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[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

It sounds more like your aunty Sue’s motivational quote Facebook post than a theme for a roller coaster.

Just needs a picture of a cat to accompany it.
I don’t think Hyperia will really live or die on its theme (or lack of), though. It’s the ride experience itself doing most of the heavy lifting here.

Hyperia is a much more stylised experience. With this in mind, I don’t personally see the issue with the less thematic approach.
 
It sounds more like your aunty Sue’s motivational quote Facebook post than a theme for a roller coaster.

Just needs a picture of a cat to accompany it.
How about this? Its a cat and sums up the theming/story.

Cat Yawn GIF by arisanojima


I've said it before, nothing about this coaster is making me rush to visit Thorpe this year. I'm sure the ride experience will be amazing, but that surely with little else in terms of theming, story etc, means it will rely heavily on [positive] word of mouth?
 
I've said it before, nothing about this coaster is making me rush to visit Thorpe this year. I'm sure the ride experience will be amazing, but that surely with little else in terms of theming, story etc, means it will rely heavily on [positive] word of mouth?
I’m not being funny but people ride roller coasters for the ride itself not the theming and backstory. They may add to the experience but they aren’t essential. Look at Vengeance it has very little theming but is still regarded by many as the best coaster ever built
 
I’m not being funny but people ride roller coasters for the ride itself not the theming and backstory. They may add to the experience but they aren’t essential. Look at Vengeance it has very little theming but is still regarded by many as the best coaster ever built
I agree to an extent, but my point was that there is nothing about this coaster that draws me to it in the first place. Ok, it's the UKs tallest and fastest, but for me and probably many others, that's not enough to get me really interested in it.

Compare this construction to Nemesis Reborn - chalk and cheese regarding marketing. If Hyperia had a stronger backstory and theme, imagine the teaser videos they could've put out there long before it started to be built. In my mind, that's what first gets the general public interested.
 
I agree to an extent, but my point was that there is nothing about this coaster that draws me to it in the first place. Ok, it's the UKs tallest and fastest, but for me and probably many others, that's not enough to get me really interested in it.

Compare this construction to Nemesis Reborn - chalk and cheese regarding marketing. If Hyperia had a stronger backstory and theme, imagine the teaser videos they could've put out there long before it started to be built. In my mind, that's what first gets the general public interested.
I think the approach taken by Nemesis Reborn is simply a different approach for a different style of ride, and one isn’t necessarily better than the other. I think both approaches can be equally compelling.

Merlin talk a lot about one of the key elements of marketing being a “killer image”, and I think both rides certainly have one.

Nemesis Reborn is a more themed coaster, and it uses the pit, the backstory and the surrounding area as a sales device. The “killer image” is the massive eye, the monster and the coaster interacting with the pit around it.

Hyperia is a less themed coaster, but I think that its raw size is a compelling sales device in itself. It may not be for you personally, but for many, “the UK’s tallest and fastest roller coaster” is a compelling USP. The “killer image” in Hyperia’s case, as opposed to being a central piece of theming, is the imagery of the massive, towering coaster structure itself and the silhouette of the layout and its huge elements. It’s quite a different approach to anything Merlin have done before, but I think it could be every bit as successful as any of their previous rides.

Like it or not, I think records and raw size do sell in this country. Look at The Big One. Look at Stealth. Look at The Smiler. All of those rides broke records, and all were very successful and popular rides.
 
Why all the sudden discourse about the themeing, or lack of? It was all in the planning documents.

Also it's a hyper coaster, can't say any of the hyper, giga, or strata coasters I've ever been on have had much more than a light themeing of the station. Which is what we're getting with Hyperia.
 
No, I still say smiler is a sad gimmick coaster, where the best two bits are the bunny hops.
But it pulls in many punters, like this will, for simply being a record breaker.
That is the point I was making.
And this isn't the smiler topic.
So you’re saying it grabs your interest but you won’t necessarily rate it once you’ve been on it
 
Thorpe Park said Hyperia will be testing week days only but yesterday I managed to see it testing more than once this time. (Flash backs to Tuesday)

hyperia21stapril2024-003.jpg


The highlight was when they unscrewed the tops of some of the water dummies and sent it around.

hyperia21stapril2024-072.jpg


hyperia21stapril2024-073.jpg


hyperia21stapril2024-077.jpg


The find your fearless signage has also been installed on the maintenance bay

hyperia21stapril2024-019.jpg


Work on the queue line has begun.

hyperia21stapril2024-021.jpg


hyperia21stapril2024-018.jpg


 
The highlight was when they unscrewed the tops of some of the water dummies and sent it around.

hyperia21stapril2024-072.jpg


hyperia21stapril2024-073.jpg


hyperia21stapril2024-077.jpg
Welp, that's it. Not long now until someone photoshops that water red, and claims it an omen as to what'll happen to riders...

Seriously though, what an odd thing to do. Can only imagine it's a shortcut to empty the containers - no benefit to seeing how the ride behaves with weight decreasing during the ride cycle... unless... :tinfoil:
 
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