The big Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger has finally reached the point it's causing us personally to lose something. We've had some effects before, but most of them were neutral-to-good, like getting into Six Flags America cheap.
So the problem with the merger is that the much bigger Six Flags is still losing, like, all the money in the world, and things like closing Six Flags America and announcing when they're closing California's Great America won't change that. They're at the point where they're trying to raise money by selling off things, so they're probably at most two years away from going bankrupt yet again.
So this brings us to Michigan's Adventure, which for years has been the quiet, good little child of the Cedar Fair operation. Doesn't get much attention (it's not literally true that its big upgrade for 2024 was ``a new bathroom'' but it's very close), doesn't need much attention: families love it as is and more of them come, and spend a lot of money, every year. If every park in the chain were like this the chain would have no rational complaints. But this also means it's one of the parks that they could put up for sale and find a buyer for.
So that's what happened. Six Flags sold Michigan's Adventure and six other parks to EPR Properties, a real estate investment trust, which has got hastily set up --- ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger noted their initial logo was clearly AI slop and now it's cleaned-up AI slop --- Enchanted Parks. For this year that won't change anything, since season passes were already sold, but for 2027 and beyond? Who knows?
And the scary thing? Beyond having to change what's our home park for our long-standing season passes, and having to buy a season pass for a second chain? EPR Properties has mostly run water parks in the past, and there's a reasonable fear that they're looking to shut down the dry parks and just keep the wet. Besides losing the amusement park in an easy day-trip drive, losing Michigan's Adventure would also cost three wooden roller coasters.
Globally, the sale is probably a good thing in that an industry is usually healthier when it has a lot of comparably-sized companies rather than a handful of big ones. And to get that means things like Six Flags with an estimated 2,038 parks in the United States and Canada should be shedding places. It's just always sad when the thing you think would be good for the community is bad for you personally.
Also it's going to be really sad if we lose Shivering Timbers and Six Flags goes bankrupt anyway.
Speaking of shuttered parks, here's stuff from Glen Echo Park.
The Cuddle-Up pavilion now gets some use as a performing stage and there's bleacher seating for extra audience space.
Way off past the end of the old midway is this fountain; I don't know if it ever had water or was always a garden.
Here's the view back from that fountain along the midway.
Small and surprisingly haunted-looking building next to what had been the bumper cars building.
The bumper cars building has this section hazard-taped off, I guess for the trap door?
I suppose it's now an event space; you can imagine dances and wedding receptions and all fitting in here well.
Trivia: Bell Aircraft's X-16 was not a legitimate research aircraft but an attempt to hide the development of a spy plane. Though 28 of the craft were ordered, none were completed before the Lockheed U-2 demonstrated it could serve the spy flight missions. Source: American X-Vehicles: An Inventory - X-1 to X-50, Dennis R Jenkins, Tony Landis, Jay Miller.
Currently Reading: The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe, Matthew Gabriele, David M Perry.
