If COVID rules allow, Six Flags Magic Mountain is slated to open in the spring

Six Flags Magic Mountain says it will reopen its parks in the spring, despite not having a set date, and admits that reopening is subject to government-issued coronavirus rules.

Six Flags Entertainment Corp., which operates the Valencia theme park and 25 others in the United States, Mexico and Canada, plans to open all of its parks in the 2021 season, the company said in a press release on Friday. The company is hiring park workers and working with government officials to set a reopening date in California, as well as Illinois, Massachusetts, Mexico City, and Canada.

Six Flags Entertainment is trying to recover from a sharp drop in sales caused by the closure of its parks almost a year ago on March 13th. The company was the first major U.S. theme park company in May 2020 to put out a series of safety measures for the reopening of all U.S. parks, stating that it will limit the number of people allowed, check guests’ temperatures, and ask everyone to wear masks to carry and spread out in lines and on rides.

However, the reopening of the Valencia location is dictated by both California and Los Angeles County’s coronavirus restrictions. L.A. County remains in the most restrictive “purple” tier of the state’s four-phase color-coded reopening policies, which means that transmission of the virus remains widespread and many businesses must remain closed. Under the state’s reopening rules, a county must be placed in the least restrictive “yellow” tier, meaning that broadcast is minimal in order for large theme parks to be cleared for reopening.

The Times employee Hugo Martín contributed to this report.