Six Flags CEO says parks became 'cheap daycare center for teenagers'

Six Flags CEO Selim Bassoul made some eyebrow-raising comments about his own parks in a call with investors last week, saying they had become "a cheap daycare center for teenagers."

The company revealed on August 11 that attendance through July of this year is down 35% vs. 2019.

"In 2022, we have shocked the system with a significant increase in ticket price. This has resulted in lower but more profitable attendance," Bassoul said, according to a transcript of the corporate earnings call.

He said Six Flags is "not going back to the days of heavy discounting, freebies and the perks that we were giving," saying overcrowded parks were resulting in a bad experience for visitors.

"We became a daycare center for teenagers," he said. "It was a cheap daycare center for teenagers during breaks and the summers."

Bassoul also talked about attracting a different kind of clientele to the parks.

"I'm migrating a little bit from what I call the Kmart, Walmart to maybe the Target customer," he said.

The mayor of Agawam, where Six Flags New England is located, told Western Mass News that the park has seemed a lot less crowded this summer.

"The state of the economy right now, the cost of goods and services going up, I'm sure that people are cutting back on entertainment of that nature," Bill Sapelli told the media outlet.