Six Flags and Cedar Fair merge

Last week, news broke that two of the biggest theme park chains in the world, Six flags and Cedar Fair, are merging there companies into one.  Six Flags currently operates 13 theme parks and 13 water parks all across the North America. There biggest park, Six Flags Magic Mountain, is located in Los Angeles, California. Magic Mountain currently holds the record for the most roller coasters in one park, with 20 different coasters.  Cedar Fair operates 16 parks across the U.S, and one in Canada. Cedar Fairs flagship park is Cedar Point, located in Sandusky, Ohio. If you are into theme parks at all, you have probably heard the name Cedar Point before. Cedar Point is known to have the biggest and best roller coasters in the United States.

Although news broke that the merge is happening, not many details have been realized as of now. For now, we only know a couple of key details. One is that the combination of parks will go under the name Six Flags, not Cedar Fair. I think this is because the Six Flags name is more well known than the Cedar Fair name. Although they are going under the company name of Six Flags, all the Cedar Fair parks are reported to keep the names they have as of now. For example, Kings Dominion is a Cedar Fair park, but it won’t be renamed to something like Six Flags over Virginia.

Another detail that has been released is the headquarters of the merged company will be in Charlotte, North Carolina. In my opinion, this location for there HQ is a little odd, because the closest Six Flags park to Charlotte is all the way in Atlanta, Georgia. Although, Cedar Fair does have a park located in Charlotte, named Carowinds. Carowinds used to be a very trashy park, but the company has continued to add new additions and make it a great park.

The last detail we know of as of know is the president and CEO of Cedar Fair, Richard Zimmerman, will be the new President and CEO of the new merged company. Current Six Flags president and CEO, Salim Bassoul, will be the executive chairman of the combined company. This is very good in my opinion, because in general the Cedar Fair parks are much nicer and well ran than the Six Flags parks, so hopefully Richard can keep the Cedar Fair parks nice and improve the Six Flags parks.

The biggest worry about this merge is that it will lead to not many new rides being added to the parks now. People fear this because, for years, Six Flags and Cedar Fair have been rivals in the industry. This rivalry has lead to the chains constantly trying to one up each other, and make there rides bigger and better than the opposing company. For example, Cedar Fair added the world’s tallest coaster to Cedar Point in 2003, but just 2 years later in 2005, Six Flags broke the record by adding the new world’s tallest roller coaster to Six Flags Great Adventure. Hopefully even with the merge new and exciting rides will be continued to be added throughout the company.

Overall, the Six Flags and Cedar Fair merge is very exciting, but also worrisome. We will just have to wait and see how it plays out in the coming years and when more details are released about the merge.