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2020: General Discussion

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Kraken27 said:
One thing everyone is missing here... to implement such a system relies on investment in infrastructure - which at Towers does not happen.

Anyone who has worked there [me included] will attest that in the vast majority, the underlying infrastructure all dates back to the 1980's. Mr Portakabin has played a blinder throughout the park, behind the scenes.

Whilst I am absolutely no fan of Disney, you would hear Mickey Mouse laugh if he was taken behind the scenes at Alton Towers.
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The ticketing infrastructure is quite new and largely off-the-shelf. The turnstiles are from SkiData and the online ticketing system from Accesso Passport. Both of these are less than 10 years old, they really invested in the Accesso system for online ticketing and for some of the FastTrack ticketing. The Accesso systems should do what is needed, they have the infrastructure but aren't using it well enough.

They just need to make sure that the season/annual pass database is linked up properly.
The bigger current issue is that passholders are booking multiple dates as they are only £1 each and then entering the park by only scanning the pass, so some are frustrated that their reservation ticket is never checked. If the online system checked the pass is valid for the date being booked then they could stop season/annual passes scanning at turnstiles so you scan the e-ticket for the reservation date instead. Charging more would then cut down on the people holding multiple dates.


Also on the Disney note, their infrastructure was reportedly worse and a large part of the billions they spent on MyMagic+ to enable FastPass+ in Florida was on the WiFi and the network cabling to ensure everything works behind the scenes. The actual IT systems still don't work reliably, which is probably why Merlin went with Accesso rather than creating their own!
 
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jon81uk said:
They just need to make sure that the season/annual pass database is linked up properly.
The bigger current issue is that passholders are booking multiple dates as they are only £1 each and then entering the park by only scanning the pass, so some are frustrated that their reservation ticket is never checked. If the online system checked the pass is valid for the date being booked then they could stop season/annual passes scanning at turnstiles so you scan the e-ticket for the reservation date instead. Charging more would then cut down on the people holding multiple dates.
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It’s times like this where direction from central would actually be useful, same process at every site.
Warwick Castle requires the reservation tickets to be scanned first and then they do tickets / passes.
 
I did a GDPR last year asking for admissions records and got what appeared to be data from skidata not accesso so it seems like it's not currently setup to feed data back to accesso, but again there's an easy solution of use the fastrack scanners to scan prebooks.
 
jon81uk said:
Also on the Disney note, their infrastructure was reportedly worse and a large part of the billions they spent on MyMagic+ to enable FastPass+ in Florida was on the WiFi and the network cabling to ensure everything works behind the scenes. The actual IT systems still don't work reliably, which is probably why Merlin went with Accesso rather than creating their own!
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No, Merlin went with Accesso because it was the cheaper option, 100% for sure.
 
Heads up for anyone visiting tomorrow. There is a weather warning with 40mph+ winds forecast for most the day. Could well impact ride availability in X-Sector.

Not ideal when they are fully booked.
 
Kraken27 said:
No, Merlin went with Accesso because it was the cheaper option, 100% for sure.
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Well a reliable off-the-shelf solution will often be cheaper than attempting to make your own software. For example this forum uses XenFora as the back-end, it could use a custom website, but someones time to build and maintain it is more costly than licensing an existing option.
 
imanautie said:
I did a GDPR last year asking for admissions records and got what appeared to be data from skidata not accesso so it seems like it's not currently setup to feed data back to accesso, but again there's an easy solution of use the fastrack scanners to scan prebooks.
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I don't think it would need to feedback anyway. If accesso passport can check pass numbers when they are entered online, then just scan the e-ticket and the turnstile checks it is valid for that date.

Feedback would only be needed for the three-strikes system, which overall would be harder. The easier solution is higher cost to book and ensuring passholder bookings are properly checked.
 
I would even question if it’s 60% less visitors than they normally get in August, or 60% of actual top numbers, which they’ll only ever get for fireworks and scarefest dates. If it’s the latter then that will explain why the work is so busy, as in theory they could be letting in more people than usual, but are still “restricting” guest numbers.
 
djtruefitt said:
I would even question if it’s 60% less visitors than they normally get in August, or 60% of actual top numbers, which they’ll only ever get for fireworks and scarefest dates. If it’s the latter then that will explain why the work is so busy, as in theory they could be letting in more people than usual, but are still “restricting” guest numbers.
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By my checks whatever capacity limitations are in place are based off peak not average.
 
Oh my; Wicker Man is on an advertised queue of 90 minutes right now, but I’m guessing it would have been far longer earlier, as I’ve never been in that queue and seen it stretch anywhere near that far, even compensating for social distancing!

On that note, the fact that Duel even has a queue is an indicator of business to me, let alone a queue out of the entrance!
 
Matt N said:
Oh my; Wicker Man is on an advertised queue of 90 minutes right now, but I’m guessing it would have been far longer earlier, as I’ve never been in that queue and seen it stretch anywhere near that far, even compensating for social distancing!

On that note, the fact that Duel even has a queue is an indicator of business to me, let alone a queue out of the entrance!
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I’ve had waits of over 90 minutes without the queue going outside the normal area, but that was with Fastrack.
Also 90 minutes for the newest ride in the school holidays with good weather is not that bad really.
 
jon81uk said:
I’ve had waits of over 90 minutes without the queue going outside the normal area, but that was with Fastrack.
Also 90 minutes for the newest ride in the school holidays with good weather is not that bad really.
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I didn’t say it was; I more meant I’d imagine it to have been longer earlier!
 
I waited just under 90 minutes from just outside the main entrance a few weeks back. One of the slowest moving queues I've ever been in, massive RAP queue didn't help.
 
RicketyCricket said:
I waited just under 90 minutes from just outside the main entrance a few weeks back. One of the slowest moving queues I've ever been in, massive RAP queue didn't help.
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See in comparison I waited 50 from well outside the main entrance last month! In fairness though, they were absolutely flying trains out on that particular visit!
 
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