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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2026 Discussion
Matt N
TS Member
I’d wager that not that many pay the full on the gate price any more, though. Perhaps more do in Blackpool than in other parks, but I imagine that a lot of people pay some form of reduced price, whether online, through Tesco vouchers or some other discount scheme, in this day and age.
Ares
TS Member
The comparison for me is it's like being an e-commerce store, renting a highstreet premises and charging footfall customers more for the same products despite an obvious demand for your products from those passer bys. Idiotic. Just because everyone else does it, and it showcases X capacity in advance either for staffing or cashflow purposes, it's still a dumb business model to charge that much more on the gate for a supposedly family oriented seaside amusement park.
Bowser
TS Member
Probably couldn’t spend a penny either.
I hate modern theme parks price model of punishing on the day visits.
djtruefitt
TS Team
I think the book online in advanced works well for normal parks when you plan your visit in advance, but I do think Blackpool is more of a “we will see what the weather is like on the day and go” kind of park for those on holiday in Blackpool and near by.
Tickets for Fridays and Sundays are now on the website 2 for £60 ( 2-4-1) every Friday and Sunday in 2026. Guessing this is a result of the massive impact the promotion had last year when it for 2 for 1 ( 2 for £50) with many Fridays and Sundays over summer being close to capacity days and the main reason for the increases of the on the day price to still have a very good offer on Sundays and Friday whilst increasing sales vs 2025.
I've always thought it'd be a good idea for the Beach to try and flog wristbands on low attendance days up on the mile. Set up a little stand Apprentice-style, flog wristbands for £25, throw in some F&B discount vouchers and a tram ticket to get them down there as quickly as possible before any of the tourist shacks on the prom take more of their money.
On nicer days Blackpool fills up with people from surrounding areas and for those on the day visitors the place might as well be invisible. A ridiculous gate price just enforces this.
But then this is a park who are seemingly on a bizarre mission to separate themselves from the resort town they're on the edge of, so doubt anything as 'integrated' as this is on their radar.
On nicer days Blackpool fills up with people from surrounding areas and for those on the day visitors the place might as well be invisible. A ridiculous gate price just enforces this.
But then this is a park who are seemingly on a bizarre mission to separate themselves from the resort town they're on the edge of, so doubt anything as 'integrated' as this is on their radar.
flyingguitar
TS Member
Yeah,
I think adding to this is the location, Alton, Thorpe, etc you have to you out of your way to go to (especially alton) often meaning it kinda has to be come a whole day activity as you may struggle to do much else after due to the travel time, however Blackpool is surrounded by other attractions, you could want to go on just the big one, then go to the beach, then sand castle or the tower all are relatively close together meaning the park may only be part of a day.
I wonder if there may be advertising rules against this, I know for normal products you can't (although it is happening very often online) advertise something as X% off permanently, could a similar rule apply here, if you are advertising 50% off gate price or something online, but on the day giving the bands away for 50%, then the bands were never sold at 100% and thus 50% was always their price.
I am not an advertiser so I have no clue, I am wondering if there is some rule like this that, as BPB are a UK based company, they could get fined for
I think if they still sold at their own gate for whatever the price was, theoretically, they would be fine to have 'special promo' stand somewhere else offering the discount. Especially if it isn't every day.
I'm not sure if they still do, but for a while Alton Towers had a "special on the day price" every day which they offered for the few people arriving without a voucher (which were ubiquitous at the time). There was also a variable discount price for buying online, meaning the only way to actually be charged the "gate price" was to turn up at the gate and buy tickets for a later date! I can't imagine very many were sold.
GooseOnTheLoose
TS Member
The mental image of Amanda Thompson sanctioning a trestle table on the Golden Mile, staffed by panic stricken interns trying to upsell a Pasaje del Terror combo to a stag do from Bolton, is the most "Blackpool" thing I have visualised all week.
As you noted, however, this clashes violently with their desperate desire to be seen as a premium "Resort" and not just a collection of rides at the end of a very windy tram line. They would rather have an empty park than admit they need to hustle on the street corner like a club promoter.
There is no law against variable pricing based on the sales channel or the time of purchase. In fact, it is the standard operating model for the entire travel and leisure industry.
The regulations you are half remembering relate to the CTSI Guidance for Traders on Pricing Practices, specifically regarding "Was / Now" pricing or misleading reference prices. In order to fall foul of this, BPB would have to advertise a discount against a gate price which has never actually been charged.
Since the gate price is very real, and there are unfortunately plenty of people who turn up on the day and pay it, the higher price is established. Once it is, they can sell discounted tickets on the promenade, on a cereal box, or via a goose in a trench coat (a look I can pull off, incidentally) for whatever price they deem fit.
If it were illegal to sell a product at a discount whilst simultaneously selling it at full price elsewhere, every hotel, airline, and train operator in the country would currently be in prison.
flyingguitar
TS Member
Ok, ithought the idea was to discount the tickets at the gate, would that make much differnce in legality, or would do they have to do this work arround of selling tickets on the side (or handing out coupons would probably be a much better method)
GooseOnTheLoose
TS Member
I fear you may be searching for a regulatory conspiracy where none exists. There is no law preventing a business from changing its prices whenever it feels like it. A theme park could legally charge £50 at 9:00am and £20 at 11:00am if they thought the market would bear it. Legally, Mandy could stand at the turnstiles handing out wristbands for a fiver if she wanted to. No workaround is required.
The reason parks do not typically slash prices at the gate isn't because of legality; it is purely commercial strategy to protect advance revenue. The business model relies on scaring people into booking online early to secure cash flow. If customers realise they can just turn up on a quiet Tuesday and haggle for a cheap wristband because the park is empty, nobody would ever pre book again, and you simultaneously infuriate the "good" customer next to them who paid full price three weeks ago.
flyingguitar
TS Member
I was thinking they would have advertised the prebooking as a discounted, which I would have thought it was a thing regulated by ASA, as stated "Marketers claiming that customers can make a saving must ensure they do not mislead by falsely claiming a price advantage (rule 3.39)." however if they just word it better I guess they could easily get around it (for instance up to 50% prebooking discount)
Ares
TS Member
I agree with all of the points above, whilst re-iterating the same common theme. BPB is a seaside amusement park, and has an identity crisis, to which we can probably make an educated guess as to why that is.
I'm 32 this year, and have always lived roughly in the same area give or take a few miles, around 45 minutes from Blackpool. Growing up, with a father who worked very hard and sometimes adhoc in terms of weekends - with it hard to know when he was free to take me, so it was very much a case of "see what the weather is like in the morning" and go if and only it was nice.
I fully understand the advanced revenues elements, but as a marketer, you cannot account or put a price on everything, especially something as unpredictable as variable secondary spend based on consumer behaviours which can also be weather based. A hot weekened day or during the holidays out of the blue, how many hundreds or thousands flock to Blackpool keen for chips and ice cream in the sun - and how many are denied that off the cuff chance to say "Should we go on some rides at the pleasure beach?" to arrive at the gate and see £60 entry EACH and think F THAT and leave a negative sentiment for a long time to come.
It seems to me that the Pleasure Beach are playing a zero sum game to some degree. They are trying to force people into a choice; us or them, not both. The park has long hated the rest of Blackpool and everything out of their control along the promenade, egotistically seeing themselves as the sole guardians of Blackpool's entertainment and amusements industry IMO - with everything else lesser than them. By increasing on the gate tickets they are effectively communicating to consumers "Dont think you can just turn up if you've been elsewhere, I'll charge you more. It's us or them, your choice. You can't have both."
So what do the numbers say? Seems to me like this is a suicide mission that's killing the park.
I've said it before but they need to ZAG and ignore the rest of the industry that doesn't have a prime footfall location and needs POP. But Pleasure Beach needs a hybrid system.
My proposal has always been free non-riders with every valid rider ticket, tiered ride access tickets for kids, family and thrill level attraction access at tiered pricing for flexibility in ride choice across a whole group or family, then bundle in cheaper fast passes as your upsell with increased attendances increasing queue times even if the park does this through maintaining slower ops / capacity etc.
Plus NOT punishing on the day attendee's, but discounting online purchases. Book 24hrs or more before and save 10% off the gate price - even after a slight hike in gate prices.
For me it should just be on the gate:
- £25 Kids Rides Access
- £30 Family Rides Access
- £35 Thrill (All Rides) Access - For context basically need this to ride say; Icon and The Big One.
Then your online discount makes it;
- £22.50 Kids
- £27 Family
- £31.50 Thrill
Add in your dynamic pricing on base prices to increase maybe up to £2.50 on select peak busy days, and decrease up to £2.50 on very dead days (in the week non-holidays, bad weather periods) to maintain steady visitor numbers.
That does not feel like you're punishing customers then.
I also think Speedy One's are massively overpriced and the park should just sell cheaper bundles en masse, using people around the park physically upselling guests on busy days or at least using electronic or physical promo signs to promote buying them in the app near every ride station and around the park.
Might as well have longer fast pass queues by reducing costs and selling more, even if thats only on busier days.
I'd even mentioned previously doing half day tickets, to which I think the park experimented with it in 2024 or 2025. But they always half *** stuff to fail.
It's all easily done via the app, with timed usage etc too.
Unsure why they couldn't even just have a £10 pay per ride ticket with 3 free kids rides included, one time use each and then pay per ride seperately.
Point is, they really need a dynamic and hybrid approach that utilises FOMO and spur of the moment outings and attracts people in off the promenade as most are saying.
It just feels like as a consumer im being severely punished for not booking in advance, and anyone going past thinking they can wing an afternoon in the park will be left with a sour taste seeing £60 rider tickets and £20 non-rider.
I'm 32 this year, and have always lived roughly in the same area give or take a few miles, around 45 minutes from Blackpool. Growing up, with a father who worked very hard and sometimes adhoc in terms of weekends - with it hard to know when he was free to take me, so it was very much a case of "see what the weather is like in the morning" and go if and only it was nice.
I fully understand the advanced revenues elements, but as a marketer, you cannot account or put a price on everything, especially something as unpredictable as variable secondary spend based on consumer behaviours which can also be weather based. A hot weekened day or during the holidays out of the blue, how many hundreds or thousands flock to Blackpool keen for chips and ice cream in the sun - and how many are denied that off the cuff chance to say "Should we go on some rides at the pleasure beach?" to arrive at the gate and see £60 entry EACH and think F THAT and leave a negative sentiment for a long time to come.
It seems to me that the Pleasure Beach are playing a zero sum game to some degree. They are trying to force people into a choice; us or them, not both. The park has long hated the rest of Blackpool and everything out of their control along the promenade, egotistically seeing themselves as the sole guardians of Blackpool's entertainment and amusements industry IMO - with everything else lesser than them. By increasing on the gate tickets they are effectively communicating to consumers "Dont think you can just turn up if you've been elsewhere, I'll charge you more. It's us or them, your choice. You can't have both."
So what do the numbers say? Seems to me like this is a suicide mission that's killing the park.
I've said it before but they need to ZAG and ignore the rest of the industry that doesn't have a prime footfall location and needs POP. But Pleasure Beach needs a hybrid system.
My proposal has always been free non-riders with every valid rider ticket, tiered ride access tickets for kids, family and thrill level attraction access at tiered pricing for flexibility in ride choice across a whole group or family, then bundle in cheaper fast passes as your upsell with increased attendances increasing queue times even if the park does this through maintaining slower ops / capacity etc.
Plus NOT punishing on the day attendee's, but discounting online purchases. Book 24hrs or more before and save 10% off the gate price - even after a slight hike in gate prices.
For me it should just be on the gate:
- £25 Kids Rides Access
- £30 Family Rides Access
- £35 Thrill (All Rides) Access - For context basically need this to ride say; Icon and The Big One.
Then your online discount makes it;
- £22.50 Kids
- £27 Family
- £31.50 Thrill
Add in your dynamic pricing on base prices to increase maybe up to £2.50 on select peak busy days, and decrease up to £2.50 on very dead days (in the week non-holidays, bad weather periods) to maintain steady visitor numbers.
That does not feel like you're punishing customers then.
I also think Speedy One's are massively overpriced and the park should just sell cheaper bundles en masse, using people around the park physically upselling guests on busy days or at least using electronic or physical promo signs to promote buying them in the app near every ride station and around the park.
Might as well have longer fast pass queues by reducing costs and selling more, even if thats only on busier days.
I'd even mentioned previously doing half day tickets, to which I think the park experimented with it in 2024 or 2025. But they always half *** stuff to fail.
It's all easily done via the app, with timed usage etc too.
Unsure why they couldn't even just have a £10 pay per ride ticket with 3 free kids rides included, one time use each and then pay per ride seperately.
Point is, they really need a dynamic and hybrid approach that utilises FOMO and spur of the moment outings and attracts people in off the promenade as most are saying.
It just feels like as a consumer im being severely punished for not booking in advance, and anyone going past thinking they can wing an afternoon in the park will be left with a sour taste seeing £60 rider tickets and £20 non-rider.
Last edited:
Bowser
TS Member
I’m very much in this boat, albeit I’m the father and there are a few other variables. But in general, the vast majority of our UK trips are decided on the day. It’s the main reason we have MAP, otherwise this hobby would be bankrupting me.
I’ve always assumed we are somewhat unusual in this regard though and the majority of visitors have a bit more flexibility in terms of advance planning.
That being said, our nearest park is Adventure Island in Southend and despite the owner’s inevitable protestations I believe that is a much closer equivalent to Blackpool than any other UK theme parks. Firmly a place most people visit spontaneously.
Yes the ride offering is more extensive but outside of that you have more similarities than differences. The notion of Adventure Island operating a theme park level paid entry system would be absurd. At some point Blackpool need to accept they have to offer what works to bring people in rather than dictate what they think people should accept.
Themepark-newbie
TS Member
And that is why the gate price is so high. Average Joe Public loves a bargain and 2-4-1 sounds great.