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Major Operational Changes for 2018

Blackpool pleasure beach marketing take note. Why not do a big marketing campaign for the spring opening "JOIN US.......for 2018" icon launch and have some guys unexpected dishing out vouchers at the entrance to AT on 17th March with that tag line imagine the news coverage as security are involved stopping them and the confused general public!

RoyJess said:
By filling up the queue lines so the next mug purchase fast track for the family ;)
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Well it was worth a try .

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themeparkfan said:
Blackpool pleasure beach marketing take note. Why not do a big marketing campaign for the spring opening "JOIN US.......for 2018" icon launch and have some guys unexpected dishing out vouchers at the entrance to AT on 17th March with that tag line imagine the news coverage as security are involved stopping them and the confused general public!

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Certainly won't be appropriate for another company to dish out leaflets/vouchers on a competitors turf (which is private land owned by Towers)

Just take a look around the social media and you can see that people are genuinely upset by what Alton/Merlin are doing.
 
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But it would be a great publicity stunt I bet merlin would do it the other way on south promenade given half the chance if their ride was better than icon

EDIT:

Oh it's leased not owned

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Very disappointed was so close to getting 2 of the 55 quid annual passes for me and the partner but after this I'm not even sure I want to bother at all this year, its such a shame because I really think Wickerman could be an outstanding ride. An 8 hour round drive to have 4 of the biggest rides unavailable for part of the day is just not acceptable.

What baffles me is that they seem to have no idea what to do with the place. They'll throw money at building new Legolands like they're going out of fashion and granted they're a money maker. Alton Towers with the history and building blocks with world class quality rides like Nemesis and Oblivion (I'd even include Hex in there). If they just decided for a few years to take some of the money that they wanted to invest in Legoland parks and invested heavily in the RTP's they'd be way better off. A world class park with something for everyone e.g. Europa, Disney and Universal would always make way more money than a Legoland which in reality can only cater to families with younger kids. Lets face it apart from nerds like us the majority of teens and lone adults don't have an interest in Legoland. If they keep pulling funds away from resort theme parks to further develop the midway attractions and Legoland's it won't be long before they run the RTP division into the ground.

If I were Amanda Thompson or somewhere like Paulton's I'd be breaking my neck to further improve my park over the next 3-4 years because they could easily be taking custom away from Merlin. There's no reason why Towers shouldn't be up there competing with the big boys in Europe for figures if properly run.
 
Seems a bit odd to me that they’re pouring actors In to Thorpe with Saw Alive, I’m a Celeb, Derren Brown and rumours of actors in the new 2018 attraction...

Don’t get me wrong, I love Thorpe - it’s great news!!
But err... what about Towers?!

Do you reckon they’ve blown it with all the Cebeebies nonsense?
Cebebies land and the hotel must take a HUGE number of staff to run every day... far, far more than the likes of Rapids and Forbidden Valley combined I would imagine??

Maybe Merlin are looking at Towers and saying “You’ve already got x number of staff on park, x more than ever before”.
 
It's the same as the later opening time last year. I just hope they bend to pressure again and change it like they did last year
 
Even if there is a reversal this year, it's kind of prolonging the inevitable don't you think? They may bend to pressure and restore the ride openings but not only is some of the cash for that likely to come out of something else, if certainly won't change their attitude towards the park.

These are being forced onto a park that's barely operating much more than a meager offering thanks to pretty devastating cuts not only 2 years ago but ongoing for the last decade (and some before that under previous ownership in the 2000's). They're cuts on top of cuts on top of cuts. The park was already at an embarrassing low, a reversal of these will simply take us back to that embarrassing low AT BEST.
 
Merlin are good at things they can repeat; so Legoland, Sealife, Madam Tussauds, big ferris wheels etc.... where they can repeat the formula across multiple sites and countries.

They struggle with the unique places like their big theme parks. They should spin them off into a seperate entity and make it clear they would consider offers from other operators.
 
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If AT really did make a profit of 1 million pounds last year (and I don't know if this is correct), then that is a tiny amount of profit for an organisation of it's size, with the number of people employed and the amount of investment in the site.

Of course, building additional accommodation when half the existing accommodation remains empty will not improve this.

They need to increase the gate, increase ARPU, get people to come back with their friends and families and get them to spend money on park, for example by offering decent food that people want to eat.

Visitors need to have a great day in 2018
 
bluesonichd said:
But they won’t :rolleyes: that’s not what Merlin want.
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I am sure Merlin, and Alton Towers want everyone to have a great day.

The problem is, Merlin seem to think their parks can provide a great day without the necessary resources to do so.

This is delusional.

Europa-Park didn't hit 5.6m guests a year in 2017 by not being adequately resourced... Indeed, in the mid 1990s, Europa-Park was getting less guests than Alton Towers...! Now chew on THAT for a second.
 
AstroDan said:
I am sure Merlin, and Alton Towers want everyone to have a great day.

The problem is, Merlin seem to think their parks can provide a great day without the necessary resources to do so.

This is delusional.

Europa-Park didn't hit 5.6m guests a year in 2017 by not being adequately resourced... Indeed, in the mid 1990s, Europa-Park was getting less guests than Alton Towers...! Now chew on THAT for a second.
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If Thorpe manage to pull off what they’ve announced then it’s proof at least one part of Merlin does want and will try to give everyone a great day out.

Just how Thorpe actually manage to have every ride (excluding actor attractions) open at 10am remains to be seen though.
 
It will totally be because Thorpe have made cuts in other areas. In addition, Alton's cuts started before those seen at Thorpe. Didn't Thorpe make a load of backroom staff redundant in 2017? Alton were doing that in 2015 and 2016. Thorpe are just 'behind' where Alton are in terms of where the cuts are falling.

There is no way Merlin would be funding Thorpe Park and not Alton Towers. All their attractions will have a share of the pressure.
 
ringo said:
If Thorpe manage to pull off what they’ve announced then it’s proof at least one part of Merlin does want and will try to give everyone a great day out.

Just how Thorpe actually manage to have every ride (excluding actor attractions) open at 10am remains to be seen though.
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I live 40 mins drive from Thorpe. I can promise you based on the last 2 seasons there isn't a hope in hell that they will have all rides open and operational for 10am. Most of the days last season staff spent most of there time out the front handing out free return letters due to the extremely poor ride line up and unreliability of the rides. Dbgt being a late open is a joke! It's the most expensive ride at Thorpe has been open for 2 season (operational for nearly 1) is still a big crowd draw at the park and rarely has a que of less then 2 hours. This could be solved tho if picsolve just ****** off out of the que line! It's only just had a massive rebuild last year with the complete ending changed. I like the thought of the park being open to 10pm some nights but I'm still unclear what maps( if any) are included. Im pretty angry right now and apologise if I come across as rude
 
IanSR said:
Thorpe made a lot of their engineering staff redundant just before xmas iirc.
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I doubt that's true.

Merlin have been in an engineering shortage (of both disciplines) for a few years now. There is no way they would make engineering staff redundant - they can't recruit enough as it is!

If anything, the cuts will be to Rides management, HR, Finance, Marketing, PR, Uniform dept, etc. which are back of house.

:)
 
AstroDan said:
It will totally be because Thorpe have made cuts in other areas. In addition, Alton's cuts started before those seen at Thorpe. Didn't Thorpe make a load of backroom staff redundant in 2017? Alton were doing that in 2015 and 2016. Thorpe are just 'behind' where Alton are in terms of where the cuts are falling.

There is no way Merlin would be funding Thorpe Park and not Alton Towers. All their attractions will have a share of the pressure.
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I know the cuts are happening everywhere but it appears on face value Thorpe for this year haven’t allowed that to impact on the experience of customers.

IanSR said:
Thorpe made a lot of their engineering staff redundant just before xmas iirc.
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Which is interesting with the claim of all rides open at 10am!
 
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