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Fireworks is due to be Thursday 7th November to Sunday 10th November. Scarefest will operate every day from its start date to 3rd November. I’ll eat my hat if I’m wrong!

A mixed line-up for me. Some good, some poor. I think it’s very clear the marketing team dictate most of the Scarefest line-up now rather than leaving it to the in-house entertainments creatives, which is a shame. Good news on the scare zone, I’ll reserve judgment on the Mine Tours refresh...

I suspect it’s been done as a result of people ordering single items and them not being able to maximise GP. Chips & soft drinks are both super high GP products so that £5/£6 or whatever it is mark-up to have a meal, rather than an individual item, consists of almost pure gross profit. I don’t...

It fluctuates. Pre-Oktoberfest and the other events, the maze line-up was typically revealed any time between June-August. I remember one year we had the reveal literally within the first few weeks of June. Nowadays, with all the other events they need to market, as well as summer, we...

I genuinely think it all stems back to the architecture of the business being focused on finance rather than customer-orientation. The marketing department should play a huge role in understanding customer needs, behaviour and expectations then doubling down to meet those expectations and...

I don’t see an issue with self service. Particularly in the case of high street restaurant chains, business models have been destroyed through rising food, labour and energy costs. Of course a business will try to protect their profit margin through automating some processes or putting the...

I think many people are looking into the project name for a clue. To examine the evidence: 1. Exodus and Genesis bare no resemblance to their respective ride themes. 2. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the project names are alphabetical from their conception- A, B, C, D, Exodus, F...

If anyone is interested, the marketing/activations on The Curse of Alton Manor and the Nemesis activation ran on the last day of season are coming from Smoking Gun (marketing agency). They entered a partnership with AT last year.

One look at the Britannia website and you can see buzzwords like ‘competitively priced’, ‘value for money’, ‘rooms without windows’. The reasons for your visit to a Britannia hotel will be completely different to ATH; they’ve built a brand knowing and owning that they’re basic and budget...

A very commonly known marketing principle is if your balance of retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones is off, you’ll fall into decline quickly. Relying on first-time visitors (acquisitions) to fuel your business growth is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. You’ll quickly run into...

I can almost see the marketing line now. ‘You can now shoot Iggle Piggle and all your favourite Night Garden friends’.

I don’t agree that the margins in restaurant operations are massive. I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for 8 years, 6 in operations and 2 in marketing for a well-known casual dining brand. It’s true, there were good/healthy margins to be enjoyed in the past, but in recent times with the...

Best thing they should/could do which would be super cost-effective too would be beacon & push notification technology which is automated. Example: when you enter a certain area and get close to a beacon, the Bluetooth connectivity sends a push notification to your phone (if you’re opted-in)...

They desperately need a copy team within their marketing department. I can oversee errors in quick ‘out of order’ signage made by an ops team, however marketing collateral and/or marketing communications with errors in should be picked up in amends rounds, approval rounds or by a copy team...

Highly likely. Closer it gets to Halloween, the busier it gets is usually the general trend. That week is also the traditional school October half term week. Some schools do change their half term week around though. But expect the event to be at its busiest during that week.

I would expect the late announcement came from needing to cement the brand partnership/agreement between Haribo and AT. Rather than delay the whole reveal and potentially impact revenue coming in for the mazes and other attractions. It also appears that during off-peak days and the...

We seem to have some indication that the new maze will be located where Freak Show: Toxic Junkyard was last year and in 2020 (the Games Bunker site). Comments on a most recent tweet by TS suggest this was confirmed by one of the senior members of the entertainments’ team yesterday in a meeting...

To add further confusion, on the ‘family spooks’ page here: https://www.altontowers.com/explore/events/scarefest/family-fun/, when you scroll to the bottom of the page and click the CTA to view ‘spine tingling terror’, you get linked out to last years’ event page, here...

Is it just me or does the event page (and website in general for that matter) feel clunky, all over the place, with bad UI and bad e-comm QA'ing/testing? It feels they're tried to throw in last year's event page for Scarefest with their placeholder page for this year before the line-up reveals...

I wasn’t expecting returning favourites to be re-hashes of existing attractions like The Sanctuary or Carnival for example because of a few reasons like cost and much of the props from those mazes were recycled into newer attractions. Bringing old attractions back will always be difficult...