Great Escape reduces hours
Action follows Six Flags' slump in
earnings
Wednesday, August 9, 2006 12:03 AM
EDT
QUEENSBURY
-- Following a lackluster second-quarter earnings
report, Six Flags has reduced hours of operation at
its Great Escape amusement park for the remainder of
the season.
Great Escape is trimming seven hours from its weekly
operations schedule as its parent company, Six Flags
Inc., tries to recover from declining attendance and
revenue.
"We are closing one hour earlier five nights during
the week, Monday through Friday, and two hours early
on Sunday," park Public Relations Manager Diane
O'Connor said in an e-mail Tuesday.
There have also been changes to the schedule for
appearances by Justice League superheros within the
park, though Six Flags spokeswoman Debbie Evans said
Tuesday that she did not know how those schedules
had changed specifically, as appearance times were
not published.
The Justice League characters were added this year
as part of the new, family-oriented management
effort instituted when Washington Redskins owner
Daniel Snyder took over Six Flags last year, using
the firm's poor financial performance as leverage
for a hostile takeover of the company.
"Like any business, we regularly evaluate all our
operations, including staffing," O'Connor said
Tuesday in a prepared statement. "In regard to the
Justice League characters, as we get to the end of
our summer season, we adjust our entertainment and
offerings. The Justice League were very well
received in 2006, and we look forward to bringing
them both back in 2007."
In announcing the addition of the characters in
mid-February, Six Flags officials said Batman,
Robin, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern would
be appearing at the park.
The changes have not gone unnoticed.
Scott Simmons, of Lake George, said he's been a
season pass holder at the park for the last six
years. He and his 5-year-old son, Phillip, go to the
park together at least once a week, sometimes twice,
he said. "They have meet-and-greet areas where they
have a superhero go to a particular site, and
there's a schedule at the site telling you that if
you go there at a particular time, you can see
them," Simmons said Tuesday. "They've completely
taken all the signs out."
Simmons said he was not as concerned about the
cutback in hours of operation at the park as he was
the apparent reduction in superhero appearances. On
his last visit to the park Friday, he did not see
any Justice League characters, he said.
"One of the cornerstones (Six Flags President and
CEO) Mark Shapiro offered was we want to have more
kids, more families," Simmons said. "And in order to
get them, they were going to have more superheros.
That was the whole premise on which they implemented
a parking fee and hiking gate prices."
The Great Escape is not the only Six Flags amusement
park going through changes in the wake of last
week's second-quarter report. The company announced
Tuesday it is closing Darien Lake, the largest theme
park in New York state, four weeks early this year.
That park is one of six theme parks the company has
announced plans to sell. The Great Escape was not on
that list.
The Denver Post
published a story on Friday quoting employees from
the Six Flags-owned Elitch Gardens who had worked as
costumed characters there. The park had employed as
many as 45 such employees, but had cut that number
to just a handful. Kellen Owens, who had worked at
Elitch Gardens portraying Scooby-Doo, told the
Denver Post that
the company cited budget cuts when announcing the
job cuts there.
Six Flags spokeswoman Brooke Brasher told the
Denver Post the
job cuts were not unusual for this time of year,
adding that the park is "regularly evaluating all of
our operations, including staffing."
Six Flags posted a $39.6 million net loss for the
second quarter. That loss, which breaks down to 48
cents per share, follows a profit of $11.1 million,
or 6 cents per share, for the same period of 2005.
In the quarterly report, Six Flags reported a 14
percent decline in attendance at the company's 30
parks -- from 11.2 million visitors in the second
quarter of 2005 to 9.6 million over the most recent
quarter.
