Alton Towers Live - Saturday 6th July 2013

[Rob]

I don't think the traffic management was that bad, there's certainly not much more they could have done and it was still far better than it was for the Pink concert. I don't think it was helped by needing to create access for the emergency services, I don't know exactly what they had to do, I only heard sirens and saw blue lights further down the entrance/exit road. It took me exactly an hour from turning on my engine to exiting onto Farley Lane which is pretty much what I was expecting. It can take over half an hour to get on on normal very busy days depending on what time you leave so considering 28,000ish people were all trying to leave at roughly the same time I don't think it was that bad.

Anyone who expected to whiz straight out after the concert was clearly still in Cloud Cuckoo Land!!

As for parking, I've not idea if you had to pay for it or not but all the barriers were up when leaving the main car park and no-one was checking if you'd paid.

 

[Slugjc]

Didn't go but I gotta say that people moaning about queue's, parking and the road too and from. What where they expecting. People these days just moan about everything, trying to get there money back. Its makes mean angry. Whatever happened to the great British tradition of queuing and being patient. How can they blame AT.

 

[Rob]

I have to agree with that. I've just seen someone complain that it took them 2.5 hours to complete the final 10 miles of their journey (I feel that time may be slightly exaggerated) meaning that they didn't get to go on any rides. What are Alton Towers meant to do about the sheer volume of traffic causing queues on the roads? There isn't anything they can do better with their current infrastructure. And I don't think one event a year will justify a major infrastructure upgrade. The queues did indeed stretch back well onto the A50 which is something I've never experienced but I don't blame Towers for this at all.

 

[Slugjc]

Agree again. Building a dirty bypass would be nice but it will never happen. AT is unique in that its in an area of beautiful countryside that i'm sure the local residence wont want destroying. For the amount the millions it would cost it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[GaryH]

When I last week (3 weeks ago), I queued over an hour from the hotel car park at 7.00pm to exit the site, due mainly I think to the Smiler still operating late into the evening to clear the massive queue it had. Some cars got so fed up, they actually drove the wrong way down the hotel/car park exit road and barged through the wrong side of the barrier to get out. If another car had been coming the other way it would have been a head on smash.

Not sure what the answer is, agree that given the roads around there traffic will be heavy, all I can think is a park and ride somewhere, or better still, instead of pumping money into the bypass, pump it into the railway line re-opening!!

 

[James]

People on TripAdvisor moan about everything, so I wouldn't take any comments on there as a representation of the overall view of the concert in the eyes of the general public.

It's one of the poorest sites to use for reviews. It's the greatest example of a site of moaning for the sake of moaning.

 

[Alastair]

You know instantly that there's an issue with it when Paulton's Park is ranked above AT

 

[GaryH]

People on TripAdvisor moan about everything, so I wouldn't take any comments on there as a representation of the overall view of the concert in the eyes of the general public.

It's one of the poorest sites to use for reviews. It's the greatest example of a site of moaning for the sake of moaning.

Hmm, I would disagree, while yes some people moan at the smallest of things, and there is a lot of good comments on there too , if you read the reviews, people do have genuine complaints, such as the very high price of drinks, food, and of course, the £6 parking charge which features high in the list of top complaints against the park, and one which i think is warranted given the prices they charge to get in and the lack of any other form of transport into the park.

 

[stretchy]

I arrived at 08:30 on the day, there was reasonably steady traffic until I got through Alton, over the bridge and onto the incline. We stopped stationary for nearly 10 minutes, the problem was more that the normal staff entrance was labelled as a pickup/dropoff point, BUT security were stopping each vehicle. As soon as I got past that entrance then it was free traffic to my car parking space.

Regarding Organisation:
This was seriously shocking in areas. The area by Battle Galleons, an hour before the gates to the main field was open was a stationary mass of people. I led about 15 people who were trying to get to 13 and Rita (people I didn't know) through the gardens to circumvent this. There were no staff there making sure people queued orderly. No barriers to queue behind. Who in the right mind didn't think of putting barriers there. Coaster fans are bad enough, Pop fans bite.

I was talking, next morning on the monorail, to a lady that had taken her teenage girls there and stopped in the hotel. She said it was soul destroying. They were in the queue and could see people just pushing in at Battle Galleons. One of her girls was in tears as they had waited there, in the queue for nearly 3 hours just so that they could get a good position and in the end they were quite a way from the stage when they got through the entrance. Apart from this, they did have a good day and loved the concert. She asked me, with all genuineness, if this was the first time Towers had done something like this because it felt like it was. She was shocked when I said that they had done a similar concert last year and had also done Pink and Black Eyed Peas.

Regarding Trip Advisor. Whilst people may dismiss it like James just did, the problem is people do look at it. With all of these review sites, your only going to make a comment if you have a strong opinion. But people do read them. (Even I do if I want to go somewhere new)

Conclusion:
Alton do this all the time, they plan some stuff and then don't plan other things. Some aspects of the gig were exceptionally well operated. Others, it felt like, were just not even thought about. The whole thing feels like there aren't enough people doing the organising. The problem, it is the things that they don't plan for that people moan about. If those things are beyond their control, there is no problem. If it is something, as simple as not realising that people will want to queue to get into the stadium area then this is unacceptable for a company that wants to be world class. If I was upper management I would have genuinely sacked or disciplined the people who's job it was to make sure it all went smoothly, assuming that it was some-ones job, which I have a feeling it wasn't.

 

[James]

Certainly there are some good comments on Trip Advisor, although I've found (I'm looking at the site as a whole here, not just Alton Towers pages) these good comments are very few and far between and often get shadowed by the comments that pick out the nitty gritty (although I suppose with a site such as that everyone will review a place in a different manner).

I agree with Stretchy though that despite the majority of comments on there, a lot of people use the site as a source for reviews, especially the family market who would probably use the site heavily to plan any potential future visits. Negative comments regarding the organisation of this event could be damaging to Alton Towers when they come to advertising AT live in 2014.

I wasn't at the event so cannot say much about how it was organised. Although by the sounds of it, it seems like Alton Towers have learnt some mistakes from the past and have improved on them (handing out leaflets, more clear signage around the resort etc..) however things such as traffic management (or lack of) still needs improvement.

It sounds to me like all they really need to do is to employ a group of (as in, more than they have now) temporary staff that can manage the traffic in and out during the busiest times (especially at the end of the concert). There's loads of agencies out there that can supply temporary staff experienced in managing traffic at events so it wouldn't be that hard for Alton Towers to do in future!

 

[BigAl]

It's a shame Alton Towers no longer have access to their original gate on Denstone Lane at Quixhill to allow people in and out of the park (JCB own all of that now, don't they?). People heading to Uttoxeter or Ashbourne would all exit through the Denstone gate, freeing the Farley exit for people going the other way (and drastically reducing the traffic in Farley and Alton too). It would have made a big impact on days like that.

If they still had that route into the park, it would have made quite the entrance! Such a pity. :/

 

[Alastair]

It's a shame Alton Towers no longer have access to their original gate on Denstone Lane at Quixhill to allow people in and out of the park (JCB own all of that now, don't they?). People heading to Uttoxeter or Ashbourne would all exit through the Denstone gate, freeing the Farley exit for people going the other way (and drastically reducing the traffic in Farley and Alton too). It would have made a big impact on days like that

If they still had that route into the park, it would have made quite the entrance! Such a pity. :/

How do you get to that gate from the park though? It looks pretty far away on the map and there's no roads from the hotels that go there...?

 

[BigAl]

I assume it was all changed many years ago. Had the land and the gate been kept, perhaps the road that took it to the edge of the gardens (that's what Alton Towers Memories states on the King Ina's Rock page) could have been redirected through the trees and onto the car parks? I'm not too sure though, but it would have made quite a nice drive in and out of the park if it was still in-use by the park.

 

[djtruefitt]

In regards of traffic there are a few suggestions I would say that could help, I think exiting the fields was fairly fine, because it was one lane of traffic with a constant flow being sent through a side gate. But it was the main car parks that had some issues. I think there are 8 barriers, all of which were left open, however very shortly after the barriers these 8 lanes go into 2, which means all 8 lanes have to fight to get into the 2 lanes, this was the main problem with the traffic.

I think they should have had staff on each barrier with them closed, then let so many cars out each barrier at once, then there would be a constant flow of traffic on each lane.

Another problem was further down the exit road, all the cars in the left lane were sent to the middle, so all the cars coming out of the drop off/pick up point could join the traffic, I don't know why these couldn't have been sent out the security entrance where they had entered.

 

[Dave]

I assume it was all changed many years ago. Had the land and the gate been kept, perhaps the road that took it to the edge of the gardens (that's what Alton Towers Memories states on the King Ina's Rock page) could have been redirected through the trees and onto the car parks? I'm not too sure though, but it would have made quite a nice drive in and out of the park if it was still in-use by the park.

The woodland walk is the final stretch of the road from the Quaxall gate to the Towers, they will never get the land back from JCB and I think a lot of the route is lost. To be fair they had people leaving via Wooten lane which takes you in a vaguely similar direction as the old gate, just a bit further east.

 

[Slugjc]

I still say that the best organising in the world, AT would struggle with the sheer volume. AT and the surrounding area just simply cannot cope with that volume all at once. Its ok saying those heading south go one way those heading north the other. However people will try and go where the shortest queue is. People cannot queue anyone.

As for trip advisor. Its a wonderful thing. But its like all most things on the internet, its only used by people to moan. The people who use it a lot will put praise where its needed. But its become a site where people will complain instead of going straight to the hotel. A keyboard is a great shield for cowards.

 

[GaryH]

As for trip advisor. Its a wonderful thing. But its like all most things on the internet, its only used by people to moan. The people who use it a lot will put praise where its needed. But its become a site where people will complain instead of going straight to the hotel. A keyboard is a great shield for cowards.

I've been on TA for over 6 years, I odnt use it mainly to moan, I like to write good reviews as well and praise where praise is due to encourage others to visit, and so management who read the reviews know their customers are happy.

I think the most valuable thing to a business is being able to understand what their customers think of them, good and bad. While yes I will write constructive cristism where needed, there are a few who will go over the top and just moan about everything, but on the whole, I think if you take a balanced view of the reviews on TA, it gives a pretty accurate representation of a restaurant/hotel/attraction. I use it all the time when booking a hotel, cant say in all these years its let me down yet.

 

[Slugjc]

As for trip advisor. Its a wonderful thing. But its like all most things on the internet, its only used by people to moan. The people who use it a lot will put praise where its needed. But its become a site where people will complain instead of going straight to the hotel. A keyboard is a great shield for cowards.

I've been on TA for over 6 years, I odnt use it mainly to moan, I like to write good reviews as well and praise where praise is due to encourage others to visit, and so management who read the reviews know their customers are happy.

I think the most valuable thing to a business is being able to understand what their customers think of them, good and bad. While yes I will write constructive cristism where needed, there are a few who will go over the top and just moan about everything, but on the whole, I think if you take a balanced view of the reviews on TA, it gives a pretty accurate representation of a restaurant/hotel/attraction. I use it all the time when booking a hotel, cant say in all these years its let me down yet.

I know its brilliant, I always look at it. I'd say there are mainly good reviews. But look at the bad ones. Always take a random bad review with a pinch of salt.

I've just looked at the Alton Towers bit and jesus. The park was busy. You had to queue. Everything was expensive. Had to walk around the event. Instead of through it. Whatever happned to planning a day, and using common sense people. I know its hard for some people to get there at certain times of the year however, a bit research wouldn't go a miss. Hot july day in summer with a new ride would have been busy enough but come on. Please. I wish the good people of Britain would just stop and think about what's going to happen when they go somewhere.

 

[GaryH]

I agree. Generally I look at the first 3 or 4 pages of reviews and take a balanced view of them. Yeah out of 40 reviews if 1 or 2 or bad then generally you would ignore these and go. However, if 37, or 38 of them were bad, then I would take note.

 

[James]

I still say that the best organising in the world, AT would struggle with the sheer volume. AT and the surrounding area just simply cannot cope with that volume all at once. Its ok saying those heading south go one way those heading north the other. However people will try and go where the shortest queue is. People cannot queue anyone.

I think the main gripe people have is the lack of staff there to direct cars after the event. It sounded like it was pretty much a free-for-all. When you have nearly 30,000 people leaving the park Alton Towers really need a big team of temporary staff to direct those exiting the resort, if anything just the cars more than anything. It's not like it would be hard to do, Alton Towers/the organisers only need to approach an agency which specialises in staff that manage traffic at events.

The setting of Alton Towers and the surrounding area will always struggle, it was never designed to have such a mass of people leaving all in one go. But there are very easy things Alton Towers can do in order to make the exiting of the park more organised and easier for guests.