Amusement Park News

After 50 years of family fun, Six Flags is closing its Washington, D. C. area park Six Flags America. Located in the D. C. Suburb of Bowie, Maryland, the park shut its doors last week, following the closure by posting a Facebook announcement thanking guests for their support. This recent closure follows on the heels of the Six Flags Entertainment Corporation announcing last May that it planned to close the area's waterpark Hurricane Harbor as well this year.

Six Flags America began as a drive-through wildlife park in 1974, before adding many rides, including some classic coasters, to its attractions. One such addition was the Wild One wood coaster, a 108-year-old behemoth that had been relocated to the park from Paragon Park in Hull, Massachusetts.



According to Six Flags President and CEO Richard A. Zimmerman, these decisions were made because “Six Flags America and Hurricane Harbor are not a strategic fit with the company's long-term growth plan, ” adding that the decision to close the parks was a difficult decision.

Meanwhile, Six Flags California's Great America park in Northern California, is also on borrowed time and will be shuttered by the end of 2027, due to an expiring lease.

Executive VP and CFO Brian Witherow says, however that Six Flags could “exercise one of our options to extend that lease. ”

Six Flags Entertainment Corporation currently operates amusement parks, water parks, and resort properties located throughout the U. S. , as well as in Canada and Mexico. But during a third-quarter conference call, the company has announced it is planning to either sell or simply close more of its properties.

Witherow said upcoming closures will focus on “underperforming parks, ” and noted that the company's park portfolio yielded disappointing results in terms of the number of visitors the company had hoped to see over the course of 2025.

"Our expectations coming into this year were for more potential than clearly the business was able to deliver, ” he added, and termed 2025 an "attendance-driven miss. "

Without naming any other parks potentially on the chopping block, Witherow acknowledged that the company had a “pretty good idea of which are the low-hanging fruit when it comes to non-core versus strategic assets going forward. ” The D. C. And California parks were chosen for closure based on factors that included “structural challenges or limitations on the ability to build out those properties. ”



He also asserted that the company was moving “with a sense of urgency” on making plans for other closures, but decisions could fluctuate based on how parks perform in the coming year. “There may be a need to pivot and a park that we consider core right now…could become a non-core park going forward. I think we have a really good idea of which parks fit into which bucket where we stand today, and we'll continue to refine our thinking as we see the business evolve. "

He also stressed that Six Flags would be prioritizing some parks over others and stated that the company would “sell off and monetize” those parks that were not contributing growth to the company since their merger with Cedar Fair.

Downsizing their portfolio and becoming nimbler in the amusement park marketplace is the goal, Witherow explained. “…we're going to look at the parks where our returns are the greatest, where the opportunities for growth are the highest, and we're going to focus on those parks, ” he summarized. Parks that do not fit into these parameters will be “monetized, ” or in more direct parlance, closed and sold, with proceeds being used to “reduce debt. ”

Six Flags may face some backlash on these plans. Already the company's decisions to close some attractions within its parks recently have received less than stellar commentary from guests. For example, New Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventure closed the world's tallest roller coaster, Kingda Ka in November 2024, while in Southern California, Six Flags Magic Mountain announced the closing of its Superman roller coaster.

The reason given was that these rides had faced the end of their “life cycle, ” having reached “a point in time where we need to make a wise decision on where we really should reinvest funds that improve the guest experience the most. It just doesn't make a lot of sense from a business perspective to put it back into Superman.”

Another recent change was the selling of extra, undeveloped land near Six Flags Kings Dominion in the Richmond, VA. Area.

During Witherow's quarterly earnings call November 7th, he spoke not once, but three times about the company's “roadmap for the underperforming parks… migrating those parks toward the performance profile of our best parks in the portfolio or classifying them as non-core and divesting them where it makes strategic and financial sense. ”



He termed Six Flags' approach to the process as objective and disciplined, and related that the company was also “re-evaluating pricing strategies, operating cost structures, capital allocation plans, and long-term market potential. ” He asserted that “We are committed to making decisions that strengthen the long-term output of the company, even when those decisions are difficult. ”

Other decisions are less challenging for the company at least for now, with some parks “critical to the long-term growth” of Six Flags overall, including Toronto, Canada's Wonderland, and Southern California's Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm properties.

Cedar Fair Entertainment Company and Six Flags Entertainment Corporation were merged in 2024, and since then, Six Flags has removed park presidents from all former Cedar Fair locations and reduced full-time staff over 10%.

While these changes have hardly been lauded, the company's commitment to opening new

Attractions next year such as Tormenta Rampaging Run at Six Flags Over Texas; the Speedway Stunt Coaster at Six Flags México; and Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare at Kings Island are all substantial draws for guests.