2021: General Discussion

[DistortAMG]

adding more rides increases the useable area of the site though, although these additions this year don’t really add “new” queueline as they are reusing sites it still gives more areas for people to occupy. Also I don’t think Alton Towers would have ever thought, we have all this land, let’s let 30k people in. It’s based on a lot more than that including the attraction count and public access to space.

For starters, the amount is set by the H&S executive, based on fire and evacuations regulations and other factors. Not Towers themselves. It will be in their insurance and licences that allow them to operate a visitor attraction.

You could have 30 new queue lines if you want. But they would not be allowed to put more people into the park in a given day. Because if they needed to evacuate the park in an emergency, those extra queue lines with all those extra people, become irrelevant, infact hinder an evacuation. It does not matter if you have 30 or 60 thousand people, if the place needed to be evacuated in a hurry, all those people are still held up by the same exit choke points and places where crowds could crush, infact, increasing the amount of people allowed in the park based on ride amount, would be a silly and backwards thing to do as it would put more pressure on these choke points. If they could increase the ability for people to exit the park, they might be allowed an increase.

 

[Matt.GC]

We're talking about a park that's over 900 acres. Alton Towers current capacity is 100% related to parking, amount of attractions, food outlets, employees available in case of emergency etc. It has nothing to do with the actual size of the park which is massive. If we were just going by amounts of people in one plot of land (let's say it was simply just a national park), 20k or even 30k would be nowhere near the capacity.

Therefore, extra attractions do directly effect capacity at the park. To scale up capacity, they would need more attractions to funnel crowds to, more places to eat, parking provisions on the fields, more monorail trains running, more staff in the event of emergencies and probably longer opening hours so that people are arriving and leaving at more staggered times so roads can cope. The size of the land is irrelevant as its massive

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[siralgenon]

It's the only theme park I know that takes longer to get from the carpark to through the turnstyles than to drive there in the first place. And I live over an hour away.

 

[jon81uk]

For starters, the amount is set by the H&S executive, based on fire and evacuations regulations and other factors. Not Towers themselves. It will be in their insurance and licences that allow them to operate a visitor attraction.

the insurers may get involved but HSE don’t set the capacity. There is lots of guidance but it’s mainly up to the venue to appointment a competent person to complete risk assessments and then the local fire brigade will do checks to ensure adequate risk assessments are in place, same as any other workplace.
HSE would only get involved if there is a serious incident.
And the capacity on how many people can attend and be safely evacuated isn’t just based on how large the space is but what type of space and what facilities there are.
You could fit way more than 30k people into the grounds of Alton Towers and if there are no buildings you could evacuate them quite safely. But they can’t all go to the toilet as there isn’t enough facilities. The things that are present define the capacity more than the empty space.

 

[AstroDan]

Sorry to take it back to the previous page, but I hadn't had chance to catch up. Regarding the 2010 season, it was indeed a bumper year in terms of the gate figure. But Alton Towers actually look on that season with some regret. The park was heaving all year, queues weren't great and the experience that guests had in the park was weaker than it would have been. Rides-per-head is a very important metric and its clearly one Alton Towers are very keen to satisfy these days, with these additional rides being brought in for 2021.

A perfect example of Craig's point from the previous page is that for a very short period last summer, Alton Towers increased the guests in the park to 12,000 (up from 10,000). Those of you who are eagle-eyed might have noticed that the queues were pretty lousy for a couple of weeks last year... However, the impact this 2,000 had on rides-per-head, experience and everything was significant. So it quickly went right back down to 10,000.

It's good for guests and good for the business reputation.

I am hopeful, though, that this season - if they have slightly longer hours, the extra rides on park and so on - that we might see Alton coping with 11 or 12,000 - rather than 10,000. I would imagine they will experiment!

 

[Matt N]

If 2010 was allegedly heaving, I wonder what 1994 must have been like, with over 3 million guests and far less major attractions...

 

[AstroDan]

In 1994, there were loads of attractions! There were so many flat rides in support, and loads of shows too! Not to mention all the "attractions" that were not rides.

 

[Stevie]

2010 was honestly such a peak for the park, it was all downhill from there. No other year since has even come close to that year. It's a shame because they should have built on what made that year such a success, rather than let the park become a shadow of what it was.

 

[AstroDan]

2010 was honestly such a peak for the park, it was all downhill from there. No other year since has even come close to that year. It's a shame because they should have built on what made that year such a success, rather than let the park become a shadow of what it was.

I agree. Even if 2010 saw long queues and not the best Key Performance Indicators for the park, it should have been the launch to propel Alton into a permanent 3m-a-year attraction, with the budget behind it. What came next didn't build on that and, by 2012, we saw the purse strings start to tighten and hours cut.

I have some hope though. Although there's no sign that the Capex environment is going to rectify itself anytime soon, there are signs that the park are focussing on events and capacity more now. I just want to see what is planned for 2021...!

 

[Matt N]

Out of interest, what was it that we think saw the park supposedly unable to capitalise on the success of 2010 and the early Merlin era? As surely if 2010 was the park’s strongest season since 1994, that should have unlocked a fair amount of potential?

And for those who visited in 2010 and remember what it was like, would you have called 2010 a “good season” akin to back in the park’s supposed “golden days”, or did the crowds and apparent initial disappointment in Thirteen ruin it?

 

[Stevie]

And for those who visited in 2010 and remember what it was like, would you have called 2010 a “good season” akin to back in the park’s supposed “golden days”, or did the queues and apparent disappointment in Thirteen ruin it?

Maybe it's just my nostalgia, because I was 12 in 2010. But the park just felt exciting that year, there was large scale events like the 80s Concert, Pink Live, hype over Thirteen (may have been overhyped but people do still love it and still draws crowds), a great Scarefest and the return of the fireworks, decent opening hours throughout the summer.

It's like they looked at everything that made 2010 a success, and just did the complete opposite in the years after.

 

[AstroDan]

Out of interest, what was it that we think saw the park supposedly unable to capitalise on the success of 2010 and the early Merlin era?

And for those who visited in 2010 and remember what it was like, would you have called 2010 a “good season” akin to back in the park’s supposed “golden days”, or did the queues and apparent disappointment in Thirteen ruin it?

Th13teen *was* a disappointment to the vast majority - but the season saw reasonably good opening hours (7pm in August which, for Alton Towers at least, is seen as quite long but obviously still pales vs. many parks) and the park probably had the best "balance" of rides than at any point in its history. There were also concerts! We also saw the new Skyride gondolas. Wow - investment with no obvious direct return! The major issues in that season were the queues, which were generally longer than average for the park and, at that stage, Alton was going through a bit of a fastrack fad - and sales were probably on the higher end of what we'd have liked.

The fact is, Merlin's purse strings tightened. For whatever reason, they did. We saw the Smiler come in 2013, but by then summer had already been relegated to 6pm closes and we had started to see a steady stream of cuts here and there. The Alton Towers Transport division, the loss of the staff accommodation contract, ride removals here and there, hours being reduced in the park, the car park being downsized, food offerings being cut, shops being cut... and then it all compounded even further after 2015's accident.

The park is certainly downsized now vs. 10 years ago. Apart from there being more hotel rooms. Weird.

Let's hope they can claw it back.

 

[Matt N]

Oh, how times change; looking back at some of the earliest posts on TST, everyone’s top demand for the park back then was “build more hotels”, whereas these days, it’s “anything but more hotels”...

 

[AstroDan]

Oh, how times change; looking back at some of the earliest posts on TST, everyone’s top demand for the park back then was “build more hotels”, whereas these days, it’s “anything but more hotels”...

The thing is, the quality of the ATR and Splash hotels vs. the Enchanted Village and Pods... I mean, just look at the difference. CBeebies is fine for what it is, but it's exclusive and may aswell not be there to 99% of people.

2021 however does have some promise. I just need to see what the website has to say when they get round to putting all the advertising up!

 

[Jonathan]

Oh, how times change; looking back at some of the earliest posts on TST, everyone’s top demand for the park back then was “build more hotels”, whereas these days, it’s “anything but more hotels”...

It's all well and good building more hotel rooms at Towers, but the park hasn't developed at the same rate to keep up.

 

[Stevie]

Oh, how times change; looking back at some of the earliest posts on TST, everyone’s top demand for the park back then was “build more hotels”, whereas these days, it’s “anything but more hotels”...

Probably because back then there was the need for it, because the park was doing fairly(?) okay and occupancy needed to be increased. Now the amount of rooms nowhere near matches the level of visitors, and building more is seen as a nothing more than a quick investment.

 

[Matt N]

I definitely understand the reason why people’s wants have changed, as the number of hotel rooms at the park has increased exponentially since 2012 (it must have at least doubled, surely?); I was just pointing out how funny it is that the consensus on hotels is so sharply opposed to what it was in 2012!

I’m not sure if the hotel building will slow down any time soon, however, as I know that Merlin have previously expressed a desire to get both Alton Towers and Gardaland to a total of 1000 hotel rooms, and Alton Towers currently only has 694...

 

[AstroDan]

I am hopeful that this wreckless ideology to hit "1,000 rooms because Europa-Park have that many" has vanished.

Europa-Park is not Alton Towers. They are entirely different propositions.

 

[Matt N]

I am hopeful that this wreckless ideology to hit "1,000 rooms because Europa-Park have that many" has vanished.

Europa-Park is not Alton Towers. They are entirely different propositions.

Not least because Europa gets 3 times Alton Towers’ annual visitor figures!

To be fair, though, I can understand the reason why Merlin went for it, and I think it’s a solid long-term target to aim for, especially if it’s part of a wider drive to enhance the Resorts as a whole, which with additions like Tree Top Quest and the Rollercoaster Restaurant at Alton Towers, and the Legoland Waterpark at Gardaland, I think it could well be!

 

[jon81uk]

If 2010 was allegedly heaving, I wonder what 1994 must have been like, with over 3 million guests and far less major attractions...

I visited age 12 in 1994 and didn’t like rollercoasters at the time, but my brother did the Corkscrew. However I still had a great day. Little things stuck in my mind that don’t exist anymore like the music stage (where woodcutters is now), we watched a live group while my brother went to the corkscrew with my dad. I remember Toyland Tours, Peter Rabbit on ice, the boring farm boat ride, the rapids/ mine train tunnel. Felt like there was so much to see and do that wasn’t coasters.