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2026: General Discussion

GooseOnTheLoose said:
If a multi-national corporation has started taking strategic business advice from vloggers, we're definitely doomed.

The suggestion to open Wicker Man has been floating around this forum for weeks. It's a well documented phenomenon that content creators scour these pages for "research" and then present the community consensus as their own unique insight.
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Though we do know that at least Paulton's read this site, as you may fondly remember their reference at the Fan Day event (as well as actually posting) ;)

Perhaps the mighty brainstorm of TS should produce our own vlog content with the ultimate aim of wielding enough industry power to manifest our dreams. By 2028 we could have a Flying Theatre in the AT disabled car park!
 
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Bowser said:
Though we do know that at least Paulton's read this site, as you may fondly remember their reference at the Fan Day event (as well as actually posting) ;)

Perhaps the mighty brainstorm of TS should produce our own vlog content with the ultimate aim of wielding enough industry power to manifest our dreams. By 2028 we could have a Flying Cinema in the AT disabled car park!
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"Fondly" is certainly one word for it. Being publicly gaslit by Lawrence Mancey regarding their accommodation plans, only for him to submit the planning application six months later, has given me trust issues that no amount of Storm Chaser ERT can heal.

He is not the Messiah; he is a very naughty boy.

I must inject a tiny shard of pedantry regarding their forum presence (I have a reputation to maintain after all). The "Paultons Park" account which graced us with its presence was almost operated by their bright eyed PR agency, not the High Command themselves.

As for the Flying Theatre in the car park... There's stronger correlational evidence which suggests that the Operations team at Alton Towers pays attention to @Ash's recommendations, compared to any made by The Relevant Media®. Let's not forget how long he campaigned for "A Very Merry Hexmas" and The Curse At Alton Manor Christmas overlays!
 
While maybe Parks should take some advice and suggestions from enthusiasts and public. it should always be filtered through business and strategic sense. I personally think all the dark rides should be open over winter as it just makes sense as each can operate comfortably in any weather
 
I have done a number of dark rides in the middle of a British winter.
Both Goldmine (W&G) and the Space Invader were very, very cold indeed.
The added windchill of the coaster in the dark was downright nasty.
Comfortably is very much the wrong word.
 
Secret Weapon said:
I might be completely wrong, but I wonder if Alton Towers decided to open Wicker Man in February due to Theme Park Worldwide’s video from earlier this week, in which he suggested opening Wicker Men for the Pirate Takeover event (see link below at the 33:56 mark) – or whether it was simply a case of great minds thinking alike!
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No. Shaun wasn’t the only content creator to say this, and people have suggested it for as long as the pirate takeover has been an event.

Spinball wasn’t able to open so they managed to get wicker open.
 
I think the chances of Alton having used Sanbrooke to help them make an operational decision are quite slim. As much as he undeniably has a substantial following and is well-known within the community, he has never worked in an operational decision making capacity in a theme park and does not really have the authority to assert that things should happen single-handedly.

That’s not a slight against Shawn, as I don’t think many (if any) of us have that authority either, but I’m more using it as a reason why it’s vanishingly unlikely that he would have factored into their decision making.
 
I’m honestly amazed and shocked Alton think it’s acceptable to have families with young children waiting in 75 minute queues for children’s rides.

It’s a terrible experience for everyone, it’s not practical to expect young children to wait for that long, it’s wholly inappropriate and terrible value. Why would anyone want to come back? Why do they wonder why people would rather pay more and go to Paultons?

Is this what they think a successful way to run a theme park is?

I’d love to know what their plan is to resolve it now, in the future and ensure it doesn’t happen again?

As others have said, why not move the carousel, driving school and BB to CBeebies to add some much needed capacity? Why not relocate the postman pat ride? Why not reopen the Towers Street family restaurant to add much needed indoor F&B capacity?
 
Ash said:
I’m honestly amazed and shocked Alton think it’s acceptable to have families with young children waiting in 75 minute queues for children’s rides.

It’s a terrible experience for everyone, it’s not practical to expect young children to wait for that long, it’s wholly inappropriate and terrible value. Why would anyone want to come back? Why do they wonder why people would rather pay more and go to Paultons?

Is this what they think a successful way to run a theme park is?

I’d love to know what their plan is to resolve it now, in the future and ensure it doesn’t happen again?

As others have said, why not move the carousel, driving school and BB to CBeebies to add some much needed capacity? Why not relocate the postman pat ride? Why not reopen the Towers Street family restaurant to add much needed indoor F&B capacity?
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Queuing and patience is part of life the queues are also designed to hold people so the pathways don't get too overcrowded, the rides are clearly not high enough capacity for Towers so should have more open. There are limited spots for where Postman Pat behind 4D Cinema and in X Sector are the only 2 spots that could house the full length ride.
 
Ash said:
I’m honestly amazed and shocked Alton think it’s acceptable to have families with young children waiting in 75 minute queues for children’s rides.

It’s a terrible experience for everyone, it’s not practical to expect young children to wait for that long, it’s wholly inappropriate and terrible value. Why would anyone want to come back? Why do they wonder why people would rather pay more and go to Paultons?

Is this what they think a successful way to run a theme park is?

I’d love to know what their plan is to resolve it now, in the future and ensure it doesn’t happen again?

As others have said, why not move the carousel, driving school and BB to CBeebies to add some much needed capacity? Why not relocate the postman pat ride? Why not reopen the Towers Street family restaurant to add much needed indoor F&B capacity?
Click to expand...
I think it's a bit unfair to assume they find it acceptable, I'm sure Towers don't want to see negative reviews and comments about the park and the event any more than we do.

Somewhere online I heard that they only expected 1000 last Saturday and 5000 turned up. I'd imagine its been very similar all week. They've clearly had unforeseen issues with Spinball and have been trying to get it open. At some point in the week (maybe even Monday, who knows) a decision was made to open Wicker Man instead but of course opening a coaster when it wasn't due to open especially out of season is not a quick thing. For all we know, WM may not have been operationally ready until Friday (the trains could still have been having their annual inspections last weekend for example) and they've been working all week to open it. Then there's staff - they don't magically appear when they press the ON button, you have to get them in and of course it can only those that are trained to run it.

As others have said, it will be interesting to see what they do next year. For whatever reason it seems they have had far, far more people turn up this year than they anticipated - I guess what they have put on this year is based on guest numbers of previous years. Hopefully they'll learn from this and have a bigger offering of attractions from the beginning next year.
 
Just to be clear, Towers management have read forums and watched vlogs but they don’t take much from it. Years and years ago I got to be on the 2nd or 3rd iteration of customer council (2010 into 2011) and they were very honest that they pay much more attention to guest feedback visitors provide. They filter that as guest feedback is interesting (the year the played pop music on Towers Street for a few months was very popular with general guest feedback), but yeah, vlogs and forums are not high up their radar for advice.

They mostly look at vlogs to see what negative press they get, so Shaun or TS FB or TT FB might influence in the sense of highlighting areas of deterioration (peeling paint, rotting fence) and that might spark a park manager to instruct a fix, but general strategy no way.

Wickerman will have opened because two of the trains were ready and most of the ride doesn’t require non-destructive fatigue testing as the woodwork is inspected year round, plus with Mutiny bay being already open they probably had some staff in signed off to operate (I think sign-off lasts a year so any staff from last season working will still be ok to operate based on last seasons sign off), so it will have been ready enough to open.
 
Ash said:
I’m honestly amazed and shocked Alton think it’s acceptable to have families with young children waiting in 75 minute queues for children’s rides.

It’s a terrible experience for everyone, it’s not practical to expect young children to wait for that long, it’s wholly inappropriate and terrible value. Why would anyone want to come back? Why do they wonder why people would rather pay more and go to Paultons?
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I’m currently at Adventure Island and in 75 minutes we’ve been on 8 rides for the same price as AT are charging.

We always come away with a positive experience and visit here as much as we do any Merlin park.
 
I think this is the point parks like Paultons and Adventure Island are locals parks so naturally will have less visitors, the Merlin Parks whilst local parks themselves are more recognisible and are fully established so are more well known. So more people would naturally visit the more well known places
 
Hid said:
I think this is the point parks like Paultons and Adventure Island are locals parks so naturally will have less visitors, the Merlin Parks whilst local parks themselves are more recognisible and are fully established so are more well known. So more people would naturally visit the more well known places
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They also have more rides.

The event is popular but Merlin parks just don’t have the capacity to react fast enough to changes in demand. I think budgets are set for a season and February is in the previous years budget so the event will probably have been budgeted for last spring. Fact is they should have moved some of the more portable rides in Walliams world into the Towers street area (they could have even moved driving school, they have done that before now).
 
Dave said:
They also have more rides.

The event is popular but Merlin parks just don’t have the capacity to react fast enough to changes in demand. I think budgets are set for a season and February is in the previous years budget so the event will probably have been budgeted for last spring. Fact is they should have moved some of the more portable rides in Walliams world into the Towers street area (they could have even moved driving school, they have done that before now).
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Yeah they should have more rides open at the same time most Merlin Parks have much bigger rides so requires more time to do the full winter checks.

Though we do know some rides are already testing Galactica has been scene
 
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