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2018: Park Operations & Ride Availability

It wasn’t that long ago that 10,000 guests would be seen as a relatively low number for a weekend and the park would only just be getting into its stride. You normally wouldn’t start seeing 60 min queues until you got to 15,000.

As it stands the park tend to stop folk coming in once they get to 25,000. Based on current operations if the park got to 20,000 it would fall over.
 
This season reminds me of a Depeche Mode song about corporate greed.....



In all seriousness, Alton Towers needs to get out of Merlin hands. They are only interested in giving shareholders a payout each year (go and check the accounts on how much of your money they gave to shareholders)

The fat cats get richer and richer.....
 
PeteA said:
In all seriousness, Alton Towers needs to get out of Merlin hands. They are only interested in giving shareholders a payout each year (go and check the accounts on how much of your money they gave to shareholders)

The fat cats get richer and richer.....
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Count me in this. A guy in his 30s who stuffed some of his hard earned money from his two jobs into that company. You know, that kind of fat cat. Merlin have a responsibility to make money, to themselves and their shareholders. They don't operate as a charity, neither did Pearson.

If it's "your" money, I think you'll find it's "their" park.
 
But the park seems to be doing better this year... so maybe we'll see staff rehired and operations improve for 2019?
 
Rick said:
Count me in this. A guy in his 30s who stuffed some of his hard earned money from his two jobs into that company. You know, that kind of fat cat. Merlin have a responsibility to make money, to themselves and their shareholders. They don't operate as a charity, neither did Pearson.
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You are not my definition of a fat cat at all. The term is used for the heads of an organisation who pay themselves a lot of money doing essentially nothing.

As a shareholder, are you not concerned how Alton is being run? A park where profit is first and customer experience is far far behind. Of course all businesses are there to make money, we all know that and It would actually be acceptable if Merlin was losing money, but they aren't. These cuts are just to increase the profit even more.
 
Dave said:
It wasn’t that long ago that 10,000 guests would be seen as a relatively low number for a weekend and the park would only just be getting into its stride. You normally wouldn’t start seeing 60 min queues until you got to 15,000.

As it stands the park tend to stop folk coming in once they get to 25,000. Based on current operations if the park got to 20,000 it would fall over.
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10,000 is to be expected outside of school holidays, you wouldn't really see 15,000 till Easter or early summer, then late August & scarefest/fireworks should be 20,000+.

Unfortunately the park can't handle those numbers anymore, if it's struggling with 10,000 guests god knows how bad it'll be during school trips season and August bank holiday weekend if the weather's nice.
 
Josh said:
10,000 is to be expected outside of school holidays, you wouldn't really see 15,000 till Easter or early summer, then late August & scarefest/fireworks should be 20,000+.

Unfortunately the park can't handle those numbers anymore, if it's struggling with 10,000 guests god knows how bad it'll be during school trips season and August bank holiday weekend if the weather's nice.
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Is it possible operations will improve when they need to?

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Rick said:
Count me in this. A guy in his 30s who stuffed some of his hard earned money from his two jobs into that company. You know, that kind of fat cat. Merlin have a responsibility to make money, to themselves and their shareholders. They don't operate as a charity, neither did Pearson.

If it's "your" money, I think you'll find it's "their" park.
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Regardless of how you made the money to do it you are part of the problem, there are many good economists who feel the speculative share market will be the ultimate failure of capitalism. Shareholders put little into the organisation to allow it to service it’s customers but as a group take out all of the profit.

The people that lose out are ironically the hard working staff as that is the only bottom line cut that can be made to keep dividends flowing to shareholders. You can argue shareholders allow investment but has Merlin invested any better since it floated?

Neoliberal economic policy marginalises the consumer and the worker in favour of the shareholder, so the majority get less for the benefit of fewer folk (and before anyone starts harping on I’m not suggesting extreme socialism is a better option but again many economists have outlined better than I can how capitalism could be more sustainable, both for those who work and for its own long term survival).

Pearsons operated in a time when businessss and shareholders had a longer term view of profitability, in general they where propping up pension funds so the desire for a quick pound was less entrenched and the investments were expected to mature over a longer period. You are right though if it was still pearsons in charge we would be in the same boat.
 
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The way i see it is. To have a a healthy company there needs to be the correct balance between customers experience and profit.
Otherwise customers will not return due to bad experience and income is lost.
Bad level off profit will scare off investment and then new attractions that keeps customers interested and brings new customers in, can not be funded.



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I was dreading going yesterday but was pleasantly surprised with operations. The staggered ride opening was the major downer of the day. Three and a half hour queue for wickerman, spinball went down as soon as we joined the queue so with a nine year old who’s just below the 1.4m mark, we basically only had heave ho and marauders to fill the first hour.
 
Corporations sometimes do weird things, only to make their financial sheets look fine, or at least, to conceal the worst. Even if it looks suicidal as a business decision, for an outsider. I saw it in a completely different context: responding to some crisis, the management wanted to avoid financial loss at any cost, firing urgently required staff and cutting every corner, so that fullfilling their next contracts was almost certainly doomed, and new products would be cancelled, delayed or released with serious flaws. For the management, everything was about avoiding a negative balance sheet, whatever would happen later was not a problem of today. Because these numbers are what a manager is responsible for, and what he can be rewarded or punished for.

Merlin stocks made a deep fall last October, and it seems like they want to fix their numbers at any possible future cost. They have their business reports online, under Investor Relations. So it's all about spending less and squeezing more money out, no matter if people come to the conclusion to never come back again. Or, in the worst case, they have huge numbers of new visitors, or those returning after a long time, to see the nice new roller coaster, who then experience rides open only for a short time, long downtimes, long queues (in parts deliberately, goodbye single rider queue for best fill-up) and tricks to push them into expensive fast track purchases, if they want more than just waiting and frustration. Many may decide to never come again. Unfortunately, this also worked in some cases, bringing increased profits, at least for some time.

Corporations and large stock companies are often ONLY about (quick) money, allowing really no other interest or goal. The shareholders do nothing, they just park their money and hope somebody makes more out of it. The managers may attempt to make park visits really tedious for those who paid their initial 30 to 50something pounds, allowing them no more than 3 rides per day, due to unnecessary long queues, and apply this even to parking. Once they've paid, visitors might refuse to accept that they wasted their money and throw even more good money after the bad (Escalation of Commitment). Ultimately, some may make people pay for paying, with an extra fee that can be avoided only through a very special credit card. Ryanair style. But none of these theme parks is nearly as cheap as Ryanair; in fact, most never lowered their entry fee, when they took away attraction usages from the average visitor, giving them to fast trackers. So the question is really, how much are visitors willing to take.
 
Good to see that operations are improving. Seems like Merlin are listening to feedback, which is gratifying to see. We can only go onwards and upwards from here!
 
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