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2016: The Smiler Reopening

Will you ride in 2016?

  • Yes

    Votes: 147 94.8%

  • No

    Votes: 8 5.2%
  • Total voters
    155
Just watched some of the itv news thing. Absolutely trashed the park, though did advertise quite alot that its opening tomorrow. Funnily though, they showed adverts fir "super Sundays" in the breaks.
 
So the press has picked up on this which means the "Media collective" is going to be all over the park this weekend looking for excuses to grind more fear mongery out of Merlin. With this in mind I ask the forum,

What is the correct way we, as Alton Towers fans, should treat them.
(I am informed that punching them in the face is illegal, even when they ask if I am insane to ride The Smiler)
 
I'd either ignore them or calmly state the facts to them. We all know the odds of being in an accident whilst on a ride are overwhelmingly against it happening, so the more they understand the better.
 
To be fair based on social media it doesn't seem like many people are against the park as such. I know it's not the best measure of public opinion, although it does show how the media is pretty much talking to a brick wall.

People have already made their minds up whether they will go to Towers again or not, so I'm not quite sure what the whole aim of this hate campaign against Towers/Merlin is about. Maybe they get all wet and excited reading people bicker on social media. I know they still get hits/clicks/viewers, although I'd be surprised if many people actually care about the story now, given its been milked to death.
 
Hopefully it will all end and the media will give up after the court case ends? The media I'm sure will be wrangled by the appropriate people today and tomorrow, as Richard Gaisford was already outside the gates this morning. The media never talk about the other peoples lives that have been ruined by what happened not only at the park but to the local economy.
 
It will all die down a few weeks after opening never to be spoken of before. But, Alton will need to be uber, uber cautious of any breakdowns this year - some people will be nervous and very quick to contact the news agencies to voice their concerns... "death trap roller coaster broke down (for 5 seconds) , I feared for my life" sort of stuff....
 
jmc said:
"She was at the front of The Smiler rollercoaster when it malfunctioned and sent one carriage smashing into another" - more accurate reporting by The Mirror
Click to expand...

Literally a few paragraphs later they contradict themselves: "Last year Alton Towers said its internal investigation into the crash found it was caused by human error not a malfunction".

Now I feel bad for giving them page views. :(
 
stretchy said:
So the press has picked up on this which means the "Media collective" is going to be all over the park this weekend looking for excuses to grind more fear mongery out of Merlin. With this in mind I ask the forum,

What is the correct way we, as Alton Towers fans, should treat them.
(I am informed that punching them in the face is illegal, even when they ask if I am insane to ride The Smiler)
Click to expand...
Maybe get some pictures of them having a go on any rides during their visit to demonstrate the utter hypocrisy and the fact they don't believe what they are reporting.
 
Today's news is tomorrow rubbish, it will take time but they will get over it and move on to another story
 
Anyone know if Nick Varney will be around for the reopening? I vaguely remember him saying he'd be the first to ride it once it reopened?
 
rockstar223 said:
Anyone know if Nick Varney will be around for the reopening? I vaguely remember him saying he'd be the first to ride it once it reopened?
Click to expand...
People have already been on it though. I hope he does go on it tomorrow, though he could get around it, saying he rode back in October.
 
The only thing that will give the media anything else to report about is any breakdowns that people exaggerate over the next few weeks... Right now it appears (from facebook comments etc) that people are really not interested in the story anymore. We all saw how often ride breakdowns were reported after the incident so we can probably expect similar and then hopefully everything will finally go away.

It does baffle me why the media are so fixated on all this. Rides which have killed have re-opened in a matter of weeks yet The Smiler remained closed for 5 months...
 
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