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Merlin Entertainments: General Discussion

I don't expect most people on here to actually be visiting Legoland regularly. But it is odd that it often gets glossed over completely.
JAperson said:
Yes sorry I did, no idea how I confused that in my head apologies!

Legoland produce a lot of revenue for Merlin, and my hope is that the Shanghai park, and others will eventually stop being a drain on financial resources and instead actually add to the business (which I think its likely with at least the Shanghai park). They have however chosen some odd places to put Lego parks and I'm just not sure how they'll work out.
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So the Legoland Parks both "produce a lot of revenue" and are "a drain on financial resources"?
This is exactly what I mean. Those two things cancel each other out. They can justify building new Legoland Parks based on the success of the others.
 
Tim said:
So the Legoland Parks both "produce a lot of revenue" and are "a drain on financial resources"?
This is exactly what I mean. Those two things cancel each other out.
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No they don't. Lego parks as a whole are very successful, but these parks are incredibly expensive to design, build and get open. Therefore the new parks that are yet to pay off there considerable debt are a drain on resources and debt financing. Once they have created enough revenue to pay off this debt, they will be producing profit, which then gives the rest of the company more resources.
Tim said:
They can justify building new Legoland Parks based on the success of the others.
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Just because something works in one place, with one set of circumstances doesn't mean that can be repeated. Spending that much money building something 'because it worked somewhere else' isn't a good reason to do it. They should have taken a much slower, more careful and considered approach to what and where they were building these parks.
 
I'm certainly not going to disagree that a more cautious approach should have been taken when choosing where to build new attractions. The Legoland parks are only the tip of the iceberg in that regard. Some of the midway attractions have been built in really bizarre locations.
JAperson said:
No they don't. Lego parks as a whole are very successful, but these parks are incredibly expensive to design, build and get open. Therefore the new parks that are yet to pay off there considerable debt are a drain on resources and debt financing. Once they have created enough revenue to pay off this debt, they will be producing profit, which then gives the rest of the company more resources.
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That would be correct, if the newest parks were being payed for by Merlin. But as was previously pointed out the new parks are being funded by outside investment, with Merlin being payed to design them, and then manage the operations.
You are of course correct that some of the parks are still paying off construction debts, but what I wanted to highlight is that their is justification for building new legoland parks, and their impact on the business is significantly overstated. If Merlin chose not to build a Legoland park it wouldn't suddenly mean Alton Towers gets a new record breaking coaster instead.
 
What structure changes are Merlin actually doing within the company. Because with the main park leaders leaving could it be they are preparing to do some heavy changes.

Could we see more sited sold off
 
Hid said:
What structure changes are Merlin actually doing within the company. Because with the main park leaders leaving could it be they are preparing to do some heavy changes.

Could we see more sited sold off
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The only park that would be at risk of a sale would be Alton Towers.
 
AT86 said:
Why?
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Given the investment into Chessie I’d say that’s safe. And it terms of location Thorpe and Chessie are close to London - so may see a bounce in numbers with universal coming.

Can’t see Alton getting that. And I also think they’ve chosen the route of refurbing not new attractions so think we won’t see anything for 3/5 years still.

Alton may benefit more being independent and not hampered by group capex policies
 
AT86 said:
Why?
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It's the park that needs the most investment to bring it back to where it should be. Lots of aging rides leading to downtime and two areas of the park that looks totally hollowed out. That's before you look and replacing the Monorail, refurbishing the hotel and the investment need for new rides.
 
Hid said:
Could we see more sited sold off
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Point of order, we haven't seen any sites sold off.

The Blackpool attractions had control taken back by the council. They continue to operate under licence, but no sale happened.

Bear Grylls Adventure closed earlier this year, also without a sale and is no longer operating.

Sky News reported that Merlin were considering selling some Sea Life centres, back in February, but as of yet none have been sold.
Hid said:
What structure changes are Merlin actually doing within the company.
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Merlin are centralising some operations, they are outsourcing others, they are sharing resources across sites.
 
Jb85 said:
Given the investment into Chessie I’d say that’s safe. And it terms of location Thorpe and Chessie are close to London - so may see a bounce in numbers with universal coming.

Can’t see Alton getting that. And I also think they’ve chosen the route of refurbing not new attractions so think we won’t see anything for 3/5 years still.

Alton may benefit more being independent and not hampered by group capex policies
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Quantum said:
It's the park that needs the most investment to bring it back to where it should be. Lots of aging rides leading to downtime and two areas of the park that looks totally hollowed out. That's before you look and replacing the Monorail, refurbishing the hotel and the investment need for new rides.
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Interesting theories but not ones I agree with personally (we can all have different views of course).

The investment seen at Towers doesn’t look like the behaviour of a company looking to offload an asset to me. Significant investment in upgrading Curse, Hex, Skyride and completely replacing Nemesis is long term stuff.

Quick short term investments like rethemes/sponsorships and/or cheaper new rides that may temporarily spike interest and guest numbers would be more akin to trying to maximise the attractiveness ready for a sale (as happened in the late Tussauds era with Spinball, Rita and The Flume).

If Merlin have Universal to fight off, they would be mad to sell off their most well known UK asset to the competition - then they would be facing two new competitors for their existing parks.

Also, the resort side of the park is a big money maker. The largest number of rooms of any of their parks worldwide, including the Legolands.
 
AT86 said:
Interesting theories but not ones I agree with personally (we can all have different views of course).

The investment seen at Towers doesn’t look like the behaviour of a company looking to offload an asset to me. Significant investment in upgrading Curse, Hex, Skyride and completely replacing Nemesis is long term stuff.

Quick short term investments like rethemes/sponsorships and/or cheaper new rides that may temporarily spike interest and guest numbers would be more akin to trying to maximise the attractiveness ready for a sale (as happened in the late Tussauds era with Spinball, Rita and The Flume).

If Merlin have Universal to fight off, they would be mad to sell off their most well known UK asset to the competition - then they would be facing two new competitors for their existing parks.

Also, the resort side of the park is a big money maker. The largest number of rooms of any of their parks worldwide, including the Legolands.
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I actually agree - but also can see the logic in trying to sell the park.
 
Merlin don't need to sell any of their parks in any case, so it's highly unlikely they'd sell a park off just to create competition for themselves.

They'll continue running the parks into the ground with sporadic investments and people will continue to buy up the bargain basement passes like they have done for years.

Besides, I'm still not convinced Universal will have much of an impact on attendances of the Merlin slop day to day. It'll be the accomodation taking the hit IMO.
 
2026 not exactly looking great so far regarding the Merlin parks.

Only Chessington to my knowledge with anything new coming for 2026, and the same for 2027 as well. You'd have to assume based on how early planning permission was put in for the Minecraft area that probably rules out anything of real note heading to Thorpe, Alton, or Legoland Windsor in the coming years.
 
Also with regards to invesment when Tussards was being sold to Merlin they added both Spinball Whizzer and Rita to boost attendance during the period it was being sold
 
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