2025: General Discussion

[Hid]

The problem there, though, is that the last time a significant amount of people voted with their feet in 2015, Merlin only doubled down further on the bad stuff.

Admittedly, it might be different now Merlin are both private and under different management, but the substantial attendance decline in 2015 only led to an accelerated timetable of cuts, so I wouldn’t be so sure that reduced attendance will necessarily lead to a positive change in direction.

There is a difference Merlin today is not the same Merlin.

Merlin Tussards were the ones that were back then they are now different with Merlin Lego.

So it may take some time but more investments may come

 

[Islander]

There is a difference Merlin today is not the same Merlin.

Merlin Tussards were the ones that were back then they are now different with Merlin Lego.

So it may take some time but more investments may come

So... you're blaming current conditions on Lego? Lol.

 

[jon81uk]

Merlin Tussards were the ones that were back then they are now different with Merlin Lego.

What is Merlin Tussards and Merlin Lego?

Merlin Entertainments has previously been owned by Blackstone, who then bought ownership of the Legoland parks and Kirkbi got a share in Merlin. Then Merlin merged with Tussauds Group so Dubai Investment Capital got a stake as they were the previous owners of Tussauds. Later on Kirkbi increased their share in the company and some was floated on the stock market. But it went back to private ownership with with a consortium of Blackstone, Kirkbi and Canadian Pension Plan.

But overall the ownership has been fairly similar over the last twenty years, just different ratios of Blackstone, DIC, CPP and Kirkbi. It was a bit different when they were on the stock market and therefore they wanted to look good to investors and there was some changes due to that, but Blackstone have been one of the major investors in Merlin the whole time and Kirkbi since the acquisition of the Legoland parks.

The biggest effect hasn't really been ownership but knee-jerk reactions to changing visitor habits, they slashed things after the Smiler incident and have done at other times too.

 

[Glowstone_King]

The usual behaviour of a Merlin park that isn’t hitting budget is to pull back on opening hours and staff costs through staggered openings etc. We aren’t seeing that at Towers so far this year - the 7pm closes for Aug are still there

To back this up, last year we didn’t have full 6pm closure until 2nd August (there were gaps in July) whereas this year we’ve had full time 6pm closure since 11th July.

If attendance was drastically lower I’d imagine they’d save on operating costs by reducing to 5pm closure.