Wasnt the rumour that Six Flags had ordered 3 coasters from Skyline for 2023? Maybe Skyline could only deliver 2 with such short notice. As SFSTL was already promised a kiddie for 2023 they reached out to other manufactueres and Vekoma happened to be able to quickly provide a coaster.
Heavy speculation but I hope this is the start in a long relationship.
From what we originally heard out of IAAPA, Six Flags bought a pair of dueling coasters from Skyline. A pair as in 2. Both of those were confirmed for SFFT and SFOG in all due time. However, there was a sudden flurry of word just after the New Year that Six Flags had also decided to purchase
another two P'Sghetti Bowls of unknown layouts, around the same time that I first heard that the park was training staff on an undefined kiddy coaster. The former intel has been proven wrong.
They originally ordered 45 and 20 or so of those didn't get built. (Vekoma sorted out a manufacturing plant in Asia specifically for these which shows how big a deal it was)
I assume the majority if not all of the remaining ones didn't get actually fabricated but perhaps one or two did before the rest of the deal fell through and they have found their way elsewhere?
Who knows. It's a nice theory but not one we can prove.
According to
comments on Reddit, around 30 or so were purchased but only 28 delivered, with at least two refused delivery due to the onset of COVID. Those two were
Frida at Energylandia and
Yan Coaster at Yerevan Park, which by pure coincidence are also the only two of its kind operating outside of Indonesia. My theory is that this one wasn't completely produced before the shipment, as the lead car's fixture is a Formula 1 car and in contradiction to the Crazy Taxi front cars.
Naturally this is great news for Six Flags St. Louis, but overall just one piece in a major course correction for Six Flags. Selim Bassoul has made a desperate 180 after his grand plan of less capital investment and more price hikes shat the bed, with attendance dropping 33% chain wide in Q3 of 2022 and generally pissing off the shareholders. Naturally, Six Flags went on a shopping spree at IAAPA just days after the Q3 call, and
very vocally signed deals with manufacturers on whatever 2023 attractions they could get the shortest lead times on; quick-to-manufacture P'Sghetti Bowls from a company with a flexible production timeline, Proslide kiddy slides, and in this case a coaster that was already produced. The only other solution would have been the used rides market. Even the waterslides haven't begun production yet, and for a manufacturer with an extremely busy schedule that is cutting it very close. Today's announcement was strategically timed, ahead of tomorrow's Q4 earnings call, where the new investments will be championed ahead of likely lukewarm figures.
In summation I hope these eleventh-hour efforts pay off, thus reinforcing the message that new rides can and will continue to be what attracts visitors. Nobody would really complain about a return to the Jim Reid Anderson strategy.
