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2022: General Discussion

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I think the issue is that Merlin of the present day do not have the capacity to achieve anything nearly as ambitious or creative as Nemesis.

It doesn't seem that Merlin have the same desire to push the envelope in the same way Tussauds once did. No doubt finance is a big driver of this. There is clearly no desire within Merlin to spends the £25m+ that would be required for a modern groundbreaking ride.
 
Squiggs said:
It doesn't seem that Merlin have the same desire to push the envelope in the same way Tussauds once did. No doubt finance is a big driver of this. There is clearly no desire within Merlin to spends the £25m+ that would be required for a modern groundbreaking ride.
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In fairness, Merlin quite majorly had their hands burnt on the one occasion where they allegedly did spend £30m on a ride (DBGT), so I can perhaps partially understand why they wouldn’t want to do it again.

While I don’t deny what you’re saying, one thing I would say is that Alton Towers is in a very different position under Merlin to the position it was in under Tussauds, which may affect the financial decisions made. When Pearson Tussauds bought Alton Towers, they basically needed to push the envelope in order to make the park a name for itself. Whereas by the time Merlin came along, the park was already established, and didn’t need to be quite as bold in order to maintain its brand image. With that in mind, I do question whether the approach of Pearson Tussauds would have differed to the approach of Merlin had they held onto the park past 1998. Personally, I’m not so sure that it would have.
 
jon81uk said:
Because everyone is talking about a new TV show that’s on this week and they wanted to try and get some something off the back of that. There are probably loads of brands doing cringy social media tie-ins between their brand and House of the Dragon.
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Fair enough. I don’t know the first thing about Game of Thrones so I was puzzled!
 
Game of Thrones contains what are called the "Seven Kingdoms" and there are 7 big coasters so I'd imagine that was partly behind it. And yes, the first episode of it's spin off show House of the Dragon airs this evening.
 
I think I’m late to the party here, but we visited last weekend and noticed that the Towers Street music has been changed to a pop mix, presumably for summer. I have to say I wasn’t a massive fan of it on Towers Street, but it did quite work in Fountain Square.

EXCEPT:

After sitting outside Woodcutters and enjoying the music in the sunshine, there was one song which seemed to keep coming on and then run for a good 20 minutes. It was nothing I’ve ever heard before and just kept saying the words “summer” to the most unimaginative and monotonous tune one could imagine.

Spotify was no help, so I’m assuming this is perhaps something either very obtuse or very bespoke. Either way, after a couple of hours outside it really started to grate. I’m not sure what’s going on with the music changes (and choices) after they commissioned that pretty decent IMAScore track, but it seems odd to replace that with some generic pop songs, but especially one that’s both so unrecognisable and bad.
 
venny said:
I think I’m late to the party here, but we visited last weekend and noticed that the Towers Street music has been changed to a pop mix, presumably for summer. I have to say I wasn’t a massive fan of it on Towers Street, but it did quite work in Fountain Square.

EXCEPT:

After sitting outside Woodcutters and enjoying the music in the sunshine, there was one song which seemed to keep coming on and then run for a good 20 minutes. It was nothing I’ve ever heard before and just kept saying the words “summer” to the most unimaginative and monotonous tune one could imagine.

Spotify was no help, so I’m assuming this is perhaps something either very obtuse or very bespoke. Either way, after a couple of hours outside it really started to grate. I’m not sure what’s going on with the music changes (and choices) after they commissioned that pretty decent IMAScore track, but it seems odd to replace that with some generic pop songs, but especially one that’s both so unrecognisable and bad.
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I think you're referring to this?



Written by Simon Allen who has written many recent tracks for Towers (he works for them) including all recent scare mazes, RetroSquad, Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras
 
That’s the one - my ears are still bleeding.

With my apologies to Simon, it’s an absolutely terrible song. Perhaps it works on Towers Street where people are less likely to linger, but it’s not something you want to listen to on a loop whilst enjoying lunch and a few beers. It reminds me a little of that terrible royalty free music they used to play back when it was Rita’s Ribs.
 
It's the kind of cheese you hear at a kids birthday party. They might as well play Agadoo, Superman (both by Black Lace) or Baby Shark it's so naff.
 
Just for info, as I wasn't aware of this and was happily surprised. I went into the Box Office to renew my Alton Towers gold annual pass a few days ago. I was expecting it to cost me £120 again, but to my surprise I was given a renewal of just £85. Just used the renewal code online and has all gone through smoothly. That's good value for unlimited access (apart from 20 of the most peak days), free car parking and food & bev's discount. Decent.

As a side note, it looks like it's just going to be called the Alton Towers Annual Pass now instead of the 'Gold' pass.
 
I think the words I would use to describe my visit yesterday are:

'flat'
'lethargic'

Alton just wasn't anywhere near its best. Operations were mediocre, hours weak, entertainment limited for peak summer and too many ride spots rotting.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
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