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2017: General Discussion

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Alton Towers certainly isn't a day out.

It's 6 or 6 1/2 hours out. Worse off peak hours than DMP.

Less than office hours.

But, you know, Merlin don't care. At all.

Gordon Mutton, Nick Varney, Justin Platt and other directors should be ashamed. As their parks faulter and they pick up their pay cheques.

They can take their devalued, cheapskate, oversold Merlin passes and melt them all down for all I care.

A year ago I'd have written to them with a carefully constructed argument about the issues. But letters to Merlin aren't worth the paper they're written on because they typically just fob you off with claptrap from their corporate cyanide factory.

Race to the bottom.

And I love Alton Towers. Deep down.

:(

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
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Trouble is, there are some very talanted and passionate people in Merlin with their heads screwed on the right way, but they're not given the chance to show their full potential because it would be a "risk" or "poor business decision". So sad to see Alton going this way. Think I'll be buying a BPB season pass very very soon.
 
I spend more time travelling to/from Towers in a round trip then actually being on park. Pathetic, no wonder I'm not renewing my pass.
 
MaxPower said:
i can't believe people are willing to spend that sort of money on such a sub standard product.
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Trouble is that the majority of the British public don't know any better. At best they've been to DLP, maybe PA, and we all know they're hardly shining beacons of epicness.
The number of non-enthusiast guests who've been to a decent park must be a couple of thousand at best. There's really nothing in the UK to show them what they're missing out on... Thanks to Merlin's monopoly.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the park is being intentionally downgraded. I've never known opening hours so embarrassing and a park so huge in terms of ground space, hotel capacity and even infrastructure like a monorail service and vast car parks, have so few attractions.

This park has become a liability to its parent company - a brand poisoned by the incident, a crumbling historic listed structure, strict planning restrictions only suited to a high level of investment and imagination business model, large gardens to maintain and a vast site that's built and designed to attract larger number of visitors than its counterpart midways, regional parks and sea life's.
 
I think what has happened with The Smiler has had a big impact on various cuts, or at least accelerated them. There's no way we would have got all of the cuts seen in 2016 if guest numbers had not drastically fallen after June 2015. However Merlin decided that the best way to combat this decline was to reduce the scale and operations of the park to that of one that you would expect to get just over 1.5 million visitors each year.

I'm convinced that they don't want the park to ever fully recover, chances are the costs of a fully functional park a la 2010 outweigh the revenue they'd get from an extra 1 million guests (or at least the minimal gains simply aren't worth it in their opinions).

:)
 
Leah said:
Do you have a source for that figure? In absolutely no way is that true. It may have been at capacity, but that's at least double the actual number of people at fireworks.

Also, and absolutely no offence intended in this, you do seem to be exadurating the poor management of the park during fireworks. While yes, it was a little chaotic immediately after the fireworks, I don't think it was too badly managed as a whole. Of course it depends on your personal experience, but it's coming across like people were being crushed by the crowds trying to get out.
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It's what a member of staff said. Not a number I made up. And she told quite a few people. So I guess that's an issue AT would have to take up with their staff. But it certainly seemed like they were well, well over capacity. I don't think I'm exaggerating the experience. The event could, and should, have been organised far better than it was.
 
Jared said:
It's what a member of staff said. Not a number I made up
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A standard member of staff is not going to know. Unless it was a senior member of staff (so not uniformed) I wouldn't trust that they know the actual figure, chinese whispers come into play and people just share what they think they heard.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Towers#cite_ref-18) has the parks capacity at 28,000 with several citations of this including an article in the Metro metro.co.uk/2010/04/13/alton-towers-power-cut-causes-rides-to-be-evacuated-237647/

They have also had 24,000 tickets for the Alton Towers Live event on the front lawn http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/towers-signs-jls-24-000-ticket-gig/story-12511564-detail/story.html so the capcity of the front lawn is enough to fit pretty much everyone in the park in.

See also this TST thread https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/capacity-throughput.2074/#post-74473
 
Merlin are basically the Kumbak equivalent to park operators. What they touch typically ruins a once great experience.

In the last few years Merlin have operated towers they have:
  • Drastically cut back open hours (10-5 should be minimum)
  • Removed supporting rides (Charlie, Ripsaw, Submission etc.)
  • Segregated the offering I.E CBeebies and the big six with little between
  • Cut back entertainment, which practically doesn't exist (out of Beeb land)
  • Scaled back events that are not Scarefest (even Fireworks is only two nights now)
  • Let the park get into such a poor state that the TLC must be used as a cheap reassurance scheme and smoke screen to further cuts in what should general practice in any major park.
  • Continue to increase prices despite a decline in value, quality and satisfaction
  • Run the park into the ground despite making a large profit both as a company and Towers (at least Pre-Smiler)
  • Greater difficulty in handling large crowds (due to most of the issues listed above)
Merlin should be aiming to make Towers great again and be trying to compete with the likes of Europa Park and Phantasialand. Unfortunately they are not simply because of their lust for massive profit.

Yes, it is important for all 'profit' companies to make money, as many years in the red leads to bankruptcy. But there needs to be a consistency of making money whilst offering a good quality product which Merlin and Towers don't currently offer.

Not only is the quality gap of Towers and other leading park's in Europe greater then before, but park's like Blackpool and Paultons are already ahead on. Mostly because they are consistent on the guest satisfaction/profit ratio, which says a lot since one of those is still struggling financially slightly.

Even Drayton are now at the verge of overtaking them. Something that may eventually happen once they improve their coaster/dark ride offering.
 
Jared said:
It's what a member of staff said. Not a number I made up. And she told quite a few people. So I guess that's an issue AT would have to take up with their staff. But it certainly seemed like they were well, well over capacity. I don't think I'm exaggerating the experience. The event could, and should, have been organised far better than it was.
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I'm really not sure where the staff member for that figure from, but it's at least double the actual capacity of towers. I'd like to see 60,000 people try to fit on the lawns to be honest, it's just not possible.

I also want to point out that they were turning people without prebooked tickets away, which suggests that they did not in fact, exceed their maximum capacity.

Finally, I'm just going to reiterate what I said last time about it all being down to your personal experience. I did visit for fireworks this year (admittedly on the quieter of the two days), but I didn't see any of the issues you are suggesting. It was busy and there were a lot of people in towers street in the evening, but after the initial confusion about which way to go the staff managed to get the crowd moving very quickly, especially once the path by the flume was opened.
 
Leah said:
I'm really not sure where the staff member for that figure from, but it's at least double the actual capacity of towers. I'd like to see 60,000 people try to fit on the lawns to be honest, it's just not possible.

I also want to point out that they were turning people without prebooked tickets away, which suggests that they did not in fact, exceed their maximum capacity.

Finally, I'm just going to reiterate what I said last time about it all being down to your personal experience. I did visit for fireworks this year (admittedly on the quieter of the two days), but I didn't see any of the issues you are suggesting. It was busy and there were a lot of people in towers street in the evening, but after the initial confusion about which way to go the staff managed to get the crowd moving very quickly, especially once the path by the flume was opened.
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And then you queued for an hour to get out of the carpark. :)
 
Not much of the long term development plan regarding in the park happened. It just got me thinking would we have seen all those rumoured attractions?! I hope Merlin invests more, probably 2019 before we get a new flat outside of CBeebies
 
Didn't know where to put this, here or fireworks...
after massive deliberation on this last year, should I do fireworks or not, I bottled out because I was bothered about massive crowds, in the dark, on the lawns, freezing cold in the queues, parking hell, M6 roadworks in the dark, and so on.
It was my one and only season pass, I still had a friend for a tenner ticket left, but I had no takers. I had been truthful and told them what it would be like.
I love fireworks almost as much as I love coasters, and I ended up at Lightwater, with mates and wife, with small crowds, nice fireworks and rides, with short queues and no bother.
It was great, and apparently the park made a few quid on it as well.
It can be done.
Just a shame I had to do it without Nemesis.
 
Towerslover said:
I wonder what would have happened if the smiler crash hadn't of happened...
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Some will say it would've been exactly the same. In reality, I doubt this. People sometimes underestimate the effect the crash had on the park and seem surprised there were any cuts at all. Cuts were happening before the crash obviously, but not major ones.
 
Rob said:
I think what has happened with The Smiler has had a big impact on various cuts, or at least accelerated them. There's no way we would have got all of the cuts seen in 2016 if guest numbers had not drastically fallen after June 2015. However Merlin decided that the best way to combat this decline was to reduce the scale and operations of the park to that of one that you would expect to get just over 1.5 million visitors each year.

I'm convinced that they don't want the park to ever fully recover, chances are the costs of a fully functional park a la 2010 outweigh the revenue they'd get from an extra 1 million guests (or at least the minimal gains simply aren't worth it in their opinions).

:)
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Precisely. Although the park was facing a "leaner" and more "efficient" future as the sharp suits would say with their management talk (cutbacks to make the operation more profitable to you and me), what happened in 2015 has probably changed the park forever. The evidence is all there of a purposely executed down sizing/cutting the cloth accordingly/giving up/making the numbers fit. We would not be facing midweek closures, 6 hour opening and a massive chunk of the ride lineup closed for what seems like the foreseeable future, had The Smiler crash not occurred.

Merlin would surely love to see pre crash attendance figures once more, but they seem not too confident on that ever happening and don't see chasing those numbers as worthwhile expenditure.

It's sad I know, but the reality is, Merlin don't have any confidence in the park anymore than we do with them operating it. It's a calculated downgrade/race to the bottom of a park and division within the company that they no longer see as their "bread and butter", where the growth focus will be on the Midways and Legoland brand.
 
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