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2018: Wicker Man - General Discussion - SPOILERS! - Part One

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If anything, the fact that Towers already has short coasters in abundance is an argument AGAINST opening yet another one.
 
Brett said:
But it did have a 20 minute story line playing around the site... if anything nemesis is the one thing you dont like in coasters.
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That never played on site, that was just a rumour. That narrated story soundtrack was made for the promo only and was never intended to be played.

The ride's designers have said lots of times the Nemesis story was made to create the right look and setting to the ride, but that it wasn't intended to be explained to guests literally on park. The ride's theme is meant to provoke your imagination and create an exciting feel for the coaster rather than 'tell' a story. Similar with Oblivion and looks lke they're taking the same visual approach with Wickerman so far.
 
electricBill said:
That never played on site, that was just a rumour. That narrated story soundtrack was made for the promo only and was never intended to be played.

The ride's designers have said lots of times the Nemesis story was made to create the right look and setting to the ride, but that it wasn't intended to be explained to guests literally on park. The ride's theme is meant to provoke your imagination and create an exciting feel for the coaster rather than 'tell' a story. Similar with Oblivion and looks lke they're taking the same visual approach with Wickerman so far.
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It feels different with wicker man like they intend on having the story a core part of the experience

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Given the budget for this Secret Weapon was considerably lower than for SW7 and SW6 it is hardly surprising that the layout is incredibly short.

It is also concerning that John's recommendations were never fully realised due to time constraints. Seems surprising he was invited in for advice at a stage too late to make apt change, bar the first drop.

:)
 
Bert2theSpark said:
I dunno about inflation but Thirteen was £15mill whereas Wicker Man is £16mill.

Hardly a 'budget cut' really.
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£15m in 2010 is about £18m now. So there's a slight gap, but considering considerable funds must have gone into the development of Thirteen's drop mechanism as opposed to Wicker Man being a bog-standard GCI, I'd say that gap is well covered by that.

EDIT - To add to that, White Lightning (a GCI built in 2013 of almost the exact same length as Wicker Man) cost $3.5m then. Which even accounting for inflation and conversion is still barely over £2.5m now. So the question you have to ask is - what the hell are they spending that extra £13m on?
 
Alastair said:
£15m in 2010 is about £18m now. So there's a slight gap, but considering considerable funds must have gone into the development of Thirteen's drop mechanism as opposed to Wicker Man being a bog-standard GCI, I'd say that gap is well covered by that.

EDIT - To add to that, White Lightning (a GCI built in 2013 of almost the exact same length as Wicker Man) cost $3.5m then. Which even accounting for inflation and conversion is still barely over £2.5m now. So the question you have to ask is - what the hell are they spending that extra £13m on?
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There are lots of groundworks and shipping costs, plus the costs of having the GCI guys in Britain for a long period, but even with all of that I can't understand the missing millions either.

16 million would buy one of the biggest wooden coasters in the world!
 
The sad reality is, Fun Spot will end up with the better coaster and have apparently saved themselves £13.5m. No amount of either real or fake fire can make up for a disappointing first drop and then no real scope for extra speed to be gained after that.
 
Looking at the cost of the ride from the planning app which stated the ride was going to cost £15mill excluding marketing whereas the offical anouncement said it cost £16mill. So it's probably got a £1mill marketing budget(but again inflation does come into it).

So if the ride hardware cost £3mill and marketing was £1mill. Then what is the other £12mill being spent on? I'd assume the Wicker Man structure would have cost a lot. As well as all the other theming wouldn't have been cheap and then you've got special effects for the ride as well as planning and emolishion of The Flume.

And then you've got things like The Welcoming which would have come under Scarefest Budget and the BBQ Smokehouse for the Courtyard Tavern alongside Wicker Man.

Merlin clearly aren't cheaping out on investment like WickerManiac stated in the first place, just some of the budget is being spent elsewhere like Towers Loving Care and BBQ Smokehouse.
 
Moley said:
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So what he's saying is all well and fun, a cool idea for a theme, but what actually matters is the finished ride on the ground. Will the ride experience capture all that fiery mystery, the way Nemesis feels so beastly and visceral? Could do, but it would have to be a real step up for MMMM from their previous attempts.

The Swarm was the worst, a pavement coaster with some token theme plonked around and TV screens trying to impose a "stoty". The public rightly didn't care about that one. They waxed lyrical about Derren Brown's Ghost Train too and there's a type of attraction where the theme is really the core, yet in the end that was just another ad hoc backstory with some teenagers shouting at you in a black box - another poor response.

Wickerman looks like their best attempt yet so I really look forward to it. But will be disappointed if this "story" turns out to be another contrived attempt to smokescreen a lacklusture experience, if that makes sense.


Bert2theSpark said:
Looking at the cost of the ride from the planning app which stated the ride was going to cost £15mill excluding marketing whereas the offical anouncement said it cost £16mill. So it's probably got a £1mill marketing budget ... Merlin clearly aren't cheaping out on investment like WickerManiac stated in the first place, just some of the budget is being spent elsewhere like Towers Loving Care
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To be honest, we have no idea of the details of their budgeting and it would be wrong to draw figures. I'm a construction student and still I wouldn't be able to accurately say in this case what £Xmillion would get you for structure, hardware, etc. All I'd know is that £1M isn't a whole heap of money these days when it comes to projects this big, and marketing budget will likely be more than £1M. The advertised figures aren't too reliable but would be wrong to draw too many conclusions about how much is actually being spent on what. :)
 
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While Towers like to use the advertised figure to include everything, I would say looking at this ride it looks like more money has been spent on quality craftsmanship and more theming than previous SWs, which is a great thing really.

I would optimistically say this could be one of the best projects created by MMM and may be the most comparable Merlin project to the (good) Tussauds projects.

I can live with a short ride if everything else is of higher quality and more immersive than The Smiler/Th13teen.

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Altonadvocate1 said:
All they had to do was let us enthusiasts take what we want... Flume removal costs gone :)
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They could of sold bits of the channel to enthusiasts to recoup some of the rip out cost or fund TLC.
Having enthusiasts go at the flume would be a safety nightmare.

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delta79 said:
They could of sold bits of the channel to enthusiasts to recoup some of the rip out cost or fund TLC.
Having enthusiasts go at the flume would be a safety nightmare.

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But an 800 metre long private long flume in my backyard would be so cool...
 
Alastair said:
The sad reality is, Fun Spot will end up with the better coaster and have apparently saved themselves £13.5m. No amount of either real or fake fire can make up for a disappointing first drop and then no real scope for extra speed to be gained after that.
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Or pre-show filler material.

Whilst the theming around this is welcome, I wince every time someone mentions a "story". A good coaster needs to be a good coaster first and foremost. This coaster is far too small, needlessly so I would say.
 
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