2026: General Discussion

[Mick]

Watching the series of half term vlogs you really do get a clear picture of the main parks:

- Legoland: busy but worth a trip with a lot open
- Blackpool: limited offering and overpriced but you can at least do things
- Paultons: a near full on offering and a very good day out.
- Alton Towers and Chessington: rammed and with nothing to do.

We’ll never know how much £s each park has made from their various decisions from this last week, for all we know Alton Towers has absolutely raked in the money and they don’t mind a few irritated guests as they’ve normalised long queues anyway.

 

[rob666]

How do we know that alton have raked in the money?
We don't know the numbers attending who have actually paid cash, I imagine the majority are passholders, so not that much money probably.

 

[Islander]

Somewhere online I heard that they only expected 1000 last Saturday and 5000 turned up. I'd imagine its been very similar all week...

For whatever reason it seems they have had far, far more people turn up this year than they anticipated...

To think that, in the age of prebooking for both general entry and even annual passes, where a tiny proportion of visitors just rock up and purchase tickets on the gate, that Towers would so badly mess up their visitor number forecasts, is a bit laughable.

Though tbf, I did read somewhere that they were expecting 32 guests yesterday, but 15,000 showed up...

 

[Secret Weapon]

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

If a multi-national corporation has started taking strategic business advice from vloggers, we're definitely doomed.

The suggestion to open Wicker Man has been floating around this forum for weeks. It's a well documented phenomenon that content creators scour these pages for "research" and then present the community consensus as their own unique insight.

The park opened the ride because the booking numbers demanded capacity, not because an influencer demanded it. Independent thought does occasionally happen, even at Alton Towers.

For what it’s worth, Bradley Wynne (one of the key designers of Wicker Man and other Merlin attractions) said in the 2018 Wicker Man Q&A that he does in fact read fan forum posts – see link below at the 8:51 mark.

My guess is that it probably depends upon the person, though; the likes of Bradley Wynne and John Burton* began as theme park enthusiasts themselves, and so they are probably more likely to scour fan forums than the likes of Nick Varney and Bianca Sammut, et cetera, who strike me more as generic executives who would gladly work in any sector (similar to the new Xbox executive Asha Sharma).

*Speaking of John Burton: perhaps I am unfair, but I suspect that he often recycles old ideas anyway, as “The Curse at Alton Manor” sounds suspiciously similar to Hex’s original working title of “The Curse of Alton Towers”...


From: https://youtu.be/iuIo4C5-81w?t=531

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

For what it’s worth, Bradley Wynne (one of the key designers of Wicker Man and other Merlin attractions) said in the 2018 Wicker Man Q&A that he does in fact read fan forum posts – see link below at the 8:51 mark.

My guess is that it probably depends upon the person, though; the likes of Bradley Wynne and John Burton* began as theme park enthusiasts themselves, and so they are probably more likely to scour fan forums than the likes of Nick Varney and Bianca Sammut, et cetera, who strike me more as generic executives who would gladly work in any sector (similar to the new Xbox executive Asha Sharma).

*Speaking of John Burton: perhaps I am unfair, but I suspect that he often recycles old ideas anyway, as “The Curse at Alton Manor” sounds suspiciously similar to Hex’s original working title of “The Curse of Alton Towers”...


From: https://youtu.be/iuIo4C5-81w?t=531

Bradley Wynne and John Burton are Creatives. Their job is to decide how much wood to burn or where to position the scary doll. They have absolutely zero remit over day to day operational decisions, staffing rotas, or whether to open a coaster on a rainy Tuesday in February.

Given that both Nick Varney and Bianca Sammut have left the building (and the company), I should sincerely hope they have found better things to do with their retirement / new careers than refresh TowersStreet to see what we think about the monorail. If they are still lurking here, that's tragically amusing.

My point was never that Merlin staff don't read forums (we know they do, mostly for a laugh at our expense). My point was that multi-million pound corporations don't pivot their operational strategy based on the whimsical suggestions of Shawn Sanbrooke.

If they actually took strategic advice from this forum, the park would be bankrupt within a week, but at least we'd have a flat ride on every corner, a Hypercoaster in the gardens, and a Flying Theatre at the end of Hex.

 

[ghostRider]

Went today and the park was per capita probably thr busiest I’ve seen it in 15+ years. I’ve not been ti fireworks for longer than that though

They’ve really gone to town on the pirate theming which is good to see

 

[Burner]

Surely this entire discussion is equivalent to Betteridge's Law of Headlines - "Any question that suggests the influence of Sandbooke can be answered by the word no"

 

[GaryH]

I’m honestly amazed and shocked Alton think it’s acceptable to have families with young children waiting in 75 minute queues for children’s rides.

…. In the cold and rain.

Looking through this Pirate event Tripadvisor reviews does not offer good reading for AT. Reviews are mostly bad, citing the cold, weather, lack of any shelter or warm indoor space, food and drink prices and lengthy queues.

Granted AT can’t help the weather, but given the event is in Feb, some thought must be given to future events with regards shelter from the elements for families.

Interestingly, many also mentioned the lack of any transport and the lengthy walk with kids from the hotels to the park entrance in the poor weather. I thought there were busses?

 

[The_bup]

If they took any forums so seriously, they probably wouldn’t spend money on focus groups, online surveys and those odd little iPads on the wall that ask you questions.

The parks aren’t made for us, they’re made to appeal, entertain but most importantly relieve average guests of their heavy wallets.

Now, the creatives will always sneak in cheap little codes, refernces or whatever else, but its always an executive telling them to “make a Minecraft land” or approving a Nemesis retrack.

 

[Bert2theSpark]

What this forum would be useful for is enriching the data that their internal KPIs are telling them, normal guests may only spend 20 minutes filling out their forms of quantitative data or short comments on socials. However that data will not give depth, context or insight into the feedback, so I imagine that most of the time it’ll be a quick flick at times through the forum, but it’ll vary from a lot staff to staff in which channels get attention.

When it comes to general staff members, most of them will be unaware of the forums aside from the Insta/Facebook pages, and it was someone’s job in marketing to read every mention of Alton Towers on social media to make sure anything not on-brand is getting release that shouldn’t be public knowledge (I know people have 100% been pulled up on this, although I’ve seen a few contractors this season post off-season maintenance work).

 

[GaryH]

Towers definitely read these forums.

 

[Secret Weapon]

I might be wrong, but I don’t think that enthusiasts give themselves enough credit.

I often hear vloggers say that theme parks shouldn’t listen to them, because – if the enthusiasts had their way – the parks would be full of dozens of expensive and unprofitable record-breaking rides.

However: I think that most thoosies are actually much wiser than this, and would know better than to commit to unprofitable investments if they were ever given the opportunity to do so.

I actually think it’s Joe-Public who are less engaged with reality, and would simply want the instant gratification of “bigger, better, faster”, without thinking about the long-term health of the parks or the effect upon other attractions; a good example is Tom Skinner saying in the 2019 series of The Apprentice that he wanted a single new ride at Thorpe Park to break both the speed and inversion record (with a nonsensical theme, to boot), without considering that this would effectively render every other ride in the park redundant (it makes more sense to give Colossus the inversion record, Stealth the acceleration record, and Hyperia the height record – instead of rolling all three into one ride).

P.S. On an entirely separate note: I remember hearing in the 2018 Wicker Man Q&A session that Wicker Man was supposed to have an IP attached to it, but I’m not sure if it was ever revealed what it was? (Bradley Wynne said at the time that he was not allowed to disclose it, but I'm not sure if any NDAs have since expired?)

As good as Wicker Man is, I wonder if a pirate theme might have been a better fit for the Mutiny Bay area!

 

[Bowser]

a good example is Tom Skinner saying in the 2019 series of The Apprentice that he wanted a single ride to break both the speed and inversion record (with a nonsensical theme, to boot), without considering that this would effectively render every other ride in the park redundant (it makes more sense to give Colossus the inversion record, Stealth the acceleration record, and Hyperia the height record – instead of rolling all three into one ride).

He basically got his wish with Six Flags Qiddiya and yet for many Falcon's Flight still isn't the best coaster in the park so perhaps he was onto something!

 

[Ash]

I’m sorry but Merlin have:
Ticket online bookings
MAP online reservations
RAP reservations
Previous history

They have more than enough data to know what to expect.

They just aren’t good at giving guests a good experience anymore.

As low queue times as possible
Themed rides and lands which provide a great experience, regularly and in all weathers
Good quality mix of food and drink offering
Well maintained areas
Staff working to provide all of the above

 

[Secret Weapon]

I’m sorry but Merlin have:
Previous history

The “Secret Weapon” programme may have become an albatross around Merlin’s neck, because some of the public may now have come to expect new world-first attractions every few years, and won’t visit until / unless it arrives? (Anything short of that could now seem like a disappointment / decline)

The SW rides made sense during the 1990s, when AT was competing with the likes of Blackpool, Drayton Manor, and American Adventure to cement their place as the country’s premier theme park (as well as the new threat of Disneyland Paris) – but it was ultimately unsustainable, in my opinion.