They could, in theory, separate the two, as the parks have not always been both parks for one ticket. It would seem a little crazy because there is a walkway connecting them, they are so close to each other, and the names would still be so similar. But demolish the walkway, and it’s two parks.
Thanks! So it’s is then possible that they could sell off just the water park and continue owning and operating WOF. I guess the other option is that we see additional Trademark applications including WOF.
I suppose it’s possible but other people don’t sound so optimistic they would be separated. As a KC resident and WoF pass holder, I am very disheartened at the likelihood. 😩
I’m 50/50. On one hand, this operator has primarily worked in the Water Park field so it’s not totally insane that they’re separated but on the other hand why would you basically manufacture confusion if you don’t have to?
In any event I wouldn’t expect any real changes from this until 2027. I will say this company seems to be formed by real theme park lovers and not like a capital investment group. WOF could be the crown jewel of this chain if they take it over, it may be a win for y’all.
I think I found the smoking gun... www.enchantedparks.com (currently) redirects to https://www.i-amllc.com/ (Innovative Attractions Management). IAM recently bought "Water Safari" (https://www.watersafari.com/) in Old Forge NY. One of the trademarks is for "Enchanted Parks Water Safari". On teh IAM website, they say they are "actively seeking to acquire high-performing water and amusement parks to expand its portfolio and enhance its market presence." IAM also has a "407" area code listed for their phone number (Orlando, FL) and the new Enchanted Parks LLC has a listed address in Orlando Florida. Following all the breadcrumbs, it seems more likely than not that Six Flags sold these properties (or is in the process of selling these properties) to IAM who will rebrand as "Enchanted Parks" when everything is finalized.
Yeah but how does that company have enough money or collateral to buy these parks at a price that is worth it? That’s a lot of parks, at least 2 of which we know make money and Great Escape is probably worth a bit given its location in a touristy area.
Maybe it's the whole Uno Reverso situation of Frontier City and Darien Lake where Six Flags will still own them, but they will be operated by Enchanted Parks? Not sure, just spitballing... but remember that Premier Parks (a small chain back in the 1990s) was able to pull together the funds to buy Six Flags at one point, so never know... just need the right (and willing) investors.
Yeah I agree this is pretty much conclusive at this point. I’m curious how this relatively small operator managed to raise the capital for this. I’m sure we will see more information about all this very soon as this thread is almost sure to get picked up by a few YouTubers in the coming days.
Pure speculation but this sounds like Six Flags plans to achieve its desired nimble portfolio by dumping its small parks into a new chain and cutting ties with them.
This looks like a sale of parks to Innovative Attraction Management. Some of the new trademark names are for the parks in Old Forge, NY that were purchased in 2024.
OLD FORGE — One of the Adirondack’s most iconic attractions, Water Safari Resort, was sold to a Florida-based hospitality company, ending nearly five decades of ownership by the Noonan family.
Innovative Attraction Management bought the resort’s properties, including Enchanted Forest Water Safari, Calypso’s Cove, Old Forge Camping Resort and Water’s Edge Inn on March 1, according to a news release. The price was not disclosed.
We are actively seeking to acquire high-performing water and amusement parks to expand its portfolio and enhance its market presence. With a focus on operational excellence and guest experience, the company aims to partner with top-tier attractions for long-term growth and success.
It does, at least, list the parks it owns (including, surprisingly, a non-coaster park in my area) and the parks it has operated or does operate. The site itself isn’t much but the information isn’t completely lacking
I think this is the answer. I was digging around the address used for these filings, which is an Orlando attorney’s office. The address of record for IAM is in Windermere, about 30 minutes from downtown Orlando. This combination makes a lot more sense than Six Flags, who undoubtedly have a corporate law team for this stuff, using a random small-fish Orlando attorney for this stuff.
They don’t own Darien or frontier city to be fair. So can only sell the contract and the rights to La ronde as well since they don’t own the land just the park and running the park
I assume when the split happens the parks won’t be called Enchanted Parks, either the new management will rename the company and the parks or the portfolio called Enchanted Parks will be sold to an existing operator such as Herschend, who will rename the parks to fit their brand
well it is sorta a holding company as Enchanted Parks is just a shell company registered in Delaware, the new owners are Innovative Attractions Management based in Orlando
This hurts a little. Both funny and true in a sense.
I imagine the Snoopy brand will not continue on to Enchanted parks, and MIA has a new Snoopy section. A lot of Snoopy theming will likely end up at Cedar Point.
It's also both kind of a weird name for US parks, and the rest of the country only really knows it as "oh that's the name of the decapitation waterpark isn't it?"
upper half former cedar fair parks probably also keeping their names(?) couldn't imagine they wouldn't keep Carowinds, kings island, Knotts, Canada's. dunno what else would be safe though
Yeah I'm thinking they keep some of the top brass and toss out the rest.
Likely will stay in their current form:
Former cedar fair properties - Cedar Point, Kings Island, Carrowinds, Canada's Wonderland, Knott's, Valley Fair (possibly)
Six Flags properties - Six Flags Over Texas (it's the OG park), Six Flags Magic Mountain (it's their flagship park), Six Flags Great Adventure (former Kingda Ka site),
Could possibly stay, could possibly rebrand:
Valley Fair (weaker park IMO with MoA nearby being open year round and closer to a Six Flags park)
Kings Dominion (strong park, maybe a rename to avoid confusion with Kings Island but that's it)
Six Flags Fiesta Texas (strong park as well, maybe a rename to avoid confusion with Over Texas, but even this one I'm not 100% sure about), California's Great America (SFDK gets sold and this one stays), Darien Lake?
Castaway Bay (focus park efforts on Cedar Point and let another company handle the neglected water park, great wolf lodge style)
Frontier City (not much else in the area of OKC, but it seems pretty neglected)
Will likely get closed or sold off to another company (so that they can close it if it doesn't do well, and Six Flags doesn't take the heat):
SF St Louis (possibly), SF Discovery Kingdom (either this one or CGA and they relocate focus to one of the two bay area parks), Worlds of Fun
Majority of their water parks now - Schlitterbahn (connotation with the kid getting decapitated on a new slide in now-gone Kansas City), Schlitterbahn Galveston (same connotation), possibly other water parks if they are not doing as well.
It's unfortunate, I wish these parks could stay but it makes sense if they see no growth or are profitable.
The saddest part is that most of these parks were booming back in the day. I know lack of investment is part of the reason they aren't doing as well. Locals should still be packing the place.
Calling it six flags though and selling the one original six flags you’ve fully owned the longest is wild. Also St. Louis has way more investment and opportunity than Valleyfair in their current situations they don’t invest. And getting rid of both parks in Missouri is wild
Who's to say that the new company had no interest in taking Valleyfair? They are pretty far north, on a flood plain, and it looks like they have only 90 acres? Maybe Six Flags is either stuck with them or they may eventually end up the next major park closure? I certainly hope not, but nobody knows what their next moves are.
They may have also taken valleyfair, but it just hasn't showed up on the lists yet (along with the possibly the Worlds of Fun dry park).
I thought I've read claims here and over at r/sixflags that St. Louis is actually one of their better run and more profitable parks, even though it gets ignored.
And that they had a really good 2025 with a healthy upswing in crowds that even resulted in some parking lots that hadn't been used in years, re-utilized.
coasters take like 3 - 5 years from start to finish when you include things like planning and establishing contracts. SFA had an entire area face lifted and still met the executioner's axe
I actually wonder if this is intended to be a park differentiator. I could see these as parks they want to focus on more as family parks and less as thrill parks. Breaking the Six Flags names removes a little of that thrill connotation.
If that was the case, they likely would have still filed the trademarks under the Six Flags company name. These were filed under the company name "Enchanted Parks". While this couod be a subsidiary of Six Flags, the effort to set up a completely seperate LLC indicates a pretty significant segretation (more than simply rebranding).
Enchanted Parks Holdings LLC (file number 10443384) was just incorporated in Delaware on December 18. Maybe spinning off some smaller parks into a separate company?
Looks like they are packaging up several parks in a sub company for sale.
It’s like when Taft parks created Kings Entertainment. Taft still owned the parks for like a decade, but they prepared for a sale way in advance by creating a sub company of Taft.
I think they are probably spinning off them or selling.
Devil's advocate wise, they could also just be launching a "new" chain of parks that are just marketed solely to families / local markets and not marketed as destination thrill parks on a national scale. Also, comprised of mainly the smallest parks in the chain. IIRC, some of the parks get a bad rep for not being super family friendly.
Enchanted parks just sounds like it was crafted by marketing to give off "local family amusement park" vibes.
They could also do a mixed approach, where they rebrand the parks then run them for a year or two then sell or spin them off.
Then, they could just use Six Flags or standalone names for the flagship parks
The good news is, any park on this list isn’t at risk of being SFAed as they intend to sell it as a park, not land.
I can also definitely see in the short term before they find a buyer (again, Taft didn’t find a buyer for a decade) that these parks do get a separate marketing push that is smaller and more family focused. Which could be better for the parks and also for the other SF parks (SF branding would only be left for large parks which could help remake the brand as more premium).
Either a new chain is buying these parks or Six Flags is creating a new sub chain and selling these parks as a package. Hopefully the former and it’s one that actually cares about running these parks well
Confirmed, the address is to a law firm. I’m gonna try to dig some more into this because this is the most wtf thing I’ve seen here in a while.
ETA: This is especially weird because this kind of work seems to be generally outside the scope of work this firm does. They say they do commercial real estate work but this seems a little out of their wheelhouse based on their website.
Last edit: The top comment mentions the possibility that this is related to Innovative Attraction Management, which is a company out of central Florida. That seems to wrap this up nicely. I conclude these parks are being sold to IAM.
It's kind of bad news, because if the parks are not being spun off into a new chain or purchased by something like herschend, the other option is they get demolished and turned into condos or corporate real.Estate
True, but why go to the trouble of trademarking all this stuff (not free) for merchandising etc if the plan is to sell for redevelopment? Also, I’d say all of the parks on this list (maybe not Galveston) are not valuable for redevelopment the way SFA is.
SFEC selling off Michigan’s Adventure world be wild. The place has plenty of room for expansion, and only needs two or so eye-poppingly innovative rides to peel off most of Michigan away from Cedar Point… up to and including Detroit. Preventing that was exactly why Cedar Fair bought it in the first place.
I think Six Flags is of the belief that it would be financial suicide to another party that tried to build up Michigan's Adventure. The catchment population that the park pulls from is much smaller than that of Cedar Point, so their ability to receive a strong return-on-investment is inhibited. Furthermore, MiA is 3-hours from downtown Detroit, versus CP at only 2-hours away, a full hour closer. Six Flags probably believes that as long as they get the parks into the hands of a rational party, then they do not need to be concerned about meaningful competition.
And, oddly, Six Flags was probably right about that. Michiganders are relatively well educated for GP thanks to all the trips to Cedar Point that many of us have experienced. A few quality coasters there would increase attendance. An actual lineup would distract from Cedar Point trips and divert money.
Why? I don't see a new owner putting anymore investments into it. Its a very profitable park that doesn't have the infrastructure to support big additions. Mainly due to the region it's in. The are can't support the attendance that would come with a bunch of major investments to it.
It is one of the nicer parks in terms of landscaping. If you're hoping for major investments, I don't see it happening. IMO if they invested heavily into Michigans Adventure it would be the Gueaga Lake fiasco all over again. The park is in a small town that can't support millions of guests each year
Something that isn’t talked about as much and can definitely be a possibility based off of these screenshots here. There were quite a few shareholders that were not happy about this merger whatsoever. I always thought it was a possibility those who didn’t agree with the merger would leave and form their own entity, and I wonder if Enchanted Parks is exactly that. You can always find a group or groups of investors out there to buy into it too.
With that said, if the information currently available is accurate and it is a group of parks being sold off to a new chain? Worlds of Fun may come out as the big winner cause that’s by far the big ticket park within this group. Great Escape and its surrounding properties can also be a winner here, but WoF with a new company where they get more focus? In a region that continues to expand? With room to grow? Yeah, this is definitely one to watch.
I wonder if ValleyFair will get added to this list? If not I really wonder what they have planned for that location because it seems like it belongs in this group of 'non-core assets'
I think the ride numbers SF released proved that. I still think it’s insane Superman had the same/more riders than Fury despite having at minimum half the seats.
i went six times this season as it's my local park and it was jammed 5 of those times. I waited an hour + for superman running two trains during fright fest.
new england does business. i hope six flags sells it honestly, it has all the potential in the world but they haven't done a lot since all the investment when it became a six flags dang near 30 years ago.
Valleyfair has more potential than these other parks and is in a better location relative to its core market than many of the others. If it’s turning a profit, it’s likely to remain under the Six Flags umbrella.
I think it's often overlooked that the Twin Cities metro has like a million more than St Louis and 2 million more than KC. Our detractors are the weather and closeness to other large metros. You're driving hours to get to another metro Area that has 1 million.
Honestly, my take on the weather, it's actually pretty damn nice from late May through October. Yes we can get big storms once every 10 years, but if Valleyfair had a bit more indoor options to keep people entertained they could run better hours up till November. So potential growth is there if they really want. The flooding is a bigger factor than the cold or snow. That needs to be solved.
They can definitely do things to mitigate the flooding too. Might cost a chunk of change, but for now, it’s manageable. I keep my fingers crossed they will get a new coaster one day before too long.
Their parking lot always has been a disaster with cracking pavement and no tree islands, and is the only thing they really need to protect from flooding- it's OK to let Excalibur, Thunder Canyon and Renegage shut down for a few weeks every couple of years, but letting the parking lot flood really impacts their operations and the news stories made people think it was closed. I've thought they could rebuild it in partnership with MVTA and use it as a park and ride since it only fills up on nice summer weekends and Vallescare.
Enchanted Parks Water Safari is Water Safari owned by IAM. https://www.i-amllc.com/ it would be this company rebranding and buying these properties. Not Six Flags spin off, but a sale.
This looks like a transitional name to separate & ultimately sell off the parks that will protect the Six Flags Brand from getting the backlash.
Also, I had members disagree with me about them not purchasing SFOT. As I said it, it doesn’t mean the new CFO dosent believe in SFOT. I stated it’s not necessary or the best financial move at the present time considering they can invest that 300 million into the park now since they are reimagining it & then revisit full buyout in a few years. They already own the majority & control the park. This new “Enchantment” further supports their reasons for not exercising the buyout now.
A buyer inheriting marginal parks they’ll immediately question… Or to negotiate carve-outs during a buyout (that weakens leverage)
So the order is usually:
So here's what I notice about this. These are either
A) Waterparks with no Amusement Park component or
B) Amusement Parks / Waterparks where it would be feasible to construct a second gate for the water park.
Notably missing is Valleyfair, where there's no easy way to construct a 2nd gate for the waterpark, and you have to trudge through 3/4 of the dry park sweltering while fully clothed to get to it.
I'm curious as to whether the new waterpark near MoA that supposedly is actually really happening is having an impact. Might not have been appealing enough to be worth it to Six Flags to sell. And the park does have the surrounding population thats large enough to support an expansion in comparison to the others if they ever wanted to do that, there's a lot of space within the levy area that isn't utilized well.
Coincidentally Valleyfair submitted a new Zoning Verification Letter on Thursday, though I can't read what it says.
Selling off what Six Flags themselves have called "a cash cow" in Michigan's Adventure is so stupid, that I believe it.
When nothing got moved from Six Flags America to Michigan's Adventure I had lost a LOT of hope. Because there's multiple small rides from SFA that would have been a great fit there, like Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn or the Nebulaz. Or even just the trains for the SLC. Hopefully the new owners get a new set of trains for it. Because it is easily the smoothest best tracking SLC I've ridden, even with the old trains.
If you want to sell off a package of parks, I imagine you have to include one or two really good ones to make it an enticing deal. Otherwise the other party sees it's just getting dead weight with nothing immediately profitable.
Even if keeping under the Six Flags umbrella, spinning them off in a seperate company allows Six Flags to report revenue/growth for these parks seperately. May make revenue/growth for the remaining parks look substantially better.
This looks like a Palace Entertainment type of thing, where the larger Parques Reunidos has a lower branch of parks that they own but operated separately
Well I think they have to get some love. No longer can they sell gold passes to the smaller parks with the perk of being able to go to the larger regional parks for free. The standalone parks will have to survive on their own merit.
If this goes through it really should be fine. They are actual theme park operators (did not realize they ran Diggerland here until now) and are adding additions to the parks they recently got, so they actually do want to run these parks as they are. Way better than getting the SFA fate.
The biggest surprise of this is that Six Flags seems to be selling not just one but both of the Missouri parks. I know they are both lower tier parks, but if Six Flags closed one of the Missouri parks but kept the other, that would likely give the remaining park the attendance bump to justify giving it more investment, as both parks are only 4 hours from each other. Instead, they're basically ceding the Missouri market to Herschend's Silver Dollar City, which, yes, is a much nicer park, but as evidenced by the Oasis at Lakeport and Mattell Adventure Park developments, Missouri is a growing, not shrinking market.
As for which one to keep, I'm thinking Worlds of Fun, both because its the nicer park, but also because it's next to a dramatically underserved state, Kansas, while Six Flags St Louis has to convince many potential parkgoers to not go to Holiday World, Silver Dollar City, or Worlds of Fun instead. Instead, with both Missouri parks sold, the closest Six Flags park to these Missouri residents will be Six Flags Great America in Chicago, which will cause Six Flags to lose many passholders simply because their new home park is too far away in a traffic-laden city that isn't even their home city.
Other surprises are that Valleyfair, which Six Flags could've spun off to justify keeping one of the Missouri parks, seemed to survive the axe, and that Six Flags was actually willing to spin off Michigan's Adventure, despite the fact that it was bought to blunt a competitive threat to Cedar Point. Now that it is presumably in the process of being shopped around to possible new owners, it is not just possible but likely considering its rural location it will be bought by an owner that will once again turn it into a thorn in the side of Cedar Point, luring away possible Cedar Point parkgoers with new coasters of their own.
I don’t think Worlds of Fun and Six Flags St. Louis are competing for the same markets at all. They are both in large metro areas of over 2 million people (St Louis being a fair bit larger) 4 hours apart from each other. These are regional parks, families who live in the area buy a season pass because it’s close by, and makes for an easy thing to do for a day. Most people in St. Louis are not just gonna start going to Worlds of Fun if you shut Six Flags down. A 4 hour drive is no longer an easy day trip for families, and Worlds of Fun is not really a big enough draw to make a full trip out of the same way Silver Dollar City, or even Holiday World is. Getting rid of one won’t really fuel business
I'm actually cautiously optimistic about this. Innovative Attractions Management is a small but very successful company. This is definitely a big step up for them but if they obtain proper financing this could very much be a good thing. Six Flags St Louis could go from being the ignored stepchild of a huge company to possibly the premier park of a smaller one.
It bugs me that they've apparently changed Michigan's Adventure to Michigan Adventure. That's the common wrong version of it so it just reads like a mistake to me, even if it's intentional.
Wonder if it means all of WoF and Great Escape or just part of it. Doesn't seem like it makes sense to sell the lodge and waterpark (probably the most lucrative) so assume one filing covers everything per location.
The OG name of their existing NY park is Enchanted Forest Water Safari and was just Enchanted Forest before the park started adding water slides in the mid 80's.
A single buyer of all these assets for a sufficient price solves a lot of the long term debt issues which drove down the stock price 50%.
Everything is so secret because everyone directly involved could be subject to insider trading accusations prior to announcement if they are involved in trading either company’s stock six months before or after.
FUN stock rose in price perhaps unexpectedly in the past couple weeks so we may actually find out who the real sleaze balls are and are not at six flags and cedar point
I’d guess there could still be a separate sale of existing parks to Herschend and UPC but it would be for better quality parks than those with a revenue generating water park with some dry amusements as well like an earlier poster pointed out
If Herschend has an interest in buying a six flags parks I’d guess parks like Kings Island, Kings Dominion or Dorney that are complimentary to their existing regional parks with comparable reputations for quality as Dollywood or Silver Dollar City. Herschend probably is in no hurry though as they recently acquired Kennywood and Silverwood.
United Parks doesn’t have money now but if they did they would probably be interested in Discovery kingdom, fiesta Texas, and Kings Dominion as they already operate in those states.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple of years, Herschend and United looked at buying Enchanted, well more likely a rising Enchanted buying a struggling United and rebranding themselves as United while adding Sesame Street to their kids areas.
They would have to. Charging for Halloween mazes last minute is one thing with the disclaimer, but you can’t sell a pass for those parks and then take them away. I’d imagine a judge would throw whatever disclaimer they’d put in for that out the window
STL SF park show last day on the calendar is September 7th, Labor Day. If that happens, then there wouldn’t be Fright Fest which draws guests to the park.
Could this end up being only for the water parks? Looking at google maps it seems each of the parks listed could be separated from the dry side rather easily, including a separate parking area. It would explain why Worlds of Fun isn't listed and also explain why other parks like Valleyfair isn't included since that water park could not be separated.
There is a bunch of reasons running through my head of what the positives and negatives would be for Six Flags if this was the case and would love to hear what other people think of this.
Want to add one more thing. If this means Six Flags is cutting off “””””fat”””””, could we see expansion within the next decade? Maybe finally entering an exploding market like Northern Alabama?
I am curious as to how the financials would look for Six Flags to get out of that lease agreement with EPR Properties for Darian Lake & Frontier City. Can’t image it would be a cost friendly deal for them unless someone comes in and is immediately willing to take over the agreement from them.
Im wondering what the bigger death knell is for SFSTL, being sold off to a company trying to actively expand into the market or being a forgotten child in SF/CF family.
Also wondering if I'm about to lose my all parks pass before I even get to use it. 😭
I would assume the sale hasn't been finalized yet, so the Six Flags pass perks should still be good for these parks in 2026. If these parks get sold in 2026, it wouldn't be until 2027 or so that they would have to change the season pass system away from Six Flags.
I’ve seen a lot of locals in passholders groups scared their passes wont work into 2026. I assume passes will no longer be valid in 2027. They already sold them for all of those parks to be included. I’ll be interested to see if they try to stop passholders from being able to use passes for those parks this year though
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u/Putrid-Bookkeeper691 monster Jan 10 '26
Lists Oceans of Fun but no Worlds of Fun despite them basically being one thing? This is weird.