Snoopy (permanently) on ice: Is the end nearing for iconic Bay Area theme park?
- California’s Great America appears set to scrap its winter run for the 2025 season, according to a message sent to some seasonal passholders.
- The park is already set to close in the coming years after the land upon which it sits was sold, but an exact timeline is unclear.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Not everyone got the email. But the word spread, along with the dread.
California’s Great America — Northern California’s best-known theme park — appears set to scrap its winter run for the 2025 season, according to a message sent to some seasonal pass holders, potentially spelling an end to the annual Snoopy Christmas ice show and other festivities that have become seasonal staples for ardent fans.
The message, sent Dec. 19, said the park’s upcoming season would run from April 5 through late October, and that “seasonal events will not be part of the 2025 calendar.” As of Friday evening, Great America’s online calendar showed no dates when the park would be open in November or December — when its Winterfest themed event typically runs.
In a follow-up email, Trent Turner, a spokesperson for Great America’s parent company, Six Flags Entertainment Corp., reiterated to The Times that seasonal events will not be part of its calendar for this year, but did not specifically answer whether any future winter operating seasons are planned.
Great America’s current winter season ends Sunday.
Santa Clara’s Great America amusement park will close in six to 11 years after being sold to Prologis, a real estate developer, for $310 million.
For some, the development came as a shock. For others, it provided a distressing reminder that the park is fast approaching its expiration date. Absent an unforeseen change, a full closure is coming, even if the exact timeline is not yet publicly known.
“This was just like another blow to the chest, or to the heart,” said Jose Aguirre, 22, of Castro Valley. “It hurts a lot. It’s definitely one of those things that you grow up with, learn to love, and all of a sudden you can’t appreciate it anymore because it’s trickling away.”
Like their son, Karla and Armando Aguirre fondly remember going to the park as kids — a trip that’s been a rite of passage for countless San Francisco Bay Area youth.
Seeing parts of the park fade away is like “when you see a family member that’s dying from a terminal illness, little by little, little by little, withering away,” said Karla Aguirre, 44.
“It was like our Disneyland up here,” said Armando, 42.
When the 112 acres underneath the theme park were sold to the San Francisco logistics real estate company Prologis in 2022, Great America’s owner said it would continue to operate the theme park — but only through 2033 at the latest. Operations could cease before then, and the landowner could also end the park’s lease with two years warning.
Gary Rhodes, a spokesperson for Six Flags — which added Great America to its portfolio after a merger with its former parent company — wrote in an email that the company has “nothing new to report regarding future plans” nor any updates on the timing for the park’s eventual closure.
The company did not directly respond to follow-up questions regarding whether live entertainment will continue at the park or whether the park has laid off some longer-tenured employees.
“Our seasonal staffing levels are adjusted based on the operating calendar and anticipated demand. We are committed to ensuring we continue to deliver the best possible experience,” Turner wrote in an email. The park employs an average of 1,400 workers, Turner said.
With the future uncertain, some fans are trying to soak in as much as they can.
Jose Aguirre often takes his 13-year-old brother AJ to the park — riding trains from Castro Valley to Santa Clara. But now, every visit carries a sense of urgency, with Jose wanting to “take him as many times as I can, to let him experience what I was able to as a kid.”
After all, he knows that neither he nor his brother will be able to bring their own children to the park the way their parents did.
Aside from Winterfest, with the beloved “It’s Christmas, Snoopy!” ice skating-and-acrobat show; past seasonal events at Great America have included the Tricks and Treats Halloween celebration; a midsummer Carnivale, which allows people to ride on Mardi Gras-style parade floats; and last spring’s Peanuts Celebration, which included an elaborate Snoopy’s Legendary Rooftop Concert.
“It’s obviously an ominous sign,” said Barry R. Hill, author of “Imagineering an American Dreamscape: Genesis, Evolution and Redemption of the Regional Theme Park.” Seasonal events like Winterfest, he said, “are huge moneymakers.”
Six Flags officials have noted how important seasonal events are to the company’s theme parks, with Halloween-themed events in particular attracting large crowds and driving seasonal pass sign-ups.
Great America doubled down on seasonal events last year, adding an Oktoberfest alongside Tricks and Treats.
But there’s also urgency for company officials to prove the value of their strategy to merge Great America’s former owner — Ohio-based Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. — and Six Flags, which was completed in the summer. The combined company, largely run by Cedar Fair’s former management team, operates 27 amusement parks, 15 water parks and nine resort properties in North America.
The announced merger of Six Flags and Cedar Fair will bring two iconic Southern California theme parks, Magic Mountain and Knott’s Berry Farm, under the same ownership.
Seasonal events can also be a challenge to pull off, however, and scrapping them may not necessarily mean all that much in terms of Great America’s immediate future. The park has previously operated seasons in the past that ran from April through October. Winterfest launched in 2016, and a Halloween-themed season was introduced in 2008.
“Every single year, there are capital costs of those seasonal events,” and refreshing the decor, said Brad Jashinsky, an analyst for Gartner, a market research and management consulting company, and a former digital marketing manager at Knott’s Berry Farm. “My guess is the juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze in terms of that.
“I think seasonal events work really well for a lot of the parks that have a huge, growing attendance rate, and in particular, if you want to focus on growing season pass holders for a long term, it makes a ton of sense.”
In its message to pass holders, Great America said it will dedicate resources “to delivering exceptional daily experiences across our more than 50 amazing rides and attractions, including encounters with the ‘Peanuts’ Gang in Planet Snoopy.”
“Plus, as Northern California’s only amusement park featuring an included waterpark, we offer unmatched value for both thrill-seekers and families,” the email said. The water park, South Bay Shores, will open Memorial Day weekend.
Great America’s current lease agreement was for an initial six-year term to end in 2028, and Six Flags has an option to extend for an additional five years, to 2033. Lease payments started at $12.2 million a year to the new land owner, and increase by 2.5% each year.
On a recent earnings call, Six Flags Chief Executive Richard Zimmerman said the company recognizes the need to make capital investments.
The company has said it plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next two years on new rides and attractions, which will include a new “first-of-its-kind” roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia and upgrades to the adjacent Hurricane Harbor water park. Knott’s Soak City in Buena Park will also receive a “refresh,” according to a company statement.
Although Six Flags Great America — the Santa Clara venue’s sister theme park near Chicago — is set to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2026 with a new kids’ area and other enhancements, there has been no mention of such a commemoration in California.
Originally opened under Marriott Corp., Great America was once considered a jewel in the string of of theme parks built as smaller, regional venues to give people more convenient, less expensive places to visit.
The Great America branding, both for the Santa Clara park and its Midwestern counterpart, was a nod to their opening dates: 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. The Santa Clara park has had a number of themed lands recalling periods of American history — including Orleans Place and Hometown Square, representing a 1920s town.
But regional theme and amusement parks have become an increasingly endangered species over the years. Opryland, a country music-themed park in Nashville, closed in 1997 and is now a mall. Six Flags AstroWorld in Houston closed in 2005, as did Geauga Lake in Ohio in 2007.
Magic Mountain’s corporate roller-coaster ride is over for now: The Valencia theme park is no longer for sale.
“The biggest takeaway is that these parks will never be rebuilt. We’ll never get another thing to replace it, right? Because they’re just too expensive to do,” Hill said. “So every time we lose a Great America, or an AstroWorld in Houston, or an Opryland in Nashville, nothing replaces it.”
Even in its early years, Great America’s existence was somewhat precarious. Unhappy with the financial return, Marriott opted to sell the Great America parks. Marriott first tried to sell the Santa Clara site to a developer, news reports said at the time, but the city had the option to buy the park, and did so through its redevelopment agency in 1985.
News reports at the time said Marriott had hoped the park would attract 3.5 million visitors a year, but actual attendance was only 2 million.
Six Flags on Friday said it does not publicly report attendance or financial results by park. But a Cedar Fair report from 2012 described California’s Great America as hosting at least 1.5 million guests a year, compared to the at least 3 million guests a year that go to parks such as Knott’s Berry Farm. The document indicated that the company’s earnings from Great America were relatively tiny compared with more popular parks, such as Knott’s.
Santa Clara’s redevelopment agency in 1989 sold the assets of Great America to Kings Entertainment Co., the first in what would be a series of theme park operators. The park’s assets were later sold to Paramount Communications in 1992, and then to Cedar Fair in 2006.
The city’s redevelopment agency kept the land on which the park sat until 2019, when it sold the parcel to Cedar Fair for $150 million. The agency was forced to sell after the state abolished redevelopment agencies, and the city was not in a financial position to outbid Cedar Fair for the land.
In 2022, Cedar Fair sold the land to Prologis for approximately $310 million and announced it would “close existing park operations at the end of the lease term.”
Prologis has not asked to end the lease early, according to company spokesperson Jennifer Nelson. In terms of future planning for the site, “we’re focused on identifying and partnering with planning and design experts to help us create a master plan for the property, working with the city and community along the way,” Nelson wrote in an email.
Whenever it ultimately happens, Hill said it’s important to give the park a proper goodbye and not close things up without giving people a chance to take one last ride.
“You’ve got generations of people that this is not just a business thing for them,” he said. “This is their memory. This is their family. They grew up with that park.”
Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor said she would love Great America to stay open. Gillmor, whose father was mayor when Great America opened, said her first job as a teenager was at the theme park, where she worked at a shop that sold jewelry, china and silver in Orleans Place.
“They have been such a huge part of our city for decades, and we have come to rely on them, not only for their employment of our young people ... but also for entertainment,” Gillmor said. “If you ask a lot of people what they love about Santa Clara, you’re going to get within the first couple of answers, ‘We love Great America.’”
Times staff writer Wendy Lee and librarian Cary Schneider contributed to this report.
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