2026: General Discussion

[Bert2theSpark]

Last year they heavily capped day tickets/pass holder bookings and the queues were still not short. Many people complained on Facebook about not being able to get a reservation.

Did they make the cap higher this year? Given they capped last year it can't have been a surprise that there was demand.

It could be that they weren’t sure how the event will handle capacity last year, so this year they’ve felt more confident about the event but haven’t proportionately increased the capacity of stuff to do.

If they want to significantly want to increase capacity at the event, then Wicker Man and Curse at Alton Manor are the obvious additions to the event, however it would likely take some significant shifts to the maintenance timetable to accommodate an earlier opening. If Spinball is down due to technical issues, then this may represent a struggle to get the larger attractions ready in time.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Paultons barrier to annual pass ownership is the overall fee for the pass coupled with restrictions on entry, their cheapest pass is £172, so £43 more than Merlin but for a single park and you won't get entry this week for that price, need the £290 premium pass for entry at half term. They are barring their most loyal customers for visiting this week, unless they pay £118 more a year for a higher tier of pass. Paulton are charging the full day price of £46.75 but 90% rides are open. They price their pass much higher than Merlin to keep visitor numbers in line with capacity.

You're comparing Paultons Park, which is currently operating a near full park lineup (over 90% of rides available) and charging full price (£46.75) for the privilege, with Alton Towers, which is operating a fraction of its lineup for a bargain basement price (£18).

Of course Paultons restricts their lower tier passholders during this week; they're running a full scale peak operation. However, crucially, they do not ban all passholders. Their Premium passholders can walk right in.

In your previous post, you suggested that Alton Towers should "block passholders entirely" (your words) and make it hotel / ticket only. You are now trying to justify that by pointing to Paultons, who do allow passholders in. You can't have it both ways. You're shifting the goalposts to suit a narrative that penalises the customer base Merlin has spent the last decade cultivating.

I'm also getting rather weary of this community held mythology that Paultons Park benevolently caps their capacity significantly below their operational limit purely out of the goodness of their hearts to ensure a "better guest experience". It's very easy to claim you have an artificially low capacity cap when you rarely, if ever, actually hit the physical limit of the park infrastructure. Until we see verified data on sell out days vs theoretical capacity, this is marketing spin, not operational benevolence.

But let's return to the core economic argument regarding Alton Towers, which is frankly baffling...

You open the right number of outlets based on the expected number of guests coming, so if its a limited capacity event then you don't expect to need to open all outlets on park leaving Aramark staff staring at tumbleweeds. You match the offering to the number of rides open and guests expected.

Again, you match the number of guests to the available ride capcity. Ideally yes they would get more of the park open, with maintenance done, but depending on the weather this may not be possible. So you ensure you only sell enough tickets

You suggest that the solution to unexpected demand (5,000 guests vs 1,000 expected) is to restrict the number of guests. This is the economics of failure.

If you have 5,000 people willing to visit your park in February, including thousands of passholders who are your most loyal customers and act as walking wallets for secondary spend, you don't turn them away. You don't tell the people who paid £200+ upfront to "go away" so you can prioritise a £18 day ticket. That's how you destroy your recurring revenue stream.

The solution to high demand is to increase supply.

"Matching the offering to the guests" works both ways. If the guest count is higher than expected, you open more throughput. You open Runaway Mine Train. You open The Curse at Alton Manor. Both are weather resilient, high capacity attractions that sit dormant just a few hundred metres away from the crush.

Restricting access to loyal customers to protect a low value, soft-launch event is illogical. Expanding the event to meet the demand is business.

Again, they used to only open for hotel guests at Half-term, therefore day tickets I think are more of a bonus to the park. But a hotel guest who has a great visit will come back and spend again on another ticket.

Let's run the numbers, because the maths doesn't lie.

If we look at the accommodation inventory (excluding the Stargazing Pods, which are closed for obvious hypothermic reasons):

• Alton Towers Hotel: ~175 rooms
• Splash Landings Hotel: ~216 rooms
• CBeebies Land Hotel: ~76 rooms
• Enchanted Village Lodges: ~120 lodges
• Treehouses: 5

That gives us a total inventory of roughly 592 units.

Even if we are generous and assume 100% occupancy with an average family size of 4 people per room (which is optimistic), the maximum capacity you can generate from on-site guests is roughly 2,400 people.

If you restrict the park to hotel guests only, you're capping your attendance at ~2,400.

Whilst the revenue from the hotel rooms is significant (let's say £150k+ per night), the cost of operating the theme park (staffing rides, security, medics, cleaners, power, insurance) is largely fixed. It costs roughly the same to run CBeebies Land for 2,400 people as it does for 5,000.

The 2,600 extra guests (Passholders and Day Tickets) that you want to ban are the pure profit margin. Their admission (or prepaid pass value) and their secondary spend on food, retail and upcharges cover the operational overheads of opening the park gates.

You're suggesting that Merlin should deliberately cap their revenue and create a sterile, quiet atmosphere just to avoid opening two extra rides. It isn't a premium strategy, it's just bad business.

The hotel guests are already coming. They're already paying. Why on earth would you turn away the thousands of other people willing to give you money to stand in the same shop?

 

[rob666]

We are dangerously off topic, so this is the last I shall say on the matter.

Fibber.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Fibber.

Blame @Craig. He moved (most) of the posts to the correct topic, negating my previous self imposed restrictions.

I only sometimes have self control issues.

 

[jon81uk]

In your previous post, you suggested that Alton Towers should "block passholders entirely" (your words) and make it hotel / ticket only. You are now trying to justify that by pointing to Paultons, who do allow passholders in. You can't have it both ways. You're shifting the goalposts to suit a narrative that penalises the customer base Merlin has spent the last decade cultivating.

OK yes in the first post I suggested banning all passholders, but in later posts I also suggested utilising blockout dates, as Merlin did in the past, to restrict it to the higher tier passholders, to ensure they are getting higher income.

If you have 5,000 people willing to visit your park in February, including thousands of passholders who are your most loyal customers and act as walking wallets for secondary spend, you don't turn them away. You don't tell the people who paid £200+ upfront to "go away" so you can prioritise a £18 day ticket. That's how you destroy your recurring revenue stream.

But the revenue per admission from an annual passholder might be less than £18. They aren't necessarily walking wallets, those with the £139 passes may be significantly less than £18 per visit.
As I've said, long queues and negative reviews will destroy their recurring revenue stream anyway as those who has a bad day out are unlikely to visit again.

"Matching the offering to the guests" works both ways. If the guest count is higher than expected, you open more throughput. You open Runaway Mine Train. You open The Curse at Alton Manor. Both are weather resilient, high capacity attractions that sit dormant just a few hundred metres away from the crush.

There must be a reason why AT are not willing to open more rides, they used to offer Runaway Mine Train at half term (and then close it due to cold temperatures). Its likely capacity in their maintenance staff that is the issue, so paying for more engineers to do the work is likely the biggest barrier and we have to assume someone has done the sums and doesn't want to spend on more staffing to get more rides open. Which then goes back to if you are unwilling to get more rides available, you need to match the capacity to the rides that are available. Give 2500 people a fantastic day out, they will tell their friends it was great and the business grows, instead of giving 5000 people a miserable day and your hotels sit empty next year.

The 2,600 extra guests (Passholders and Day Tickets) that you want to ban are the pure profit margin. Their admission (or prepaid pass value) and their secondary spend on food, retail and upcharges cover the operational overheads of opening the park gates.

Passholders are not pure profit, secondary spend might not be that much and due to the low price of the pass the park isn't making much on their admission, yet those passholders are making queues longer for the people who you need to impress and convert to returning park guests.

The hotel guests are already coming. They're already paying.

But they might not be coming back if they have a bad experiance this year, Tripadvisor reviews for the park and the hotels are already terrible. I'd focus on giving a high quality experiance to a smaller number of people to get better reviews, increasing the number and quality of guests instead of chasing upfront money on passes.


To add, it doesn't seem we are going to agree on this, but there are multiple ways to run a guest experience and I'd think a quality experiance for slightly fewer people paying more per entry is probably a better thing than thousands having a miserable time but with a low cost pass so they can come back for another miserable day later in the year.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

OK yes in the first post I suggested banning all passholders, but in later posts I also suggested utilising blockout dates, as Merlin did in the past, to restrict it to the higher tier passholders, to ensure they are getting higher income.

But the revenue per admission from an annual passholder might be less than £18. They aren't necessarily walking wallets, those with the £139 passes may be significantly less than £18 per visit.
As I've said, long queues and negative reviews will destroy their recurring revenue stream anyway as those who has a bad day out are unlikely to visit again.

There must be a reason why AT are not willing to open more rides, they used to offer Runaway Mine Train at half term (and then close it due to cold temperatures). Its likely capacity in their maintenance staff that is the issue, so paying for more engineers to to the work is likely the biggest barrier and we have to assume someone has done the sums and doesn't want to spend on more staffing to get more rides open. Which then goes back to if you are unwilling to get more rides available, you need to match the capacity to the rides that are available. Give 2500 people a fantastic day out, they will tell their friends it was great and the business grows, instead of giving 5000 people a miserable day and your hotels sit empty next year.

Passholders are not pure profit, secondary spend might not be that much and due to the low price of the pass the park isn't making much on their admission, yet those passholders are making queues longer for the people who you need to impress and convert to returning park guests.

But they might not be coming back if they have a bad experiance this year, Tripadvisor reviews for the park and the hotels are already terrible. I'd focus on giving a high quality experiance to a smaller number of people to get better reviews, increasing the number and quality of guests instead of chasing upfront money on passes.

To add, it doesn't seem we are going to agree on this, but there are multiple ways to run a guest experience and I'd think a quality experiance for slightly fewer people paying more per entry is probably a better thing than thousands having a miserable time but with a low cost pass so they can come back for another miserable day later in the year.

I think we've reached the point where we are simply going to have to agree to disagree on the fundamental philosophy of running a theme park business. You appear to be advocating for a boutique, low volume / high yield model (which the park isn't set up for), whereas I am arguing based on the reality of Merlin’s high volume / mass-market infrastructure.

I must address the Revenue Per Visit fallacy one last time, however.

In the depths of winter, cash flow is king. An Annual Passholder represents revenue that is already in the bank. It's secure. It's not weather dependent. A day ticket holder is a gamble; if it rains (which it does, frequently, in Staffordshire in February), they simply don't book. Relying on day tickets to fund an event is high risk. Relying on the "float" provided by thousands of passholders is financial stability.

Regarding the maintenance constraint: I don't buy it. The Curse at Alton Manor is an indoor dark ride. It operates in the dark, in the dry. It doesn't need to be "warmed up" like a coaster. Runaway Mine Train is a powered coaster with a simple layout. These rides aren't closed because they're undergoing deep winter maintenance that physically prevents them from operating; they're closed because the park has made a conscious decision to save money on the staffing OpEx required to run them.

You argue that providing a "quality experience for fewer people" is the better path. In a vacuum, perhaps, but Alton Towers is not a vacuum; it's a massive, sprawling estate with huge fixed overheads.

If you limit attendance to 2,500 people, the park feels dead. It lacks atmosphere. Crucially, with such low footfall, Aramark won't open the additional food units, meaning your "premium" guests are still stuck queuing for the one open coffee shop. You end up with a sterile, empty park with limited services.

My argument remains simple: If you have more guests than you expected, that's a success, not a problem. You solve it by scaling up the operation (opening the rides next door), not by scaling down the customer base.

 

[Hid]

Regarding the maintenance constraint: I don't buy it. The Curse at Alton Manor is an indoor dark ride. It operates in the dark, in the dry. It doesn't need to be "warmed up" like a coaster. Runaway Mine Train is a powered coaster with a simple layout. These rides aren't closed because they're undergoing deep winter maintenance that physically prevents them from operating; they're closed because the park has made a conscious decision to save money on the staffing OpEx required to run them.

Wouldn't Dark Rides take more time for maintaince. Due to there being more moving parts in the attraction that still have to be looked over. Furthermore each individual car stripped down to chassis and checked over.

 

[jon81uk]

You appear to be advocating for a boutique, low volume / high yield model (which the park isn't set up for), whereas I am arguing based on the reality of Merlin’s high volume / mass-market infrastructure.

This is effectively what Alton Towers offered at Christmas and half-term for many years. No passholders and not always day tickets, Christmas and Feb half term was a boutique low volume event for hotel guests only to fill hotel rooms in the Winter.

They then expanded the half term event and started selling day tickets with mixed success depending on the weather and more recently (post pandemic) did the same for Christmas. The Santa Sleepover event was for 20 years a boutique hotel guest only experience.

You argue that providing a "quality experience for fewer people" is the better path. In a vacuum, perhaps, but Alton Towers is not a vacuum; it's a massive, sprawling estate with huge fixed overheads.

If you limit attendance to 2,500 people, the park feels dead. It lacks atmosphere. Crucially, with such low footfall, Aramark won't open the additional food units, meaning your "premium" guests are still stuck queuing for the one open coffee shop. You end up with a sterile, empty park with limited services.

During half term they aren't operating it as a massive sprawling estate though, its two small sections of the park with a strong focus on pirate themed activity. Its been said in this discussion they were only expecting 1000 people, but 5000 turned up and some CBeebies rides were overwhelmed, so anything between though numbers should be fine really.
If those sections are feeling too busy with 5k people then 2500 won't feel too empty, but should be comfortable. Or somewhere inbetween, 3000-3500

My argument remains simple: If you have more guests than you expected, that's a success, not a problem. You solve it by scaling up the operation (opening the rides next door), not by scaling down the customer base.

As you say if the event is popular it needs to either expand and have more capacity, or they need to go back and make it a more boutique event, prioritising filling hotel rooms again.

But I do think that given the terrible reviews Alton Towers has been getting they need to consider more widely whether cheap passes and long queues is the best way to grow the business, or if a better quality experience at a higher price across the season is more worthwhile.

 

[rob666]

Unfortunately, the cheap passes mean that the wonderful very off peak days of staff outnumbering punters...commercial suicide, are now long gone.
Cheap passes create car park/f&b spending on such days that never used to exist.

Cheap passes and long queues also mean greater fasttrack sales...double bonus.
Many people now do not expect a day at the Towers without some form of queuejumper pass to make things more tolerable.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Wouldn't Dark Rides take more time for maintaince. Due to there being more moving parts in the attraction that still have to be looked over. Furthermore each individual car stripped down to shassy and checked over.

I don't think anyone should by stripping down and checking over Shassy without her consent.

 

[GaryH]

Watching coaster dads video - in all seriousness who the hell thought it was a good idea to open Battle Galleons in February!

 

[Hid]

For February half term if they want to keep it to the front of the park. Should they move Royal Carousel, Raj's and Driving School Temporarily to the lawns to help with Capacity