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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion
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Rick
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
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They have sent it to Gulliver's Valley for use on the woodie.
siralgenon
TS Member
I doubt the Big Dipper was ever planned to be removed. It'd be pretty hard to do a concept image for a ride with a massive structure in front of it. I think it's purely missing to give an artistic concept for the ride, otherwise you'd be looking at a picture of the Big Dipper instead of Infusion.
Rick
TS Member
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Right then, guys and gals. When I put this into storage years ago, I scrawled '1954' on the envelope. Do we think this is correct, looking at the line up?
If it is from '54 - what is the tagline under Big Dipper describing? That would have made sense if it was fresh from the refurb, but it wasn't.
Century of Fun states Sky Ride opened in 1957, so that doesn't square either.
That Tom Purvis artwork is amazing. Love it!
More stuff here
If it is from '54 - what is the tagline under Big Dipper describing? That would have made sense if it was fresh from the refurb, but it wasn't.
Century of Fun states Sky Ride opened in 1957, so that doesn't square either.
That Tom Purvis artwork is amazing. Love it!
More stuff here
Plastic Person
TS Member
Wow, that graphic design is absolutely superb. So fresh, so clean!
Plastic Person
TS Member
I think The Millenium Dome represented a lot of what Geoffrey, an arch Thatcherite, hated about the arrival of New Labour, for whom the Dome was a kind of symbol in the spirit of the World's Fairs of old.
Which will be the most popular? Well, they're both closed now...
I've never spotted that letter to Blair! I can only imagine the contents.
Which will be the most popular? Well, they're both closed now...
I've never spotted that letter to Blair! I can only imagine the contents.
Rick
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Crux
Indeed, although the Dome as a concept came out of the Major government really. New Labour did inject more size and scope into it though. Some quite interesting coverage of it in Campbell's diaries from that time.
Not sure if I have a photo of it somewhere, quite amusing. It's in the furthest cabinet on the left side of the building, next to the Loo of the Year awards.
Much of the hotel's trade is unrelated to the park. I don't think there will be a close relationship between the park and hotel reopening dates.
The issue with tourist attractions (inc. hotels) is they are intended to attract people from outside their areas, so they aren't going to be early opening businesses as they could undo the containment work and restart an epidemic.
CGM
TS Member
Anyone remember the period where the Pleasure Beach company was obsessed with the Millennium Dome. Maybe it was WGT more than the company as a whole - there's still a great letter from WGT to Tony Blair under the Ark.
It's sort of ironic that Valhalla, much like The Dome failed to attract the number of visitors they were hoping for. I don't know exacly what the visitor numbers were like in the year 2000, but Valhalla certainly didn't build on the success of the Big One as it was supposed to and my understanding is that it's been somewhat of a money pit for the park ever since.
On a side note, I visited the Millenium Experience twice and have nothing but fond memories from it. Given the huge scope of the project and the ambition behind some of the attractions within, it's amazing that it hasn't had more of a long-term impact on the UK visitor attraction industry. I can only find very limited records of it online which is surprising considering it attracted over 6 million visitors. It seems that the Dome is just remembered as an expensive white elephant whilst the actual content of the exhibition has been almost forgotten.
From what I understand, The Dome was very well-recieved by most visitors who actually went. I think it's a shame that it failed to capture the public's imagination, but this was in no way helped by the press at the time who had pretty much decided it was going to be a failure before it had even finished construction.
The Dome also sparked my interest in World's Fairs of which there is a long and storied history in Britain - there are a lot of interesting parallels between these events and the amusement park industry. Many rides started life at World's fairs before finding permanent homes at parks such as the Barry Island Scenic Railway and Missile at American Adventure.
Anyway, in Summary, Valhalla and the Dome - Both were ambitious and expensive, both were succesful in terms of the visitor experience (in my view) but both of them failed to draw in the crowds they had hoped for.
John_P
TS Member
I don't think the park were able to ever get the full financial benefit of Valhalla due to them very quickly moving to a wristband system (first implemented in 2001).
I'd imagine Geoffrey Thompson as an owner of a private company was also pretty annoyed that not only was the government opening a big tourist attraction that could effect his (and other private businesses) but it was being funded by the public (well lottery funding I think). Pretty sure BPB would claim Valhalla was the biggest costing millennium project built by a private company.
I'd imagine Geoffrey Thompson as an owner of a private company was also pretty annoyed that not only was the government opening a big tourist attraction that could effect his (and other private businesses) but it was being funded by the public (well lottery funding I think). Pretty sure BPB would claim Valhalla was the biggest costing millennium project built by a private company.
Plastic Person
TS Member
There were wristbands available when Valhalla opened in 2000, but you are correct, it was definitely built with the PPR model in mind.
John_P
TS Member
You do look back thinking when they moved to a wristband system for the first couple of years they should've kept Valhalla as a ticketed ride, maybe £4 (double AA ticket) for people just wanting to ride it, and £2 for people who'd purchased a wristband.
They definitely could've argued back then you were paying the extra for the whole experience.
Enter Valhalla
TS Member
I read somewhere that the ride initially could hit throughputs of 2000 per hour with up to 20 boats in operation.
My first ride on Valhalla was in 2012 and I think that the most I’ve seen it run is 11 boats. It has a fairly slow and inefficient loading process, even when only running 6-8 boats, I often see them failing to fill all seats in the required time.
So I really can’t imagine how they could have ever ran 20 boats and got anything near that type of throughput.
2000 per hour is a Disney level capacity where we’d see duel loading, duel offload, air gates etc. Valhalla has none of this.
Did anyone see the ride when it used to operate this way? (If it ever did)
My first ride on Valhalla was in 2012 and I think that the most I’ve seen it run is 11 boats. It has a fairly slow and inefficient loading process, even when only running 6-8 boats, I often see them failing to fill all seats in the required time.
So I really can’t imagine how they could have ever ran 20 boats and got anything near that type of throughput.
2000 per hour is a Disney level capacity where we’d see duel loading, duel offload, air gates etc. Valhalla has none of this.
Did anyone see the ride when it used to operate this way? (If it ever did)
Rick
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Crux
It had 25 boats when it opened and could in theory operate with them all - they certainly tried to during 2000.
The difficulty with the ride is all down to blocking - which is strange on the surface as it's largely free flowing throughout most of the course (run outs are quickly cleared post drop, lifts can dual occupy, etc) - all the complexities come from the two turntables, (#1 being more problematic than #2). They settled on 18 being the absolute maximum number of boats and it regularly ran 14 until 2002/2003.
The station speed is variable to aid loading, if you batch in the queue line, it's not too difficult to run a high number of boats - the difficulty comes when you have a stoppage on one of the turntables and things begin to back up.
"Ladies and gentlemen inside the ride, please remain seated, an operator will be with you shortly", amazing that they never bothered to record that.
The difficulty with the ride is all down to blocking - which is strange on the surface as it's largely free flowing throughout most of the course (run outs are quickly cleared post drop, lifts can dual occupy, etc) - all the complexities come from the two turntables, (#1 being more problematic than #2). They settled on 18 being the absolute maximum number of boats and it regularly ran 14 until 2002/2003.
The station speed is variable to aid loading, if you batch in the queue line, it's not too difficult to run a high number of boats - the difficulty comes when you have a stoppage on one of the turntables and things begin to back up.
"Ladies and gentlemen inside the ride, please remain seated, an operator will be with you shortly", amazing that they never bothered to record that.
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