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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2023 Discussion

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Trooper Looper said:
Is the music playing outside The Ghost Train new or have they just turned up the speakers since I can't recall ever hearing the music play outside.

To those who don't know, yes, The Ghost Train does have music, but you can barely hear it or it's nonexistentat times. I'll leave a link of the music below to anyone who's interested.


From: https://youtu.be/Q4AMJjMyHR8?si=Lt2PkYjzaTgmfcVu
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It's new - the Tangerine Dream track isn't played anymore since the changes. Wouldn't be convinced it's staying off though, the parts where you used to be able to hear it are silent.

The audio at the end of River Caves is a bit temperamental lately, sounds like an amp is failing. The hardware is no doubt ancient at this point
 
I don't really post on vlogs etc but the lastest from Your Experience Guild is pretty depressing given how quiet the park is in what should be a busy holiday season. Add on the fact Journey to Hell has been poorly received this year and the fact that nothing new is coming in the foreseeable future paints a fairly bleak picture of a park that is barely trending water.

Considering these guys are huge fans of the park and are seriously considering not renewing thier season pass is pretty telling. It will be interesting to see the parks accounts this season and if they actually made any profit in what's been a disappointing season.
 
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I remember these particular vloggers said on their Facebook page a few years back that they’d hate for Merlin to own the park and that it would be almost as bad as closure.

But in all honesty, and much as I’m not at all a fan of Merlin, surely it has to be better than what we’re currently seeing at the park? If Merlin took over, I imagine they’d do what they normally do when they acquire a park- invest loads for the first few years, complete re-brand, then slow the investment right down. We saw this with Heide Park hugely, and (admittedly to a lesser extent) with Alton Towers. Obviously I wish they were a bit more long sighted, but at least we’d get some investment at BPB if Merlin were to take over. Right now there’s nothing going on at the park.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I remember these particular vloggers said on their Facebook page a few years back that they’d hate for Merlin to own the park and that it would be almost as bad as closure.

But in all honesty, and much as I’m not at all a fan of Merlin, surely it has to be better than what we’re currently seeing at the park? If Merlin took over, I imagine they’d do what they normally do when they acquire a park- invest loads for the first few years, complete re-brand, then slow the investment right down. We saw this with Heide Park hugely, and (admittedly to a lesser extent) with Alton Towers. Obviously I wish they were a bit more long sighted, but at least we’d get some investment at BPB if Merlin were to take over. Right now there’s nothing going on at the park.
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It doesn't even need to be Merlin, there are several European operators who might be interested in the Pleasure Beech. Any money they have just seems to go on maintenance and they have none left for investment which is a big problem when other rival parks are moving forward.

When was the last flat ride installed at PB? I think it was Sky Force but it seems the park can't even afford a new flat ride. Lack of investment is a death sentence to any theme park and starts the spiral of decline. They also need to sort of the pricing structure which clearly isn't working.
 
Relife said:
I don't really post on vlogs etc but the lastest from Your Experience Guild is pretty depressing given how quiet the park is in what should be a busy holiday season. Add on the fact Journey to Hell has been poorly received this year and the fact that nothing new is coming in the foreseeable future paints a fairly bleak picture of a park that is barely trending water.

Considering these guys are huge fans of the park and are seriously considering not renewing thier season pass is pretty telling. It will be interesting to see the parks accounts this season and if they actually made any profit in what's been a disappointing season.
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I visited on Sunday, whereas their visit was on Saturday, but everything they said was true. This weekend should be a massive eye opener to the park's management.

All day, Icon's queue was around the 10 minute mark. There was an incident on the M55 in the morning which I thought meant the crowds may turn up late, but it just never came. Icon ran with two trains, one being the Enso one, which usually slows down the queue. Big One only had one train on the track. I think Avalanche did as well. Flying machines carrying fresh air as was River Caves.

There's just something utterly tragic about it - I grew up visiting BPB, and it used to always be rammed at this time of year. Illuminations on, half term, weekend... The promenade was incredibly busy. I had to park miles away down by Starr Gate, yet BPB can't get people in

The final two hours of the day, I'd be surprised if there were more than 500-1000 on park. Loads of pathways in the dark, Big One not lit up in any way. I thought Rev had closed, but they simply hadn't sent the train for so long because nobody wanted to go on it.

It's not just been this weekend though. It's been all season. The crowds just haven't arrived, for the most part. Unless serious changes come, I can't see the park being open in 5 years time

Please excuse the blurry photo

IMG_20231029_172349788.jpg
 
It has been a while since we’ve had a “Pleasure Beach is on the verge of closure/Merlin are buying the park” discussion.

In regards last week in particular, it’s true to say it’s been quieter than one would usually expect, since it’s half term. However, one of the reasons is that the half term week has unusually been split over this week and next, depending on schools. This has meant the crowds have equally been split. The park, originally scheduled to be closed, is actually open all this week because of the split half terms and there are a fair few people around because of it.

It’s correct to say there’s been minimal investment in recent years post-Icon, although a lot of those years have been covid-filled, until Valhalla returned this year, with the Loki’s refresh. That of course excludes the new hotel and coming associated units being built on Ocean Boulevard.

There’s minimal noise about new rides, but the park don’t need planning permission for most rides, so it would be reasonably easy to bring something in pretty quickly if they wanted to. We’ve also seen reasonable profitability across the group, especially when you consider the misinformed reading of the park’s accounts by so many, so I would expect capital to be available (and in fact we know it is from the accounts). Whilst I’ve got no real idea of whether we’ll see something in the near future, the availability of funds would not be the sole reason if we were not to see anything new.

As for a take-over, be very careful what you wish for. There are (and have been for many years) a lot of operational issues with the park; they’ve been overlooked by many for just as long. Equally, there are some pretty big operational issues at other UK parks. Hoping for the washing away of an independently owned business to be replaced by the sterility of Merlin though is ridiculously short sighted. Besides the fact that it’s very unlikely Merlin would ever buy the park (even if it were for sale), if they did end up running it, expect to see the disappearance of all the unique food outlets and Aramark slop to be imported, RAP lines everywhere, the shuttering of many of the more difficult to maintain rides and the total destruction of the excellent quality at the hotels. The very last thing we need is for the monopoly of the UK theme park business to be extended even further. It’s not exactly been healthy for our country’s theme park industry over the last two decades.

Be careful in being influenced by short sighted vloggers. Their opinions are often more related to which attractions have most recently provided them with freebies, rather than a properly informed and considered analysis of the issues.
 
Merlin wouldn't have to buy it. The council would buy it to protect local jobs, and then they'd appoint Merlin to operate it the way they've done with the Tower and Sandcastle.


It would just lead to numerous rides closing for good, and the food and hotel quality going off a cliff.
 
I certainly don't want Merlin to buy pleasurebeech but I do wonder where they money is coming from. There are at least 3 rides that are overdue removal or are at the end of thier life ( Cough... Steeplechase)

It would be nice to get some sort of longer term plan. This would include:

- New Rides
- An overhaul of thier events including Halloween offerings
- addressing dead spots within the park
- a serious look at ticketing and pricing as well as promotions
- creation of a new park entrance
- getting rid of stupid ride scanners

At the moment what is actually getting people to visit next year? If your a family who only visit one or two parks a year, why would you pick pleasurebeech in a year other parks are offering more?
 
havaska said:
Merlin wouldn’t be allowed to buy the park, they have too much market share.

Would love to see Cedar Fair make the jump to Europe…
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CMA wouldn't get involved, there are still plenty of independent amusement parks, travelling parks and smaller entertainment groups. You have to look at the leisure market as a whole and Merlin doesn't have a monopoly in it at all, not enough for the competition watchdog to get involved. They might be the biggest player, with the largest parks and the biggest purse, but they're not near monopoly standards. Would they want to run Pleasure Beach at all? I don't think so, it would dilute their brand. It's an amusement park, not a theme park. Better buys for Merlin have come up, should they have wanted them, but they won't want to saturate their own market.
 
It’s correct that the council are almost certainly the only buyer for the park, since they have a charge from the loans. That’s the only realistic way Merlin end up running the place. Theoretically, I don’t really see the CMA stepping in to stop Merlin purchasing the place though, it’s too minor an issue and I’m not sure theme parks would be considered an entire market anyway, rather part of the wider leisure market.

As for what brings people to Pleasure Beach rather than a Merlin park, there’s proximity (see Scottish visitors for example), shorter queues, classic attractions and nostalgia, the tallest coaster in the country, better food and drink, a wider range of hotels and (some) better quality hotels, the wider resort etc.
 
Another thing that hasn’t been brought up, which I feel is worth considering, is that lower attendance may not necessarily cause worse financials. At very best, guest figures are an inconsistent indicator of profitability; spend per capita matters just as much, if not more.

It should be noted that Pleasure Beach’s apparent noticeable fall in attendance post-COVID also directly coincided with the park completely scrapping non-rider entry. As much as this may have put some people off visiting (as has been discussed at length in this thread in the past), this also guarantees that everyone who walks through the gates of the park is now paying a baseline amount of money that is not insignificant (£35 or however much Pleasure Beach’s cheapest ticket is now). If they’ve struck the balance of guest figures vs spend per capita right and/or the folks who are coming are spending considerably more on average, then attendance could be considerably lower and their financials wouldn’t necessarily be any worse than they were when the guest figures were higher (they may possibly even be better).

As much as the park supposedly exceeded 5 million guests per year routinely when entry was free, a large percentage of these guests were likely spending hardly any money, or dare I say not spending any money at all. It’s all well and good for a park to be getting millions and millions of guests through the gates, but if those guests are spending nothing, high guest figures mean nothing to the bottom line. If a park has an average spend per capita of £35 and gets 1 million guests per year, a park with an average spend per capita of £5 would need 7 million guests per year to generate the same turnover.

With all that being said, I do remember reading through the Pleasure Beach financials on the government website not that long ago and seeing that the park’s accounts, profit/loss wise, were not particularly rosy prior to COVID… 2021 was pretty good, with a significant profit generated, but that was in a year where staycations reigned supreme and the park benefitted from notable government subsidy. Time will tell us whether the big profits continue after the pandemic or were simply a pandemic-induced false dawn.
 
Good point on per capita spend. Along with the non-rider pass disappearing, another component which will drive up per capita spend is the increase in entry fee.

The covid windfall was generated in large part from the Covid VAT relief scheme, which generated profits that could not otherwise be written down via other financial mechanisms. I don’t expect we’ll see that again in the near future.
 
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