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2023: General Discussion

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Credit to Bianca for coming out and doing this, especially so early on in the role. It shows a completely different approach to what we are used to (in over 10 years we never once heard from Ian Crabbe).

She's never going to come out and say "yes availability is crap, food is crap, blah blah blah", that would be a stupid thing to do and her bosses at Merlin wouldn't be best pleased. However it is good that there is some transparency and it is clear that Bianca has both experience and passion to take things forward. It's pleasing to see that she does want more themed F&B experiences.

Of course privately her and other senior managers opinion's on things is likely to be different to what she's prepared to say on the public record.
 
Thing is, as much as we'd like it, Merlin aren't suddenly going to throw Alton Towers millions of pounds to spend on new permanent flat rides on top of pre-existing capital expenditure such as Nemesis and Horizon. And even if they did, she's not going to make the announcement of any new ride in such an interview!

It's also worth noting that as Bianca is only 3 months in to the role, many decisions over the next couple of seasons will already have been made. I remain hopeful that longer term she can have a positive impact on Alton Towers.
 
Interesting video and while no definitive answers to those questions due to how long she has been in post, it’s good to hear she is aware of concerns.

Of course her hands will be tied by Merlin big wigs abut hopefully she can bring change. I wonder if now is the time for theme park forums to get together and write to her a letter detailing our thoughts and possible resolutions while she is still new in post.

Interesting to hear she is hearing good feedback from woodcutters and smiler takeover given most of the feedback online is negative so I do have some concerns for her sources of that information.

But good for her to take the time out to talk with Shawn for half an hour.
 
We were never going to get "honesty" as both parties are stuck between a rock and hard place. Shawn was never going to go full on Jeremy Paxman on her as she was good enough to come out and give him the interview. Bianca was never going to admit to the poor state of affairs at the moment as it's her job to make people want to visit.

You can't really extract answers from what was actually said, but from what wasn't. I translated what she said as:

* We want to give you more of the likes of Alton Manor. We'll try our best but don't have any cash.
* Ride availability and throughputs have been pretty shocking. But the place is hanging and it is a focus are for us as I accept it's very important.
* The park is so run down, we have to spend what little money we have doing things like keeping Spinball running. We do spend stuff behind the scenes, you just don't see it.
* The place is massive, with a gothic mansion to look after and sprawling gardens to maintain. That's a massive draw on our resources. To get round with a jet washer and paint brush, we need to find more efficient ways of working. Yet again, there's no more money in the kitty.
* We want to get rid of the Retrosquad as well. Flat rides are extremely important after all and the decision to let our old ones rot and bin them off was stupid. Too late now though and there's so much money tied up in Alton Manor, Nemesis and Horizon. So you may have to wait a while as that's too many plates to spin.
* The Aramark stuff was imposed on us. It's a disaster. We just have to make the best of a bad situation making this overpriced junk more exciting some how. Doughnuts still taste good though and the Pizza's in Cbeebies are still ok, so if you're really stuck, go and eat that. If you have money and time, Woodcutters hasn't deteriated as much as the rest, but fast food is a write off I'm afraid.
* Events are here to stay. Scarefest is boring but trust me when I say that there is new stuff in the horizon, it was just too late to do anything about last year so we just copy and pasted the one from the year before.

Summary - "The place is beautiful but it's a bin. All this stuff happened before I got here or is constantly imposed on me centrally. I only have so much cash and 1 pair of hands. But I'll do the best with what I have".
 
Having watched the video there's a few points I'd raise.

Firstly, Bianca was never going to admit too much in terms of negativity whilst promising to correct it in the future and the simple reason for that is that she has to market the park to guests in it's current iteration. The park will have targets to meet for this season. It isn't like a football manager taking over a struggling club who can basically say that 'this is a mess but I'll do my best to rectify it' as if she were to say something similar, the message that that sends out to the majority of their potential guests is 'we know it's rubbish now, but give it a year or two and it won't be,' obviously the inevitable consequence of that is a decline in visitor numbers as people will wait to visit until it's up to scratch.

Her answers were very politician esque, but that is an element of her job, and, as above, you've got to expect an element of that by virtue of it being the nature of the beast, I don't think it's necessarily a problem.

Discussing specifics, I think its fairly evidence that the Retro Squad is on it's way out (although perhaps it will be a phased replacing rather than them all going in one go)? I say that as she was clearly willing to acknowledge the issue without saying much on specifics as to what they will do to resolve it, I suspect if something significant was imminent then her wording would have been stronger but equally I'd suggest that the fact she agreed to answer the question at all suggests that it's being dealt with. I found the discussion regarding the state of the park frustrating, I've not been recently but by all accounts The Smiler is in a state and it's annoying that wasn't discussed in favour of the far less significant issues - the majority of people will deal with faded paint here and there as long as rides aren't thick with grime and spores. It's difficult for me to take her assertion that she's passionate about delivery and presentation whilst one of their flag ship rides is turning a shade of green, I just can't accept the idea that's down to budget when a jet wash would have it in a better state than it is currently.

On the whole I think you can take more from the fact that she agreed to do the interview at all rather than anything that was specifically said within it. She didn't have to say anything, and whilst her answers didn't specifically address much, I think you have to take the fact that they were willing to have those issued raised to such a large audience as suggestive that they're confident that improvements will be seen.

Fingers crossed we see something by way of evidence to back up her demeanour.
 
I think Shawn did a good job with this, he asked some tough questions, expressed his own strong opinions to make himself clear and did it in a professional and respectful way. Bianca’s answers were exactly what you’d expect them to be, plenty of marketing spiel but reading between the lines you can see she acknowledged all the issues and there’s a strong will to sort the place out with the limited resources they get handed from above.

It says a lot though that this must be the first park that’s had to come out and defend itself on his channel after such a roasting!
 
Danscott22 said:
You literally pre-empted what she actually said, particularly about the settling in period.
I'm going to be quite negative, as a whole, I'm not really sure what I make of her answers to most of the questions he asked, particularly regarding the Retro Squad.
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That’s due to years of playing bullshit bingo in work… let’s hope her passion turns into tangible improvements
 
Interesting interview. I agree with all the points raised so far so I won't repeat them, but my problem with Merlin is they are quite happy to splash the cash on big new projects (CapEx) but stingy when it comes to maintenance, presentation and maintaining standards (OpEx). I wish they would readdress this balance. What's the point in spending millions on your latest shiny toy then just allowing it to rot away? Surely you don't want to accelerate the depreciation of your expensive assets by neglecting them?
 
Alsty said:
Interesting interview. I agree with all the points raised so far so I won't repeat them, but my problem with Merlin is they are quite happy to splash the cash on big new projects (CapEx) but stingy when it comes to maintenance, presentation and maintaining standards (OpEx). I wish they would readdress this balance. What's the point in spending millions on your latest shiny toy then just allowing it to rot away? Surely you don't want to accelerate the depreciation of your expensive assets by neglecting them?
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Where I work we procure big expensive kit - and we also know our whole life costs to ensure it’s still looking presentable, working and safe 20+ years later. It does seem that perhaps Merlin only look at the CapEx, and hope the OpEx will be paid for by fairies…
 
Alsty said:
Interesting interview. I agree with all the points raised so far so I won't repeat them, but my problem with Merlin is they are quite happy to splash the cash on big new projects (CapEx) but stingy when it comes to maintenance, presentation and maintaining standards (OpEx). I wish they would readdress this balance. What's the point in spending millions on your latest shiny toy then just allowing it to rot away? Surely you don't want to accelerate the depreciation of your expensive assets by neglecting them?
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You're correct, but it's because they can't market "we've made everything look how it should do" to visitors. New rides draw in an audience, it's unfortunately as simple as that. What they seem to miss the mark on, is that by focusing on presentation, cleanliness and ongoing customer satisfaction, I'm 100% certain it'd result in increased visits.
 
Credit goes to Bianca for coming out and doing the interview in the first place given the questions she knew she'd face. End of the day she arrived to all this mess so to do an interview like this after just a few months in the job says a lot about her. She's clearly committed to putting things right but how long that'll take who knows. Happy to see they're spending money on Nemesis that's a good start, shows they really do care about the ride.
 
I would really have been impressed if she admitted were Towers has gone wrong. She she gave no concrete mention that they are going to be defiantly fixing any of the issues raised she just ignored it and replied with that she thinks towers are getting right. She gives the Tories a good run for their money lol
 
I think we need to cut Bianca a bit of slack…doing this interview just a few months into her new role is a bold move and I think the answers that were given were to be expected given her position in the park. You could tell that thoughts were being held back for professional reasons.

Bianca is clearly a well respected senior figure who’s spent 30 years in the theme park and resort industry. For the next 3 years we’ve got annual large scale investments. When was the last time that happened?

2023- Curse and Sub Terra
2024 - Nemesis
2025 - Project Horizon

There are clearly presentation improvements to be made, starting with Galactica and The Smiler, but let’s not forget that problems with presentation are not a new issue. The Black Hole tent was left to rot (aside from hosting a couple of scare mazes) for the best part of 7 years, Corkscrew looked like it was about to fall apart in its last few years and The Flume was absolutely hanging and leaked into the queue line below the final drop.
 
JT01 said:
I would really have been impressed if she admitted were Towers has gone wrong. She she gave no concrete mention that they are going to be defiantly fixing any of the issues raised she just ignored it and replied with that she thinks towers are getting right. She gives the Tories a good run for their money lol
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I don’t think anyone who wants to keep their job would publicly bite the hand that feeds them! Let’s give her a chance to show what changes she is able to make - doing the interview was a good first step.
 
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