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Towers Loving Care

Britford said:
Specifically, seeing one of the unlit screaming faces (that weird bit before the garden) passing in front of the fan.
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There are no actual Tomb Blaster-style roof fans in Duel as far as I know but what you saw was probably part of the atrocious lighting set up in that scene, which totally ruins any effective scare of the flying heads. Along with the fact the heads are caked in years of dust and poorly repainted, so the original UV darkness effect simply doesnt work anymore.
 
electricBill said:
There are no actual Tomb Blaster-style roof fans in Duel as far as I know
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If you look up during that awful, appalling designed Zombie finale, you can clearly see the walls and roof of the warehouse as well as a fan in the roof which omits daylight on a sunny day.

Not a problem when the scene is well designed and lit, but this woeful scene actually encourages you to look up at the Zombies on the walkways above.
 
They may not be the same type of fan. The Fifth Dimension's fans were designed to open huge doors and quickly vent the excessive ammounts of smoke used in the show between trains passing through the scenes. (I hear it was rather impressive to see from inside the ride). While The Haunted House most likely just has standard vents.
 
Rick said:
"Reports of the maintained quality of my rides under previous management regimes are exaggerated"
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Scenic/ effects maintenance has always been poor and underfunded in UK theme parks, going way back. Design of the rides in the first place was objectively far better though, and a completely different design process used (which often led to much longer lasting popularity of attractions too).

Effects today are either not thought about, or built incredibly cheaply in a way that they cannot be maintained, even features that are only 2-3 years old.

Duel's main problem is that it's been through 20 years of people actively degrading the scenes by changing stuff on a whim, painting over bits and pulling stuff out, making it a huge job to try and get it back to anything of quality.

John Wardley, since he has worked for Merlin for the past 10 years and changed his attitude a lot, isn't exactly going to say anything explicit about the state of the park.
 
The theme park geek said:
Yes, I still think there will be a place for the TLC program this year although they will probably only mention a few projects.
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There is definitely room for both. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember the official social media channels making much of a deal about the TLC programme, if they even mentioned it at all.
 
"TLC" to a professional standard should happen regardless of whether it's promoted online or not because it's the value of the visitor experience that all guests pay for in their ticket (in theory) .We're not talking Disney, just that everything works and looks/sounds as intended.


matthewgcole said:
Not a problem when the scene is well designed and lit, but this woeful scene actually encourages you to look up at the Zombies on the walkways above.
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Yeah. Still with the right lighting the roof could be darkened, but nobody usually thinks about sightlines or light spillage unfortunately.

The zombie set is surprisingly cool up close but just not used well, the effects in that scene are very pants - a recycled animation of some doors opening from the old Haunted House and a bunch of identical zombies bought off-the-shelf standing around the place.
 
electricBill said:
"TLC" to a professional standard should happen regardless of whether it's promoted online or not because it's the value of the visitor experience that all guests pay for in their ticket (in theory) .We're not talking Disney, just that everything works and looks/sounds as intended.


Yeah. Still with the right lighting the roof could be darkened, but nobody usually thinks about sightlines or light spillage unfortunately.

The zombie set is surprisingly cool up close but just not used well, the effects in that scene are very pants - a recycled animation of some doors opening from the old Haunted House and a bunch of identical zombies bought off-the-shelf standing around the place.
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I hope that the park doesn't let us down with the promised TLC on Duel. What is the point of a repainted sign if the experience is as naff as last year, or even worse?
(Oh wow a new sign is really going to enhance my experience! ) A bare minimum TLC needed is improving lighting, repair flying bats and get the resolving tunnel working! but more would be appreciated. This is going to be a big year for AT with the wicker man so the park needs to be at its best as all the additional visitors need attractions to ride, because we all know the queues for wicker man will be 2 hours or over so they need other things to do. When nemesis opened in 1994 they upgraded the land of make believe and opened toy land tours. So with this new ride we need an improved duel and plenty of other open attractions n:ST? If AT and merlin don't want a public backlash they need to make sure 2018 is a good year. Especially with Brexit and the cost of the euro a lot of people will be staying in UK and visiting UK attractions so if merlin make sure their offering is good the people will visit and they should coin it in. If they don't give a good offering then I hope the shareholders know who to blame. 1 not terrorism 2 not smiler incident 3 not lack of people visiting UK attractions 4 not the attractions at the grassroots level but the board and finance guys who cut cut and cut! And hopefully their pay rates bonuses and maybe contracts may be cut.

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themeparkfan said:
This is going to be a big year for AT with the wicker man so the park needs to be at its best as all the additional visitors need attractions to ride, because we all know the queues for wicker man will be 2 hours or over so they need other things to do. When nemesis opened in 1994 they upgraded the land of make believe and opened toy land tours.
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This is actually a very interesting point I hadnt thought about. The idea that more capital ought to be spent on the rest the park because there's a headline ride openeing, and you want the rest the family to be just as keen to return as those coming for the new coaster. Try applying that logic today and you'd be laughed out the door. But in 1992-1996 they did just that.

Toyland Tours (which wasnt cheap - actually became one of the UK's best family dark rides) was to make sure the younger ones in the family still had something to do ready for the visitor increase with Nemesis. In 96 Black Hole had a really lovely scenic revamp without even being advertised as new, ready for Oblivion to hit that area. And there was a wider regeneration strategy of the whole park during those years too.

And who was leading this period of really positive regeneration at the park? None other than Nick Varney, and the then Tussauds development team. Interesting!

A very different strategy back then and one that hugely benefitted Towers and guests, both in the 90s and in the long run.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
They may not be the same type of fan. The Fifth Dimension's fans were designed to open huge doors and quickly vent the excessive ammounts of smoke used in the show between trains passing through the scenes. (I hear it was rather impressive to see from inside the ride). While The Haunted House most likely just has standard vents.
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The fans are fast extractors, there is a risk of methane build up in the warehouse, they have sensors that detect a build-up and the vents open (hence why sometimes the ride appears to be more brightly lit than normal.
 
Oh yeah sounds familiar, wasnt it something to do with the ride built on/near old bogland? :p
Must have just not noticed them in action before in Duel, whereas Tomb Blaster's ones stay open throughout the summer and really badly affect the ride, well in the years when it actually used to be darkly lit inside anyway.
 
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