In case you missed it, last week Six Flags Entertainment Corporation published a press release announcing the departure of Chairman Selim Bassoul at the end of the year. The former CEO of the former Six Flags chain, Bassoul will step down from his role as Executive Chairman on December 31, 2025.
But the press release also said that Bassoul would remain as a consultant for the company through the opening of the new Six Flags Qiddiya City park in Saudi Arabia, which the initial press release said would happen sometime in the first half of 2026.
That was, perhaps, the bigger news in the press release. Following the announcement that CEO Richard Zimmerman would leave the company and reports that Bassoul had lined up a new gig as the chairman of a Canadian online grocer, many industry observers expected Bassoul to depart Six Flags sooner rather than later.
Anything regarding the opening of Six Flags Qiddiya City goes immediately to the top of my coverage priorities. The park will be the home to the world’s tallest, fastest and longest roller coaster in Intamin’s new Falcons Flight. It also represents another major attempt by Saudi Arabia to appeal to global tourists, which makes this story cross over from the theme park beat into global politics, as well.
So, yeah, I was going to run with the news of a 2026 opening for the park when I read the initial press release. A delay in the park’s debut fit with what I have been hearing from sources in the Middle East about Qiddiya City. The rides are testing, but landscaping is minimal, with the hotel and surrounding areas still very much a construction zone. Yet soon after publishing the news, media reps from Six Flags reached out to say that the company remained committed to a 2025 opening and that the press release was in error.
If we know anything about construction in the Middle East, it’s that state-backed companies such as Qiddiya Investment Company can throw money at construction projects to make them happen very, very quickly. So if Six Flags says it can meet a year-end deadline, okay.
But what about the initial press release? The innocent explanation for the opening date flip-flop might be that Bassoul is set to leave his consultancy role sometime in the first half of 2026, after the Saudi park has opened. Maybe in the telephone game that so often defines corporate writing, that timeframe got put down as the park’s opening season. I don't know.
That’s a bad goof, but one that any writer will forgive. None of us are perfect, and we all live in fear of making such mistakes. Get the correction out quickly and move forward.
But Universal Orlando’s Epic Universe announced its opening date more than seven months in advance. We now are less than three months from the end of 2025. A not-insignificant number of Six Flags fans are feeling very apprehensive about the company at the moment. Not only is there uncertainty about who will lead the company beyond 2026, but Six Flags has delayed several projects in the U.S. and seen the departure of some of its most experienced park presidents.
I don’t want to imagine how bad the buzz around the company would get if the Qiddiya City park misses its 2025 deadline, too. No reporter abides being told to replace a fact with a falsehood. If Six Flags now fails to open Six Flags Qiddiya City by the end of the year, the company will have burned a fair amount of credibility with the reporters who cover it, due to this press release incident.
But the company would lose even more credibility with reviewers, fans, and investors if it opens an incomplete park. This is an outdoor theme park in Saudi Arabia. Many of its rides look great, but Six Flags Qiddiya City also will need soothing atmospheric design to provide the physical comfort that its visitors surely will demand.
I know that some amazing designers have been working on this park, and their work deserves to be experienced in the best possible environment. Again, the park’s Saudi backers have the resources to make that environment happen, quickly.
Let’s be clear. I am rooting for this project to happen on time and with all the design elements needed to impress even the most jaded theme park fan. If that happens, this flip-flop will be forgotten, along with so many other silly corporate communication flubs by countless businesses over the years.
This is a big moment for Six Flags. A win with its Saudi partners would provide a much needed boost in revenue, reputation, and morale for the company. But any mis-step in Qiddiya City will amplify the frustration that some fans and observers are feeling about the company and its future right now.
>> The rides are testing, but landscaping is minimal
So it’s a six flags?
I agree with Robert that if it's important for this park to open in 2025, the PIF will provide any and all resources necessary to make it happen. However, I think it's really not as important as we probably think it is. I think designers and the group that will operate the park would much rather play the long game to ensure this park is successful instead of trying to hit an artificial deadline to take advantage of holiday crowds. Frankly, if the it was so important for this park to open in 2025, this seems pretty late in the game to be injecting resources to accelerate the completion of the park, because there are realistically only 2 months left and very limited opportunities to find aspects of the work that can be sped up. Project managers should have known 4-6 months ago that they wouldn't be able to hit a December opening date, which is when an injection of resources could have made a more tangible difference in the timeline. I also don't understand why Riyadh Season (the country's annual tourism push in November) wasn't identified as the more important deadline to hit than December, which again should have been identified months ago to reallocate resources to make sure the park could open for that important event.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." This is how I fell about Six Flags, and they haven't earned the benefit of the doubt in my eye given all of their missteps over the years, including major ones that have occurred under the current management (and after the merger with Cedar Fair). So until Six Flags gets their act together, I'm not willing to write this off as a simple mistake. If Six Flags wants to be treated as a legitimate business, they should act like one, and make sure their press releases are accurate or issue corrections promptly so they don't make their media partners feel like they've been played.
I don't wish ill-will on what truly looks like an exciting project (even though I'll likely never visit this park), but it's certainly not getting off on the right foot, and I wouldn't be surprised if the PIF is upset that SF is behaving so unprofessionally.
@ryno1986
America is also full of murderers. We commit genocide, blew up Japan, continue to interfere in foreign affairs for our own agenda, and have daily mass shootings.
My gut feeling, without any hard evidence, is that Six Flags is probably trying for a limited opening before the end of 2025 primarily for special guests and a limited amount of local visitors in order to get training in for the team members, then the park will fully open for all visitors next year when the rest of the first phase of the Qiddiya project is scheduled to be ready. While there are a few small amusement parks scattered around the country, this one is larger than all of them combined, and it's absolutely something that is going to need time to ramp up. There's simply not enough time between now and the end of the year to get this place going at 100%, even with an experienced operator running the show.
And honestly, I don't think what happens here is really going to affect the rest of Six Flags in a significant way. My understanding is this park is similar to Disney's projects in Tokyo and Abu Dhabi...Six Flags licensed their brand to a local investment firm, and while they have some amount of oversight, their financial stake in the project is extremely limited. Nobody likes to see delays, but sometimes they're unavoidable, and given at least a quarter of Six Flags's projects seem to get significantly delayed each year, is actually keeping with the brand fairly well.
Wow! Some harsh comments on here.
@ryno1986 - Perhaps you should take Robert's writing as a totality and not make vulgar comments about his perspective on a particular situation. His record over the years speaks for itself.
And I'd be cautious about using that blanket statement "These people are murderers." Without a doubt, the Crown Prince has acted like a thug, but evidently there are serious people there who are trying to move the country into the 21st century. Does it really hurt anybody to give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they can socially modernize the country to a more Western standard?
@Json Son - I'm not sure if your comments were intended to defend the KSA or to simply trash the USA, but your comments completely lacked perspective. This country is far from ideal, but it really isn't as bad as you paint it.
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It has nothing to do with being jaded. These people are murderers. I think once again your head is so far up the Middle East's ass that you don't realize a lot of people don't care about this park regardless of how well it turns out.