America's first big amusement park chain is facing rough times at the start of 2026. This month has brought new challenges, including Six Flags having to walk away from a deal to buy its original theme park and the company announcing a new round of bonds to cover its current debts.
Speculation is growing that the company will be selling more parks as it looks to raise the cash that it will need to get out from under its debt and back on top of expanding its attraction line-up.
Six Flags has a new CEO in John Reilly, a former Palace Entertainment and SeaWorld executive with a solid reputation for park leadership. But what can he do to turn around this company, which was formed by the merger of the old Six Flags and Cedar Fair chains?
Remember that no one change the past that brought Six Flags to its difficult presence. All a management team can do is make decisions that improve its company's chances of realizing a better future.
Ironically, focusing on the company's current problems might not be the way to do that. Six Flags has been facing tough business choices ever since I started Theme Park Insider more than 25 years ago. The brand name has endured bankruptcy and ownership changes. Nothing ever seems to get better at Six Flags for very long.
To me, that says that the company needs to get out of perpetual crisis management mode and take this thing back to basics. Focus first not on credit markets or real estate deals, but on what ought to matter most for any company - the customers.
Ultimately, any company is in business to serve its customers. As an entertainment business, Six Flags ought to be entertaining the people who walk through its gates. If those visitors do not feel like they've had a great time at a fair price by the end of the day, all the financial problems that Six Flags has been facing will continue... and probably multiply to the point where the company is doomed.
Unfortunately, high prices and low standards in Six Flags parks have driven away too many of the fun-seeking customers that the company needs to attract. Yes, great theme parks offer great attractions. But they also offer clean, comfortable, beautiful and safe environments to host those attractions.
Six Flags has plenty of great rides. What it needs to improve is everything that surrounds them. Parks need better designed and maintained landscaping, filled with trees, flowers, rock work and dynamic water elements. Facilities need to be free of any sign of neglect, wear or disrepair. Park managers need to train, identify and retain more workers who are great at customer service.
That costs money, but probably not as much as building a new, world-class roller coaster. With too much debt on its books, it seems inevitable that Six Flags will be selling more parks to improve its financial situation. But how it spends the money that it gets from those sales will determine its future.
Let's add one more investment that Six Flags needs to make. And, just like the improvements I listed above, this one is all about the customers that Six Flags needs to serve.
Six Flags has six parks among the top 20 most-visited parks in North America, according to the most recent TEA Global Experience Report. Four of those are in states or provinces on the Great Lakes: Cedar Point and Kings Island in Ohio, Six Flags Great America in Illinois and Canada's Wonderland in Ontario. Two more are in Southern California: Knott's Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain.
And where is Six Flags' corporate headquarters? Charlotte, North Carolina.
I went to graduate school at Indiana University, so college football is on my mind this week. (Go Hoosiers!) Six Flags' biggest parks lie in Big Ten territory. Yet Six Flags is trying to run the company from the southeast. If Six Flags is serious about meeting its customers' needs, managers need to be where the company's customers are.
Looking at quality and popularity, Cedar Point is the benchmark for what a Six Flags park in North America ought to be. Let Six Flags move its corporate headquarters back to Cedar Fair's old home in Sandusky, Ohio, so that C-suite executives can get out into that park on a daily basis, seeing and hearing from guests, learning what they want and need.
If Six Flags believes that it can't attract top-level management to Sandusky, Ohio, then how about a new HQ in Buena Park, California, right next to Knott's Berry Farm? If not enough space is available there, plenty can be had next to Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia.
There is no substitute for walking a park to understand a park's customers and their needs. That is how managers see - first hand - what is and is not working within the park. That is how they learn from their front-line employees exactly what needs to change to make their park provide a better customer experience. Six Flags management needs to be walking Six Flags' top parks on a daily basis. No shade to Carowinds, but that ain't happening in Charlotte.
The formula for improving Six Flags will prove to be long and complex. But better serving customers - both current and prospective - will be the crux of that formula.
Zoom meetings, email and phone calls may create an illusion of connectivity. But managers in theme parks, of all industries, ought to recognize the value of real-world, in-person experiences. Six Flags managers need to take their company's own advice... and head to America's Roller Coast.
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I actually find all of this deeply sad. For the past six months, the company has been doing everything in its power to drive away customers and seems totally oblivious to exactly what Robert has pointed out here. I remember Robert writing recently that “no company (regardless of the industry) can cut its way to profitability.” Those words are so true. The basics are gone. Despite being a shareholder, I did NOT renew my season pass—and that hurt. I don’t want to sound like one of those old geezers who “remembers back in the day,” but back in the day when I was an employee, we were told over and over again that the secret formula was the mixture of rides, shows and attractions for various ages in a clean, well-manicured environment with friendly employees who smiled and cared. Gone are the days when employees smiled and waved as the train or monorail passed by (we were expected to do that then and guess what, Dollywood still does that now!).
But I do take issue with one point Robert makes about the headquarters being in Charlotte. Moving the hq to any other location would not change things one bit. There is no evidence anyone from corporate took the six minute drive to Carowinds this year. If anyone did, then their tacit approval means there is absolutely no hope. How could anyone from corporate notice and approve of the closed rides and restaurants, the lightning speed disappearance of quality menu items that were replaced with chicken tenders, the sad and pitiful live show offerings (that is putting it nicely), the embarrassing water feature installed in the middle of visible abandoned rollercoaster support pilons and the shell of what used to be a beautiful and festive Winterfest. Carowinds did not decline by degrees (term coined by Robert) this year, it dropped faster than Fury325 down the first hill. If corporate ordered, approved, witnessed Carowinds this year, then Robert will be writing about higher prices have not kept the crowds away from Universal and Disney. Those two will be the only ones left.