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Long term development plan

Re: Re: Long term development plan

Tim said:
It wouldn't be possible to enclose Spinball without creating one of the most oddly shaped and ugly looking warehouses imaginable. If you look at most enclosed rides they have a compact design that either fits a cylinder, sphere, pyramid or simple warehouse box. The black Hole is a good example; compact spiral lift hill with all the high points inside the tents dome and the lower sections taking up a square base area. Spinball does not fit a pattern like this. It sprawls all over the place with numerous high points. The only way to enclose such a ride without making it look like a mess would be to cover the resulting cluster of buildings in a Disneyesque level of themeing, something I can neither see them affording or being able to do.

Then you have the issue that if the ride is to stay in its current home it is right in front of the towers. Also if you were just to build a shed around its current location you’d have the same leaking and structural issues Disaster Transport has as it won’t be a proper building.

Even without these issues indoor spinning rides are apparently very nauseous as you have no way of spotting (your brains way of using what it sees to position you in reality) which makes even the smallest spin muck around with your sense of balance. This doesn't make the ride more intense just more sickly.

Perhaps you're right, but surely as a 'new attraction' they could afford to spend a lot on theming and the building as there's nothing to spend hardware wise?

With the correct lighting levels I can't see how a spinning coaster would be more nauseous than other coasters in the dark including those with inversions. In the pitch black then maybe but that probably wouldn't be the case if they did ever attempt to do this.
 
After a brief discussion within the 2014 Accomodation thread, I have been having a quick look at some off the LDTP documents which Aly linked to at:

http://www.altontowersheritage.com/development/article.asp?articleid=146

They are really interesting and I haven't had time to digest them all as a certain element of the Transport plan caught my eye. It was explaining why certain years have had increased admissions compared to the ones around them... And also offered reasons why certain future years would see increased admissions too (leading to the target of 3.3m per year in 2019)



If this plan is anywhere near accurate (and I see no reason for it not to be as it goes on about the lodges and possible ATH hotel as well as describing other planned and implemented investments) then it is very exciting stuff!
From 2015 I think it is safe to assume we are not getting an indoor attraction next year.
 
I just had a read through the version of the LTDP submitted in 2012, and I had a couple of thoughts:
  • Other than the ATH extension, the removals of Ripsaw and The Flume and the lodge development (albeit an edited version), not much of this plan has actually surfaced. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
  • They should really give the council a new attendance estimate, as unless a miracle happens, the park probably won't hit 3.3 million guests in 2019. For reference, the park attracted 1,980,000 guests in 2016 according to the 2016 Theme Index.
  • We never saw any of the areas they mentioned get redeveloped as far as I'm aware. I believe they mentioned areas "to the east of Air, the east of Nemesis, the west of CCL and the east of Duel". Although "to the west of CCL" could materialise if the rumoured CCL redevelopment happens in 2019.
 
I think it was clear back then that much of this was pie in the sky even back then.

I doubt we'll see another one anytime soon as Merlin will be desperate to bury this one out of the memories of investors. That's because it's almost the perfect illustration of their self inflicted failure of running Towers this last decade. If challenged I'm sure they'd come up with a diplomatic excuse along the lines of "unforeseen changes in the economy resulted in a need to change strategy to achieve cost based synergies..... blah blah".

They're probably already selling SW8 as "continueing to invest heavily in the future of the park", when we all know in real terms SW8 is actually a cut!
 
Sorry to bump the thread, but shouldn't we be receiving a new LTDP some time soon, as the current one ends this year?

I must say, the LTDP makes for rather intriguing reading. Merlin's plans for Alton Towers must have changed significantly over the last 9 years, as few of the LTDP's contents actually came to fruition...
 
Sorry to bump the thread, but shouldn't we be receiving a new LTDP some time soon, as the current one ends this year?

I must say, the LTDP makes for rather intriguing reading. Merlin's plans for Alton Towers must have changed significantly over the last 9 years, as few of the LTDP's contents actually came to fruition...

I think the plan was an indication of ideas the park had as opposed to a form development plan. A fair few items have come to fruition - surprisingly for me is the lack of development behind air. I think the management at merlin have decided the capex investment in expanding into this area is clearly not worth the gain

Replacing a ride is cheap in comparison to a brand new area
 
I guess the smiler crash had a massive impact on towers, as all we have really seen since then is a lot of things removed, not just rides but also shops, food outlets, game stalls and entertainment and not a lot of new investments, other than Wicker Man it’s been very low scale investments.

Hopefully now things have picked up we might see a new plan and new investments.
 
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