[KenB]

At this point, Cedar Fair owns rights to *ALL* the theming elements and names in the parks. There is a buyout clause in the sale agreement, if they don't exercise that the parks can use everything (besides Nick and Scooby) for 10 years. The Nick deal was for 4 years, and Scooby is probably a seperate deal with whoever owns that license. (Warner?)

If CF opts out, don't get hung up on which names are Paramount trademarks and which are Paramount Parks trademarks. Top Gun will be renamed, as will Drop Zone and the Italian Jobs. Hmmm - Tomb Raider may be another seperate licensing deal, not sure. Even if Paramount Parks currently has Top Gun:The Jet Coaster trademarked, that doesn't supersede Paramount Pictures owning the rights to the name Top Gun. You could drop Jet Coaster, change the theming, etc. - but you still couldn't call it Top Gun. Most likely you could call it The Jet Coaster and be safe - TG isn't referenced anywhere there. Let's hope they don't.

Same thing with Drop Zone - no matter whether they keep or drop Stunt Tower, Paramount owns the trademark to Drop Zone. My guess is the trademarking of the ride names in addition to the trademark for the movie itself keeps other parks from using similar names. This would prevent "Freefall Stunt Tower" or "Falcon:The Jet Coaster" at Six Flags.

I'd love to know the financials of everything involved - the annual cost of keeping the licenses, how much it will cost to opt out of keeping the licenses, and how much it would cost to re-name and re-theme the affected rides. It'd make it somewhat easier to figure out.

My personal wild-ass guess: To avoid having to spend a decent amount of cash on retheming in the offseason, CF will keep the licenses. The Paramount prefixes will drop from the park names, but the rides will stay the same - for awhile, at least. Paramount won't mind having the benefits from the parks advertising for them while getting paid for it. CF can then phase in any changes they don't want to keep long-term over a few years, lessening the immediate impact to the bottom line.

Top Gun and Drop Zone have longterm name recognition with the public at all of these parks (aside from PKD with no Top Gun) - and several of the newer rides are well known to a lesser degree - so keeping these names makes more sense than slapping a new name on them just to be "un-Paramount". Now, if the cost of keeping the license is high expect them to be gone, but don't be too surprised if they stay.

I'd like going to just plain Carowinds yet still riding Top Gun.

KenB

[Edwardo]

Even if Paramount Parks currently has Top Gun:The Jet Coaster trademarked, that doesn't supersede Paramount Pictures owning the rights to the name Top Gun. You could drop Jet Coaster, change the theming, etc. - but you still couldn't call it Top Gun. Most likely you could call it The Jet Coaster and be safe - TG isn't referenced anywhere there. Let's hope they don't.

Hmmm...Not totally true. Paramount owns the trademark to the title 'Top Gun' in refrence to a movie. You have a bit to learn about licensing and trademark laws. Just as with Drop Zone Stunt Tower. You can't 'own' a word/phrase that was in use to describe something just because you named a movie after said word/phrase. Paramount didn't come up with the phrases Drop Zone or Top Gun. Those were both phrases to describe something that the movies were based on.

When you go out and trademark the name of a movie, what you're really doing is trademarking the use of that name in refrence to the movie. And besides, there ARE other drop towers with the name Drop Zone. See, Paramount Pictures owns licensing to the phrase Top Gun in connection with the movie, as well as their original logo. And since they own the movie, they own the rights to everything in the movie. The Top Gun one may be a little more difficult to get around.

Same thing with Drop Zone - no matter whether they keep or drop Stunt Tower, Paramount owns the trademark to Drop Zone. My guess is the trademarking of the ride names in addition to the trademark for the movie itself keeps other parks from using similar names. This would prevent "Freefall Stunt Tower" or "Falcon:The Jet Coaster" at Six Flags.

Again, not true. Paramount owns the trademark and licensing rights to the movie Drop Zone. But a Drop Zone is an area where a plane flies to to allow skydivers to jump (or drop). Paramount Pictures only owns the trademark to Drop Zone in connection to the movie. There are other rides out there called Drop Zone that have nothing to do with Paramount. I've ridden at least one.

The reason parks trademark most names is because they don't want other parks to use them, correct. However, Paramount Parks trademarks, which are names/phrases that Paramount Parks as a corporate entity has registered, will be sold right along with the corporation to CFLP. Paramount Pictures had a few trademarks licensed to Paramount Parks dealing with movies. The Trademarks owned by Paramount Pictures are included in the deal, however CFLP has to pay to use the trademarks owned by Paramount Pictures, Eidos (tomb raider), Nick, Trek, etc. They can exercise an option to keep those licenses and PAY for them, or they can opt out of it.

But any Licensing that was granted to paramount parks is now OWNED by CFLP. They do not OWN all of the themeing and names, however. They have rights licensed to them by Paramount Parks and/or another company for the following:

PARAMOUNT PICTURES CORP. TRADEMARKS
(registered and unregistered) in the U.S.A. and other Countries

BORG ASSIMILATOR**
BORG INVASION 4D**
BUBBA GUMP SHRIMP SHACK
CROCODILE DUNDEE’S BOOMERANG BAY**
DAYS OF THUNDER**
DROP ZONE STUNT TOWER**
FACE/OFF**
HAPPY DAYS DINER
KLINGON ENCOUNTER**
PARAMOUNT PARKS
STAR TREK: THE EXPERIENCE**
THE ITALIAN JOB STUNT TRACK**
TOP GUN**

CBS INC. TRADEMARKS
(registered and unregistered) in the U.S.A. and other Countries

CBS TELEVISION CAFÉ

VIACOM INTERNATIONAL INC. TRADEMARKS
(registered and unregistered) in the U.S.A. and other Countries

BLUE’S CLUES
DORA THE EXPLORER
LITTLE BILL (1)
NICK JR.
NICKELODEON
OSWALD
RUGRATS (2)
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS (3)
THE WILD THORNBERRYS (4)
THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMY NEUTRON, BOY GENIUS
THE FAIRLY ODD PARENTS (5)

AND ALL RELATED TITLES, LOGOS AND CHARACTERS.


SMILEY, INC. ORIGINAL LITTLE BILL CHARACTERS © 1997 WILLIAM H. COSBY, JR.
CREATED BY ARLENE KLASKY, GABOR CSUPO AND PAUL GERMAIN.
CREATED BY STEPHEN HILLENBURG.
CREATED BY ARLENE KLASKY, CABOR CSUPO, STEVE PAPOON, DAVID SILVERMAN, AND STEPHEN SUSTARIC.
CREATED BY BUTCH HARMAN.

LICENSORS TRADEMARKS
(registered and unregistered) in the U.S.A. and other Countries

MINI and MINI COOPER
BMW AG Authorized Licensee.
All rights reserved.

TOMB RAIDER: THE RIDE
Paramount Pictures Corp. Tomb Raider and Lara Croft are trademarks of Core Design Ltd.
All rights reserved.

SHOCKWAVE
Licensed User.
All rights reserved

.
GREAT AMERICA
Licensed User.
All rights reserved.

HANNA-BARBERA, SCOOBY-DOO, THE FLINTSTONES, YOGI BEAR, THE JETSONS, CHARACTERS, NAMES AND ALL RELATED INDICIA ARE TRADEMARKS OF AND ©WARNER BROS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

That list is a list of names found in the Paramount Parks that are owned by someone else, but licensed to Paramount Parks (which, by the way, is a name owned, not by the parks, but Paramount Pictures, and licnesed to the parks). Heck, Paramount Pictures doesn't even own the rights to the title 'Paramount', except when in refrence to Paramount Pictures. Paramount was a term used LONG before someone named their movie studios that.

Again, the list above is the only list of names that may need to be changed, or otherwise licensed from another source. Everything else that was owned by Paramount Parks was included in the sale. Much like Geauga Lake. All of the rides based on DC comics characters were changed. However, names like Raging Wolf Bobs, Corkscrew, Villain, Big Dipper, and X-Flight were purchased along with the park.

[Edwardo]

P.S., I also wouldn't be surpised to see CFLP keep the licensing, after looking at the amount of licensing aside from Nick they'll likely keep. I wouldn't even be suprised to see the Paramount name in front of those 5 parks. If not for anything other than selling a seperate season pass good for those five parks, meaning Ohioans would still need at least 2 season passes .

[swampfox43]

The last paragraph in <a href='http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006608120337' target='_blank'>this latest article</a> may provide some new insight as to what CF may do with the Paramount name.

If you read the article carefully, it states that CF has indicated in government filings that it doesn't intend to rename the parks, yet it may reduce it's association with Paramount to cut royalty expenses.

[Tzvi]

I read the article and also noticed that they never called it "Parmount's Kings Island", just "Kings Island". Hence it implies that the name will not change from "Kings Island", not that it keep the Paramount name.

The limiting of the association was just in reference to rides, not the park's name.

--Tzvi

[Atombomb]

Almost 13 years later here we are!! Did cedar Fair have a positive impact? I think most certainly yes times a thousand!!! Carowinds has almost completely transformed into a top tier regional park!!
Kudos cedar fair... kudos

[tarheel1231]

I still don’t think they’re done, but the park has become something special over the past five years. I can’t wait to see what the park looks like by 2030.

[Capler]

I still don’t think they’re done, but the park has become something special over the past five years. I can’t wait to see what the park looks like by 2030.

They will keep investing in major attractions until the attendance plateaus.

[RollerBee]

I still don’t think they’re done, but the park has become something special over the past five years. I can’t wait to see what the park looks like by 2030.

They will keep investing in major attractions until the attendance plateaus.

So when that happens are they going to only do small investments, no investment at all?

[yawetag]

They will keep investing in major attractions until the attendance plateaus.

Don't know that I agree with this. There's only so many people that are going to come to the park. Plateauing isn't always a sign that your investments aren't getting a return. It's when attendance drops for years that they'll become concerned - and investment will probably increase.

It's the same with a rollercoaster. As long as its getting people through the queue and the maintenance costs aren't prohibitive to leaving it open, they aren't going to remove it until there's an alternative to take its place. CF doesn't think in months with their investments - they think in years. Except for a major incident, they know the general investments coming to the park beyond 2020 or even 2021.

[Edwardo]

They likely stretch out major investments once the park is where it needs to be with infrastructure and ease of Maintenance once attendance levels out. There will be major investments over time to keep people interested? But those major investments will have more time in between and be more calculated.

If Carowinds finishes renovating the front plaza, getting rid of the Art Deco, then renovates Crossroads (I have a feeling they’ll be sooner rather than later) then nearly the whole park will have been renovated. Boardwalk doesn’t need it as they've done a great job of transitioning boardwalk to county fair to blue ridge junction.

I’d say we’ll get one more major coaster (hopefully a good Woody), and there’s still a possibility they’ll convert Vortex. With the work they’ve done in hurler, if they can just keep that up the ride will be good. They just need to finish retracting from the second far turnaround to the end. I’d love for GCI to come in and Ghostrider it with new track, some more reproducing, and MF trains, and a renovated station, but we’ll see. It’s not out of the realm of possibilities in the long term.

And other than some additions to the water
Park and a new major flat, there’s nothing else that the park ‘needs’ to then just go into the future. Carowinds has come a long way. A few more renovations and additions and the park will be nearly all new. Then they can plan to move forward with new additions as opposed to trying to fill in holes. And they’ll have more of those to fill in now with the rapids and Dino’s...

[Capler]

This is the way I see it. Cedar Fair deemed two parks as being under performers for their respective markets, those being Carowinds and Canada's Wonderland. Since then they have invested heavily with major attractions in both. I don't see them stopping until the growth slows, at which point they will shift into maintenance mode.

This appears to be why Kings Dominion has only gotten one major installation, and one conversion, when Carowinds and Wonderland both have received three new expensive major rides. For Dominion, it's about maintaining what they have, otherwise they will have to have to go head to head with Busch, which is what Paramount/Kings attempted.

As for the future of the park, who knows, but considering Carowinds new flagship-stardom, the logical thing to me would be to start culling some of the dead weight? I would not call Thunder Road dead weight, but it was simply in the way and Fair was not willing to junk up the water park experience by tunneling through it .

I like Rapids, but it really was a dead spot for the park, and I'm sure the maintenance costs were high.

I can't think of a logical reason to convert Vortex. It would add nothing what so ever to the park. Removing it and not replacing it with anything would actually help the park's reputation.

Personally if I were making the decision, a Hurler conversion would be next big project. Yes, Hurler is the only major wood in the park, but I would convert it and worry about building a new woodie somewhere down the road. I'm not convinced wood coasters have the drawing power of a steel.

Can you imagine Carowinds with Afterburn, Intimidator, Fury, Strike, and a Twisted Timbers like ride? With that lineup you won't need Vortex, Cyclone and Hawk in the park at all.

[Edwardo]

Thunder Road...was simply in the way and Fair was not willing to junk up the water park experience by tunneling through it.

That’s a completely incorrect statement. Carolina Harbor was planned with TR still standing. The ONLY reason TR was demolished was because of the cost it would have been to completely demolish and rebuild the station/lift/first drop section. They didn’t know it was in such bad shape and it was cheaper to scrap it than to fix it. It has nothing to do with tunneling through for the waterpark. It’s been confirmed that the park put out to bid for a company to completely repaint (and also possibly to add a new light package but I don’t recall that being confirmed) the ride to make it look nicer since it would be surrounded by the expanded waterpark. And GCI was already working on the ride. It just became too cost prohibitive to keep.

The park is a business. You’re thinking like an enthusiast. Obviously there’s benefit in floorless conversions, otherwise pals wouldn’t be doing it. It costs less to demolish or move the ride, it’s a solid, not maintenance heavy attraction that doesn’t cost much to maintain, and they can obviously market it as a new ride in a ‘off’ year. It comes down to return on investment. Again, parks wouldn’t do it if there was no return on investment.

As for Hurler, don’t bet on it. They’re spending too much money each year tonite-do sections of the ride. They obviously don’t have any intention to convert it any time soon.

You’re thinking from the perspective of an enthusiast with preference for what you want. The park is thinking from a business perspective.

Cedar Fair has spent quite a bit of money getting parks where they need to be. Apparently Carowinds has the worst capacity to visitor ratio in the chain, which necessitated all of the new kids and flat and family rides. CF has also spent lots of money at the parks refurbishing rides and infrastructure. They also spent money on making rides they had more comfortable. Like soft OTSRs on Maverick, getting rid of stand up trains, and major track work on rides like our hurler and ghost rider. Those decisions were made because it was cheaper to make things more enjoyable instead of spending a ton of money demolishing or moving them instead, and ridership has went up on those rides.

They’re going to continue to do what works. As parks get where they need to be, and some are already there, you’ll see large additions spaced out. They said just that last year on their conference call. Less large investments spread over time, more focus on atmosphere and experience.

[tarheel1231]

The park is a business. You’re thinking like an enthusiast. Obviously there’s benefit in floorless conversions, otherwise pals wouldn’t be doing it. It costs less to demolish or move the ride, it’s a solid, not maintenance heavy attraction that doesn’t cost much to maintain, and they can obviously market it as a new ride in a ‘off’ year. It comes down to return on investment. Again, parks wouldn’t do it if there was no return on investment.

Speaking of which, when do you think the park will convert it? I'm thinking 2021 will be the one "off year" where they convert Vortex and knock out any plaza renovations left since it's all in the same general location in the park, and 2022 is the next major investment to take over RRR or Dinosaurs Alive. Follows a similar plan to what Cedar Point and Great America did.

[Edwardo]

I think they’ll convert it once they feel ‘finished with the parks makeover. Once they have the infrastructure improvements, good capacity park wide, including Carolina Harbor, and just need something to market without spending a lot, they’ll do it.

They’re not going to convert Hurler. They wouldn’t be putting money into it yearly if they planned long term to convert it, they’d do basic maintenance and that’s it. Vortex will likely happen in the next 5 years if I had to guess.

I think you’ll see the rest of the front plaza buildings renovated and Crossroads re-done first.