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Lack of passion?

I think when people talk of "magic" they think of the vague feeling they remember from whenever the park was very different, which could mean a number of things to different people, though the idea of 'the magic' was only ever the 90s equivalent of todays "fantabulous day out" or whatever it is today. Just a brand sensibility mixed up with nostalgia. So yes, it never was a thing, and different isn't bad.

But to pretend the park still has as good an atmosphere or great quality for guests as it ever has done would be plain ignorant of the big changes of direction it has been through. The park may have buckets more 'magic' appeal today for kids than it did then, who knows, but how much of that now is disposable entertainment / schlock that they will soon grow out of?

The place has had many ups & downs, but it now delivers way more on consumer brand than the actual experience of being at the park itself. That tells you everything about how things are deliberately designed and funded now.
 
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Magic is a totally subjective matter which is why it has and always will be debated with differing opinions.

:)
 
If anyone old enough to sign up here actually believes in magic, I am worried.

There's nothing subjective about it, @Rob. You can have a subjective discussion about how the park was 'better' or 'more fun' but 'magic'... please. It's all steel, concrete and electronics.

You can't complain about Alton's crazy and gimmicky marketing and then buy in to one of their most famous lines and complain that something isn't true. Baffling.

We all know David Blaine can't actually levitate, right? It's not magic. Because there is no magic and there never was™
 
Let me rephrase that then - magic as a metaphor is a totally subjective matter. Of course there is no such thing as magic however many aspects of life can be described as magical.

:)
 
Is 'magic' still being interpreted as 'you think Alton Towers were literally casting a spell on guests to make them like the place' as a way to excuse the current state of affairs and pretend they've always been this way? Swear this comes up every other month even though no one actually thinks it, and no one thinks anyone thinks it.

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Disagree entirely about "there was never any magic". Unless you were old enough/mature enough, or at least a teenager during some part of the mid to late ninetees then you can't comment on the experience at that time. Seeing the park through eyes of a child was bound to be rose tinted.

Magic was the brand, sure, but the actual park itself was full of entertainment and reasonably good value for money - i.e. no paid fastrack, no car parking charges (even when that was introduced it was very low). The was an enormous effort to give guests a really special day out, much the way Disney treat their guests.

And you only have to look in the huge quality difference between rides, attractions, and even hotels built then and now.

The park also made an effort to be the best, and have world first's - not just world first rides, I'm talking about more than that. Some of their shows were quite unique for the time. Tussauds were also the first to develop the ticketed fastrack system. Many, many more things which Merlin couldn't even touch today. Merlin (and Towers) are a joke.

Edit: Watch the documantaries by Peter Lambert for more evidence of the "magic" which went in to developing attractions at that time.

Never any magic my arse.
 
Been visiting the park since the early 90's, and there was definitely a magic feel to the place. But then "magic" is incredibly subjective and the term is often exagerrated to paint a false image that the park was perfect in the 80's and early 90's so as to bash it today.

I still have just as many magical trips to Towers now as I ever did. The magic is what you make it.
 
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98 when Oblivion opened was pretty damn special.
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No rose tinted glasses as a nine year old?

Oblivion was special but I would suggest that the park itself had a lot of growing pains around that time. Those were the days of three hour queues and if you wanted some of the hangovers of the 80s and eatly 90s, those were still there.

Again, like @Rob said, the whole thing is subjective but I do think that a lot of people don't find the "magic" these days because they're too busy picking holes in the product. If you go looking to have a sucky day, you'll manage it.

People were moaning about the park in the earliest online communities like Matt's SW4 Site and Rideas. The idea that everything was fantabulous back then and it's all rubbish now is a myth. It's a long time since I had a bad time at Alton.
 
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Rick said:
You can't complain about Alton's crazy and gimmicky marketing and then buy in to one of their most famous lines and complain that something isn't true. Baffling.
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Who has bought into their line whilst also complaining about their promotion?

When I've visited the park in recent times I go to have a laugh with friends, not to go picking holes in it, I end up having a sucky day because of how tacky and bolted together the place is now. It's like a big crowded commercial indulgence with a massive price tag, so not for me, and I don't go anymore.

It was never some kind of utopia, it was just fun. Simple as that, if others enjoy the product today then fine, but personally I feel they would enjoy it more if it were managed better, better designed and less tacky as well.

Rick said:
We all know David Blaine can't actually levitate, right? It's not magic. Because there is no magic and there never was™
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With respect, it sounds like you're deliberately thinking about it completely literally to try and sound more intelligent than anyone else. We all know there is no real magic and it's all illusionary. But an illusion is a concrete thing, it either works or it doesn't, depending on how exactly it's done. Not aiming the rest this post at you specifically, just an interesting point you raise...

Anybody who has experienced being involved in good theatre, architecture, music, sound design, cinematography, editing - basically anything at all that is the process of taking random clumsy elements and creating an effect from the sum of their parts - will know how objective the process actually is. The style of it might be subjective to the viewer, but the process behind it isn't, it either works or it doesn't.

You absolutely can create 'intangible' things like atmosphere, surprise, suspense, reveal, etc, purely from how the elements are put together. Even really ignorant guests will take part and enjoy this outcome whether they are aware of the elements at play or not, while more observant guests will have a field day.

This slightly abstract output is often referred to as "magic" by some in the industry, I wish it weren't because it only sets off the "magic doesn't exist" cynicism from others, yes we aren't children - of course literal "magic" doesnt exist, it's just the entertaining effect of the elements coming together well. Steel, concrete and electronics like you say. But when done to a high design standard, it works.

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Merlin no longer design anything with this end goal in mind, they design the marketability of the ride first and foremost and then do bugger all with the ride they actually create, ending up with Frankenstein results like The Smiler - the world's most inverting ride but squeezed into a ridiculously small space for cost reasons, that would have benefitted far more with less inversions and better quality infrastructure (and ended up being more expensive to engineer it this way anyway), or Derren Brown's Ghost Train - a great principle ruined by ham-fisted VR introduced simply to get the project marketing-approved, which will cost millions to maintain the technology in the long run for little more than you will soon be able to get at home.

I think this is where the "lack of passion" idea has come from in others. The people behind the park actually are passionate most the time, but are so limited by the policies of those running the company.

Merlin have proven to themselves that designing by marketability first and foremost does not work. Designing the marketing is very important in delivering a ride concept, Nemesis and Oblivion proved this, but those attractions were also allowed to develop and improve with a huge amount of creative work in the early stages.
 
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@electricBill I don't disagree with some of what you say, but just so I understand - which period/years in the park's history define the best times, as far as you're concerned?
 
Good question. I first starting visiting in what I can now see were the dying years of my favourite period, when Hex was very new and captivating, yet Ug Land started to be picked apart. Cred Street seemed to become worn out and dead. And Duel, for a new ride, was unbelievably naff and yet I could tell there was something fun about it lingering there - I later learnt what I liked about it originated from the Haunted House years back.

Also X Sector had a very particular feel about it that got me hooked and got me interested in architecture as part of attraction design. I later got in touch with the guy who designed much of the area and it made me realise what I liked about X Sector wasn't just me 'reading too far into it', but that the architectural effects were deliberate and upon opening in 1998 were much better than the vague mess the area was becoming.


So I loved my first trips, but I could see it getting stripped away year on year, lost interest, and later realised I had actually been avidly visiting in the arse end of Alton Towers 'career'.

Probably those mid 2000 years were much worse run than the park is now. The mediocre developments of today like Sub Terra and Thirteen are at least far more creative than Rita or Spinball Whizzer. So I think that dying period actually showed me the big difference that quality & management makes to having a good fun day out.

Same happened with Chessington, when I loved it in the early 2000s but saw how god awful it became each year, hitting rock bottom and allowing Merlin to turn it into the gaudy place it is now.

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In my opinion, but without romanticising it like some kind of nostalgic utopia (which I'm sure never existed), the mid 90s were far and away the park's most fun years. Nemesis was new, the Haunted House was still a great bash before it became increasingly fudged in the late 90s. The original hotel, Black Hole's victorian type overlay, good attraction music and big energetic family attractions like Toyland Tours were all being produced. Oblivion and Hex were on the way.

It's no surprise to learn 1998 was the time Tussauds was sold to Charterhouse and soon afterwards we got cheaper attraction budgets, park resources cut, destructive & short term developments, etc.

If you look back even further to the John Broome years, around 1981 when Talbot Street and the flume were built, there was a lot of goodness on offer for its time, a more conservative style but still a period of regeneration on a grander scale than anywhere else in the UK. Sometime people often look back to "the John Broome years" as being the best, but that too became totally stagnated by the late 80s.

So for me personally (and also based on what I've learnt objectively in how developments were funded and designed then), it was the mid 90s Tussauds era. Good diverse attraction line up, good style with something for everyone. Good new ideas with substance.
 
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@electricBill to confirm, in case I misunderstood (your very political answer!). Your first visits were in 2000/2001, but you would suggest that the mid-1990s were the best years?
 
Yes absolutely. And I based that on a lot of practical research on the changing UK industry (because I study design/ architecture, and do creative stuff in my spare time, not because I'm a super geek! ), so hopefully not pulling those things out my bum or romanticizing a time I wasnt there to see. And I loved a lot of the output from those years even when they were getting very worn down.

All for the sake of really good fun like I say, not trying to turn the mid 90s into a utopia. I still enjoy some parts of the park now, even Thirteen I find great fun in parts, but overall its a pretty monotonous crass experience, so I found better things to do. :)
 
Good debate there from two of my favourite posters @Rick and @electricBill, but I must say, Bill's argument reminds me of one of my favourite LCD Soundsystem lyrics; "Borrowed nostalgia, from the unremembered eighties". Although of course, it's the nineties in this case.

As somebody who has been visiting since the early nineties, I can safely attest that there was definitely something more 'magical' about the park back then. While hugely ambitious, and expensive (nobody ever considered Alton Towers good value), it had a more whimsical charm and character, the sort that Efteling and Europa Park have retained. I actually think 1998 is perhaps the 'peak' of Alton Towers. Oblivion was a hugely ambitious, slightly weird ride that was immediately out of step with the rest of the park, thanks to it's unapologetic, clinical theme. The buzz was huge. By the time Air came round, the park was still making technological leaps, but something had changed. By 2005, I'd say the place was in it's worst state ever, before the Merlin sale.

Nonetheless, I haven't had a bad time at Alton Towers in a while, principally as I still visit with friends, enjoy the rush of nostalgia, the atmosphere and many of the rides themselves. But, as an avid fan and lifelong visitor, they have lost a yearly customer in my case. The upselling, neglect, half-baked ideas and generally sour attitude of the resort post-Smilergate have massively reduced it's appeal. Of course, I don't take it half as personally as many here, rather, I simply vote with my feet and hope there are brighter days to come. But the way Merlin run things is stifling. I don't view Alton Towers in the same way I do, say, The Tate Modern or any other site of cultural significance, but I feel the creativity and passion there has been suffocated. As has been pointed out again and again, it's morphed into a lackluster product in premium wrapping.

Didn't expect to see Rideas get name dropped. I wonder what The Ancient Mariner is up to these days...
 
I don't know whether it's because I've grown up or because things have gone down hill that I've started to have negative views on merlin. I grew up in the mid 2000's visiting towers maybe once or twice a year and the memories I have are 'magical' I just remember all the fun and moments with family. But I think a lot of people thought the park started to decline in this time - whereas all I can remember is positive things. Most likely because I didn't experience the park in the 90's.

A stand out moment for me was when I visited in 2012 it was an incredibly busy summers day but there was still something magical despite the huge queues and it gave me the impression the park was thriving. I wonder if that's how it looks to the general public because I was not an enthusiast back then.
 
Plastic Person said:
Good debate there from two of my favourite posters @Rick and @electricBill, but I must say, Bill's argument reminds me of one of my favourite LCD Soundsystem lyrics; "Borrowed nostalgia, from the unremembered eighties". Although of course, it's the nineties in this case.
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Ha well there's always a risk of that but I should also mention, if I had the chance, I wouldn't want to take Alton Towers backwards and recreate a style from the past. I'd love to take it into the next step, whatever it could be, do something different and do it well. The mid 90s type progress is really great for seeing how good, successful progress can be made, today it would be done differently and I'd love to work out how.

Currently under Merlin I dont think it's being done "well" and I question if there's any real progress at all, and yeah you express the same feelings as me about why this is.
 
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