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Okay from our studios this week in Los Angeles and Tampa.
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This is Green Tagged Theme Park and thirty. I'm Philip
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from Ganta Mighty and Controls that I'm joined as always
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by my delightful co host Scott Swinson of Scott Swinson
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Great Development. On Green tag we look at the top
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news each week and we pick the stories we think
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matter most theme entertainment professionals and we explain what it
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means the impact for them.
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We ask questions and try and have a good discussion.
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And this week we are back to six Flags because
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they have some exciting news in that they are bringing
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back their park presidents at ten of their properties.
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And I know, just Scott really wants to talk about this, No,
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I just I just.
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Find it interesting that six Flags. You know, we see
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six Flags going through kind of the microcosm of a
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theme park lifespan. You know, they've they've they've broken up,
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they've they've expanded, they've contracted, they've come together, they've joined
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somebody else, and now they're going they've.
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Got rid of anybody, lost some people, yeah, lots of.
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People, and they let people go and then they brought
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in new people and then so it really, I mean,
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quite honestly, this could be a whole university course just
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in tracking what the hell happened with with six Flags?
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And maybe that would be the name of the class,
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what the hell happened to six Flags? If any of
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you university types out there want to do this class,
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let us know. We'll be happy to help. We've we've
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we've been living it for quite.
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Some time now.
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It seems so yes, yeah, because of course the context
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is as Scott said, you know, not merger. And then
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a few weeks ago they sold the parks, they finalized
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the sale of the multiple parks, and then they had
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a new CEO that came on that replaced Themmerman and
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we have John Relly now as and so I think
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this is kind of the first big thing that the
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new CEO, John Relly, has done, which is to bring
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back these these park presidents.
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And it was funny because I think we.
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Talked about it originally when they got rid of the
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park presidents, and I think was that the silo conversation.
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I think that was a silo conversation.
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It might my biggest issue, My biggest issue when they
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got rid of them was when.
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You lose a park president.
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Then it leaves a control vacuum and it makes the
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in the interior workings of a park siloed. So it
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very much was the or very much could have been
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the silo conversation. But you have the internal workings of
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the park all compete. You have merchandise competing with culinary,
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competing with entertainment, competing with rides, and operations competing with
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human resources. There's no there's no buck stops here kind
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of voice. And you know the argument is, well, that
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comes from the corporate side, But the downside of that
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is the corporate side doesn't necessarily know what's happening in
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the park itself, because you know, these these organizations and
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conglomerations that own parks in many, many, many different locations
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like six Flags, they may know what is great for
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the parks in theory, but there's always going to be
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those anomalies. And you know, I know that Six Flags
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Great America, for example, runs very very differently than Caro Wins.
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You know, they they have they have a different a
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different audience, they have a different basically a different climate
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both physically and business wise. So you kind of have
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to have somebody with boots on the ground making those decisions,
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and I think this is I think this is a
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great I think this is a great step forward. I
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I I firmly support this.
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Yeah, I didn't really I realized I didn't read the
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list of the parks or anything. We just kind of
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jumped into it. But basically, yes, they're bringing back ten.
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And it's interesting because this has not been formally announced
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in a press release or adjusted online or any sort
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of any anything officially. This actually came from an exclusive
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interview that we don't know who actually gave the interview,
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was just a source source at six Flags that was
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given to the Orange County Register, right, And so supposedly
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this week we're gonna maybe get the official statement posted somewhere.
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Probably as soon as we record and post this video,
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it'll they'll they'll make their announcement officially. But so the
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ten parks are Canada's Wonderland, Carowin's, Cedar Point, King's Island,
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not Six Flives, Great America, Great Adventure, Magic Mountain, and
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Georgia and Texas. A few other tidbits that came out
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from the Six Flags officials when they were talking to
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the Orange County Register is that Raffi is going to
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return back to not Sbury Farm as VPM park manager.
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And then the.
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Previous park president from Caro Wins is actually moving to
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six Flags Magic Mountain, so Brian is moving from Carowins
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to Magic Mountain. And of course, as I mentioned, comes
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just a few weeks after they closed the final sale
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of the the the six parks to EPR properties. And
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notably missing from that list is six Flags, Fiesta Texas.
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And King's Dominion.
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They are not on the list, or Fiesta Texas not
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Over Texas, but yesa Texas and King's Dominion are missing
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from this kind of park property list. And there are
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a lot of people with a lot of opinions as
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to why that might be. Most of them center around
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it's a potential sale or something because those have received
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a lot of capital investment recently, and then they're not
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on this list. So it also could just be that
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we don't have the official announcement out yet and maybe
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they're put on there but they haven't. I mean, there's
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a bunch of other reasons. It could be for that,
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but too as well. But and it's just interesting because
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I looked back at when we covered John Riley and
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his little listening tour right, and in his listening tour
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he talked about how he described a chain that had
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suffered from inconsistent standards and the lack of accountability across parks,
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you know after the merger.
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That's exactly what Scott just said.
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There's the lack of accountability of a person, you know,
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at the park level. And I think originally, way back
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over a year ago, when Scott and I first talked
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about them removing the park presidents, we did leave open
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the possibility that it would be a good thing because
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in theory it might be able to kind of help
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some changes get implemented faster. But clearly it didn't work
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because when John Riley went around you can, I mean
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see he said it there's a lack of accountability. So
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I think it ended up being more what Scott just said,
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where there wasn't the buck stops here at the local level,
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and that has caused this confusion. And so this is
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so I think this is all logical. Like he went,
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he did a listening tour, he talked about it. Now
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he's implementing this, and I think even the park choices
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are logical because if you look at even the conjuring experience,
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which I keep parping about because it was I think
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it's a I think it's a.
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Good future path for them.
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But if you look at that caron Cedar Point, Kings Island,
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Cansiwondia Land, they're all they're all mapped to these ten parks.
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So I think that looking at these ten parks is
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probably a good indicator of where six Flags at least
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thinks they have the most growth potential or earnings potential,
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and they're looking at these ten And the choice to
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bring the Caroins over to Match Mountain is also interesting
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because that is one of the ones that probably has
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the most potential because it's in the solcale market and
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it underperforms so and it also has a complete lack
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of any sort of identity or anything.
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It's just sort of like a coaster park.
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And I think also it's this idea like Scott has
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talked about in the past of how do you make
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the park differentiated locally, And in order to do that,
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you have to have a coherent vision, and you need
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to have a leader that brings the.
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Team to that vision and has.
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A strong understanding of what the local demographic is, has
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a strong understanding of you know what, when people like,
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for example, and I think what I think is interesting
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is that they that Magic Mountain and not I realize
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it's a very it's a very congested market. I understand that,
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but in essence could be considered competitors to one another,
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even though they're owned by the same by the same company.
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But they could very easily be considered competitors to one another.
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But in places like uh, well, I might speak to
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to six Flags Great America only because that's the park
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I grew up in and just recently went back to,
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and with six Flags Great America, there's not a ton
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of theme park competition in that part of the of
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the the country, so they they have always been kind
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of the only game in town. I think the closest
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thing they've got as far as competition goes is and
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it's not really even competition, but it's Great Wolf Lodge,
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which is the the water park hotel that is right
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across literally across the highway. But what ends up happening
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is they kind of have a hand in hand working
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symbiosis because people go and stay there, and that way
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Great America doesn't have to have their own hotel. But
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there is a shuttle, so you know, there's there's all
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kinds of unique, unique situations that I think need to
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be addressed on the local level.
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I guess that's my point.
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Is that you know, the the the park presidents for
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for Nots and Magic Mountain need to be in very
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close conversation with one another so that they're not trying
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to compete with one another. They may find that there
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are there is a symbiotic relationship that may help them
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from a financial standpoint. But if you don't have any
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park presidents, there's nobody there who's going to say that.
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There's nobody there who's going to be able to explore that.
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And the six Flags the Great America Park. Sorry, I'm
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just so used to calling it six Flags just because
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that's what it became. Finally, but Great America the uh,
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they don't have to necessarily be as in tune with
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or strategically planned with other park presidents, but they do
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need to understand what are our local alliances. How can
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we get people out of the city up north to
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the to the park itself.
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How do we pull from.
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The surrounding you know, the surrounding states, because they're not
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that far from you know, two other states that they
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could actually pull attendance from, so they all have their
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own unique individual challenges, and to have a park president
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and each of these locations makes the most sense to me.
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I think, well, I agree with that all one hundred percent.
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But I'm wondering to Scott if you have any other
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like lived experiences or examples from maybe when you were
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doing Bush, because it's a little bit similar where you
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had you know, well, I guess you it was before
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the Sea World thing, but you know, I mean you
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have bushes there and then SeaWorld is right sort of
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tangentially really, but it's sort.
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Of like.
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In terms of how that park president even helped even
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with seasonal events and having somebody there that's kind of
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guiding because we saw that with six Flags last season,
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right where that when you have just one regional person,
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they're looking at it like everyone has to do Christmas
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or do we get you get these mandates, but then
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they're not localizing it, and so then you could see
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where it wouldn't work in some parks because they're not
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accounting for the weather differences or for the demographic differences.
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So is there anything from your experience working in the
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parks that you Well.
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It's interesting because when I first started over, when I
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first started at Bush Tampa over thirty years ago, it
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was Busch Gardens and SeaWorld operated almost completely independently of
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one another, as did Bush Williamsburg. Then when corporate got
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more and more involved and that they moved more of
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the decision making up to the corporate level, they found
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some great sharing of best practic as they also found
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some economy of scale there when it came to, you know,
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ordering certain things like we knew. For example, the first
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example we all saw and recognized was when our soda cups,
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our paper soda cups had all the parks in the
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system on it. Because what they were able to do
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is and it's a small thing, but what they were
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able to do from the corporate level is to put
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all of those all the parks on one single cup,
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do gigantic orders which drove the per unit cost way down.
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And that was a good thing from the corporate level.
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Where we ran into challenges, based on my experience and
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my opinion, quite honestly, where we ran into challenges is
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when corporate tried to say things like this particular element
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or this particular show, and I'm going to deal with