[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

@Matt N cheers mate
Interesting last comment there about a 5-10 year plan. Kinda sits with my thought process

Although higher visitor numbers would always be the best outcome, investments don’t just need to be looked at as purely increasing numbers year on year, but to possibly add value to justify higher prices and average spend, or to simply prevent them falling when they otherwise might have.

Jb85 said:

@Matt N cheers mate
Interesting last comment there about a 5-10 year plan. Kinda sits with my thought process

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For what it’s worth, Chessington is getting £60m put into it over the next 5 years, so I should think that if Thorpe gets an even vaguely similar amount of money, then the next 5 years could be very exciting there!

As for Chessington; I reckon they might follow Project Amazon up with another major investment before 2026, as I shouldn’t think that Project Amazon will swallow up more than a third (£20m) of the pot, and I shouldn’t expect the lodges will take any more than another third (£20m) of the pot, so that would certainly leave capital left over for another major investment, or possibly lots of smaller rides, or maybe a less expensive major investment with a few smaller rides too?

Matt N said:

For what it’s worth, Chessington is getting £60m put into it over the next 5 years, so I should think that if Thorpe gets an even vaguely similar amount of money, then the next 5 years could be very exciting there!

As for Chessington; I reckon they might follow Project Amazon up with another major investment before 2026, as I shouldn’t think that Project Amazon will swallow up more than a third (£20m) of the pot, and I shouldn’t expect the lodges will take any more than another third (£20m) of the pot, so that would certainly leave capital left over for another major investment, or possibly lots of smaller rides, or maybe a less expensive major investment with a few smaller rides too?

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Christ if those lodges cost more than a tenner I’d be shocked

Matt N said:

I think sometimes, you need to invest to stop your guest figures from decreasing instead of to necessarily raise your guest figures a huge amount.

The justification for the investment into Exodus at the consultation was because park attendance has been steadily falling since around 2010, and 2019’s figure was around 500,000 below 2010’s figure. They said that Exodus was to reverse the trend of declining attendance and to keep existing visitors coming back; I think they could well expect 100,000-200,000 additional guests (similar to what a new coaster at Alton traditionally gets, and I’d imagine that the UK’s tallest coaster could generate a fair amount of demand, at least initially), but I’m not sure if they want to drastically increase guest figures; for instance, they said they’re not aiming to return to the 2009-2011 peak by installing Exodus.

They did also say that Exodus was part of a longer term plan of investment over the next 5-10 years, though, so there could certainly be a follow-up not too long after that raises attendance a little bit more.

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Park attendance is falling because it’s a shockingly bad day out, full of poor service and terrible queues. They need higher throughputs and there is no practical reason this new ride can’t get 1200 an hour properly operated.

1000pph is the top end "target"? Wow. How depressing.

Matt.GC said:

1000pph is the top end "target"? Wow. How depressing.

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Thorpe don't attract crowds as big as European parks do so I don't think that anything higher than 1000pph is entirely necessary for them.

Nosferatu said:

Thorpe don't attract crowds as big as European parks do so I don't think that anything higher than 1000pph is entirely necessary for them.

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Well they clearly think so at the moment with the kind of queues they currently seem content with.

If 1000pph is the top end, then it speaks volumes about what we'll actually end up with. With awful Thorpe operations, expect Colossus style queues within a few seasons. If they're only aiming for a full pelt 1000pph then they're probably cheaping out as they are with the overall ride length.

I know 1,000pph is lower than the likes of the B&M Hypers, but the parks that tend to build B&M Hypers mostly get higher annual attendances than Thorpe; Europa gets nearly 6 million, PortAventura gets nearly 4 million, many of the American Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks that have them get over 3 million, Hersheypark gets over 3 million, SeaWorld gets nearly 5 million…

My basic point is; with the attendance Thorpe gets, I’m not sure they necessarily need a full B&M Hyper throughput of 1,500+pph.

Also, I think they’d do a better job of coming close to a target of 1,000pph than some expect. Stealth has the same theoretical throughput, and that’s been getting a solid 850pph on both of my visits this year. Swarm’s theoretical is 1,100pph, and that’s also been getting 950pph on both my 2021 visits, so they usually get a solid percentage of theoretical throughput, from my experience. I think Colossus mainly struggles because of the combination of tight trains and bulky restraints, which shouldn’t plague Exodus.

I think 1,000pph is a figure Thorpe could get quite close to or possibly even match and exceed, particularly if Merlin integrates their usual baggage hold in.

Swarm's queue moves reasonably quick for what the park is. I genuinely don't mind that ride's throughput 1,1000 is very impressive for a UK coaster throughput. It would move a lot faster if UK park guests were more efficient, but unfortunately they're not, they faff a lot.

For all we know Project Exodus could easily get beyond 1000pph due to how short the ride is. 1000 is only the target.

The idea that Colossus could somehow get 1300pph in its present state is laughable. I doubt Roland himself could manage that. That said, the ride mainly needs a wrecking ball.

Nonetheless, I would expect a brand new hyper coaster from a mainstream manufacturer to have a much higher throughput than this and I don't think "it doesn't need to" works as an excuse here. I doubt it would make the ride significantly more expensive to operate with full length trains etc..

Unless they have skimped out on the manufacturer and gone for Gerst or S&S.

1,200 at least. Thorpe need something with capacity.

Any major ride getting less than 1200 an hour is a bad design if your park regularly gets over 7000 guests a day.

The logic - 1200 per hour on a standard 10-5 operating day is 8,400 people able to ride.

It looks like they're skimping out on the hardware to get such a low throughput. If 1000 is the target, expect to take 15% off that due to guff and bluster. Then take another 10% off because it's Thorpe and they're crap at operating coasters.

A major coaster in a park aiming to get 2m visitors per year achieving 700-800pph is not acceptable. Perhaps Merlin are normalising this kind of stuff these days so people feel the need to make excuses for them? But if 1000pph is the Tommy Tank figure, expect the misery of visiting Merlin's south east parks to continue.

Matt.GC said:

It looks like they're skimping out on the hardware to get such a low throughput. If 1000 is the target, expect to take 15% off that due to guff and bluster. Then take another 10% off because it's Thorpe and they're crap at operating coasters.

A major coaster in a park aiming to get 2m visitors per year achieving 700-800pph is not acceptable. Perhaps Merlin are normalising this kind of stuff these days so people feel the need to make excuses for them? But if 1000pph is the Tommy Tank figure, expect the misery of visiting Merlin's south east parks to continue.

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If it’s a MACK standard train length (not a big-dipper) then with that layout I don’t see how they can’t get 1000 an hour on 2 trains. One dispatch a minute is 1200 an hour so you would have to really slow things up to drop to below 1000.

That said if anyone can Thorpe can!

1,000 per hour is perfectly adequate for Thorpe Park. The problem is actually achieving that figure.

AstroDan said:

1,000 per hour is perfectly adequate for Thorpe Park. The problem is actually achieving that figure.

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It's not though, is it? With so many poor cap attractions, it needs to be able to take the strain.

A bit like Cheasingtom Thorpe needed something with an amazing throughput to take the strain ooff the poor throughput attractions.

I guess it depends how optimistic the theoretical is; some theoretical throughputs are more optimistic, while others are more pessimistic. Take Alton Towers, for instance; Wicker Man’s theoretical throughput is 952pph, while the park often exceeds 1,000pph on it, and Thirteen’s theoretical throughput is 1,100pph, while the park got 1,440pph on it in opening year, so those two are somewhat pessimistic theoretical throughputs. Rita, on the other hand, has a theoretical of 1,150pph, and got around 700pph the one time I timed it, and I timed Oblivion at a touch below 900pph both times I timed it on 2 stations, while the theoretical is 1,900pph, so those two have more optimistic theoretical throughputs.

Linking this to Thorpe, Swarm’s theoretical throughput is 1,100pph, and the park comes pretty close to hitting that figure at present (950pph both times I’ve timed it). Ditto with Stealth; its theoretical is 1,000pph, and the park have attained a really solid 850pph on it on both occasions I timed. So assuming that Exodus has a throughput of 1,000pph or just over and the same train design as other Mack coasters, then I could see it getting at least 850pph, possibly 900-1000pph or even higher; if Stealth manages 850pph out of 1,000pph with bulkier restraints and a less roomy train design than Exodus, then I certainly think Exodus could hit that at a very minimum, possibly higher. Matters will be helped even more if the customary Merlin baggage hold is included!

For my money, I think Thorpe does a good job at getting fairly close to their rides’ theoretical throughputs (from my experiences, I'll admit I'm never sure why Thorpe's operations are so criticised; they always seem to do a good job whenever I visit. Do I just get lucky?), so I have no worries about Exodus, personally. The only real significant discrepancy seems to be Colossus, where the theoretical is 1,300pph and the actual has averaged out at around 600pph over the two occasions where I’ve timed it (550pph one time, 650pph the other). From what I can tell, though, 1,300pph is generally seen as quite an optimistic figure for Colossus, what with its compact train design and bulky restraints. This apparently banks on a rolling block setting the ride doesn’t even run, as well.

Adding attractions to sustain visitation is a perfectly normal approach in this industry.

That said, if you secretly hoped your new installation would attract an additional 100k cars to the park, you might 'forget' to mention that at the consultation stage ...