Next year has me worried, as a theme park fan in the United States.
New attractions drive theme park attendance. And next year's line-up of new attractions in the U.S., especially in the top markets of Central Florida and Southern California, looks weaker than those in recent years. Combine that with the collapse of international travel into the United States and declining consumer confidence within the country, and 2026 is shaping up as a rough year for the domestic theme park business.
It's not that popular parks such as Walt Disney World and Disneyland are not working on major new attractions. But those are set to debut in 2027 and beyond, adding incentive for fans who do have the means to travel to postpone big trips until these big new attractions open.
But for next year, the biggest new attractions that I see driving attendance will be Universal Studios Hollywood's Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift roller coaster and Dollywood's new NightFlight Expedition, America's first installation of a Mack Rides rocking boat ride.
Universal also is opening a new theme park outside Dallas, Universal Kids Resort. Yet as that name implies, this park will be focused on families with small children, limiting its appeal. Meanwhile, nothing new is set to open at Universal Orlando Resort next year, unless Universal dramatically accelerates construction on the new ride that it is building to replace Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit at Universal Studios Florida.
Down the road at Walt Disney World, Disney's Hollywood Studios is fiddling with its former Animation Courtyard, which will return as The Walt Disney Studios in 2026. But that's just a new play area and character meet. The big stuff won't open until 2027, when the new Tropical Americas land debuts at Disney's Animal Kingdom, with a new Encanto dark ride and Indiana Jones retheme of the former Dinosaur ride.
Disneyland also has yet to announce anything new for 2026, although casting notices suggest that maybe the park might finally be looking to stage something in its empty Hyperion and Fantasyland theaters. The expanded Avengers Campus that is under construction at Disney California Adventure won't open next year.
Beyond USH, the next biggest park that has announced a new ride for 2026 is SeaWorld Orlando, which is promising a "world's first-of-its-kind suspended dark ride" with SEAQuest: Legends of the Deep. But SeaWorld's lack of success with dark rides is not helping to fuel the fan enthusiasm that leads to advance vacation bookings.
Meanwhile, development on Six Flags Magic Mountain's promised new coaster for 2026 appears stalled. Knott's long-promised rebuild of Montezooma's still has no completion date.
Kings Island is retheming its interactive dark ride from Boo Blasters to bring back Phantom Theater. Six Flags New England is set to open its Intamin family launch coaster that was delayed from this year. The biggest opening at a Six Flags park in the U.S. next year likely will be Tormenta Rampaging Run at Six Flags Over Texas. But that's just a plus-sized version of the B&M Dive Coaster that fans have been riding for years now. All of these will be nice additions for their local markets, but are not anything that promises to move the needle for overall industry attendance nationwide.
New parks can help do that. And next year will be the first full year of operation for Universal Epic Universe in Orlando, though low overall capacity and resulting long wait times are placing a limit on that park's immediate growth potential. Maybe the delayed COTAland and Mattel Adventure Park will open in 2026, but few theme park fans are going to plan any trips to those destinations until their gates open for real.
Without big new rides to drive attendance, parks likely will use discounts to lure visitors in 2026. The Six Flags parks have deeply discounted its seasonal passes for next year. Deals at other parks might make 2026 a great year for "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you" visits.
That could help some smaller parks make a jump in 2026. The Legoland parks in California and Florida will debut new space-themed indoor family coasters early next year, which could help them attract more families who are waiting on their next Disney trip. SeaWorld San Antonio has its installation of a United Parks Bolliger & Mabillard family inverted coaster next year, too. But with that new, first-of-its-kind hybrid ride, Dollywood might be the star of the show in the U.S. theme park industry in 2026.
But will that show be a year to remember, or one to forget?
My fear is that lower income from soft attendance and aggressive discounting will lead to parks scaling back expansion plans in 2027 and beyond. With investors pressuring Six Flags and United Parks to sell real estate, that could push some parks into a quick death spiral.
Disney and Universal will be fine. They can take the hit from a down year and be ready with great new attractions down the line that will keep their parks and hotels filled with free-spending fans. That's so long as the top of the market does not suffer the same economic downturn that is causing the shrinking number of middle class families to rethink their spending, of course.
The privately-owned Herschend also can ignore the bad advice of activist investors while it looks to expand its theme park businesses. With the substantial investments in parks and attractions around the world, Legoland owner Merlin Entertainments also should be insulated against a downturn in the U.S. travel market.
That leaves Six Flags and United Parks - as well as family-owned and independent destinations - to face the toughest challenges next year. The challenges created by the pandemic at the start of this decade led to consolidation, as Six Flags and Cedar Fair merged and Herschend acquired Palace Entertainment. Are we in for additional mergers and acquisitions in this business by the end of the decade?
All this has me worried, as a theme park fan.
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Didn’t United Parks approve a $500.0 million buyback? Doesn’t this help them strengthen their position, and not suggest they’re in financial peril? Considering Six Flags couldn’t execute a $1.0 million buyback, I’d argue they’re doing something right.
@VCFan...we can't have a nearly $8 Billion park open every year so yeah, 2026 won't be as noteworthy but there are some standouts...i am happy to see Dollywood opening such an ambitious new attraction. it certainly looks good in the promotional video so will be interesting to see how it actually performs. i'm also happy to see some new water attractions lately like the mack powersplash and now this new immersive mack creation. and let's not forget hollywood drift which looks amazing and will finally put Uni Hollywood on the coaster map.
by the way, i'm hoping if Universal gets the new mack immersive water coaster, it's themed to Jaws instead of Black Lagoon. just my 2 cents but i see TONS of Jaws shirts at the Uni parks and think an indoor nighttime scene (like from the original movie) would be awesome
@mrbrussoco- I know that Epic Universe was an exception, but even besides that, we had a dive coaster, America's first tilt, a Premier launch coaster that seemed to be really well-received, Stardust (obviously), and a plethora of smaller American coasters that would be standouts in 2026.
Next year is definitely going to be a less exciting year than this year, but this year was the biggest in several years and shouldn't be taken as the standard. It's also important to keep in mind that there is still more coming next year than we had in 2023/2024, and just because the biggest parks don't have travel-worthy projects ready to debut doesn't mean the industry is crumbling. With the long term effects of the pandemic now coming into play and a recession looming on the horizon, I expect 2026 to represent the new normal in terms of annual capital investment for parks, at least for the next few years. Gone are the days of regional parks debuting six or seven full size coasters each year...we'll probably have to settle for two to four across all chains combined, and we're probably going to see parks riding those new additions for three to four seasons before their next notable capital project instead of adding something at least every other year. Personally, I feel most parks in the US are pretty saturated with attractions, so if less quantity translates to more quality, I'm fine with it.
I agree with AJ that economic conditions make it likely that parks are going to scale back on major capex for at least the next couple years. However it should be noted for Six Flags in particular that over the past few years they removed a lot of attractions, a move that I think was prudent, but the expectation was that they are going to be replaced and the parks would see appropriate attendance increases.
I'm thinking Great Adventure specifically where attendance was atrocious this season. I've been watching this guy on youtube who goes there regularly and the place has been dead all season, and that is with a new (albeit subpar for the market) roller coaster. This is the biggest park in what is by far the biggest market in the country, there is really no reason for an asset like that to be dead all the time. Then add the fact that many Six Flags parks badly need cosmetic and infrastructure improvements I just hope all of this work doesn't get pushed back again while they blame the economy.
I'm of the same mind as Robert and others here. I'm hoping it's not, but 2026 could be the start of a significant downward trend in the theme park industry. I think in addition to the lack of headline-worthy new attractions that will cause a leveling-off of interest, parks have to be concerned about recent trends and the overall costs of adding new attractions given tariffs and overall material and labor costs. From a personal standpoint, Tormenta, F&F, and Nightflight are the ONLY new for 2026 attractions that I would make any sort of effort to seek out next summer. Other than that, there are some additions from 2025 and prior years that I might make an effort to experience in 2026 (most notably Epic Universe), but for the general person looking for a spring/summer vacation, I just don't see a lot of marketable reasons to draw guests to theme parks outside of the traditional destination markets, which will almost certainly impact regional parks. That is why Six Flags' bet on their VIP campaign that essentially gave every passholder access to every park in the chain won't really change the way people use their APs, and will just result in lost revenue from the enthusiast community who would normally pay a sizable upcharge to access every park within the chain(s) - we actually used the savings offered by the VIP sale to upgrade to Prestige Passes for 2026 and our overall theme park pass spend for next year is about what we spent this year.
I also wouldn't be surprised to see the 2026 World Cup to negatively impact summer theme park attendance. While the event is likely to draw tens of thousands of foreigners to the US for the international event, the prices to attend matches and overall cost to travel and vacation in the US is so expansive right now that fans attending matches might not have the means to afford costly side trips to local theme parks near WC venues (including many SF/CF parks).
I'm also seeing a overall trend in entertainment right now that is leaning even further into higher-end experiences. More and more venues are creating curated spaces and experiences that treat guests more and more like VIPs, often at the expense of general admission spaces and overall capacity. The idea goes that people are willing to pay a significantly higher price for something if they will feel "special" and it is marketed as a "once in a lifetime" type of event. Larger and larger percentages of event tickets are being bundled with experiences that include "gifts", celebrity meet and greets, custom food/beverage offerings, and themed viewing spaces, including those where you might be watching the event on a screen because you're far (or even completely separated) from the performance space. It's an odd trend, but I'm seeing it in various spaces ranging from theaters to arenas to stadiums. Some theme parks provide this with special tours or lounges, but regional parks just don't have the means to offer a once in a lifetime experience for guests. If people are willing to spend an increasingly larger portion of their disposable income on these types of experiences, that's less money they have to spend on theme parks. That means theme parks either need to create an experience that can match this trend or be willing to accept a smaller and smaller percentage of prospective guests' disposable income. SF seems to be accepting that they need to be the "value" proposition, and I wonder that this strategy, that CF had been bucking prior to the merger, will now train legacy CF guests to accept a diminished product because they are paying less.
If nothing else, it will be very interesting to see how parks react to what is almost certainly going to be a downturn in attendance in 2026. Will future projects get downsized/delayed/cancelled (including ones formally announced by Disney and Universal)? Will parks give in to the trends and reposition and/or change their marketing approach? Will regional parks continue to bang their head against the wall hoping these trends change?
In Orlando Disney has done a pretty good job at playing "small ball" -- which looks like it will continue in 2026. It appears as if their strategy for maintaining visibility in the shadow of Comcast's new Epic Universe park has been to open smaller scale shows and attractions just so they can place a spotlight on something "new".
There's the villains show at DHS. EPCOT's 'Test Track 3.0'. 'Zootopia' at DAK. The Magic Kingdom's 'Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away' parade. Also over at DHS there will be The Muppets Rock 'n' Rollercoaster overlay and 'The Magic of Disney Animation'. And wasn't there supposed to be something new going on with the Falcon at Galaxy's edge? Also in 2026, at DSTP, 'Level 99' will open its doors.
Even something as minor as the 'TRON: Ares' edition of Lightcyle Run has gotten attention.
Hell, they get attention when they drop a new popcorn bucket.
They just keep that drumbeat going to get people to come back -- right up until the major expansions start to open in 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030.
And while none of these represent gate-crasher concepts, they cost pennies to develop. And they do/will keep people talking about WDW.
You're absolutely right TH, but the reality is that while those are relatively minor additions, they're still not "cheap" in comparison to what most regional parks can spend in a given year on capital improvements. I agree that these small adds are a great strategy for Disney right now while they're waiting for their larger scale projects to work their way to completion, though I think it would have been better if the various projects were better paced to add a major addition every 2-3 years and then sprinkle in the smaller improvements in between. However, considering the Pandemic pretty much derailed a lot of the long term planning and development timelines, it's understandable that Disney is going to have the current lull followed by a massive surge of expansion. Universal isn't immune to this, and they likely expended far more resources than anticipated to combat the Pandemic and deliver Epic just a year later than initially planned. It's caught up to them in the inability to follow up quickly on the debut of Epic with new additions to their legacy parks and expanding Epic to maintain the momentum that the new park provided. Instead, they're going to have to follow what Disney has done by adding smaller tweaks or simply wait for their new large additions to come online, which won't come until at least 2027 or beyond.
Those are first world problems, because what is a "small" improvement by Disney or Universal standards is a major addition at the regional parks. However, I do think Six Flags and the other regional parks could be served by adding smaller enhancements to provide refreshed experiences so they are able to weather the coming storm. Unfortunately, I just don't think Six Flags knows how to do this, at least not effectively.
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It's gonna be a year to forget. Unless you're really excited for Tormenta or Nightflight, there's not much to go around. Looking back, 2025 was a great year.