to bill them as "new for 2026" (especially rides from the soon to be closed forever SFA), but there's really nothing else confirmed across the entire chain for 2026. If this is just a 1-time deal to get customers to bite on an annual pass, it would make sense to offer the product at an extremely low price to whet their appetite and knowing that you won't be able to offer those folks anything truly new from the previous year. If SF then is able to make massive investments for 2027 (including the SFGAdv coaster, SFMM coaster, long-rumor addition to Cedar Point's Millennium Island, and others), they can leverage those major new attractions as justification for charging more for 2027 passes.

That all seems well and good except for 2 major points...

1. SF seems to be significantly undercutting the legacy Cedar Fair parks with these moves. In many cases, these cut-rate passes are half the price of the cheapest season/annual passes that have been offered for Cedar Far parks in the past 5+ years. In fact, the all-parks pass is in some cases 60+% cheaper than what Cedar Fair EVER offer a chain-wide pass. I had always expected that Cedar Fair, which I always viewed as the higher quality chain, to bring the level of SF up, not for SF to bring things down. In fact, I have generally observed that the SF parks I've visited this year have slightly improved in terms of quality and consistency, but this slashing of prices concerns me that SF is now going to drag CF parks down to the SF level. Again, if it's a 1-time deal because the chain isn't able to add a whole lot in 2026, that's probably fine, but I'm concerned that the SF way of doing things will start infiltrating the chain and the overall quality of the product will begin to drop to the cost because the revenue just isn't there to support the way CF operated their parks.

2. I think SF is significantly underestimating the knowledge of its consumer. Theme park guests aren't dumb and it got to a point in prior years when season/annual passholders (the most loyal and knowledgeable customers) got wise to the games SF was playing with its pass and membership products to the point where the annual fall sale was falling flat because passholders kept getting burned in previous years when SF would advertise their "Best Sale of the Year" in August and September only to introduce something better in October/November when they didn't hit their numbers. It got to the point where playing "chicken" was the name of the game with SF because you knew at some point the chain would offer a superior product or lower price if you were just willing to wait a little longer, particularly if your "home" park was closed during the winter months and you weren't losing anything by not having a pass in January-March. Cedar Fair NEVER did this, and their passholders knew that the annual fall pass renewal sale was always the best price you would ever get on those products. The question is will SF fall back on old habits again here if/when they don't sell enough passes (it's hard to believe prices can go any lower or that these cut-rate passes could provide any better perks at the current price point), or will these truly be the best prices of the year?

Ultimately, I'm just not sold on this strategy, and feel that SF is sacrificing potential revenue from their former CF parks with this price slashing in the hopes of gaining a small increase in overall passes. AJ did a great job of reviewing the details of the merged chain's initial strategy call, and this move does seem to parallel what they hinted at there. However, I think this is a "cut your nose off to spite your face" situation where SF is now training former CF passholders to accept these lower pass prices, which will likely make it significantly more difficult to raise prices when their overall revenues fall short of what's needed to offset operational and capital improvement costs. While the selling of season/annual passes offsets the impacts that weather has on revenue, it also creates a very uneven cashflow throughout the year, and the goal to have 60% of the daily attendance be from passholders seems extremely shortsighted, especially since I am extremely suspect of their in-park guest spending numbers, particularly the $50/visit from passholders (even if you include the cost of the pass).

I want to think that this move from SF is just a 1-year sale to reignite interest in the new combined chain, but we've all been down this road far too many times. SF always devolves to the lowest common denominator. There was a clear differential in quality between the operations of the legacy SF parks that offered bottom of the barrel prices and legacy CF parks that resisted the urge to stoop to the SF level. If CF parks have to start operating on revenue generated from pass sales at these prices, something will definitely have to give, because in general CF parks are already more crowded than SF parks so there's less room to stuff more people into those parks without impacting the guest experience.

I still don't understand why SF is going to such extremes here. I realize they want to simplify and streamline their offerings, because buying passes for the 2025 season was a challenging task to compare between the 2 chains, especially if you had multiple parks in your region. Having just 3 tiers of pass makes a whole lot of sense, but what I don't understand is why the middle tier needs to provide access to every park in the chain. Very few people are going to visit theme parks outside of their home region, so why give people something they're not going to use essentially for free? Why not instead provide access to a handful of other parks in the "home" region or give guests in the middle tier a certain number of admissions to non-home parks (that would also prevent guests from buying a cheaper pass for a park outside of their region). The chain could then reserve the "Prestige" pass for those guests who want to visit 5+ parks in the chain while giving them the VIP access that comes with that level of pass that makes the price jump ($100+) more justified. As of now, the Prestige Pass just isn't worth that upcharge (for most parks in the chain, though might be at Cedar Point, SFMM, Knott's, and Canada's Wonderland) - includes exclusive entry/ERT, discounts on in-park purchases, individual Fastlanes per visit, and the in-park lounges, but if Prestige was the only way to get access to every park in the chain, it would justify that upcharge, which in most cases doubles the price of the pass. This is probably why I'm not a theme park executive or marketing professional, but from the outside looking in, while this is sale a great opportunity for theme park fans, it just reeks of desperation from a company that is falling back on bad habits that have defined their checkered history.

Steep decline, regional favs probably survive, all else will knock off 1 by 1

In regards to the premier pass, it is very common for companies to offer a more expensive product with some window dressing and virtually no real cost/benefit analysis benefit, just because a lot of people have conditioned themselves to buy the most expensive thing because they think it’s the best (I learned something in graduate school pricing class lol).

For some anecdotal evidence, when Disney introduced preferred parking I had close proximity to the parking managers at DHS so often struck up conversations with them. Because of the way DHS’s parking lot was laid out there was really no reason to get preferred (this was pre skyliner/new bus loop). It started as a “lets just see what happens and we’ll go with the flow,” they sold out of preferred almost immediately every day, so they started making more of the lot preferred and jacked up the price. If you offer a more expensive option there are a subset of people who will buy it just because it’s the most expensive.

That being said I agree with pretty much everything you said. A season pass that has admission to almost every major seasonal theme park in the country, including all the really big famous ones, costs less than a season pass to my local trampoline park. These big theme parks have ginormous costs associated with labor, maintenance, landscaping, overhead etc and my local trampoline park does not.. This definitely seems like SF attendance is so bad right now that CF is falling into all the old bad habits of SF.

I remember when Giant Drop opened at SFGAm in 1997 the season pass was $70 and that did not include parking (had to buy a parking pass upsell).. Keep in mind 2 years later they built Raging Bull, 2 years after that they built V2 and DejaVu, and 2 years after that they built SUF (and 2 years before Giant Drop they built Viper)…yet here we are in 2026 and the season pass price is actually cheaper than it was back then because it includes parking, and it includes what I guess you could call its biggest nearby rival, Cedar Point. So season passes have never been used as a “its just cheap now and when we add big new rides we can justify a big price increase.”

The cost of everything in regards to operating these parks has gone up dramatically. Its just insane. And the way they make up for it by trying to sell unlimited food plans…that totally devalues the food sales as well IMO. Like, why on earth would you want tons of locals coming and eating meals for an entire year at one fixed price? What good does that do anyone?

As an investor I wouldn’t touch this company with a 50 foot pole, red flags everywhere.

Don’t forget giving 2 meals a day away all year for $145. It’s a recipe to turn everyone of these parks into dumps again.

@MWM83 - You're absolutely right, especially since I've noticed a clear improvement in food quality at the Six Flags parks to be more comparable to what most CF parks are providing. Though I do see some benefit to Six Flags in the way the all-season dining plan has been constructed by requiring a 4-hour gap between meals. That time restriction forces guests to lengthen the time they spend in the park, increasing the chances that they spend some more money. Personally, we've chosen to just leave if we've ridden everything we want within the first 2-3 hours instead of waiting for the second meal window to open, but I can see how it could be a powerful lure for many to stay in the park an extra hour or 2. I just hope that this slashing of the pass prices does not in turn result in a significant decline in food quality even though the all-season dining pass pricing is essentially unchanged from last year.

I see exactly where you're coming from the_man26. The Prestige Pass does seem like it's the most expensive option just to given holders the feeling that they're at the top of the food chain, not because it provides any sort of value. However, I think SF really missed an opportunity here to leverage more top pass purchases by putting the all-parks perk only on that level.

SFOG's pass is now on sale for $55...including parking and all Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks through the 2026 season. Unreal.

Look at the "success" that United Parks has found by going the discount route and absolutely gutting their guest experience. But their shareholders are doing the happy dance!

My family and I have had passes to Knott's since 2013. I was excited in late 2024 when the combined Six Flags company sold an all-parks add-on (for $65) to the Knott's Gold Pass (around $130?) for 2025 that allowed me to enter and park at Six Flags Magic Mountain for the first time in a dozen years.

But with the low cost of the new park-wide passes, I can see from social media Knott's groups that Knott's and the parent Six Flags company are successfully getting lots of its current pass holders to decide to "upgrade" to the Platinum level Knott's pass that gives amenities like use of a preferred entrance; parking at the closest lot to the park entrance (which became a preferred lot 18 months ago that requires a $35 upcharge from standard parking); access to a Platinum level lounge in Ghost Town with free soda machines, sofas, and charging stations; and two extra free friend tickets for 2026.

As much as I am tempted by these additional amenities, I know that once Knott's has converted their platinum passholder base from, for example, 10% to 30%, the smaller parking lot and relatively small Platinum level lounge will be overcrowded with too many people who thought this was a great deal when relatively few people had those amenities.

It reminds me of what has been happening with the domestic Disney Parks with the Lightning Lane becoming a standard feature that a majority of Disney parkgoers / consumers feel like they need, rather than a special option.

So Knott's and Six Flags don't really seem satisfied with selling the ultra bargain lower end passes. Especially at Knott's, they are using 'premium' privileges to sell higher level passes at a higher cost that, if successful, will not only drive a wedge between better-off and less well-off visitors but also cheaper the value of these premiums as a larger number of visitors have them.