This is the first of hopefully many Weekly Topic discussions where we will look at different topics around the amusement industry. Many sites will be participating in the Weekly Topic including our friends at Coasterdom and News Plus Notes. The first topic was posted by Coasterdom, “Cedar Fair, the New Company to Hate. ”

Cedar Fair is indeed the new theme park chain to hate. No longer is Six Flags the punch line of all amusement park related cheap shots. Cedar Fair is now regarded as the bottom of the line when it comes to theme parks.

Why? Two words: Geauga Lake.

Sure Cedar Fair wasn’t all that popular before they announced they’d be closing down the amusement park side of the historic Ohio amusement park. When you destroy 100 years of amusement history, the fans and enthusiasts will retaliate. It doesn’t take a patch wearing Acer to appreciate the history of an old park. While people love thrills and new technology, everyone likes a bit of nostalgia. Bulldoze 100 years of history, you get negativity.

Why else? Two words: Public Relations.

Has anyone heard of the improvements at Six Flags Magic Mountain? Chances are, you probably have seen one of the countless photo trip reports or read an article on the LA Times’ Funland Blog. Six Flags has been receiving massive amounts of press when it comes to chain wide improvements. CEO of Six Flags, Mark Shapiro, has made it known that he is here to improve Six Flags. He’s appeared in interviews and has a positive outlook on where the company is headed.

Cedar Fair? Haven’t heard too much about improvements. Now I’m not saying that they are not making improvements. California’s Great America, for example, is a adding a new themed flat ride for 2008, a new ice skating show, a new wooden coaster in ’09, a new Halloween event, extended hours, and even the staff has improved over the past year. Yet the Cedar Fair bashing is still going around. (Did I mention they’ve added plenty of new trash cans!)

Good luck Cedar Fair PR teams, you’ve got some work ahead of you!

Responses from other blogs:

 A Walk in the Park Podcast

News Plus Notes 

Discuss the Topic 

The results are in for the March poll: Which Six Flags park has had the biggest improvement during the Shapiro Era? So who has made the largest improvement? The voters said Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, closely followed by Magic Mountain.

When I posted this poll at the beginning of March I predicted that Discovery Kingdom and Magic Mountain would fight it out, and they did indeed. Even though these two parks have improved so much, they’ve improved in different areas. For example, Discovery Kingdom was a decent park before the Shapiro crew came in. The changes came with the rebranding of the park from Marine World to Discovery Kingdom. The new signs that were placed throughout the park really gave DK a fresh look.

Down south at Six Flags Magic Mountain they’ve had more fundamental improvements. When this decade started, Magic Mountain wasn’t exactly the nicest park: trash, down rides, employees, etc. However, in the past year or so there have been massive improvements across the board. I have a feeling that the only reason that Magic Mountain didn’t do as well as Discovery Kingdom in the poll is that Magic has removed many rides over the past year: Sierra Twist, Tilt-A-Whirl, Granny Gran Prix, Freefall, Spin Out, Psyclone, and Flashback. While most rides were not any good, people still don’t take change too easily.

Overall, I feel Six Flags is headed in a very positive direction under Mark Shapiro. Improvements are being made across the board; last year mainly with painting and landscaping while this year has focused more on employee training and new rides and lands. So bravo Shapiro, I look forward to what the future holds!