Six Flags Evokes Disney

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Six Flags Evokes Disney

Parades, Characters Figure In New CEO's Strategy To Return Theme Park Company To Profitability

By PAUL MARKS
Courant Staff Writer

April 14 2006

AGAWAM, Mass. -- Should you meet Mark Shapiro, the new CEO of Six Flags Inc., amid fireworks, shooting streamers and dancing Looney Tunes characters at one of his theme parks, you might be reminded of the Tom Hanks character in the movie "Big."

Here is a real-life guy who has rapidly climbed the corporate ladder while remembering how to think like a kid.

Visiting Six Flags New England Thursday just before Saturday's season opening, Shapiro, 36, led a presentation that began by urging those present to raise one hand and renounce their adulthood. He promised a new approach at Six Flags, one focused less on ever larger and faster roller coasters and more on a formula cribbed from the Disney playbook.

This year, Shapiro said, the 30 amusement parks owned by Six Flags will feature daily parades, lush landscaping and wandering costumed characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Batman and Wonder Woman. Smoking will be banned as part of the emphasis on a "family-friendly" atmosphere.

The aim, he said, is to deliver "the Disney experience" without requiring families to pay for a plane trip to Florida or use a week's vacation.

"You want to have a sense of the surreal, a sense of awe," said Shapiro, who grew up buying season passes to Six Flags Great America near Chicago. "They take you away from the everyday, and they recreate a sense of wonder that you had in childhood. You're not checking your PDA - you're walking around, and you're escaping."

Six Flags New England - the former Riverside Park that Six Flags acquired in 1998 - plans to improve customer service by adding about 570 employees this summer, bringing its peak-season workforce to about 2,000, General Manager Mark Kane said. All but about 100 of those workers are part time.

The park also has two new rides ready to go, and invited guests tried them out on Thursday. Splash Water Falls sends spinning rafts carrying six people down a water chute from a 60-foot tower. The Catapult turns riders through forward and backward somersaults as they roll at 30 mph down a steep, 105-foot track.

The Superman Ride of Steel, with its 221-foot drop and sky-high rating among coaster fans, will remain a major draw at Six Flags New England, Shapiro said. But he said the company's previous management erred by investing too much in that and other "hardware" while skimping on ambience and customer service. In recent years, installing ever larger roller coasters had become "almost an addiction," he said.

"I don't believe a $20 million roller coaster, which is how this company got into trouble, ever pays for itself," he said. "Don't get me wrong: I love roller coasters. But they target such a niche. Only 1,000 people an hour can ride Superman. Diversified entertainment is what we're aiming for."

Shapiro, a former executive of Bristol-based ESPN, was installed as Six Flags' CEO last December after his friend, Washington Redskins owner and major Six Flags shareholder Daniel Snyder, won a bitter proxy battle against then-CEO Kiernan Burke for control of the board of directors. Snyder was elected chairman.

The company has not been profitable since 1998. Last year, Six Flags lost $111 million on revenue of $1.1 billion.

Returning the company to profitability will require "building trust" with patrons in much the way ESPN has captured the confidence of sports fans, he said. He noted similarities between television programming and his new business.

"My programming is rides, my programming is shows, so it's very parallel," Shapiro said. "We're going to invest in the concerts and the shows - the DNA of the park, if you will."

Shapiro said he is banking on photo ops with roving Looney Tunes figures and superheroes, as well as character lunches, to lure more young children to the park in the same way the loop-the-looping Mind Eraser coaster draws thrill-seeking teens.

In an effort to make the park in Agawam easier to find, Shapiro said he is pressing state officials in Connecticut and Massachusetts to erect more highway signs along I-91.

He said that as he tours the Six Flags properties this spring, he finds employee morale strong. "We've been through seven years of decline, with a management that didn't reach out to them," he said.

Nationwide, he said, Six Flags is investing more than $200 million in park improvements. "It needs to be about more than just rides," he said.

Adult admission of $49.99, plus $15 for parking, is not cheap, Shapiro conceded, but he said admission to daylong entertainment compares favorably with $10 movie tickets or a $3 latte at Starbucks. And discounts are available through Big Y supermarkets and Coca-Cola, as well as corporate programs.

"If you're paying $49.99, you're not doing your homework," he said. He added that season passes sell for $64.99 when at least four passes are bought.