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2025: General Discussion

Wouldn't read too much into this - Bianca's departure aside, the rest just feels like the same restructure that Thorpe and Legoland went through at the beginning of the year.
 
Not quite sure where to put this but the top 20 highest attendances of European Theme Parks has been published including 3 Merlin entries:

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Interesting that Tivoli is so high!

Source is Theme Park Worldwide social media.
 
Bowser said:
Not quite sure where to put this but the top 20 highest attendances of European Theme Parks has been published including 3 Merlin entries:

G38Z7WPXUAAWOlv


Interesting that Tivoli is so high!

Source is Theme Park Worldwide social media.
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I'm counting six Merlin parks on that list, rather than three. Alton Towers, Gardaland, Legoland Windsor, Legoland Deutschland, Legoland Billund and Thorpe Park.

I'm far more interested in learning that Abu Dhabi / The UAE is within Europe, and not within Asia.
 
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These are always to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. But assuming there's some truth here, the results reflects pretty decent numbers for Alton and a minor disaster for Thorpe Park, whose biggest investment in years has apparently taken 8% off their attendance? I suppose Hyperia opened late, and then closed, which would have had an impact.. Still, not exactly promising stuff for Merlin's yoof culture outreach. It's The Swarm all over again!
 
Plastic Person said:
These are always to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. But assuming there's some truth here, the results reflects pretty decent numbers for Alton and a minor disaster for Thorpe Park, whose biggest investment in years has apparently taken 8% off their attendance? I suppose Hyperia opened late, and then closed, which would have had an impact.. Still, not exactly promising stuff for Merlin's yoof culture outreach. It's The Swarm all over again!
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next thorpe coaster confirmed for 2036 now 😂
 
Doesn't this site who does the number crunching always guessimates the Merlin one since they don't share official figures?

Tivoli (and Liseberg) are both located in tourist cities and get a number of non-rider guests which boosts the numbers somewhat. If they had a "standard" pay one price system they'd not hit such figures imo.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
I'm counting five Merlin parks on that list, rather than three. Alton Towers, Legoland Windsor, Legoland Deutschland, Legoland Billund and Thorpe Park.

I'm far more interested in learning that Abu Dhabi / The UAE is within Europe, and not within Asia.
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Its interesting Towers attendance did increase last year.

Plastic Person said:
These are always to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. But assuming there's some truth here, the results reflects pretty decent numbers for Alton and a minor disaster for Thorpe Park, whose biggest investment in years has apparently taken 8% off their attendance? I suppose Hyperia opened late, and then closed, which would have had an impact.. Still, not exactly promising stuff for Merlin's yoof culture outreach. It's The Swarm all over again!
Click to expand...
Hyperia opened in May and had few closed periods so likely the data is skewed so the true test will be this year to see if attendance increased
 
Islander said:
Wouldn't read too much into this - Bianca's departure aside, the rest just feels like the same restructure that Thorpe and Legoland went through at the beginning of the year.
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Considering it’s basically all of the top positions at the resort changing, if nothing changes at the park it would support the lack of influence on a local level.
 
It’s interesting that Hyperia apparently didn’t raise attendance at Thorpe. Merlin specifically highlighted it as a strong performer in their financial results from 2024, so it would surprise me if that was true!

It is worth noting that some quite considerable discrepancies have previously existed between Merlin’s own reported attendance figures and the ones given in the TEA Theme Index. So perhaps this should be taken with a pinch of salt!
 
I also find it strange that Towers seemed to have quite a lot of cuts throughout the season last year despite the increase, and Thorpe didn't, despite the 8% drop in attendance.
 
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