Great Escape Reduces Hours, Cuts Back

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Great Escape reduces hours
Action follows Six Flags' slump in earnings

 By ERIN DEMUTH, edemuth@poststar.com

Wednesday, August 9, 2006 6:28 AM EDT

QUEENSBURY -- Following a lackluster second-quarter earnings report, Six Flags has reduced hours of operation at its Great Escape amusement park for the remainder of the season.

Great Escape is trimming seven hours from its weekly operations schedule as its parent company, Six Flags Inc., tries to recover from declining attendance and revenue.

"We are closing one hour earlier five nights during the week, Monday through Friday, and two hours early on Sunday," park Public Relations Manager Diane O'Connor said in an e-mail Tuesday.

There have also been changes to the schedule for appearances by Justice League superheros within the park, though Six Flags spokeswoman Debbie Evans said Tuesday that she did not know how those schedules had changed specifically, as appearance times were not published.

She said there have been no layoffs at the park.

The Justice League characters were added this year as part of the new, family-oriented management effort instituted when Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder took over Six Flags last year, using the firm's poor financial performance as leverage for a hostile takeover of the company. "Like any business, we regularly evaluate all our operations, including staffing," O'Connor said Tuesday in a prepared statement. "In regard to the Justice League characters, as we get to the end of our summer season, we adjust our entertainment and offerings. The Justice League were very well received in 2006, and we look forward to bringing them both back in 2007."

In announcing the addition of the characters in mid-February, Six Flags officials said Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern would be appearing at the park.

The changes have not gone unnoticed.

Scott Simmons, of Lake George, said he's been a season pass holder at the park for the last six years. He and his 5-year-old son, Phillip, go to the park together at least once a week, sometimes twice, he said.

"They have meet-and-greet areas where they have a superhero go to a particular site, and there's a schedule at the site telling you that if you go there at a particular time, you can see them," Simmons said Tuesday. "They've completely taken all the signs out." Simmons said he was not as concerned about the cutback in hours of operation at the park as he was the apparent reduction in superhero appearances. On his last visit to the park Friday, he did not see any Justice League characters, he said.

"One of the cornerstones (Six Flags President and CEO) Mark Shapiro offered was we want to have more kids, more families," Simmons said. "And in order to get them, they were going to have more superheros. That was the whole premise on which they implemented a parking fee and hiking gate prices."

The Great Escape is not the only Six Flags amusement park going through changes in the wake of last week's second-quarter report. The company announced Tuesday it is closing Darien Lake, the largest theme park in New York state, four weeks early this year. That park is one of six theme parks the company has announced plans to sell. The Great Escape was not on that list.

The Denver Post published a story on Friday quoting employees from the Six Flags-owned Elitch Gardens who had worked as costumed characters there. The park had employed as many as 45 such employees, but had cut that number to just a handful.

Kellen Owens, who had worked at Elitch Gardens portraying Scooby-Doo, told the Denver Post that the company cited budget cuts when announcing the job cuts there. Six Flags spokeswoman Brooke Brasher told the Denver Post the job cuts were not unusual for this time of year, adding that the park is "regularly evaluating all of our operations, including staffing."

Six Flags posted a $39.6 million net loss for the second quarter. That loss, which breaks down to 48 cents per share, follows a profit of $11.1 million, or 6 cents per share, for the same period of 2005.

In the quarterly report, Six Flags reported a 14 percent decline in attendance at the company's 30 parks -- from 11.2 million visitors in the second quarter of 2005 to 9.6 million over the most recent quarter.

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NEW HOURS
Great Escape on Route 9 in Queensbury is now open:

Sunday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. (formerly closed at 10 p.m.)

Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-7 p.m. (formerly closed at 8 p.m.)

Saturday 10 a.m.-10 p.m. (no change in closing time)

The Great Escape Lodge & Indoor Waterpark hours remain unchanged

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2006/08/09/news/doc44d95c8a701d1283231281.txt