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2023: General Discussion

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Ethan said:
Probably don't have the resources to maintain rides and areas like other parks do. Towers don't have enough man power for such a big park. They have less staff than Thorpe and yet Towers is 4 times bigger. They don't even have enough staff to run Galactica properly let alone clean it regularly. The lack of staff has been noticeable for a number of years now
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TBH given the state of Colossus as it is in now, it seems no matter how many staff Merlin would have at Towers, presentation would still be an issue across all Merlin parks. It's really a rock and hard place for Towers management; you other sacrifice the budget for general ride maintenance to put forward for presentation but you are more likely for more rides failing and depleting capacity further in which at this moment in time, all the coasters are pretty much carrying the park on their backs or the other option is that you use more of the money on the maintenance of the ride yet sacrifice the presentation budget (if there was one that is to begin with) to keep the rides going. Had they had a good number of filler rides across the park then it would have eased pressure of the coasters and maybe wouldn't need as much maintenance spent on them and who knows what that saved money could go to?

I have no clue if this is how things are but it might be plausible in which Towers management seem to have their hands tied behind their backs on this as I have no doubt they were given the money to sort out the presentation or at least for the basics to make a start, they would have bitten your hand off for that and would get started ASAP but sadly they can't do anything as upper management won't give them the required funds needed. Likely the same is true with both Thorpe and Chessington which is just terrible business move IMO, maybe the jacked up prices are not really a Merlin thing but maybe a park management choice in which any money made from that not matter how big or small can be ringfenced for an unlikely presentation budget?

Just guessing this ofc but it does have some plausibility about it of trying to make the best out of bad situation that they know they are in, far from perfect, terrible in fact, but in some ways I could kind of see their thinking behind this if this is the only way to help presentation if upper management won't lift a finger for those at the bottom.
 
Burner said:
Why should they? If Merlin weren't so tight, they'd have the staff to do it. Simple as.
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blackholes crow said:
True they do need to loosen up on there spending
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Sounds like Merlin have all the negative stereotypes of a tight-fisted Scotsman who won't spend...come to think of it, that's why M&D's was a pile a crap and why Scotland can't have a good theme park because of all the spending on upkeep. But yeah, Merlin have coasted all these years with nothing challenging them and the sooner they are pushed into making actually changes the better.
 
Ethan said:
Some ride staff choose to clean themselves because they are so passionate about the place.
Screenshot_20230523_184731_Instagram.jpgScreenshot_20230523_184736_Instagram.jpg
This is what some of the Wicker man team were doing over the winter cleaning the area of the first turn out the station
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A 'do it yourself' attitude that is sorely lacking these days...well done those good chaps, if only the Smiler staff had done the same over the winter themselves...
 
AT86 said:
Yes that poor multi billion pound company couldn’t possibly afford to, you know, pay people to keep their parks maintained.
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You'll be surprised how common something like this can happen with several big companies. Look no further than the many stations on the national rail network with several being looked after not by paid staff but volunteers who make the effort to do all the work for Network Rail meaning that they don't have to worry about that plus it does help with mental health working as a volunteer for these projects as it can give you a sense of belonging and achievement that maybe can always help you develop life skills, as someone who has grown up working on a heritage railway as a volunteer which is very personal for me, much of my skills to owe to what I did there which has made me into something I didn't think was possible. That's better rather than doing nothing with your life. Who's to say that Merlin might use a similar idea for their parks? Not I'm trying to imagine the sight of many hundreds of volunteers scrambling around Smiler giving it a jet wash or slapping paint on it, even if that would be better than nowt, but even basic things or simply cleaning things either from the gardens, toilets, queue lines, fix broken effects or that can go a long way in making the park into something more presentable.

Something like a formation of a 'Friends of Alton Towers Society' (FoATS...ok, maybe not the right name) could be done to maybe help with the park and I know some say that this would never happen and Merlin wouldn't let a bunch of randoms into the park over the winter to try and work on the presentation, but funnily enough, I'd suspect they'd actually welcome it. If they knew a bunch of volunteers were actually going to use their own time and money to help work on the presentation side of things without Merlin paying a single penny for it, they'd actually be fine with it and maybe they could use it as a PR stunt to show that they are teaching many life skills from helping out. Ofc, that's just what I think could happen but given what I seen with other companies, who's to say its not a far fetched scheme?
 
blackholes crow said:
Just a shame they don't have a love towers voluntary scheme to clean up the park
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We all love Alton Towers here, but we really don't want to volunteer purely for the benefit of a business to save some money...

Regarding the staff shortage though, it's deliberate. Because Merlin is such a labour-intensive business, from the top down it saves them a lot of money to lag behind the employment market. It's not the head office that have to deal with the brunt of it anyway, it's Senior Leadership and Department Managers at the theme park level that are challenged with such a high turnover of staff.

There may be management at Towers that wish to see higher wages for their staff specifically, as well as understanding the issues much better than those at Merlin's offices. But wages are solely controlled by the head office in Poole/London intentionally, as to remove any of the emotive influence within setting wages. It's all rooted in cold-hearted statistics...
 
Ethan said:
Some ride staff choose to clean themselves because they are so passionate about the place.

This is what some of the Wicker man team were doing over the winter cleaning the area of the first turn out the station
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You mean...paid/salaried Alton Towers staff cleaned part of the ride area as part of winter maintenance? You phrase it as if they turn up, unannounced with a B&Q special Karcher out of the goodness of their own heart.
 
Ethan said:
Some ride staff choose to clean themselves because they are so passionate about the place.
Screenshot_20230523_184731_Instagram.jpgScreenshot_20230523_184736_Instagram.jpg
This is what some of the Wicker man team were doing over the winter cleaning the area of the first turn out the station
Click to expand...
It's great knowing I'm not the only theme park staff that does this as well! Time to time I do sometimes try and clean up The Hauntings facade a bit, although only by broom, but i do remove big piles of leaves that have built up, clear the outdoor path, etc. Anyway, it's great knowing some staff at Towers do genuinely care so much to this extent!!
 
QTXAdsy said:
You'll be surprised how common something like this can happen with several big companies. Look no further than the many stations on the national rail network with several being looked after not by paid staff but volunteers who make the effort to do all the work for Network Rail meaning that they don't have to worry about that plus it does help with mental health working as a volunteer for these projects as it can give you a sense of belonging and achievement that maybe can always help you develop life skills, as someone who has grown up working on a heritage railway as a volunteer which is very personal for me, much of my skills to owe to what I did there which has made me into something I didn't think was possible. That's better rather than doing nothing with your life. Who's to say that Merlin might use a similar idea for their parks? Not I'm trying to imagine the sight of many hundreds of volunteers scrambling around Smiler giving it a jet wash or slapping paint on it, even if that would be better than nowt, but even basic things or simply cleaning things either from the gardens, toilets, queue lines, fix broken effects or that can go a long way in making the park into something more presentable.

Something like a formation of a 'Friends of Alton Towers Society' (FoATS...ok, maybe not the right name) could be done to maybe help with the park and I know some say that this would never happen and Merlin wouldn't let a bunch of randoms into the park over the winter to try and work on the presentation, but funnily enough, I'd suspect they'd actually welcome it. If they knew a bunch of volunteers were actually going to use their own time and money to help work on the presentation side of things without Merlin paying a single penny for it, they'd actually be fine with it and maybe they could use it as a PR stunt to show that they are teaching many life skills from helping out. Ofc, that's just what I think could happen but given what I seen with other companies, who's to say its not a far fetched scheme?
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I, personally, would say it is a far fetched scheme.
A private, for profit, entertainment company... not worthy of a volunteer scheme.
Let them use their considerable profits to keep the place up to a reasonable standard.
 
rob666 said:
There is the option to recruit more staff.
There is the option to improve staff facilities, like transport, and increase wages, to improve staff retention.
Merlin choose to avoid these options.
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There's always the option, but it's not the easiest place in the world to get to, especially if you're young and don't have transport.
I once thought about getting a job there because i love the place, but the cost of transport made it a non starter.
 
Alastair said:
You mean...paid/salaried Alton Towers staff cleaned part of the ride area as part of winter maintenance? You phrase it as if they turn up, unannounced with a B&Q special Karcher out of the goodness of their own heart.
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Their job is to operate the rides, not clean it. It's not really their job to do stuff like this yet they do it anyway which is good to see. Credit to team Wicker man as it's clear the staff on the likes of Smiler don't do the same
 
Ethan said:
Their job is to operate the rides, not clean it. It's not really their job to do stuff like this yet they do it anyway which is good to see. Credit to team Wicker man as it's clear the staff on the likes of Smiler don't do the same
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Actually it is their job, particularly in the pre-season period. Towers have always used those staff not currently doing active training to undertake some cleaning.

What Towers lack is a dedicated park presentation team. They just give an 18yr old a pressure washing and point vaguely at some concrete.
 
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