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2020: General Discussion

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https://tldrnews.co.uk/tldr-uk/covid-businesses-need-to-prove-themselves/

I need to start this by making an admission. I’m really into theme parks and rollercoasters, and honestly, I wish TLDR Coasters could be a thing but for now, we’re going to stick to politics.

So when the news broke that venues like theme parks were going to be allowed to re-open I was simultaneously excited and very curious. As I say, I’m a big fan of theme parks so obviously I was excited to go back but as a journalist (if that’s what you call this) I was skeptical. Themeparks are – by there very nature – busy, crowded, and full of lines which doesn’t sound like the ideal place to re-opening during a pandemic.

Regardless I thought it would be interesting to visit and see what was really happening (I also wanted to get on the rides, I’m not going to pretend this was a fully journalistic endeavor). So I booked tickets to visit two of the UK’s biggest theme parks; Alton Towers and Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

Before visiting I saw online that the parks were taking measures to ensure that social distancing could be maintained and transmission limited. They’d put markers on the floor to encourage people to keep their distance, they added hand sanitizer around the parks and capped the number of people who were allowed to visit each day. Upon arriving I was pleased to see that the measures were actually in place and the parks did seem to genuinely be trying to prevent the spread of COVID.

Unfortunately, this is where my experience at the two parks diverged. While both Alton Towers and Blackpool Pleasure Beach implemented social distancing markers, attendance caps, and hand sanitizing stations, the results were very very different.



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It’s worth highlighting here that I only spent 3 days at these parks (2 days in Blackpool and 1 at Alton). It’s also worth noting that I visited Blackpool on Friday & Saturday when the weather was nicer – potentially making the park busier. Obviously I was only one person out of thousands at the parks. That obviously means that my experiences won’t be 100% representative of everyone on park, and if you visit, things may be very different. That being said, here’s what I experienced.

At Alton Towers, it seemed the park had a firm grasp on the issues. Queue lines had clear markers showing you where to stand, ensuring guests were always two meters apart. Hand sanitizing stations were dotted throughout the park. Staff reminded guests of the new rules and reprimanded those who weren’t following them as well as ensuring everyone wore a face-covering while on the rides. Broadly these moves were successful, and throughout my day at the resort, I never felt unsafe and only twice had two ask people to keep their distance (which they quickly did).



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Blackpool Pleasure Beach appeared very similar on the surface. The queue markers were there, the staff ensured mask usage on rides and hand sanitizer was readily available (although it really didn’t smell good). However, the actual end results were far less successful. I would estimate that 90% of people at Alton Towers followed the rules and stayed socially distant when possible – at Blackpool you could flip that. In every single queue the person behind me was ignoring the social distancing markers and was right against my back – one even close enough to repeatedly hit me with their helium balloon.

I’m not qualified to tell you why these two parks’ success rates were so vastly different and I’m not even going to try, but it did make me think about a crucial question when it comes to unlocking. As a society do we have to allow businesses to re-open because of their economic productivity, or do these organizations have to earn and maintain our trust?



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Blackpool Pleasure Beach followed government guidelines – not only that they also implemented almost exactly the same measures as Alton Towers (even going further moving their whole ticketing system online to prevent the need for wristband scanning). However, from my experience at least, I felt repeatedly felt unsafe in the park.

A Blackpool Pleasure Beach spokesperson responded to our experience by remarking:

“Blackpool Pleasure Beach wants to assure guests it has a comprehensive programme of COVID-19 protocols and procedures in place. As we enter our fifth week of operation since reopening on the 4th July we review and adapt these based upon government and health authority guidance plus guests behaviour across our 42 acre site. These are communicated to guests in advance of their visit via email, on our website and social media channels. When guests arrive and during their visit we have signage, voice announcements and ambassadors to assist and guide guests. Additional resources are being deployed to ensure guests observe our social distancing procedures and this Saturday the park will be open from 10 am until 10 pm giving guests a 12 hour period in which to enjoy a visit to the park.”

In response to our experience at Alton Towers a spokesperson commented:

“The health and wellbeing of our guests and staff is always our top priority. We are working incredibly hard to keep our guests and employees safe, and have a wide range of measures in place to ensure social distancing and good hygiene. We are continuously monitoring and adapting these measures in line with the changing government guidance and where we can see more needs to be done to protect our guests. For example, since re-opening we’ve introduced a dedicated team of Crowd Controllers to help prevent large groups gathering and to facilitate the movement of guests around the park. We’d like to thank all our guests for adhering to our guidelines and behaving in a respectful way towards our teams and each other.”



I do appreciate that parks like these have a difficult job. They can put rules in place, provide sanitizer, and place markers but if people don’t follow the rules it’s hard for them to enforce. It would take a lot of people in order to monitor the queues and break people up if they began getting too close. It would be almost impossible to force people to regularly clean their hands (I felt sorry enough for staff members who had to ensure mask usage on ride, after seeing multiple guests harass them for these efforts).
The problem is that I don’t think it being ‘hard’ is a good enough excuse. It might be hard to monitor the queues but it’s certainly not impossible. Staff members could man the queues ensureing social distancing or alternatively parks could utilise their existing CCTV and PA systems to great effect. If theme parks argued that it’s hard to keep people from walking on their manicured lawns I’d have some sympathy, but this isn’t just a preference, this is ultimately about public health.

In my view venues like these (as well as pubs, bars, cinemas, theatres, and others) have a duty to the public. They’re in no way essential, so if they want to re-open they have to ensure they can protect public health, actually enforcing rules rather than just papering over the cracks. It might be difficult to make sure guests are abiding by regulations but if you can’t, I’d really question why you are even open. If a theme park had dangerous rides and couldn’t keep people safe we rightly wouldn’t stand for it. So if parks can’t effectively limit the spread of COVID why do we ignore it?

In fact, it’s even worse than the dodgy rides example I gave a moment ago because any negligence related to COVID not only impacts guests is also affects the community around the park.

I understand that these are businesses that support local economies and employ thousands, but I don’t think that’s sufficient justification to re-open them right away. I’m also not trying to single out Blackpool Pleasure Beach. While Alton Towers was better in my experience, there were definitely areas of the park where the crowds became overwhelming and socially distancing wasn’t maintained. Even beyond the theme park industry, it’s important to consider the responsibility that businesses hold, and the duty they have to society. If they’re not willing or able to keep their guests and communities safe, I think we need to question why they were allowed to re-open in the first place.
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An article from a budding political news channel, about the theme park reactions to COVID-19 for Alton Towers and Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

(Rant time)
Whilst the article states AT is doing much better with social distancing than BPB, there are still many issues with people not bothering to follow social distancing in blindspots to park staff in the theme park. Personally from my visits this year, this issue has also been reflected. I've seen quite a bit of guests complying with the social distancing guidelines in queuelines, whereas some completely ignore the preventative measures put in place as soon they are out of staff and/or CCTV.

Another issue, whilst probably not anymore frequent this year, but definitely more significant is queue jumping. On my last visit I had 2 people physically push past me and other members of the public. The first incident was in the 13 queue in the cattle pen next to the vending machines, where I had a teenage girl push past everyone in the queue repeatedly exclaiming "excuse me, excuse me, excuse me". The second incident was in the extended queue for Wicker Man, the man in his early 20's pushed past everyone but thankfully, further up in the queue, was challenged by some other guests and had a member of staff trying to catch up to him, the other guests had managed to stop the man and the member of staff escorted the man out of the queue line, issue resolved. Until, I had reached the station of Wicker Man and the very man who had been kicked out of the queue line had been placed on the train in front of us. We had no idea how he got there as we didn't see him get back into the queue line at any point, but people who had just been waiting to board were annoyed that the man had somehow get onto the ride despite pushing past us all and being kicked out of the queue.

Queue jumping was just another classic theme park annoyance but now in the age of COVID, a very dangerous issue. Everyone in the park should be working off the assumption of that anyone outside of your group has the virus. Physically pushing past people in queues like it's some sort of moshpit, is a health concern to all guests. I'm sorry to go on a rant but when even members of the public outside enthusiast circles are complaining, it's an issue that needs to stressed more.
 
Looks like it will be a busy weekend at the park. Looking at the ticket availability, Friday and Saturday are sold out too.



Just had a glance at the hotel availability and they have the cheek to charge £168 for a Stargazing Pod on Saturday night. No park tickets, just the shed in a field and a breakfast bap.

One hundred and sixty eight Great British Pounds. Good grief.
 
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So the park is “sold out” tomorrow but if you book accommodation for today you can add entry pass for tomorrow... so it’s not “sold out” then :rolleyes:
 
AT86 said:
Can’t see much wrong with them holding back tickets for any unsold rooms? Wouldn’t be much point in allowing someone to book a room and then not offer theme park tickets.
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But if you were a passholder and wanted to stay over tonight then there’s no park access for you tomorrow as there’s no way to book entry.

The grumble is them stating “sold out” when actually they aren’t if you’re willing to pay for it.
 
Ethan said:
Just read in the thread that towers is sold out today. Oh boy this is gonna be an experience
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It’s come close to selling out a few times, think it just hit that point earlier than usual hence the Facebook status.
 
I haven't been to towers so far this year and all this is right putting me off. Sounds like a right mess and nothing annoys me more than queue jumpers. I'm too small to really challenge the little scrotes. BPB has been busy but the thing about BPB is if it gets busy you can escape to the beach or walk out of the park to get a break. Where do you go in Towers which is the little of nowhere.

I don't see why can't actually get serious about social distancing. They need swat team, alert them via text message and they descend up the queue jumper.
 
Orange Ribena said:
I haven't been to towers so far this year and all this is right putting me off. Sounds like a right mess and nothing annoys me more than queue jumpers. I'm too small to really challenge the little scrotes. BPB has been busy but the thing about BPB is if it gets busy you can escape to the beach or walk out of the park to get a break. Where do you go in Towers which is the little of nowhere.

I don't see why can't actually get serious about social distancing. They need swat team, alert them via text message and they descend up the queue jumper.
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There are 2/3 issues in your post.
Its busy, that's fairly normal for summer, they might be a little busier than normal as the parks were closed for three months, but its not surprising.
There are queue jumpers, that happens in a normal time, sometimes they get caught, sometimes they don't.
People aren't social distancing, more could be done from the sound of it, but people will always be selfish so it will never get to 100% compliance.
 
jon81uk said:
There are 2/3 issues in your post.
Its busy, that's fairly normal for summer, they might be a little busier than normal as the parks were closed for three months, but its not surprising.
There are queue jumpers, that happens in a normal time, sometimes they get caught, sometimes they don't.
People aren't social distancing, more could be done from the sound of it, but people will always be selfish so it will never get to 100% compliance.
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There are three issues with your post

1. Its in the middle of a pandemic they are supposed to be reducing capacity.
2. The post above mentioned a greater number of queue jumpers than normal. You sound like you approve of queue jumpers.
3. Indeed much more could be done like actually taking action against people that refuse to listen.

AT don't really care about much except optics and making money. I'd rather give it a mess.
 
Ethan said:
Does anyone know if the smiler single rider queue has reopened
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I’m going to assume not based on the fact that they’re only doing one group per row, but I don’t know for sure.
 
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