• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

2021: General Discussion

Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
I believe the normal capacity for towers is around 33k (the official figure mentioned all the time is 28k but its definitely more than that). The capacity lasts season was about 10k, which is 1/3 of its normal capacity. However towers barely ever reach capacity and normally have around 15-20k on busy days. Still a lot more than with social distancing, but similar queues which gives you an indication of how much missing rows has effected the throughput of the coasters
 
Ethan said:
I believe the normal capacity for towers is around 33k (the official figure mentioned all the time is 28k but its definitely more than that)
Click to expand...
I'm certain it's significantly less than that now, not due to the size of the park but the reduction of car parking spaces since the addition of the Enchanted Village.
 
Burbs said:
I'm certain it's significantly less than that now, not due to the size of the park but the reduction of car parking spaces since the addition of the Enchanted Village.
Click to expand...
Yes it probably is but I'm talking about theoretically what the park could hold
 
Capacity is affected in the biggest way by management. I'm sure 30k would easily fit in the park, but it'd be hell on earth whilst doing so.
 
Nothing about the park is geared up to accommodate more than 20k these days. The car parks have been built on, monorail capacity decimated, rides removed, throughputs have reduced, food outlets removed etc. etc.

The number of people they're theoretically allowed to squeeze through the gates is pretty much irrelevant. The park could cope fine with 20k in 2010, it absolutely couldn't now.
 
I think your definition of "dealing with it" differs to mine. IIRC during Scarefest in 2019 they had a social media push to get people to car share/use public transport for fear of running out of car parking space.

In 2010 they got around 3 million guests in total, 20k per day was a semi-regular thing back then and the park was geared up for it. By 2019, 15k was a busy day with 20k extremely rare. Quueue times (for food outlets as well as rides) are now as long with 20k on park as they were with 25k ten years ago.
 
John said:
I think your definition of "dealing with it" differs to mine. IIRC during Scarefest in 2019 they had a social media push to get people to car share/use public transport for fear of running out of car parking space.

In 2010 they got around 3 million guests in total, 20k per day was a semi-regular thing back then and the park was geared up for it. By 2019, 15k was a busy day with 20k extremely rare. Quueue times (for food outlets as well as rides) are now as long with 20k on park as they were with 25k ten years ago.
Click to expand...

I believe that was the day we spent longer queuing to get into the car park and park up, than we actually spent on the park.

The park was not coping in the slightest in comparison to similar crowd levels of ten years ago.
 
Danny said:
I believe that was the day we spent longer queuing to get into the car park and park up, than we actually spent on the park.

The park was not coping in the slightest in comparison to similar crowd levels of ten years ago.
Click to expand...
I don't think the queues were too bad on the Sunday of that busiest weekend of scarefest. For saying it was one of the busiest days of the year and the smiler and wicker man were around 90-120 I don't think that's bad
 
Ethan said:
I don't think the queues were too bad on the Sunday of that busiest weekend of scarefest. For saying it was one of the busiest days of the year and the smiler and wicker man were around 90-120 I don't think that's bad
Click to expand...

That's to be expected on a busy day, but there should not be a wait longer than an hour just to even get onto the premises from Farley in a vehicle, followed by another 30-minute wait to park. That is what not coping looks like.
 
As has been said, Alton struggles over 20,000 these days due to the general 'downsizing' of the park over the years since Smiler crashed. Hopefully, the park will now begin a steady progress of scaling up again, but it's not guaranteed.

I would expect Alton to welcome around 22,000 on the absolute busiest days this year - but, frankly, they barely have the parking capacity, ride capacity nor food capacity for it.

I worked at ATR in 2007 and we welcomed 28,000 on one day. Was INSANE.
 
jon81uk said:
Both the size of the park and the amount of attractions does determine the overall capacity, then of course there are other factors right now with the pandemic making capacity lower.
Imagine if Alton Towers had all that land but only one rollercoaster, the queue would be huge, so more attractions means they can accommodate more guests.
Click to expand...

But, adding more rides wont increase the capacity the park are legally allowed the hold. That is the point I am getting at. The overall area size of the park is what determines that. Not the amount of rides. More rides will increase the parks capacity in the sense of the amount of people they can get through the rides, but not in the health and safety sense of how many people are allowed onto the site at any given time.

This is based on many factors, including fire and evacuation regulations. It is like saying a shopping centre can legally hold more people if shops are empty vs occupied. This is not the case. The entrances / exits can still only safely manage a certain amount of people in an emergency. You could add 20 new rides to Alton, but if they need to get people out of the park in a hurry, the ability for the park to do that remains the same. So this is what the legal capacity is based on.
 
For reference, the park’s capacity was apparently cited as 28,000 in 2014.

On a related note; do we think that the park would be able to cope with another season like 2010? I think that it still could; there’s still plenty of rides, and the park has actually had a net increase in large-scale, headline rides since 2010, which tend to have the greatest capacity on the whole.
 
Matt N said:
For reference, the park’s capacity was apparently cited as 28,000 in 2014.

On a related note; do we think that the park would be able to cope with another season like 2010? I think that it still could; there’s still plenty of rides, and the park has actually had a net increase in large-scale, headline rides since 2010, which tend to have the greatest capacity on the whole.
Click to expand...
Things that have changed since then:
The Smiler Crash happened causing a significant decrease in guest numbers,
Several car parks have been repurposed,
Although we have gained the likes of The Smiler and Wicker Man, remember that there were massive cuts in ride lineup after the crash.
The park has also lost a lot of food options and rides are generally running on a lower capacity than they used to (partially due to the closure of baggage holds).

Whilst I would love to see Alton Towers hit three million again, a lot would need to happen first. The temporary flat rides will certainly help ride capacity while social distancing is in place but after that the other constraints start to become a problem (e.g. the car parking problem which other people have mentioned earlier).
 
Matt N said:
On a related note; do we think that the park would be able to cope with another season like 2010? I think that it still could; there’s still plenty of rides, and the park has actually had a net increase in large-scale, headline rides since 2010, which tend to have the greatest capacity on the whole.
Click to expand...

In short, no for the reasons people have already cited. Whilst on paper you can consider the newest additions as a net increase of headline rides, you also need to consider the decreased throughputs due to new operating procedures. That's probably the largest factor over removing baggage holds - monorail being a prime example of how the changes have affected it!

But in addition the resort themselves would not choose to go up to that sort of capacity these days anyway. Gate figures no longer rule, it's all about revenue per guest and guest satisfaction - fireworks from 2017 onwards is a prime example of this. They can easily cope with more guests at Fireworks, but they've actively chosen to reduce capacity even further than needed. People are there for longer so spend more than a normal operating day anyway, and limiting capacity encourages people to maybe look at an alternative day like the Friday or Sunday instead of the busiest Saturday to get a better spread over the 2 or 3 days. The lower queues for food and drink due to that limited capacity stops people thinking twice about spending their money too. Fireworks is their swan song for the season and headline event, you want people to leave with a positive memory of it as you want to encourage those repeat visits next year.
 
DistortAMG said:
But, adding more rides wont increase the capacity the park are legally allowed the hold. That is the point I am getting at. The overall area size of the park is what determines that. Not the amount of rides. More rides will increase the parks capacity in the sense of the amount of people they can get through the rides, but not in the health and safety sense of how many people are allowed onto the site at any given time.
Click to expand...

adding more rides increases the useable area of the site though, although these additions this year don’t really add “new” queueline as they are reusing sites it still gives more areas for people to occupy. Also I don’t think Alton Towers would have ever thought, we have all this land, let’s let 30k people in. It’s based on a lot more than that including the attraction count and public access to space.
 
There is absolutely no way the park could cope with a 2010 season again (in its current state). I appreciate all the optimistic people, it's a good trait to have, but I just can't see it.
 
Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
Top