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Wicker Man - General Discussion

Piecing together all of the comments from yesterday, I wonder whether this was how it all came together (this is all pure speculation on my part):-

1) There was originally going to be an ambitious wooden coaster in FV

2) Shortly afterwards, the Smiler crash occurred and thus (A) the park began to cut costs (and thus the FV woodie was temporarily shelved), and (B) the park became more safety conscious

3) As a result of the increased focus on safety, the decision was made to scrap the log flume, in case people stood up during the ride / were injured during boarding or disembarking (as happened on the Thorpe Park log flume) / drank dirty water

4) Due to strict planning laws, it may have been difficulty to justify removing trees for a new coaster in FV if there was now a large and unused space in Mutiny Bay (where the log flume once sat), and so the proposed woodie was moved there instead

5) Regarding Shawn Sanbrooke’s comment: perhaps AT initially froze all new rides and investments after the crash (until attendance recovered and/or the pending lawsuits were finally settled), but they wanted to avoid the perception of the park being in decline and so later agreed to revive the then-shelved woodie project? It may not have been the case that the public wanted a woodie specifically, but simply wanted a new coaster after 5 years (especially after the somewhat lukewarm reaction to Sub-Terra and the Galactica retheme).

Also – regarding Rita: I might be wrong, but I remember hearing around 2004 or 2005 that there was originally supposed to be a large wooden rollercoaster built somewhere in AT at the time (with spray-painted footers even being photographed around Haunted Hollow, I think), but the plans fell through and so Rita was built as a last-minute backup plan.

I also remember hearing that this is why Rita was never given an “SW” designation.
 
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Main issue with Wickerman is it does not use the full Log Flume location you could of had wicker go through the trees into sort of out and back section with airtime heading towards where the indoor portion of the flume used to be.
 
Hid said:
Main issue with Wickerman is it does not use the full Log Flume location you could of had wicker go through the trees into sort of out and back section with airtime heading towards where the indoor portion of the flume used to be.
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There's a protected wall and the trees themselves may be protected from felling. I doubt if they'd wanted to build the Flume in 2018 they'd have got clearance.
 
Hid said:
Main issue with Wickerman is it does not use the full Log Flume location you could of had wicker go through the trees into sort of out and back section with airtime heading towards where the indoor portion of the flume used to be.
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I can't remember much of the old log flume, but I remember hearing that the old log flume loading station was supposed to be used as smoke hut theming for Wicker Man, but - for whatever reason - this idea was scrapped.
 
Poisson said:
There's a protected wall and the trees themselves may be protected from felling. I doubt if they'd wanted to build the Flume in 2018 they'd have got clearance.
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Yep, that's pretty much why many of the concrete footings and foundations of the Flume are still in place - the woodland is a protected area and they would've disturbed the ground too much just to remove concrete for no real reason (other than for tidying up) that otherwise [presumably] causes no harm being left alone.
Secret Weapon said:
I can't remember much of the old log flume, but I remember hearing that the old log flume loading station was supposed to be used as smoke hut theming for Wicker Man, but - for whatever reason - this idea was scrapped.
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Looking at Google Earth, the turnaround of Wicker Man round the cattle-pen queue area is almost exactly where the turntable was and pretty much follows the circumference of it.
 
Secret Weapon said:
3) As a result of the increased focus on safety, the decision was made to scrap the log flume, in case people stood up during the ride / were injured during boarding or disembarking (as happened on the Thorpe Park log flume) / drank dirty water
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The Flume was scrapped because it was a 34 year old maintenance nightmare that was haemorrhaging water, required a small army of staff to operate and occupied a massive footprint of prime development land. It had reached the end of its service life.

If Merlin were truly that terrified of water quality or guest behaviour on log flumes, they would have closed Dragon Falls at Chessington and Loggers Leap at Thorpe Park immediately. They didn't. The Flume went because it was knackered, not because it was dangerous.
Secret Weapon said:
regarding Rita: I might be wrong, but I remember hearing around 2004 or 2005 that there was originally supposed to be a large wooden rollercoaster built somewhere in AT at the time (with spray-painted footers even being photographed around Haunted Hollow, I think), but the plans fell through and so Rita was built as a last-minute backup plan.
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You're partially right. There was the proposal for the Cross Valley Wooden Coaster slated for that period. It was killed off not by last minute panic, but by the neighbours. The noise impact and visual intrusion into the valley were deemed insurmountable at the planning stage. It was very much the "Plan B", but it didn't get an SW designation not because it was rushed, but because the Secret Weapon moniker is traditionally reserved for rides that feature a World's First® element or a significant prototype innovation.

The pivot of SW8 from Forbidden Valley to the Flume site is far more likely a result of the Flume's maintenance costs becoming untenable than a strategic reaction to The Smiler crash. It is much cheaper to build a wooden coaster on a flat concrete slab where a log flume used to be than it is to terraform a valley around a protected heritage site.
 
Poisson said:
I would imagine the eatery idea was scrapped on sight lines of the ride, proximity to Big Bob and location of the queue reasons. You want your big scenery showpiece to look big, not be squashed up against the eatery.
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It’s a shame the BBQ Smokehouse never came to fruition in the courtyard either, it’s an offering that the park doesn’t really have at the moment and compliments the Wicker Man brand. Something like a sit-down restaurant with the menu of a country folk-style pub with good atmosphere, food and drink would be amazing.

Maybe it could be themed around a burnt out pirate’s den where the Beornen have taken over. Like as in the building has gone up in smokes…
 
Skyscraper said:
Bringing the discussion back on topic, am I right in thinking that the original plans for Wicker Man featured a restaurant in the flume's station area?
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Yes. That's what this entire conversation stemmed from...
Secret Weapon said:
I can't remember much of the old log flume, but I remember hearing that the old log flume loading station was supposed to be used as smoke hut theming for Wicker Man, but - for whatever reason - this idea was scrapped.
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GooseOnTheLoose said:
The fact that an EIA was filed for a wooden coaster in Forbidden Valley in April 2015, two months before The Smiler incident, actually disproves the theory that the park only decided to build a wooden coaster as a panic-response to the crash.

The timeline proves that SW8 was always going to be a wooden coaster. The intent to build one was signed off by the board long before the accident occurred. Sanbrooke's assertion that they "finally gave the public the wooden rollercoaster... because they were desperate for good publicity" is logically flawed because they had already started the planning process for a wooden coaster before the bad publicity even existed.

The pivot from Forbidden Valley to Mutiny Bay suggests that the decision was operational, not reactionary. The Flume was a maintenance money pit that had reached the end of its viable life. It made far more sense to use the SW8 budget to redevelop a massive, defunct area of the park (Mutiny Bay / Flume site) than to try and shoehorn a woodie into the tight constraints of the Blade / Thunder Looper pit whilst The Flume sat rotting.
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If this was your point, I don’t disagree at all. The coaster being filed for in FV having a “timber truss structure” would suggest that a woodie was planned all along regardless of whether the incident had happened.

If this is the argument, I would also pick a further hole in Sanbrooke’s logic. If the park built Wicker Man because they wanted good publicity post-Smiler, why on Earth would they pick to build a ride type notoriously rejected for years on the grounds of it being perceived as unsafe by the broad populace in a period when the park was desperately trying to regain the public’s trust on safety? Enthusiasts might have given them plaudits, but enthusiasts are a very small percentage of visitors and were not who the park was trying to win back.
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Intamin, sadly, does not have a Queen of Speed hydraulic launch coaster sitting on a shelf in Liechtenstein ready for next day delivery via Amazon Prime. Even clone or standard layout rides require manufacturing slots booked years in advance. The lack of leaks in the early 2000s speaks to a lack of social media and drones, not a lack of corporate forward planning.
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I’m not saying they do, but I think sometimes things can happen that result in rides being able to be conceived quicker than you’d expect. Projects fall through and parks can buy rides quite quickly that were originally intended for elsewhere (for example, Stunt Pilot at Silverwood was confirmed to have been originally designed for Kentucky Kingdom), and I have heard stories before of parks buying roller coasters at IAAPA and opening them the next season (admittedly often smaller parks, but the point still stands).

I’ve occasionally heard it alleged that Rita was a ride originally planned for another park that got cancelled and Intamin had going spare that Tussauds chose to acquire. Take that with as much salt as you wish (that may fall into the same category of rumour as “Stealth and Rita were originally planned to be one ride”), but I think it would make some sense given the relatively more “generic” nature of Rita compared to the park’s other major coasters. At very least, I always got the impression that Rita was foisted upon the park quite abruptly from higher up, and the design time of the project was quite quick.
 
Matt N said:
If this was your point, I don’t disagree at all. The coaster being filed for in FV having a “timber truss structure” would suggest that a woodie was planned all along regardless of whether the incident had happened.

If this is the argument, I would also pick a further hole in Sanbrooke’s logic. If the park built Wicker Man because they wanted good publicity post-Smiler, why on Earth would they pick to build a ride type notoriously rejected for years on the grounds of it being perceived as unsafe by the broad populace in a period when the park was desperately trying to regain the public’s trust on safety? Enthusiasts might have given them plaudits, but enthusiasts are a very small percentage of visitors and were not who the park was trying to win back.

I’m not saying they do, but I think sometimes things can happen that result in rides being able to be conceived quicker than you’d expect. Projects fall through and parks can buy rides quite quickly that were originally intended for elsewhere (for example, Stunt Pilot at Silverwood was confirmed to have been originally designed for Kentucky Kingdom), and I have heard stories before of parks buying roller coasters at IAAPA and opening them the next season (admittedly often smaller parks, but the point still stands).

I’ve occasionally heard it alleged that Rita was a ride originally planned for another park that got cancelled and Intamin had going spare that Tussauds chose to acquire. Take that with as much salt as you wish (that may fall into the same category of rumour as “Stealth and Rita were originally planned to be one ride”), but I think it would make some sense given the relatively more “generic” nature of Rita compared to the park’s other major coasters. At very least, I always got the impression that Rita was foisted upon the park quite abruptly from higher up, and the design time of the project was quite quick.
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Both Rita and Spinball were “quick” in terms of the fact that Tussuads wanted to appear to be in a healthy position and adding two rollercoasters in as many years helped the sale to Dubai International Capital.

As you say, I can imagine that not every installation takes multiple years, but the ones that are generally quicker result in poorer themeing and creativity.
 
We must have slipped in to an LHC universe, because I'm about to defend Rita.....

For the time, it was absolutely the best "bang for buck" they could have bought. Sure, Stealth utterly trounced it a year later. But let's not forget just how intense that launch was for those of us who had never experienced anything like it before.
Unfortunately it hasn't aged well. Mostly due to H&S (and that isn't intended to imply a negative).

And the less said about Spinball, the better.

The mid thousands was a strange time in the theme park world. All that mattered was statistics. Lessons were learned. I'd like to think that education fed in to Wickerman,
...... If not Smiler, unfortunately.

(This might just be the most positive thing you will every see me post, never mind at 05:20. Do not panic. Normal service will be resumed shortly.)
 
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