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

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PeteB said:
All wrong. I don't know where you've pulled these figures from but I've just double checked on TowersTimes, RCDB, Wikipedia, and a few other websites and all got these relatively consistant numbers:

Congo River Rapds: 1800
Haunted House: 1920
Nemesis: 1400
Oblivion: 1700 (perfectly possible when running 2 stations)
Air: 1500
Hex: 864 (impressive for what is essently a flat ride in a shed)

So the majority of headline attractions during this era got at least 1400 pph, as I originally stated.

Recent rides as follows:

Rita: 1000
Th13teen: 1100 (intended to be, but actually achieves 1300 by accident. Bad luck for Fastrack I guess).
NST: approx 5 people per hour (seriously urgh)
Smiler: 1100
Wicker Man: 1000

...and you're seriously expecting anyone to believe they aren't doing this on purpose?

Now isn't it funny that 2 days after discussing this subject, I wake up today to find news that Towers have suddenly reversed all the staggered opening times and the Rapids won't be closed? Hmm. Coincidence or perhaps slightly rattled that we've sussed the game these clowns are playing at?? I wonder.

I mean how bad would it be for the park's reputation if some of the newspapers, who love to spin a story, picked up on the fact they were deliberately making queues longer to sell more Fastrack?
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Air is not and has never been 1500.
Rita’s on paper throughput is not 1000 an hour.

Oblivion would have to dispatch every 60 seconds to get 1700 even on two stations, it takes about 20 seconds for both shuttles to pull in and park.

Rapids by nature get a high throughput and was pre-tussauds era. Your selective attraction picking forgets the second 1992 headline of RMT which doesn’t peak 1000 an hour.

I bet Varney was furious when Thirteen performed so well. How dare Intamin show such skill!

The place is bad enough these days without your conspiracy theories on throughput engineering. Let it fall on its own sword.

The best park outside of Disney and universal for throughputs is EuropaPark, they get a woodie to 1200 an hour, I don’t see how you can suggest therefore that the predicted 1000 an hour is some deliberate ploy. In fact having traveled to a fair few parks around the world I would say Towers sits very squarely in the good category for throughputs, certainly not EP amazing but pretty decent.

Guests buy fast pass when the queues are 20 min long, they don’t need to inflate waiting times to drive FT sales. Towers took the “increase price” option over Thorpes “sell more” option.
 
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I thought that Air was only 950pph or a similar figure? Also, John Wardley has previously said that Thirteen was designed to hit 1200pph, but on opening day, it actually hit 1260pph.
 
Matt N said:
I thought that Air was only 950pph or a similar figure? Also, John Wardley has previously said that Thirteen was designed to hit 1200pph, but on opening day, it actually hit 1260pph.
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No Air used to get around the 1200 to 1300 Mark pre-galactica.
 
ihaveaspergers said:
Have they ever even came close to that? It's a good thing merlin havent been promoting the rph for Wickerman.

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Thirteen can do that.

I have no science to this but some rides seem to have a natural tendency to good operation, it’s just that the trains easily flow to the most efficient timings. A good example of this is Nemesis, with little effort the ride pulls the guests through with speed. A good example of where this isn’t the case is Rita, where sure if the staff bust their guts they can get 1150 but it doesn’t naturally sit at that point.

Designed or not so long as the drop system isn’t being a “see you next Tuesday” it just seems to dispatch with ease.

The topic has gone waaayyyy off.
 
I fail to believe a ride is designed with the first thought being 'this needs to be designed badly so we can sell fastrack'. Indeed, purposely slow dispatches could be used to push Fastrack sales although again this is all a bit far fetched. When it comes to the queue time boards, they have never been accurate and Alton Towers isn't the only park in the world that has inaccurate queue time boards.

Alton Towers manage Fastrack quite well now. Lets not forget 4-5 years ago when there were no limits on sales and there were sales staff on Towers Street screaming at/following guests urging them to buy Fastrack tickets...

TPC said:
What was the removed post about?
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Someone filed a complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency regarding Alton Towers claim of "the world's first roller coaster infusing fire and wood", the ASA replied back stating that Alton Towers/Merlin have breached some of the advertising rules and they have taken the appropriate action and recommended them [Towers/Merlin] what changes need to be made.

Something along those lines anyway.

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Dave said:
Air is not and has never been 1500.
Rita’s on paper throughput is not 1000 an hour.

Oblivion would have to dispatch every 60 seconds to get 1700 even on two stations, it takes about 20 seconds for both shuttles to pull in and park.

Rapids by nature get a high throughput and was pre-tussauds era. Your selective attraction picking forgets the second 1992 headline of RMT which doesn’t peak 1000 an hour.

I bet Varney was furious when Thirteen performed so well. How dare Intamin show such skill!
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How is it you claim to know the exact theorectical throughput figures, by design, when multiple other sources say differently? Sometimes, you just have to accept that you don't know everything.

And RMT wasn't a headline attraction in 1992, the Haunted House was.

Dave said:
The place is bad enough these days without your conspiracy theories on throughput engineering. Let it fall on its own sword.

The best park outside of Disney and universal for throughputs is EuropaPark, they get a woodie to 1200 an hour, I don’t see how you can suggest therefore that the predicted 1000 an hour is some deliberate ploy. In fact having traveled to a fair few parks around the world I would say Towers sits very squarely in the good category for throughputs, certainly not EP amazing but pretty decent.

Guests buy fast pass when the queues are 20 min long, they don’t need to inflate waiting times to drive FT sales. Towers took the “increase price” option over Thorpes “sell more” option.
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Mate... I'm shaking my head in disbelief! This is not how business works. They aren't there to do you any favours, they are there to take your money.

A business (especially one like Merlin) will always tailor it's product to maximise profits, and one of the most profitable products is Fastrack. Of course they want to do everything they can to drive those sales. The price increase is because they CAN get away with it, its not to deter people from buying it.

If Fastrack wasn't so important, they wouldn't have "sales agents" pushing sales for it at the ride entrances and around the park.

It's completely naive to believe otherwise.
 
Dave said:
No Air used to get around the 1200 to 1300 Mark pre-galactica.
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Aha!! But designed to get 1500 with the dual stations. So if we can agree actual throughputs are about 15% below theorectical, then that means we're looking at about 850-900 for Wicker Man.

I rest my case.
 
PeteB said:
How is it you claim to know the exact theorectical throughput figures, by design, when multiple other sources say differently? Sometimes, you just have to accept that you don't know everything.

And RMT wasn't a headline attraction in 1992, the Haunted House was.



Mate... I'm shaking my head in disbelief! This is not how business works. They aren't there to do you any favours, they are there to take your money.

A business (especially one like Merlin) will always tailor it's product to maximise profits, and one of the most profitable products is Fastrack. Of course they want to do everything they can to drive those sales. The price increase is because they CAN get away with it, its not to deter people from buying it.

If Fastrack wasn't so important, they wouldn't have "sales agents" pushing sales for it at the ride entrances and around the park.

It's completely naive to believe otherwise.
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Pete the sources you have quoted have no factual documentation from the manufacturers, plus with the Tussauds and pre tussauds era you are pulling theoretical numbers and Merlin you are pulling actual throughputs.

Plus they don’t have sales people at ride entrances, they did it one summer in 2013 and never since.

I am not a fan of hyperbole, it will always pull a response from me, there is enough to hate about the place without making it up and when you make it up you give ammo to the people who want to defend it.
 
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James said:
Someone filed a complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency regarding Alton Towers claim of "the world's first roller coaster infusing fire and wood", the ASA replied back stating that Alton Towers/Merlin have breached some of the advertising rules and they have taken the appropriate action and recommended them [Towers/Merlin] what changes need to be made.

Something along those lines anyway.

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AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Oh, to be a fly in Merlin's office...

I wonder what they will change the marketing to!

(PS. Don't forget to spam merlin asking where the worlds 1st went)
 
I'm guessing the complaint was that this is not the first time fire effects have been used on a woody?
 
Just to add to the throughput discussion, Air has never, or ever will reach 1500 pph. The highest ever recorded dispatch count is 50 crafts in one hour, and 50 x 28 is 1400. Of course realistically it never got that many dispatches on a regular basis so the typical throughput was around 1300 pph in the mid naughties.

RMT used to get upwards of 1000 pph back in the 90s when they didn't check the lapbars, nowadays it struggles to scrape passed 600. :(

At the end of the day Wicker Man will do fine with a throughput of around 1000 pph as the park isn't busy enough to warrant any more. You have to remember in the 90s there weren't that many major coasters in the park, so the ones they added had to have high throughput to avoid the horrendous queues, nowadays the crowds are more spread out.
 
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The word 'Fire' is not being used AT ALL anymore... they say "thought the flaming wickerman" once very briefly on the website. all the fusion between wood and fire and worlds first materiel has gone.

"Wicker Man is the UK’s first new wooden rollercoaster experience in 21 years"

"We hope visitors will be blown away by Wicker Man’s breath-taking scale whilst the primal essence of the wooden coaster and astonishing effects will leave them delighted, exhilarated and eager to ride again."

they are being forced to sell a rollercoaster for a change! ;)
 
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