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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2026 Discussion

GooseOnTheLoose said:
Advertising a headline attraction that guests can't actually ride yet, in order to sell tickets for this weekend, would result in an influx of furious customers demanding refunds when they arrive and find a construction site. It would be commercial suicide. You advertise what you can sell now... Although it would be very Blackpool.
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Wouldn't closing two of their headliners with one days notice potentially be commercial suicide too?

Just thinking about it, I know they're probably covered by T&Cs but wouldn't surprise me if vouchers or refunds have been asked for following the advanced closures.

Valhalla in particular is basically as big as Icon and Big One in it's popularity so imagine if it happened to one of them two especially Icon. Customer Services would be swarmed.

Grand National would help operations but I'm sure it's something people aren't as fussed over.
 
owenstreet7 said:
Wouldn't closing two of their headliners with one days notice potentially be commercial suicide too?
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The timing of this was no mistake or accident either.

They knew it wouldn't go down well so waited until the last minute. Not only to not harm their ticket sales but also because the initial disappointment of the visitors would soon get lost in all the excitement of the opening day.

It's as clever as it is devious.
 
owenstreet7 said:
Wouldn't closing two of their headliners with one days notice potentially be commercial suicide too?
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They do this every year!
They have always had subtle methods of squeezing every last penny.
Yesterday I queued behind, and in front, of couples who had heard of the thirty pound rides, turned up in the queue on the day, and were actually warned while in the queue by a very nice lady that it would be sixty pounds each as they had not booked in advance.

Four people had a little grumble, four people remained in the queue.

The best old money making rumour was the fun house.
Made a thousand pounds a year in special traps within the ride surface edges..especially the joy wheel.
 
Suppose we can all agree Pleasure Beach communications team is the worst in the UK and should look at Pleasurewood Hills and Paultons Park on how to communicate
 
Pleasure Beach must look like half a scrapyard these days.

River Caves decaying and not operating
Skyforce SBNO
Remains of Grand Prix
Grand National currently SBNO
Valhalla currently SBNO
Dora’s currently SBNO
Dodgems a decaying building
I’m sure those more in tune with the Beach might even be able to add other examples. Add to this the minimal train operations on the vast majority of their coasters, and beyond Aviktas there really isn’t much to be overly optimistic about. And with Grand National, Valhalla and Aviktas all not opening until the summer, there’s zero temptation to visit in the next couple of months.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Advertising a headline attraction that guests can't actually ride yet, in order to sell tickets for this weekend, would result in an influx of furious customers demanding refunds when they arrive and find a construction site. It would be commercial suicide. You advertise what you can sell now... Although it would be very Blackpool.
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True, but appart from the fan service we have seen, they have no advertising for their new ride, they need to generate some hype or it will end like how icon did.


GooseOnTheLoose said:
Google knows you watch rollercoaster POVs. It knows you engage with theme park content. It therefore serves you a 5 second, highly visual clip of a The Big One's lift hill because its data suggests that is the most effective hook to grab your specific attention before you hit the "Skip" button. The fact that you did know what it was, that you looked up and advert and are now discussing it here is proof of its success.

The goal of a 5 second pre roll ad isn't to provide a comprehensive geographical breakdown of the Fylde coast or spell out the name of the park in giant letters. The goal is to generate a click. If the visceral visual of The Big One, or Icon, intrigues the viewer enough to click the link, they are immediately taken to the Pleasure Beach booking page, where the location becomes rather obvious. It's a digital breadcrumb trail.
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I have a reasonable idea of how advertising works with Google, my point wasn't that I shouldn't have been served this advert, it was that it seems very bizar not to have at the least a BPB logo on the advert.

Even many people who enjoy coasters may not know what coaster it is from looking at the lift hill.

It just seems to me very odd that they are essentially expecting people to click through the advert, but this requires attention from the user, I don't know about you but I have never clicked through an advert. Where as if someone saw it was for BPB they may be more interested as BPB is a relatively well known park, knowing thag they could get into BPB for "only" £30 may encourage them later when not seeing the ad to do it on a quite weekend or something (you have the option to book after, rarther than do it during the ad, you know "i saw you could get tickets for BPB for , also not mentioning the name makes it seem like it could be some random amusement park.

(On seccond thought that may be the reason BPB isn't mentioned, perhaps they think people will prefer a random amusement park)
 
Hid said:
Suppose we can all agree Pleasure Beach communications team is the worst in the UK and should look at Pleasurewood Hills and Paultons Park on how to communicate
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Pretty easy job for Pleasurewood Hills as you actually have to have some rides to begin with for anyone to care. 🤣
 
Mick said:
Pleasure Beach must look like half a scrapyard these days.

River Caves decaying and not operating
Skyforce SBNO
Remains of Grand Prix
Grand National currently SBNO
Valhalla currently SBNO
Dora’s currently SBNO
Dodgems a decaying building
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Mick said:
I’m sure those more in tune with the Beach might even be able to add other examples.
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Also bits of the monorail track which may never get removed.
A hardly used bar area where the wild mouse once stood.
Noah's Ark SBNO (although if you didn't know it used to be a ride then you probably wouldn't notice)
Haunted Swing SBNO
Alpine Ralley SBNO
Thompson's Carrousel SBNO
The Gypsies hut now empty.
Gallopers building just seats for picnics that nobody is allowed to bring in.
And half the food places shut most of the time.

Maybe we should rename this topic "Blackpool Pleasure Beach 2026 Doom and Gloom Topic"
 
rob666 said:
Hahaha.

You are joking aren't you?

More chance of me winning Mr Universe next year.

Never in a million years.

And you have forgotten the gross dereliction of the "Millennium Bug" dome Shakey.

The dome is doomed.
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I know it probably won't be restored but quite a lot of the track remains to this day
 
Scaling back on total number of attractions is nothing new and is evident in most UK parks really not just PB.

Only really Paultons who seem to be bucking that trend right now but I'm sure a time will come for them again at some point in the future where tough decisions have to be made. Before Peppa Pig Land that park wasn't all hunky dory either. Quite the opposite in fact.

With costs rising and disposable family incoming stagnating.....something has to give somewhere.
 
Benjsh said:
Scaling back on total number of attractions is nothing new and is evident in most UK parks really not just PB.

Only really Paultons who seem to be bucking that trend right now but I'm sure a time will come for them again at some point in the future where tough decisions have to be made. Before Peppa Pig Land that park wasn't all hunky dory either. Quite the opposite in fact.

With costs rising and disposable family incoming stagnating.....something has to give somewhere.
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Would argue Legoland to have bucked this trend to.

But yeah Pleasure Beach needs some more rides I am sure Aviktas will a little bit. What hurt opening day was Valhalla and Grand National not being availble
 
Benjsh said:
Scaling back on total number of attractions is nothing new and is evident in most UK parks really not just PB.

Only really Paultons who seem to be bucking that trend right now but I'm sure a time will come for them again at some point in the future where tough decisions have to be made. Before Peppa Pig Land that park wasn't all hunky dory either. Quite the opposite in fact.

With costs rising and disposable family incoming stagnating.....something has to give somewhere.
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Yes , pleasure beach didn't start the trend of reducing attractions but in my opinion they have suffered the most from taking that decision.

If you go back to 2000, when wristbands were first introduced, there were many more rides, longer opening hours and far better ride ops.

A wristband in 2000 was about £25. Which is around £53 in todays money. But with the product they had it was a justifiable price.

Unfortunately they assumed that gradually reducing the number of rides , cutting operational hours and having generally poorer operations would increase profit margins in a largely POP park.

In reality they devalued the product they were offering and as a result they have had to reduce the entry price, and it still hasn't stopped them losing punters.

Effectively a death spiral to the bottom.

Poultons appear to realise that you need to have a good product so you can command a higher entry price.

I am sure most people would gladly pay £53 to go to the pleasure beach if it had the rides , opening hours and ride ops that it did 26 years ago.
 
Three.
Casino, central and above the old Coasters bar.
The track shifted around the casino over time.

And shakey, spot on with the slow death year...Valhalla opening was the precise hit on shorter hours, we turned up after work on opening day, and the whole park was shut by 6 pm.
The birth of wristbands, the slow death of a dozen rides.

edit...shakey beat me.
 
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