A Death on Goliath Closed 12 Coasters at Nine Parks

0:01 Okay, hello there. From our studios back in Los Angeles and Tampa, this is Green Tagged, Theme Park in 30. I'm Philip from Gantem Light and Controls, and I'm joined as always by my delightful co-host, Scott Swenson of Scott Swenson Creative Development. Here on Green Tagged, we look at the top news each week and we try and pick the stories we think matter most to industry professionals, discuss them, and talk about some of the takeaways or why these stories matter. This week, we have to go back to Six Legs. I'm pretty sure you all We had to talk about this. There's really no way around it. I'm sure that you all are already aware of this, but I'll give the basic facts so we can kind of get started. A 42-year-old Atlanta man died on October 12th after he was ejected from Goliath, the 200-foot hyper coaster at Six Flags over Georgia. He also struck other riders before falling beneath the track. Those four riders that he struck were minors.

0:59 Six Flags shut Goliath down that afternoon, and by the next morning, they had shut down nine other coasters that it called similar at six other of their parks. Georgia's ride regulator, the Cobb County Police, and the manufacturer all opened their separate investigations. The park reopened for Fright Fest on October 16th, and during Fright Fest, they did change the name of some of their offerings. They renamed the Dr. Frights Dead Man's Party to just Dr. Frights Party. They're They gave a statement they might change some of the other park offerings depending. On how things are going. Six days in, so we're not that far into this, but we don't have a cause yet at all. Obviously, there's three independent investigations happening, but we do not have a cause for this. We don't know about the reopening timeline of the other coasters that.

1:50 Have shut down or not. This ride, though, is one of the industry's more popular and reliable roller coaster models. The other installations, of course, include the Apollo's Chariot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which was shut down, but Candemonium at Hershey Park, as well as Diamondback at Kings Island, Mako at SeaWorld Orlando, Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure, Raging Bull at Six Flags Great America, Thunderstriker at Carowinds, and at a larger scale, Orion at Kings Island, and Fury 325 at Carowinds. And since then, the stock has been plummeting. I know this is not, you know, I'm just trying to give Not trying to be insensitive, but just to say about the stock, of course, that's a big part of this because Six Flags.

2:31 Is so in debt. So the stock price is very critical to them right now. So the shares have closed lower every day, basically, since the events have been going low and lower from $ 11. 92 on October 12th to $ 8. 11 on October 16th. And here we are. Scott, take it away. Oh, great. Well, let me set it up. Let me set it up with all the doom and gloom and toss it to Scott. Okay. So it's interesting. Again, as Philip said, I don't want to be insensitive. Thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the gentleman who lost his life, as well as the family of the children who were injured as a result of this accident. Uh, I will say I have never ridden this coaster. However, um, I've talked to a lot of my coaster buddies and, um, one of my, one of my favorite coasters in Williamsburg happens to be Apollo's chariot. I love the hyper coaster concept. And, and I asked them, I said, how different is the restraint system from Apollo's chariot? And he said, it's almost identical. Um, what I find interesting is yes, it is just a lap bar or was just a lap bar. The last time I wrote it, I don't know whether it has seatbelts now or not, but Um, being six, four, I couldn't have gotten out of that if I wanted to, if I had tried to get out. So, um, I'm not, I'm,

4:05 I'm curious. First of all, I'm curious as to why the investigation has shown nothing yet. Um, because you almost, if it is, if it is, if it is a technical error, there's going to be basically a data trail that's going to show at this point in time this failed and this failed and this didn't and this didn't, yada, yada, yada. If it is operational error from the park, there also should be some sort of data trail to back that up. It pulled out of the station without being properly locked, unless it's those two things combined. If it is... The only thing that is unusual is... you can't necessarily document how the guest behavior impacted this situation. I'm not, I don't want to suggest for a moment that he did it to himself. I'm not saying that in any way, shape or form. It is just unusual to me that, um, knowing the kind of restraint system or comparable restraint system that this particular coaster has, um, it's now, it's also the fact that I'm incredibly tall. So, a lap restraint works really, really well for me or the, what we call it the bicycle restraint. Cause it does kind of come between your legs and holds you in that way. Um, but I, I have no idea how this could have happened.

5:34 I do think it's interesting that it's now, you know, we say this is a six flag story, but it's now impacted parks that are not flags parks that are all over the place. Um, That's the thing I think as well. Yeah, that makes it a much larger story because it is really more of a larger story. Not just because this same model is at a bunch of different parks. So it has spread like that, but it's also spread like IAPA gave a statement about this, which they hadn't done about X2 or the other stuff because this is so widespread, right? And IAPA just seemed to just really hammer home on the safety thing. The part about their statement, I liked, was, in fact, you're more likely to be struck by lightning, attacked by a shark, or killed in a commercial plane crash than to be seriously hurt on a theme park ride in the U.S., according to statistics from IAPA.

6:32 I don't know about that. Framing was interesting. But it's... So this goes to something that I. I read, I was looking at the comments earlier, in our video from last week, which were very thoughtful as they always are. Thank you everybody for commenting. One of the more interesting comments I thought came from a few people that were saying how, you know, Scott and I are sort of in like a little bit of an industry bubble where we're, of course we, you know, of course we know that like what Iop is saying, like we know that how safe stuff is. We know how these restraint system works. Like we know all these things, but that commenter was pointing out that this is a big deal for regular people.

7:14 because they do not know any of these things. And that, you know, of course X2 had to close because, you know, where, where this, this commenter was, even his office, you know, people were commenting, you know, like, and it's like, it's like water cooler conversation about like, we're never going to go do this. I mean, it's like, did you hear how dangerous, you know, and it's really like, it's a really, really bad for the brand because regular people kind of all regular people here is rollercoaster, uh, death or, go to hospital or, you know, all they hear is these things, you know, six flags kills people. That's kind of, that's all they're hearing. Right. And so, right. Well, and what's also really hurt six flags with this particular situation is, you know, we have been trained as a society. Our, our news cycles are significantly shorter than they were when I was younger. Um, so to have this, the first one, you know, X two, and again, don't mean to be insensitive, but to the mass populace, X2 would have been forgotten by now had it not been A1. And each time something else happens, it has a cumulative effect. So it becomes larger and it's like, oh my gosh, now there's been three or now there's been two or whatever. So it just gets worse and worse and worse. But going back to IAPA's statement, the one that stuck out to me is in 2024, and I'm quoting their statement here, In 2024, the injury rate for serious and reportable injuries, the injury rate for

8:46 serious and reportable was 1.27 injuries per million rides for roller coasters. So that's where you're more likely to get struck by lightning comes from. 1.27 injuries per million on roller coasters. And that's not even deaths. That's serious and reportable. So, you know, Yes, it is certainly a big deal to the family, certainly a big deal to the families of the miners that were impacted by this, and certainly a big deal to the park, because as you say, not everybody has access to this kind of information. So that's why I think it's important for us to get it out there, because I'm not even sure people in the industry... Obviously, coaster fanatics are... privy to some of this information, but not necessarily even all of it. I think it is a wise choice at this point, and I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I think it is a wise choice for the similar coasters to be shut down um, just out of, out of, uh, reverence to the situation. Um, you know, I'm, I'm curious to see what's going to happen between now and the time that they reopen, because I sincerely doubt that every single BNM hypercoaster is going to be shut down for good and, and torn out. Um, if it is a way to make these coasters safer,

10:17 then I think that's a great thing. You know, I think it's interesting that within the first half a day after this happened, there were people making very bold statements saying, well, all they had to do is add seatbelts and this never would have happened. I think that's interesting considering that how this happened has not come to light yet. So I am hoping that this has not been for nothing, and I'm hoping that the investigation... helps make these kinds of coasters safer again, even more safe in the future. The other thing that I want to talk about, which I think is, because I've had situations like this too, is the sensitivity of Six Flags changing Dr. Fright's Dead Man's Party to Dr. Fright's Party. The reason I say this is because, you know, we may think that words don't matter, but words matter an awful lot. And if you have something terrible happen during the Halloween season or approaching the Halloween season, you do have to be incredibly sensitive to that kind of thing. And I will give you a perfect example. Uh, in the second or third, second or third year of Hello Scream, um, we had, uh, we had an ad campaign and it same thing happened to universal by the way. And I'll, I'll tell that story too, but we had an ad campaign for hollow scream.

11:48 That was terror takes control. This was the same year as nine 11. So, um, terror takes control became fear has a new face because we simply did not want to use the word terror. Um, universal had a similar situation where Eddie, um, was a, uh, terrorist. Eddie was their icon character for that year. And I will never forget the TV commercials here in Florida because they got rid of Eddie completely and they put Jack's face on his body for all the TV commercials. So they had to go back in and edit everything. A friend of mine was actually in one of those commercials and he said they had to basically cut everything to nothing just to be sensitive to what was going on in the world at that time. And here, being sensitive to what's going on in their own park. So, you know, that's something that you have to take into consideration, especially during the Halloween time. If there is anything that can happen in the real world, or if anything does happen in the real world, you have to have the sensitivity to be able to adjust on the fly. And, you know, one of the things we learned... during our post-crisis leadership days is you have to have parallel plans. So if you have something that could conceivably be, and no one I don't think ever thought that they would have a loss of life in their park. Dead man's party is

13:19 a very common phrase, but you just need to have in the back of your mind, what do we do when? Or what do we do if? And how quickly can we pull stuff? How quickly can we change stuff? So I think that's another takeaway over and above the safety issues of coasters and such. But again, I just want to reinforce that we can all say that coasters are unsafe. We can all say that coasters are taking lives, which is true. They have taken a few lives over the last few years. But when you look at the data that says 1.27% injuries per million, um, you almost have a better shot of winning the lottery.

14:10 Yeah. Yeah. It's basically one in a million. Yeah. Of, of the, of an injury. And that's not a death. That's it. But that's just basic injury. Right. So I think I'm wondering, what do you think Six Flags should do going forward? And I ask because, uh, you know, Robert Niles posed a, Robert Niles from Think Park Insider posed a really interesting, uh, opinion on this that I thought was quite interesting, where basically he's saying the near-term and the long-term things here. Like in the near-term, I imagine, I'm quoting Robert here. He says, in the near-term, I imagine that Six Flags would be happy for this story to fade from public attention and for it to be able to reopen. It's B & M Hypercoasters for fans who do not care about what happened in Georgia.

14:53 And that's true. We just said that. But he goes on to say, but Six Flags and the industry over the long-term need the public to believe that all of its stroke coasters are safe. We need to know that what happened on Goliath does not represent some flaw or malpractice that could result in a similar failure on another coaster, whether it be a B & M Hyper or another model. And I think that kind of teases out everything we've kind of been discussing. Like, it's like, yeah, in the near term, they're struggling. They're, you know, the stock is going down as we speak. Their debt is, this is a problem. You know, it's a nine coasters down across six parks is a big problem.

15:36 But on the flip side to, I think what IAPA is trying to say, like, this is the point of IAPA's release, right? It's to kind of, the problem, the bigger problem is that you can't let this sort of thing fester in the public because that impacts all of us as the industry. And so, uh, I think, you know, it's like, I guess, uh, that makes it difficult for Six Flags because, you know, I think, I'm sure what the public would want is for them to be ultra transparent about everything and kind of get out in front of everything as they possibly can. But maybe that might be also, I don't know if they will, or that might be risky for them, maybe considering the debt position they're in with already with the board and Jana and the whole fiasco of already them trying to be forced into a cell.

16:30 I mean, it's not a great position. So, Scott, what do you think they should do? I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think the biggest challenge they have, part of the reason and what's going to dictate how they handle the situation is what they discover in the investigation. Because, again, they don't want to come out and say, okay, now we're adding seatbelts to all these coasters. Because from a litigation standpoint, a good lawyer can sit there and say, so if we had had these seat belts in this, this shows negligence on your part, because had we had these seat belts in my client would not have passed away. You know, that's, that's what they have to be. That's where they have to kind of weigh their, their next move very, very carefully. Um, yes, it needs to calm down. We need to let the situation settle a little bit. We need more information. Um, and it's the hardest thing in the world to do, but I think in my opinion, at least, and again, not a in my opinion, it seems to let the best thing to do right now is to let it settle, get more information before you make your next steps. I think that from an industry standpoint, I think the rest of the industry needs to come forward and say, um, we are, you know, we are transparent with our safety procedures. Every, every coaster is, it runs through a safety test before it, you know, this, this, this level of safety tests before it opens every day, it runs through this level of,

18:01 you know, and maybe they need to, maybe they need to add to that. Maybe they need to say, you know, we will run it with water dummies once every week. We will run whatever. I don't know. Um, but at this point, if I were, if I were flags, I would let it sit for a while until you have good solid information and you figure out what the, what the, um, legal snafus could be and again i don't want to sound like i'm trying to be cagey when it comes to being legal we all know that if there had been seat belts there it is unlikely that it would have changed anything we don't i mean we just simply don't know that that's a that's a very um it's a very disconnected logic train but but i think that if every other park in the industry who has been affected like, you know, the, the, uh, Busch Gardens, Williamsburg and, and, uh, you know, let's see, uh, Kings, the other, yeah, the other parks, the other parks who have Hershey, um, if they come forward and basically say, you know, we would love to, we're looking forward to reopening our, our hyper coasters. Um, we have worked with, with BNM and we have added X, Y, and Z. We have improved our, our safety tracking by A, B, and C. Um, to start building back that confidence because this is not a Six Flags problem. This is an industry problem and this particular situation shows it. Also, if

19:33 I were B & M, I would be providing so much safety information because the simple fact that a B & M coaster killed somebody and every other BNM coaster park shut down their coasters, that goes back to, to BNM and raising, raising eyebrows. Now does the main, you know, the main audience know that it's a BNM coaster? No coaster fans do, but you know, Bob, Martha and Owen, uh, public have no idea. So, um, I think that they need to recognize, they need to step forward, again, depending on what they discover in the investigation. But they need to come forward with some additional materials for the parks to say, here's how we're being safe. Now, that does not necessarily mean making the guest experience so that you have to sign a waiver, be wrapped in bubble wrap, be immobilized in the seat. That's not where we're going with this. But I think that getting the facts out there, getting the one in a million number out there is important.

20:50 I think that being transparent, if you are not six flags, for the benefit of the industry as a whole, being transparent with your safety procedures is it's time to bring that back to the forefront. I know it's not sexy, but it may be a stopgap measure to keep this from spreading. Well, if they're going to close down this one kind of coaster, maybe they should close down this kind of coaster too, because it seems far more dangerous. I've seen it happen firsthand where companies chose to stick their head in the sand and ignore what was uh, being said about them because they thought it will be forgotten and it didn't work. So it is, especially now, cause this is, you know, many years later and now it is, it is essential for people to have the information that they're looking for. I mean, you know, Even when I first heard this, the very first thing I did was to start sourcing out, okay, what is IAPA saying?

21:53 What is BNM saying? To go to the sources that I know I can trust and finding out what they have to say. And anybody can do that. But not everybody does do that. So what I'm saying is get in front of it. Have the information there. Have the information available to be as transparent as possible as far as the safety procedures going forward. and make sure that people do recognize one in a million. Yeah. I do think it puts everybody in an awkward position because getting in front of it is the smarter move, but it may not be the move that Six Flags wants at this particular moment just because of their debt and their timeline and all that kind of stuff. However, it is the smarter move, and it's almost the only move that you have because you're right that a regular guest has no idea who makes anything And they don't know, they probably don't even know why Six Flags is closing other coasters and.

22:50 Other parks if it was this one thing. Keep in mind, I said Six Flags should sit on it for a moment. Yeah. Until they get their information back. Getting out in front of it is all the other parks. It's all everybody else, yeah. Yeah, it's the rest of the industry. This is a time where we have to come together to protect our own because it's just going to come back and bite us in the butt later if we don't. Because there's, you know. Let's, let's take a microcosm. Um, Hershey park. Okay. Hershey, even you said, even you closed apart, uh, closed a coaster. Um, so that means you think it's dangerous too. Well, what about your other coasters? What about your other rides? What about, what about, what about, what about? So you're opening up some very industry wide challenge, some very big industry wide challenges. If you don't come forward and say, here's our safety procedure. Um, And then after Six Flags does the investigation, after they have more information, after we figure out exactly what happened, then they can make their choice as to when to come out and when to come forward with new information.

23:53 Yeah. Okay, well, we will be watching, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sure. This is not the end of this story. We'll be back to talk about Six Flags at least next week, most likely. Just saying. Let's see if we can get to a few other stories before we run out of time. So Universal has a new horror makeup show and it's featuring Blumhouse. They announced the move on social media in which they said, quote, in this live show, discover how Hollywood's top special effects artists have terrified moviegoers for over 100 years from Universal's classic monsters to.

24:34 The modern horrors of Blumhouse. And Aiello on Twitter went on to say that an entire visual reimagining from floor to ceiling is what people should expect of this new version of the Hollywood, of the makeup show. Right. I, I, I was, you know, initially I was a little confused about this. I'm not sure. It seems a little bit to me like it could be a sponsored content play a little bit here because, you know, when I think of horror, movie makeup and that whole thing. I don't think of Blumhouse, but it could be a sponsored content type of thing to me.

25:16 What do you think, Scott? Well, I was surprised to see the show go away, quite honestly. It's true. It had been there for a very long time, but it had always been popular. It had always been really fun for the audiences. Here in Florida, when it went away, there was a bunch of very angry people. I'm going lighten up. It's a theme park. But Um, so it needed, it needed a refresh or it needed a change. And by taking it away, I think they actually, number one, kind of reinforced the need for it because you had all those people who saying, this is our favorite show. We need to bring it back. So it brings a focus back to it. And then to come back with another brand with the Blumhouse brand involved makes a connection between the classic monsters, which no matter how hard they try, Universal continues to have trouble making them fresh and in the public face again. They keep trying. They keep trying.

26:17 And they've made great efforts. But it's a way to connect the history of the classics with a more contemporary take on horror. So I think, yes, I'm sure that there is some sort of, well, obviously Blumhouse is getting paid to to have their name on it. You know, there's some, there is a, there is a, an IP situation here. Um, I was thinking, I was thinking Blumhouse is paying to have their name on there, but maybe you're right. Maybe it's the opposite, in which case it would make less sense to me. It would make more sense if this was like the Kate makeup thing in a universal Japan where it's like the brand is, is paying money. Like, that's why I mean sponsored content like Blumhouse is, is paying.

27:03 Well, I don't know. I have no idea. It's possible. it is possible, um, to, to elevate the Blumhouse brand. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, there's some, there's some money exchanging hands here for some reason. I think what it, how it benefits universal is it adds, uh, an edgier, more contemporary connection to their classic monsters. And for Blumhouse, it adds a more, um, established, uh, classic connection. Well, it gives them a physical touch point to, to fans somewhere, which is something they're missing. Right. I mean, that's presumably why they do all the Halloween Horror Night stuff as well. They don't have anything experiential. Right.

27:50 But, um, uh, okay. I think it's interesting that it's coming back. I'm, I, the question that I have is, was it ever planned to be gone? Um, that's the first question I have is because it's coming back relatively quickly. And, um, Was this just the easiest way? Instead of saying we're shutting down to renovate, to just make it go away, see what the response is. The response was exactly what they anticipated, so they're bringing it right back. Like a PR play. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I could see that. Don't know. All right. Let's see if we can get really quick. So this story is one that's pretty old, but we keep pushing it back, so we're going to try and get through it.

28:33 So the National Zoo has canceled its zoo illumination for 2026. after visa applications for the Chinese artisans who built it were denied. And they mentioned this in September. And so we're just talking about it now. But they said the National Zoo is disappointed to announce the cancellation of zoo elimination due to visa issues affecting our event partner, Enlight Festival Group. Unfortunately, visa applications for this year's artisans were denied and the zoo was unable to find a solution that would allow it to continue this year. This is something I think You know, it, we, we have quite a few of these types of things, you know, it's obviously the ice at the Gaylord experiences and then there's other lantern and type experiences. So this isn't, um, this is.

29:16 I think that, I don't know, we were just Scott just earlier mentioned about having contingency plans, and this is exactly why you have contingency plans for elements that are completely out of your control, because this is completely out of their control to be able to tell the U S government whether or not, you know, what, who, how visas and whatever. And it does happen. You know, even my neighbor who does shows for Disney, they have to get visa applications sometimes to bring in expert artists from other countries to do a cultural show and whatnot. And sometimes they're denied. Or it takes longer and then you're right up against the rehearsal window. So, yeah. Scott, what do you think? No, I think that this is a perfect example of have parallel plans. I think it's important to recognize that Anytime you're working with artists outside the country, you do have to have some sort of contingency plan. You can put all your eggs in one basket, but then that sometimes means that that basket has a big hole in the bottom, so you can't use it. But but again, you know, when it comes to coming back from Asia, they let you back in the country. So that's a good thing. And and and actually, we didn't mention any of Philip's. Philip has been on these this amazing sort of whirlwind tour of Asia and from what you've told me.

30:37 Universal Beijing is just mind-blowing, so that's something that we should discuss. And we will discuss, but unfortunately we are out of time for the regular show, so we're going to have to discuss it in Unhinged. If you guys are Unhinged listeners, you'll get to hear all about Philip's wonderful journeys. And if you're not, join us. It's a fun little group. But for now, this is the end of Green Tag Theme Park in 30 for this week. And on behalf of Philip Hernandez with Gantam Lighting and Control and myself, Scott Swenson with Scott Swenson Creative Development, This has been Green Tag Theme Park in 30, and we will see all of you next week.