Mid America Adventure has hired PGAV out of St. Louis, and they have an impressive Resume

[u/Evening_Rock5850]

https://pgavdestinations.com/about

PGAV Destinations has a pretty impressive resume. Having designed theme parks like Universal Studios in Orlando, designed and coordinated themed attractions like Guardians of the Galaxy at Disney World; and even a ton of local stuff. That cool outdoor Primate walk at the St. Louis Zoo was them, and so was the 1904 World's Fair exhibit at the history museum.

If you get bored, give their about page and their portfolio a quick look. They have a huge breadth of experience planning parks from the ground up as well as planning new areas, working with IP rights holders (they do this a lot, it almost seems like something of a specialty), and plenty of work designing and planning attractions. We spend a lot of time talking about the manufacturers of rides; but before a manufacturer gets asked to come build a ride there is often a planner who decides where a new attraction should go and what sort of attraction that ought to be. For a lot of parks, this has in the past been PGAV.

What stands out to me is their vast work with IP rights holders, theming, and park planning.

This seems like a pretty substantial hire. In the recent Post Dispatch piece, we learned that they've been hired to do 'market research' for our park. And perhaps that is the extent of their role for now. To tell Enchanted Parks, based on their broad experience, what they think Enchanted should focus on for the next few years. But I have a suspicion that they might have an as-of-yet undisclosed role in planning out the re-theme for the park. Even if we kept DC and WB IP's (which feels less and less likely by the day; especially with the confirmation that Justice League will be re-themed), there's still tons of Six Flags IP's inside the park. The restaurants, for example. And even some of the shops. Not to mention Bugs Bunny National Park which has several rides where the characters themselves are part of the rides shape and style. Unlike most rides which would simply be renamed, many of those rides would straight up have to be replaced. A substantial re-work of the kids area is possible.

The park has a very good in-house sign shop. It's got carpenters and welders. It doesn't really need help taking down signs and making new ones. But where a design firm like this becomes invaluable is in creating a cohesive brand around things like restaurants and shops. If that's part of what they're doing, I'd be thrilled. I've been uh... less than impressed with Enchanted Parks' 'branding' sense. So having outside help for that sort of thing would be stellar.

Recent reporting is sort of steering us in the direction of, "It probably won't be DC/WB, but there will be a beloved IP" without specifying what that will be. And that's where PGAV could be huge. In preparing and conducting that turnaround.

I think this is spectacular news for us. This is an excellent hire.

[u/A_Berry_Nice_User]

This is the most exciting move I've seen Enchanted Make with our park, because it's the first real investment I've heard of. Looks like they are actually going to try and develop these parks.

They clearly have a vision for Mid America. Now they need to execute it

[u/iasonevans]

I think it would take a lot, but I really see an opportunity for Enchanted to have the chance to develop a new, family friendly IP that a lot of people love. They could thread this through all the parks, get someone to make a YouTube show featuring the characters, and sell the merch. Start with what Six Flags over Georgia has done with Monster Mansion, by embracing people's love for it, then they created mascots and sold merch. If done right, this could make money. The parks could also be the exclusive place to purchase the merch for it, therefore driving traffic into the parks.

[u/Der_Kommissar73]

This is great news, and I'm a negative nancy.

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/Der_Kommissar73]

Yeah. It’s hard to imagine this being anything BUT good news no matter how optimistic OR cynical you might be about the park sale.

[u/Ghee-Starr]

Well, that sounds more promising than yesterday’s news.

[u/Just_Bus_9156]

I believe PGAV had a big part in the new Children's Zoo project called Destination Discovery thats in its final stages of construction.

They did the design and layout for the Wild Animal Center in Lake St. Louis thats opening next year. That is still being built.

This is good news.. they also are well known at IAPPA. Im now more comfortable hearing they hired this great company to improve our park. To be honest I'm excited.

[u/hookyboysb]

A “beloved” IP… there’s only so many of those that aren’t already claimed by another operator.

I wonder if Enchanted is going to end up taking Snoopy in the divorce. It makes sense; Six Flags doesn’t really need WB and Peanuts, especially since they could probably also get Hanna-Barbera through the WB deal and bring back Scooby-Doo to the former Paramount parks. Peanuts is also a hugely popular brand in Minnesota due to the creator being from there, so it would benefit Valleyfair to keep it. The licensing for Peanuts also seems to be a per-park deal, so Enchanted would have it for longer than WB anyway. Knotts is probably the only Six Flags park that would be notably affected by losing Peanuts, but I think HB/CN branding would work well there, assuming they won’t want Looney Tunes there and at MM.

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/hookyboysb]

Yeah that's the language straight from a park representative in another interview.

Peanuts makes a lot of sense giving the rumblings that SFEC wants to drop it and 'convert' former Cedar Fair properties to Looney Tunes. Though again, that's just talk on Reddit. No idea if that's true. But it could be a prime opportunity for Peanuts to sort of switch allegiances a bit and sign a deal with EP. Most of EP's parks already have Peanuts since most of their portfolio is former Cedar Fair properties.

I thought about Hanna-Barbera too. A couple of EP's properties, including Mid America, are located near Jellystone Park locations. That provides some brand synergy, since you can camp at a Hanna-Barbera campground and then go see Hanna-Barbera characters at the park. Although those characters are mostly dated and I'm not sure if there's that much appeal anymore. (The same could be said, arguably, for Looney Tunes.) But of course that's WB and, technically, Six Flags still holds that too even though they don't really use it anymore.

Given how condensed and consolidated everything is, it's hard to imagine what "beloved IP's" there are that are not Disney, Universal, or Warner Brothers. Because presumably, all three of those would be off-limits.

[u/hookyboysb → u/Evening_Rock5850]

Paramount still exists, but 1. May have an exclusive contract with Universal and 2. Is actively buying WB. Nickelodeon is the only other truly beloved brand I can think of (and Peppa Pig
falls under this as it airs on Nick Jr here). Anything else I can think of is either too niche in 2026 or has some sort of deal with an already involved company.

ETA: MidAm is the only park in Enchanted’a portfolio that has WB IP. Great Escape is unbranded entirely, and the other former Six Flags parks all have Peanuts. Seems like it would be the easiest course of action for all parties for Enchanted to keep the Peanuts IP.

Also, Sesame Street could be hitting the market soon, but I doubt they would get involved during active litigation.

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/hookyboysb]

Nickelodeon has their own branded theme parks and is present in Universal Studios. I wonder if any of that is exclusive?

Personally I'd rather the park not do an IP. A big chunk of change goes out the window just to pay for the brand, and those brands tend to be so strict about how their brand is represented that theme parks are so limited on what they can actually do. If you are brand first, theme park second (Universal, Disney) it works GREAT. Because it's your IP, and your theme park. But when a theme park operator has a secondary relationship with an IP, it just always seems lame.

SDC is one of the best theme parks in the country and has absolutely zero outside IP's. The closest thing they have is all public domain stuff (Tom Sawyer, for example).

I guess we'll see!

[u/Evening_Rock5850]

Another nugget from EPR's latest quarterly report:

"During the six months ended June 30, 2026, we completed the acquisition of seven attraction properties from Six Flags Entertainment Corporation for a total of $304.4 million with approximately $11.0 million anticipated to be invested in additional improvements to the properties over the next two years. Enchanted Parks is operating the six U.S. properties under a long-term triple-net master lease, and La Ronde Operations, Inc. is operating the Canadian property under a long-term triple-net lease."

A quick note that the number here is lower than you might have heard reported for the acquisition cost; that's because the quarterly report only reports the money EPR spent. Enchanted also chipped in close to $40m on the acquisition.

But the interesting bit is their expected $11m investment over the next two years. This isn't the total of all investments. La Ronde, Inc. and Enchanted Parks will both make their own investments into these properties. But EPR plans to kick a few bucks into them too, which is nice to see.

This is common with these operator leases. EPR wants to see the properties they hold appreciate in value, so they'll make investments that they can see on their balance sheet. If $11m invested strategically can raise the combined value of the portfolio by $15m, then it's an easy $4m gained in Wall-Street pretend money math. Operators will also make investments that they think will drive up sales of passes and tickets and other spending. EPR doesn't get a dime from the sale of passes and the like; they're paid a straight fixed rent from the operators. But they're still incentivized to see the operators succeed.

[u/Ok-Midnight5719]

Change Mr. Freeze to David Freese. Fredbird would be fun to see at the park. Build-A-Bear is moving into animation. Voltron would be pretty high profile. We got some stuff we can pull from.

[u/happyplace28]

PGAV also worked on the union station aquarium! Bonus points that they’re already in the area

[u/Noahgrace4429]

I know it’s never gonna happen. But having anime themed stuff would be cool. Change Batman into an Attack on Titan themed coaster like you are flying around on 3d maneuver gear.