A love letter to Six Flags Magic Mountain...

Dear Magic Mountain, I've been coming here for decades with about a decade hiatus. Thank you for the joy and excitement MM gave me as a small child and all the fun times as a teenager and young adult!

MM, you have some fantastic rollercoasters and exciting thrill rides.  I've read the average rollercoaster costs more then $25 million to build and I can only imagine how much they cost to maintain.  I read Six Flags lost approximately $70 million across your various parks last year and saw a 9% decrease in guest visits with net income and net revenue down over 50%.  This compared to your local competitors seeing significant gains in both attendance and profits.

Instead of just complaining about the long waits for rides and food, high prices, and deteriorating conditions at MM, here are observations and suggestions on improvements which should result in increased revenue, decreased costs, and a better guest experience.

1. Lines for food are excessive and seem to be some of the most inefficient systems I've seen in place.  It's time to look at your local competitors: Universal Studios, Knotts Berry Farm, and Disneyland for their best practices.  Many of their dining options work like assembly lines.  People line up with trays, pick their food, and line up at the end for the cashiers.  This allows cooks to cook, runners to run the food to the pick up areas and cashiers to cashier.  It's focused and efficient.  Over and over again throughout the park we saw one or two MM employees left to fend for themselves to take an order, prep the food, and process the payment.  Imagine the running back and forth, no one at the window while the food is being processed (terrible optics and bad guest experience), switching gloves for cash vs food prep.  Over three different trips to the park on both busy days and quiet days this same scene repeated itself all over the park.  Understaffed, disorganized, poor processes, bottlenecks, and inefficient lines.  I experienced a line after using the mobile app that took longer then waiting in the regular order line.  Took me 70 minutes to get my food waiting in the mobile line after ordering which was 50% longer than the regular line!

The above inefficiencies resulted in a  minimum food revenue loss of 10% as we often saw people give up and leave. We'd have ordered more food more often if it was easier and faster.  One additional worker at a cost of $27 an hour with employment taxes included should be able to increase sales and profits by $100 - $150 an hour plus the added enjoyment of the guests.

2. Maintain and repair the rides consistently during the week when the park is closed.  More open rides means more rides to distribute the visitors, shorter lines, and a better guest experience.

3. Use more sun shades/sails across the park in lines, eating areas, and in general to create shade.  Lighter colored shades reflect heat and though look dirtier faster, have a longer lifespan. Solar panels above wait lines powering cooling fans!

4. Consider shrinking and moving the carnival section to across from Roaring Rapids. Replace it with a large, indoor international dining hall. Build a 25+ foot tall, double storied, DC themed place that has specialty food items (think Proton Protein Smoothies, Nectar of the God’s , Amazonian Vegetarian Salads, Batman Burgers, etc.) ceiling graphics with epic DC clashes, starry lights, DC artifacts, DC lore. Think similar to the dining hall at Disney next to Space Mountain.

5. Sell rain ponchos across from Roaring Rapids.  Branded MM both single and thicker, multi use ponchos. The cheep ones can be sold for $5 each and the nicer, reusable for $15.  They can be sold at the front of the park during rainy days. Towels? T-shirts that say I got wrecked on Roaring Rapids.

The photos of lines are all for food, including a longer line for mobile order pick-up than the regular line and showing only 1 employee working an area setup for 4 employees. 2 cashiers/2 food runners. At least 12 people left the line while we waited.