The Stinger has been charting a spike in acquisitions in the theme park and amusement entertainment venue scene. Having already penned a detailed feature for the trade journal ‘ParkWorld’ this month on the subject, the owners of TSR summarize this piece to give a rundown of the movement in the scene.

Tussards Group
During 2005 the group was sold by Charterhouse Development Capital to Dubai International Capital for £800 million ($1.5 billion). The United Arab Emirates buyer collecting Madame Tussards in five cities worldwide, and four popular theme parks as well as other themed entertainment investments - the operation had retained a 40 per cent state in the Spanish Porta Ventura theme park which they also managed - having original conceived and built the venture, but then sold the majority share to Universal in 1997.

Legoland
The Blackstone group in 2005 purchased a 70 per cent stake in the Legoland theme park empire, and passed this operation holding on too Merlin Entertainment, Lego Group the toy manufacturer retained investment interest in the operation (estimated to be over 20 per cent) due to the use of intellectual properties (IP). The combined German, Danish, UK and Californian sites generated a visitation of over 1.4 million.

Palace Entertainment
MidOcean Partners, New York and London private investment firm acquired this largest operator of water parks and family entertainment centres in the United States, comprising 32-parks including the SpeedZone, and Malibu Grand Prix franchised venue chains. In the agreement MidOcean placed VisionMarkers, a respected development and operations firm to help in the operation management.

Paramount Park
The CBS Corporation plans to sell Paramount Parks' five properties in the USA and Canada, that attract over 12m guests in 2005. CBS Corporation (under the prior name Viacom) acquired the parks chain as part of its acquisition of Paramount Pictures in 1994. They had already started a steady divestment plan selling Kings Island and the Paramount Park division.

Six Flags
The theme park operation Six Flags is selling its Frontier City theme park and White Water Bay water park, both located in Oklahoma City. In September, 2005, Six Flags announced that it would close the Astroworld theme park at the end of its 2005 season and would sell the 109 acres of land - this move was followed a few weeks later by the announcement of a $77 million acquisition of the venue by the real-estate operation Angel McIver Company.

Universal Studios
General Electronics (GE) took control of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1986, and in 2004 the NBC operation took full control of the then Vivendi Universal Entertainment division, which has now become NBC Universal, wholly owning Universal Studios in California, but with partial ownership of venues in Florida and Japan. The operation sold in 2004 the Porta Ventura (Universal Mediterranea) managed through a 40 per cent stake by Tussards Group and looks towards a revitalised operational mode.

Village Roadshow
Australian theme park operator Village Roadshow (VR) has acquired a 14.9 per cent stake in one of its closest rivals, Sydney Attractions Group (SAG). The $3.6m deal has been suggested as bring the two companies together in a merger that could result in joint projects and the possible merging of operational structure in the coming years. The VR operation currently owns five themed venues in Australia’s Gold Coast region including Warner Bothers Movie World, Wet n’ Wild Water World, Sea World, and Paradise Country. While the SAG operation operates six facilities including the Sydney Aquarium, Sydney Wildlife World and Sydney Tower Skywalk - both venues having interest both in amusement and attraction venues.

While the big park market seemed to be on the menu, the smaller themed venues appeared on the appetizer list!

GameWorks
Food-n-fun amusement warehouse concept was acquired wholly this year by one of the original three partners, amusement giant Sega Entertainment USA. Sega along with partners Universal Studios and DreamWorks SKG had opened the adult arcade concept in 1996 and had by 2005 opened 18 facilities. DreamWorks later divested their investment in the concept and the brand stalled. GameWorks fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2004. A claimed £10million was paid towards buying out the original partners and acquisition remaining debt - Sega had worked with the GameWorks operation to acquire a number of their own non-profit generating amusement halls, some of which had been converted into GameWorks franchises under the GameWorks Studio name.

Dave & Buster’s
Slim margin of shareholder votes saw the Dallas based Dave & Busters Inc., 46-venue adult food-booze and fun facility, sold recently to WS Midway Holdings Incorporated (an affiliate of New York private equity company Wellspring Capital Management). The $375 million valued deal saw a $18.05 share buyback deal proposed to take the company private again, following its original floatation in 1994 following the sale of the group from then Edison Partners. The D&B operation had recently accrued major debts from the acquisition of the Jillian’s Entertainment food-n-fun restaurant chain key sites.

This was best illustrated that what took place at one of the UK’s largest theme parks. The Tussards owned Thorpe Park saw its Easter season start with a very big bang, capped at over 18,000 guests arrived to attend the launch of the new coaster (Stealth). The park’s maximum attendance was reached within minutes and the venue had to turn unhappy guests away. The Easter Sunday record-breaking attendance looked to be the beginning of a record-breaking year for the park that has seen major new investment.

The Stinger was able to speak with park representatives who revealed important information that led to this record attendance. The park had invested in a £1million marketing spend for the 2006 season at the park, having spent £12million to develop the Stealth next-generation coaster. It was assumed that this would be the biggest spend in the UK for a single attraction and park, though with recent changes in the control of venues the marketing spends will quadruple.

This record-breaking attendance mirrored situations at other parks earlier in the year, most dramatically seen at Lotto World in South Korea, with a stampede and injuries too 35 visitors; or the stampede during the Golden Season at Hong Kong Disneyland. The theme park market is growing faster than many speculated in the post 9/11 sector. The question is how many of these current mergers will re-shape the industry…and whether public venues will be able to sustain this growing popularity in the face of (1) a years-long series of accidents, including several fatalities; (2) resulting drastic hikes in insurance coverage costs; and (3) the growing possibility of a new era of much stronger state regulation and inspection.