Green Tagged: Theme Park in 30
by Philip Hernandez
An insider’s take on the theme park and themed entertainment industry trends, Green Tagged Covers the Top Theme Park News from each week. From theme parks to zoos and aquariums to haunted houses, we scour the world for what you need to know. We may not have all the answers, but we ask the right questions. Subscribe to PRO content on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GreenTagged
Episodes
-
Comcast Q3: Universal Parks Down 4.4%, Soft Until Mid-2027
Comcast reported Q3 earnings on October 22, and the parks had little good news. Universal parks revenue fell 4.4%, and adjusted EBITDA fell 17%. CEO Mike Cavanagh said, “Competitors were quicker to anticipate and recognize softness in demand and adapt their marketing strategies.” Japan is still...
-
A Death on Goliath Closed 12 Coasters at Nine Parks
A 42-year-old man died on October 12 after he was ejected from Goliath, the B&M hyper coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia, striking four children on his way down. Six Flags closed Goliath that afternoon and, by the next morning, nine coasters it calls similar at six other parks, and SeaWorld…
more -
Six Flags Retires X2, Cedar Point May Get a New Name
Six Flags Magic Mountain has permanently retired X2. The announcement follows two hospitalizations in July, three brain-injury lawsuits filed in September, and a law firm that says hundreds more riders have contacted it. Park president Brian Oerding says the ride consistently passed safety tests...
-
Netflix House Adds KPop Demon Hunters, Chimelong Hires 300 Robots
Netflix House is adding a K-pop Demon Hunters experience, opening November 12 in Dallas and November 20 in Philadelphia. It's a linear, play-based experience where guests start backstage with HUNTR/X, help restore the Honmoon after a demon crashes the show, and meet Derpy Tiger as a giant puppet...
-
Six Flags Faces Another Sale Push, More X2 Lawsuits
JANA Partners is pushing Six Flags to explore a sale again, according to The Wall Street Journal. It's JANA's second push this year, but this time there's no public letter and no statement from Six Flags. JANA pointed to disappointing second-quarter results, and Philip thinks interest rates…
more -
Scott's UAE Rebuttal, Then Winged Monkeys and Zombies
We kick off the show by apologizing for mispronouncing ArieForce One last week and addressing some of the comments about the UAE. On the UAE, listeners raised labor conditions, LGBTQ safety, and J.K. Rowling, and we address each one based on firsthand experience living and working in the region....
-
Six Flags Buys ArieForce One & Offers Loans To guests
Six Flags now lets guests finance a season pass, or any online order of $49 or more, through Flex Pay by Upgrade. It is presented as a way to spread a pass into monthly payments, and it is a loan from an outside lender, with a credit check, an 18-and-over requirement, a possible down payment, and...
-
Six Flags Settles the X2 Lawsuit, Knott's Pulls a Shirt
Six Flags settled the wrongful death lawsuit over X2 at Magic Mountain on August 27, two weeks before trial. Christopher Hawley, 22, rode the coaster in 2022, lost consciousness after exiting, and died the next day of a subdural hematoma. The settlement is not an admission of liability, and Six...
-
Six Flags Moves HQ, Disney Patents Ride Aversions
Six Flags is moving its corporate headquarters from Charlotte to Arlington, Texas, with the transition complete by March 2027. CEO John Reilly framed the move as "concentrating our personnel, processes, and decision-making" in one office to improve coordination among the new executive team. This…
more -
Six Flags Bets the Fall on 448 Halloween Experiences
Six Flags announced its largest Halloween lineup ever: 448 experiences across the chain, including 11 new haunted mazes, 196 scare zones, and live entertainment offerings. Four new licensed franchises headline the year, with Jason: Blood Reign, Final Destination: Death's Playground, Blair Witch…
more -
Art the Clown Takes Over HHN, Six Flags Opens 2027 Passes
Universal detailed its Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood plans at Midsummer Scream, and the throughline is small IPs moving fast. Art the Clown returns in three controlled deployments: a Terror Tram takeover built around an original storybook and metal Christmas covers from Ice Nine Kills, a...
-
Six Flags Q2: Parks Made Money, the Reported Loss Doubled
Six Flags’ new leadership is successfully reorienting the company toward repeat visitation, yet this quarter its debt cost more than its parks earned. The strategy of getting more passholders to attend more often and spend more, thereby increasing lifetime spend, is working. Revenue and…
more -
Can IP Save Howl-O-Scream?
United Parks is bringing licensed IP to Howl-O-Scream for the first time, licensing two Sony films across all five of its events. Busch Gardens Tampa and Williamsburg each open an Anaconda house on September 11 with different storylines, Fear Has No Escape in Tampa and Dead on Arrival in...
-
Fortnite Comes to Halloween Horror Nights, Orlando Market Slows
Halloween Horror Nights is bringing Fortnitemares to both its US events this fall, a scare zone modeled on the game's annual in-game Halloween event, complete with the Battle Bus and a few HHN-exclusive additions. Fortnite is the most-played console game in the United States, with more than 650...
-
Legoland Shanghai Hits 2 Million: What China's Fastest Park Launch Means
Legoland Shanghai passed 2 million guests in its first year, the fastest any LEGOLAND resort has reached that mark. We break down the numbers behind the milestone: an 80% family guest base, 230,000 minifigures sold, and a guest pool expanding well beyond the Yangtze River Delta. Then we turn to...
-
Six Flags Hires a New COO, Meow Wolf Flips the Disney Model
Six Flags has appointed Mark Pauls as Chief Operating Officer, an operator who worked alongside CEO John Reilly at both Palace Entertainment and SeaWorld. At Kennywood, Pauls converted Phantom Fright Nights into the hybrid Phantom Fall Fest and expanded Holiday Lights to 24 nights, adding the...
-
What Comcast’s Split Means for Theme Parks
Comcast confirmed it will separate into two independent publicly traded companies, one focused on entertainment and one focused on connectivity, through a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal, expected to be completed within roughly 12 months. The new NBCUniversal, with Mike Cavanagh as CEO, will be…
more -
When to Change a Theme Park, and When Not To
Three news items this week, all of them about change: when to make it, when to skip it, and how to communicate it. Disneyland is facing backlash after replacing one of the old skeletons in the Pirates of the Caribbean with a new projection-mapped animatronic. Screens and AI are deeply unpopular...
-
Universal Kids Resort: What Is Universal Thinking?
Universal has priced its new Universal Kids Resort 50% above local family-market alternatives, but does it justify the markup? The 20-acre Frisco park opened for press previews this week ahead of its July 1 launch, priced from $54.99 on weekdays to $79.99 over Labor Day weekend, and aimed at...
-
QUICK HITS: Oogie Boogie, Universal Kids, Carousel of Progress, & More
This week is a catch-up: seven news items we hadn't gotten to yet, with a quick read on each.-Oogie Boogie Bash. Disneyland is replacing the Frightfully Fun parade with a Madame Leota's Swinging Wake cavalcade for 2026. For a limited-ticket event, swapping wait-and-watch for come-and-go gives...
-
Disney Details Monstropolis, Six Flags Reveals Werewolf Gorge
Disney and Six Flags both shared details about new projects, and this week, we’ll compare them. Disney announced the story behind Monstropolis, the new Monsters, Inc. land coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios. The experience is built around H.U.M.A.N. Day, short for “Humans Understand Monsters…
more -
Six Flags: Nugget Gate & More Leadership Changes
Six Flags found itself at the center of a chicken nugget fiasco this week, amidst a power struggle on its board. Six Flags banned content creator Alan Farrell for life from all its parks after he posted an Instagram video of himself eating a 10-piece box of chicken nuggets atop Millennium Force…
more -
Epic Universe Turns One & Disney Sued Over Facial Recognition
Epic Universe Vice President Jeff Polk sat down with a small group of reporters to mark the park's first year, discuss its unique design elements, and push back on expansion timelines. The design choices, the new Captain Cacao meet-and-greet, and Universal's beta tests of an open Celestial Park…
more -
United Parks' Q1 Misses & Sphere Lands at Yas Island
United Parks Q1 was rough across the board: attendance & revenue were down, and the net loss widened to $34.1 million. CEO Marc Swanson blamed unfavorable weather (again) and a decline in international visitation. Despite the misses, United Parks repurchased approximately 2.6 million shares for...
-
Six Flags' Regional Pass Moat & D'Amaro's Disney+ Pivot
Six Flags posted a strong Q1: 2.9 million guests (+4%), net revenues up 12% to $225.6 million, and per-cap spending up 6% to $69.26. More interesting, though, is that the new regional pass is driving cross-park visitation, and CEO John Reilly named SoCal and Texas as the markets where the pass is...
-
Six Flags' Strictest Rule Ever | Disney's Earliest Halloween Yet
Six Flags St. Louis updated and reinstated its chaperone policy following fights in the parking lot on opening day. The planned teen takeover brought roughly 100 juveniles to opening day, prompting fights around the park's 8 PM closing time. Guests 16 and under must now be accompanied by a…
more -
Comcast Q1: Universal Parks Up 24%, Asia Slowing
Comcast's Q1 earnings call delivered good news almost across the board, and Philip and Scott break down what it means for the theme parks division. Universal's theme park revenue was up 24%, driven mostly by Epic Universe doing exactly what it was supposed to do: increasing per-cap spending and...
-
Six Flags Brings Back Park Presidents at 10 Parks
Six Flags is reinstating park president positions at 10 of its parks, less than a year after eliminating the role. This is the first major structural change under new CEO John Reilly, who, after his listening tour, described a chain that suffered from inconsistent standards and a lack of...
-
Disney Cut 1,000 Jobs — But Not in Theme Parks
Disney is laying off 1,000 employees across film, streaming, and marketing as it continues to shed costs and reorient itself. This comes against the backdrop of two major digital plays failing: OpenAI killed the Disney/Sora partnership and Epic Games (which Disney invested $1.5B into) laid off…
more -
Six Flags' New Chairman, Merlin's Attendance Drops & Maya Culture as IP
Six Flags appointed Richard Haddrill as executive chairman of the board, replacing Marilyn Spiegel (who stays on as lead independent director). Haddrill comes from the gaming industry — he was CEO of Bally Technologies and executive vice chairman at Scientific Games. The move continues the board...
-
TransWorld 2026 Recap: Robot Pigs, Chocolate Arms & Rising Insurance Costs
We just got back from TransWorld's Halloween & Attractions Show in St. Louis, a show any attraction with a Halloween or Christmas event should attend. This week, we discuss the growing trend of immersive booth experiences, the robotic pig that won Best New Product, rising insurance costs hitting...
-
Six Flags Pushed to Sell | Sesame Sues SeaWorld
Jana Partners sent a letter to the Six Flags board pushing the company to explore a sale and replace board chair Marilyn Spiegel — just one week after the Travis Kelce brand ambassador announcement. We break down what Jana actually wants, why the timeline doesn't add up, and what this means for…
more -
Middle East Tourism: The Elephant in the Room
Six Flags has officially named Travis Kelce as a brand ambassador. Kelce, who joined investor group Jana Partners when they acquired a 9% stake in the company last October, will provide marketing support across Six Flags' portfolio of parks — including digital content on his own social media...
-
Six Flags just sold 7 parks for $331M - here's what happens next
Six Flags is selling seven of its parks to EPR Properties for $331 million in cash. Back in January, we flagged a series of trademark applications from an Orlando-based LLC called Enchanted Parks Holdings and connected those filings to the parks now being sold. This week, it became official. EPR…
more -
United Parks: Buybacks, Assets, and a Missing Plan
United Parks & Resorts reported fiscal 2025 results this week; Revenue, attendance, net income, EBITDA were all down. "Our fiscal 2025 results did not meet our expectations. While the consumer environment was uneven and our results were impacted by negative international tourism trends and…
more -
Six Flags Q4 Earnings: A New CEO, a 27% Margin, $5.1B in Debt, and a Lot of Obvious Ideas
Six Flags posted Q4 2025 results this week. Modified EBITDA margin fell from 33.2% to 27.1%. Attendance dropped 13%, with roughly 425,000 of those lost visits tied directly to cutting winter holiday events at four parks — a decision the company now calls a self-inflicted headwind. New CEO John...
-
Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park Files for Bankruptcy: What It Means for the Industry
Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on February 9 after a $116 million wrongful death judgment. The park generates up to $16 million a year and is operationally healthy, but a judge's "felonious killing" ruling removed Colorado's damages cap, turning what would have…
more -
Six Flags' Regional Passes & Disney's New CEO
Six Flags is rolling out a simplified season pass structure. Silver passes grant access to a single park. Gold passes now cover all parks within a regional tier: East, Midwest, Texas, or West. Prestige passes unlock the entire North American chain. Existing gold passholders who added the All Park...
-
Universal’s Flywheel Is Working
Comcast’s Parks division crossed $1 billion in quarterly EBITDA for the first time in Q4 2025, driven by a 22 percent increase in parks revenue and a 24 percent increase in EBITDA. Much of the attention went to Epic Universe, but the most striking numbers came from hotels. Universal added 2,000…
more -
Doubling Down: Six Flags Expands Grad Nights & Disney Pivots Galaxy’s Edge
Six Flags is expanding Grad Nite in 2026, adding Knott’s Berry Farm and Carowinds to a program the company has relied on for years. These closed-park events are built around a highly invested audience—graduating students—offering predictable attendance, controlled environments, and a clear value...
-
Is Six Flags Preparing to Sell More Parks? What the Filings Suggest
A new set of trademark filings has raised fresh questions about Six Flags’ long-term portfolio strategy. An entity called Enchanted Parks Holdings, LLC—linked to Orlando-based Innovative Attraction Management (IAM)—has filed trademarks incorporating the names of several current Six Flags...
-
Buying Time is Expensive: Six Flags Aims to Refinance $1B
Six Flags has announced a major debt refinancing, issuing $1.0 billion in senior notes due in 2032 at an 8.625% interest rate to retire bonds coming due in 2027. The move extends the company’s debt maturity by five years—but at a high cost. Compared to the retired notes, the new debt increases...
-
The State of the Attractions Industry in 2026
This episode is structured as an environmental SWOT analysis of the attractions industry, intended to support 2026 strategic planning. Rather than focusing on individual announcements or company-specific outcomes, we identify the external forces currently shaping the business environment—capital...
-
Universal Considers New Middle East Theme Park
Universal Destinations & Experiences has begun early planning for a theme park in Saudi Arabia, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report. The project would be structured as a licensing deal with government-backed funding—the same model Disney announced for its Abu Dhabi park. This…
more -
Six Flags Swaps Coasters for Toons
Six Flags Magic Mountain has delayed its highly anticipated “first-of-its-kind” coaster to 2027, citing the attraction’s complexity and a commitment to quality. The project—reported to be a Vekoma Thrill Glider—was part of the company’s broader $1 billion investment plan and would have been the...
-
Netflix, Warner Bros., and what it means for Theme Parks
Netflix announced plans to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a $72 billion deal—only to face an immediate hostile counterbid from Paramount. Either path would take months, if not years, to resolve and must clear regulatory and shareholder hurdles. But even at this early stage, the implications…
more -
The 2026 Guest Is Chasing Childhood Memories
A new report reveals how Gen Z and Millennials plan to travel in 2026: 78% say they’ve recreated a childhood vacation or plan to, and 69% avoid overcrowded destinations; 67% cited escape from burnout as a motivator, and interest in wellness and sober travel experiences is rising. That context...
-
Six Flags Appoints a New CEO — What It Means for the Parks
Six Flags has appointed John Reilly as its new CEO—a leader who spent 21 years at SeaWorld and later held top roles at Palace Entertainment, the parent company of regional parks like Kennywood and Lake Compounce. Philip and Scott discuss why that résumé matters: Reilly comes from chains where...
-
IAAPA Expo 2025: Indoors, Interactive, and Value-Driven
IAAPA Expo 2025 set a new record with 38,520 verified attendees, more than 28,000 qualified buyers, and an expanded floor featuring over 1,100 exhibitorsgt-nov-23. Philip and Scott break down the trends that truly mattered this year: the push toward indoor attractions (from SeaWorld Orlando’s new...
-
Six Flags Bets on Travis Kelce as Disney Faces a Cable Crisis
Six Flags will attempt to leverage Travis Kelce’s 9% investment into a full branding partnership, leaning into ‘the new world.’ Meanwhile, Disney’s stock dipped 7% after its latest earnings show cable is collapsing faster than expected. Streaming and the parks remain its lifeboat, with both those...
About this show
An insider’s take on the theme park and themed entertainment industry trends, Green Tagged Covers the Top Theme Park News from each week. From theme parks to zoos and aquariums to haunted houses, we scour the world for what you need to know. We may not have all the answers, but we ask the right questions. Subscribe to PRO content on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GreenTagged
Hosted by
Philip Hernandez
Categories