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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2023 Discussion

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“The director and owner of the English amusement park Blackpool Pleasure Beach is lashing out at complaining annual pass holders. In an interview, Amanda Thompson says that she is regularly annoyed by subscribers who criticize the park. If it were up to Thompson, regular guests would just be nice and positive.”

Words fail me. She just doesn’t get it does she. We are the ones paying her our money to keep her business afloat.

This level of contempt contempt towards paying customers is frankly shocking.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
“The director and owner of the English amusement park Blackpool Pleasure Beach is lashing out at complaining annual pass holders. In an interview, Amanda Thompson says that she is regularly annoyed by subscribers who criticize the park. If it were up to Thompson, regular guests would just be nice and positive.”

Words fail me. She just doesn’t get it does she. We are the ones paying her our money to keep her business afloat.

This level of contempt contempt towards paying customers is frankly shocking.
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I have to echo this. That is utterly disrespectful and disgusting.
 
AT86 said:
The latest instalment in Amanda Thompson’s series on customer relations is here, yay! Needs putting through google translate.

www.looopings.nl

Directrice van Engels pretpark niet blij met kritische abonnementhouders

De directrice en eigenaresse van het Engelse attractiepark Blackpool Pleasure Beach haalt uit naar klagende jaarkaarthouders. In een interview...
www.looopings.nl www.looopings.nl
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Link below to the podcast which these quotes are taken from if you want to listen to it.


From: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6mwnrtoLyXZPZ8GATueqaC?si=N9G0U_SpTGue00XUxgK7Zg
 
Good grief, what a shambles. Though from what I'm seeing from the article how it is aimed at pass holders who visit regularly and always seem to constantly point out the many issues the park has such as from vlogs which are at best fair yet you do get some who's complaints are just nickpicking at worse though the fact the article does reveal the park has indeed no money isn't really surprising and honestly kinda a blunt honesty there that they aren't trying to hide.

But her complaints that they can't be Disney as what she claims many of those passholders apparently want is laughable. It's Blackpool, it's the last place for finding something Disney related and BPB has always had that charm to it.

That said, this has to be one of worst bits of PR I've ever seen from any British theme park next to how M&D's handled the press following the Tsunami incident.
 
Terrible PR at a time when the park certainly does not need any contribution to that.

I echo some of the sentiments above (and elsewhere) - the company truly seem to hate their own customers. I don't think Amanda realises, nobody is trying to knock the park for the sake of it, people are (for the most part) offering genuine, sincere suggestions.

Obviously not every suggestion is viable but to be honest, I would argue most of the changes I'd like to see don't directly cost anything, they're more policy/working practices I'd like to see improved.

In years gone by, BPB basically had the blueprints for success. Surely someone has to take a look back and think, what's different now and build from that
 
Mandy is staying on brand with Pleasurebeech dreadful PR. I could understand if the park had an amazing season but it's quite the opposite. Lackluster events, a dysfunctional ticket pricing and a lack of late night riding. The fact the park has not had a single new ride since Icon is really starting to show.

Even season pass holders expect something new every few years. The park is getting left behind, if you only visit one or two parks every season why would you visit Pleasurebeech over any of the big Merlin Parks.

Instead of dunking on season pass holders why not tell people what your plans for the park are going forward or try to address some of the issues affecting the park.

Anyway at least we still have Hot Ice...
 
Woah all of your horses here. How many of you have listened to the episode? I have. A lot of it is taken out of context and lost in translation. The interview takes place in English and I've gone a little out of my way to transcribe it all for you, well, at least the bits referring to the annual pass holders. I do encourage people to listen to the interview in full though, to make up their own minds, before commenting further. It's not the best interview in the world, but it's heartfelt and I don't think that she's beating up on annual pass holders. Not in the way that's been portrayed anyway.

Amanda:​
But Robert has done a superb job of creating his stamp on his park. I mean, wow. Yeah. He has really, really changed the way people look at Fantasy land and I'm visited his I mean, hats off to what a great job he's done. Fantastic. And he's getting backlash as well. If you just see or look back when they canceled all the annual passes and didn't bring them back in the game, well, that was a thing.​
​
But it makes sense. At the end of the day, if you have limited space and limited capacity, of course you want to have the fans inside, but also you want to have the full players inside and families. I think what's really difficult is, is understanding your market and when you've got such a limited space, when things like COVID came along, really, we all had to cancel annual passes because that was something that we just couldn't run with because it just didn't make sense.​
​
We wouldn't have parks today if we had to keep them going. And so I think it's very hard for people to understand the actual business behind the business that we're throwing at people and, you know, really, they shouldn't have they shouldn't know the intricacies of it. But I fully appreciate that people get very upset when you take something away from them.​
​
But, you know, season passes are great if you want to go every week, but to be honest, it would be nice that all those people that had season passes were really positive about everything that happened because sometimes they go, so often they take everything for granted and and they believe that they sort of own a bit of the park and that can be quite difficult. and it is difficult because I don't want people not to have a good time when they come to the park. I want people to have a great time when they come to the park. And I don't want people to walk around criticizing certain areas that maybe need another coat of paint quickly. But you don't always have time or the money available to be able to do that constantly.​
​
And they compare you to the likes of Disney, which they go to once a year and it is complicated for all of us that have these family owned parks that try and produce something that's going to give pleasure to a lot of people. And it is difficult. But you know what? I'm grateful for everyone coming to the park because, you know, at the end of the day, fans are great for us and it's really important that we embrace them and we listen to what they say.​
​
Sometimes I take notice, sometimes I don't. But, you know, at the end of the day, I have to run my business as a business. Yeah. And I can't always kowtow to what I'd like to. Well, I can't. I can't do what I'd like to do. Let alone what they want to do. So it is difficult.​
 
Apart from this, a few more notes from the podcast.

she mentions that Wallace and Gromit coming to the park was something her father wanted.

Wants more hotels to attract more people.

Is upset with brexit making it harder for people to come across to the UK.

Would like to have 300 days of really good weather every year in the UK.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Woah all of your horses here. How many of you have listened to the episode? I have. A lot of it is taken out of context and lost in translation. The interview takes place in English and I've gone a little out of my way to transcribe it all for you, well, at least the bits referring to the annual pass holders. I do encourage people to listen to the interview in full though, to make up their own minds, before commenting further. It's not the best interview in the world, but it's heartfelt and I don't think that she's beating up on annual pass holders. Not in the way that's been portrayed anyway.

Amanda:​
But Robert has done a superb job of creating his stamp on his park. I mean, wow. Yeah. He has really, really changed the way people look at Fantasy land and I'm visited his I mean, hats off to what a great job he's done. Fantastic. And he's getting backlash as well. If you just see or look back when they canceled all the annual passes and didn't bring them back in the game, well, that was a thing.​
​
But it makes sense. At the end of the day, if you have limited space and limited capacity, of course you want to have the fans inside, but also you want to have the full players inside and families. I think what's really difficult is, is understanding your market and when you've got such a limited space, when things like COVID came along, really, we all had to cancel annual passes because that was something that we just couldn't run with because it just didn't make sense.​
​
We wouldn't have parks today if we had to keep them going. And so I think it's very hard for people to understand the actual business behind the business that we're throwing at people and, you know, really, they shouldn't have they shouldn't know the intricacies of it. But I fully appreciate that people get very upset when you take something away from them.​
​
But, you know, season passes are great if you want to go every week, but to be honest, it would be nice that all those people that had season passes were really positive about everything that happened because sometimes they go, so often they take everything for granted and and they believe that they sort of own a bit of the park and that can be quite difficult. and it is difficult because I don't want people not to have a good time when they come to the park. I want people to have a great time when they come to the park. And I don't want people to walk around criticizing certain areas that maybe need another coat of paint quickly. But you don't always have time or the money available to be able to do that constantly.​
​
And they compare you to the likes of Disney, which they go to once a year and it is complicated for all of us that have these family owned parks that try and produce something that's going to give pleasure to a lot of people. And it is difficult. But you know what? I'm grateful for everyone coming to the park because, you know, at the end of the day, fans are great for us and it's really important that we embrace them and we listen to what they say.​
​
Sometimes I take notice, sometimes I don't. But, you know, at the end of the day, I have to run my business as a business. Yeah. And I can't always kowtow to what I'd like to. Well, I can't. I can't do what I'd like to do. Let alone what they want to do. So it is difficult.​
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That still sounds like she is criticising guests to me, which is one of the worst things she could do. PR disaster .


Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk
 
MattyH said:
Apart from this, a few more notes from the podcast.

she mentions that Wallace and Gromit coming to the park was something her father wanted.

Wants more hotels to attract more people.

Is upset with brexit making it harder for people to come across to the UK.

Would like to have 300 days of really good weather every year in the UK.
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Did they actually get many people visiting from abroad? I'm not saying there are none but I doubt it has the same draw as Towers or Thorpe.

The hotel comment is baffling given the amount of deralict and run down hotels in Blackpool. More hotels is nice but I'm not sure.local economic conditions support this.

BPB also has to be wary of new attractions opening down the road.
 
zeock said:
Shouldn't she always take notice of what the people are saying?
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No, is the short answer. It's not helpful to always take notice of what the people are saying, unfortunately 'the people' en masse are idiots and not to be trusted.

Ultimately she runs a for profit company, and she is beholden to the capital interests of that company. She is not beholden to her customers, but she obviously would do well to please them.

To quote Henry Ford (of Ford Motors) “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

She can pay attention to the good ideas, but she doesn't have to pay attention to the obviously bad ones.

Just look back at some of the suggestions on this very forum, for this park and others, and you'll see that some ideas are demonstrably terrible. (A carvery at Towers, or a Wetherspoon, or a Gregg's, seriously?)

She's also being honest in her response. Sometimes she'll hear an idea and take notice, sometimes she won't. We all do that every day in our lives. If we paid everyone and everything they said notice we'd never get very far.

I don't think that she should, or anyone should, always take notice of what people are saying. You can also get bogged down in bad reviews, or immediate feedback, and then never get out the other end as you'll be forever chasing your tale.

If Towers had paid attention to what everyone was saying, we'd still have The Black Hole and Log Flume. Instead we've got two of the best coasters in the country as their replacements. I have fond memories of both former rides, but even I've got to admit that their replacements are better for the park as a whole, and the general experience.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
No, is the short answer. It's not helpful to always take notice of what the people are saying, unfortunately 'the people' en masse are idiots and not to be trusted.

Ultimately she runs a for profit company, and she is beholden to the capital interests of that company. She is not beholden to her customers, but she obviously would do well to please them.

To quote Henry Ford (of Ford Motors) “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

She can pay attention to the good ideas, but she doesn't have to pay attention to the obviously bad ones.

Just look back at some of the suggestions on this very forum, for this park and others, and you'll see that some ideas are demonstrably terrible. (A carvery at Towers, or a Wetherspoon, or a Gregg's, seriously?)

She's also being honest in her response. Sometimes she'll hear an idea and take notice, sometimes she won't. We all do that every day in our lives. If we paid everyone and everything they said notice we'd never get very far.

I don't think that she should, or anyone should, always take notice of what people are saying. You can also get bogged down in bad reviews, or immediate feedback, and then never get out the other end as you'll be forever chasing your tale.

If Towers had paid attention to what everyone was saying, we'd still have The Black Hole and Log Flume. Instead we've got two of the best coasters in the country as their replacements. I have fond memories of both former rides, but even I've got to admit that their replacements are better for the park as a whole, and the general experience.
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She comes across as someone who rarely listens.

I don't think the media has ever portrayed her in a particularly good light and her long list of social media fauxpas has not helped her cause.

It really is time for her to step down and give someone else the reins. I don't mean selling the place , just let another family member take control while she takes a back seat and keeps away from the media in all its forms.

We rarely hear from Nick and I think it's time Amanda took a leaf out of his book.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk
 
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Relife said:
The hotel comment is baffling given the amount of deralict and run down hotels in Blackpool. More hotels is nice but I'm not sure.local economic conditions support this.
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There is demand for hotels - there was a study as part of the rationale behind the new Holiday Inn showing that, these days, people want (and I can't remember how it was worded) decent, nice hotels. The older run down hotels are never going to be able to get themselves to this standard. The number of new hotels that have gone up recently and seem to always have good occupancy rates (e.g. the Hampton by Hilton which, when only a few years old, extended and doubled its size), and closer to BPB, the Big Blue is busy enough for them to have built Boulevard and have the plans for refitting the Southern half of Ocean Boulevard to holiday accommodation.
 
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