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How does the 4th largest city in America not economically support a theme park? I heard the shut down was gang related and daycare related but I can't confirm. All I remember are funnel cakes and thinking I was a Badass 14 Year old.
You're on the right track. All Six Flags have a "problem" with parents essentially using it as a super-cheap daycare/summer activity, as a Season Pass is extremely cheap compared to the cost of daycare or otherwise entertaining them for the summer.
The problem with Astroworld is it was located right in the middle of the hood, so you had a greater percentage of this than other parks. Six Flags doesn't make money off of Season Pass holders, it makes it off of people purchasing food/merchandise/etc, and these kids would arrive at the park for no money, with some actually begging other patrons for money for food. Couple that with the older hood kids coming to the park in groups behaving in such a manner that intimidated/scared the people that Six Flags actually wanted to attract (families), and you have a recipe for disaster.
And that isn't even going into the nightmare that was the parking wars with Reliant Stadium/The Rodeo.
At the end of the day, they were making less money than the land the park was sitting on was worth, so they sold the park expecting to get a payday, but ended up getting less than half of what they expected. Disappointing to the very end.
