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2025: General Discussion

GooseOnTheLoose said:
Fireworks have always been outsourced anyway. The creative direction came from the park, but the delivery didn't. You'll either see a marked improvement, or no noticeable change, as the creative direction may now be centralised.
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From my understanding, the Entertainments department lost creative control of the Fireworks events after 2015 and Jubilee Fireworks took over full control of the show. Then either in 2023 or 2024 Entertainments were then given back the creative direction of the event after running the pre and post show elements for a few years.

The contracts for these events are usually multi-year signings as well, so Jubilee would have probably have been locked in before any outsourcing of Entertainments began.
 
As Merlin Entertainments increasingly outsource their entire operation, I thought I'd ask Generative AI for some more fitting names:
  • Merlin Arrangements: For those magical outsourced deals.
  • Merlin Installments: Piecing together subcontracted magic.
  • Merlin Detainments: A cheeky jab at keeping things stuck in the middle.
  • Merlin Engagements: Creating illusions of involvement.
It also suggested some of these:
  • Hocus Focus: Merlin Edition: Where the focus is on finding someone else to hocus.
  • Merlin's Magic Outsourcers: Conjuring contracts instead of spells.
  • Merlin’s External Enchanters: All the sorcery, none of the effort.
  • Merlin’s Charm Contractors: Magic tailored to the highest bidder.
 
Poisson said:
The excellent horse/jousting events and I think the trebuchet are outsourced at Warwick and it works well. I have little hope, but not 0 hope.
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If we get the same level of Entertainment at Alton Towers as Warwick Castle has, then I will be very impressed with the park going forward. Increasing the entertainment offerings and general 'dwell' time within the park would certainly serve as a method of expanding the appeal of Alton Towers to a wider audience than beyond the ride lineup. It would also put Towers in a good position to have a strong enough entertainment offering for when Universal and Puy du Fou enter the UK theme park market.
 
From reading the press release it seems we may just get what we had before and possibly more, so I guess we’ll say no real difference to scarefest or Fireworks, the only concern being it might feel less Towers if people involved in these events aren’t from towers and are just external, eg would we have the phalanx Expo if a random company designed the whole show, rather than those who know the park well?

It’s just a shame we lost so many ents people for another company to then come in a few months later, but I guess that was always the plan for Merlin, just a bit of a bad way of going about it in terms of all the staff they sacked, some of which had been with the company for 20+ years.
 
Standard practice. Just because some out of touch bean counters have realised they can save money by firing a load of staff, doesn't mean they don't need someone to do that job.

Outsourcing to an external company, or hiring freelancers like myself, may cost them more per hour, but you only pay for the work done. No sick leave, holiday, maternity pay, pensions, other costs to worry about.
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The flip side is, while us contractors get a higher hourly rate, we only get paid for the work done. No sick leave, holiday, maternity pay, pensions, other benefits to keep us alive when work is scarce.
 
I don’t think the debate has moved on really, with this outsourcing the events are likely to be of the same (maybe even improved quality).

But without the need to keep some staff on year round the daily entertainment (street ents, etc) is likely to suffer.

I think that’s how Disney and EP differ, they have an internal ents team for daily entertainment, they use this company for special events. Merlin won’t do the former.
 
Alsty said:
Is it lawful to make staff redundant, then get an external company in to fulfill the same roles those staff did?
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I guess it must be, Merlin would not be going down this route if the process was not legally watertight!

I remember hearing story years ago where some big IT/comms company were making call centre staff redundant in the UK and in order to qualify for their redundancy package, the outgoing UK staff had to stay on to train the employees in the new Indian call centre who were taking over their jobs! How true that is I don't know, but it does sound plausible.
 
Outsourcing can generally be as good or as bad as you make it - given the hash that Merlin have made of outsourcing the F&B I have some doubts that outsourcing the entertainment will work, but we live in hope.
 
owenstreet7 said:
Speaking of entertainments, Merlin have outsourced the entertainments for Alton Towers, Chessington, Legoland Windsor and the US Legoland parks to RWS Global who already partner with Disney, Europa Park and Hershey Park.

There is a post from Attraction Source


From: https://x.com/AttractionSc/status/1912198965358911794?t=ZSdvjoiZVUfzn-c5aI_5PQ&s=19


Here is Merlin's press release on this: https://www.merlinentertainments.bi...to-deliver-premium-entertainment-experiences/
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Finally a sensible outsourcing decision. I’ve worked with RWS on several occasions and each time their delivery has been above and beyond.

I’d be very surprised if we didn’t see a lot of ex-Alton ents staff re-employed by RWS. Sadly the gamble for AT here is that many of their best performers will no doubt have already been snapped up elsewhere.
 
Alsty said:
Is it lawful to make staff redundant, then get an external company in to fulfill the same roles those staff did?
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Yes, primarily because Merlin aren't employing replacements.

Merlin have made their Ents staff redundant, and followed the proper legal and consultation process. They're contracting another company to provide entertainment services, who will provide their own employees to deliver the requirements of the contract.

The contracted company doesn't solely exist to replace Merlin's existing Ent department, and have their own independent operations.

The specific duties and responsibilities of the redundant staff and outsourced workers, will also be different.
 
Another common trick is to offer the redundant staff a TUPE transfer to another department.... Usually in a different location, hundreds of miles away, that would require uprooting your whole family. Then they can turn it back on you and say you're not being made redundant, you "chose not to stay with the company".

We have far better job protection than a lot of countries, especially the US. But we still have a long way to go.
 
I don’t know anything about this company they have outsourced to but find it sad a company as large as Merlin can’t run entertainments, food outlets etc with their own staff and give them decent contracted jobs. The park and hotels used to have good food and used to have good entertainment in the past - can’t help but feel everything is done to maximise the profit with no consideration given to the workers.
 
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