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Alton Towers Live - Saturday 6th July 2013
James
TS Founding Member
Ideally, while retaining the customers they currently have and attracting new ones. Why can't pop-rock bands be used?
Take Lawson for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jekHmNtLcig#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irw3IbjP3vQ#ws
They are current, mainstream, not quite pop but not rock either. Pop-rock forms the perfect line of keeping your current guests while attracting new ones.
Kodaline are a good one too, although they may be a bit too slow moving for Alton's market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkAOasSJro0#ws
The only thing that puts me off AT Live is the fact the line up is basically X Factor contestants. I think something like pop-rock could be thrown into the mix as it would not damage the AT Live brand at all and if anything could benefit them a lot.
Take Lawson for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jekHmNtLcig#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irw3IbjP3vQ#ws
They are current, mainstream, not quite pop but not rock either. Pop-rock forms the perfect line of keeping your current guests while attracting new ones.
Kodaline are a good one too, although they may be a bit too slow moving for Alton's market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkAOasSJro0#ws
The only thing that puts me off AT Live is the fact the line up is basically X Factor contestants. I think something like pop-rock could be thrown into the mix as it would not damage the AT Live brand at all and if anything could benefit them a lot.
Martin
TS Member
They're still as mainstream as it gets. Pop hasn't taken over that much that anything with a guitar is no seen as rock, has it?
Sticking with Jodrell Bank, some of the people who've played there can easily sell out arena tours, if Alton put on a gig with a less Cowell lineup, they'd still sell the 25k+ tickets. For example, last year Elbow's JB gig sold out in minutes. Demand was so big they had to get the council to increase the number of people allowed.
I'm not saying I wan't any of the JB headliners, but that's a very good example of how Alton doesn't just need to appeal to preteen girls.
Sticking with Jodrell Bank, some of the people who've played there can easily sell out arena tours, if Alton put on a gig with a less Cowell lineup, they'd still sell the 25k+ tickets. For example, last year Elbow's JB gig sold out in minutes. Demand was so big they had to get the council to increase the number of people allowed.
I'm not saying I wan't any of the JB headliners, but that's a very good example of how Alton doesn't just need to appeal to preteen girls.
Plastic Person
TS Member
Blaze said:
The Jodrell Bank shows aren't organised by JB themselves, they're funded by The Warehouse Project and Ear To The Ground promotions. It's just in a field adjacent to the satellite, it's not part of the attraction, or funded by them at all.
Alton put on the likes of mainstream 'adult' pop and rock acts in the 90s, such as Bryan Adams, Simply Red and Wet Wet Wet. But they weren't quite as family oriented in their brand now. The festival market is already over saturated, so they're just sticking to what works.
I attended the event, overall it was nice and helped obviously by the amazing weather at the resort. The concert was well organised but I felt they should not have allowed the massive queue through the park to form, as people felt they had to join the line to get any space at all. Some blatant price increases on the day though - water was increased from around £2 to £3 in the concert arena... :
djtruefitt
TS Team
Blaze said:
Tap water was available for free in the arena. I did find it funny how water was £3 in the arena/corner coffee/towers trading, yet just outside the arena (like sealife shop) it was £2 a bottle or 2 bottles for £2.50!
Overall I had a really great day, and i'm so glad I got a ticket in the end (I only bought it earlier this week), the fantastic weather really helped make it such a good day. During the morning the park was no busier than it has been the past few weeks, Smiler was about 120 most of the time I looked at the queue time boards. No idea what the queues were like once the concert started as I was in the arena.
I think the acts were all a great choice and all the ones I saw (Stooshe, Labrinth, Little Mix, Conor Maynard, Olly Murs and Rizzle Kicks) were really good and some surprised me in how talented they are! Ill certainly be interested in going again next year. It was so amazing to just look around you are see 1000s of people all enjoying them selfs and jumping at the same time or waving their arms around.
I have added various photos and videos to the TowersStreet facebook page if anyone wants to have a look!
Dave
TS Founding Member
So just got back from what was surprisingly a great weekend.
So point one just because i can imagine it will keep coming up Free water was available and was very obviously signposted, the signs indicating where you could get it where as big as the first-aid ones (also seen at Fireworks)
So that out of the way... the event!
I didn't have any idea (other than Olly Murs) about any of the acts and wasn't going to attend, but as it was Sazzle's birthday (who was going) and a good weather weekend predicted i thought "what the hay" and booked.
The place was very busy (about 28,000 i think) but the park coped really well with the rides other than Smiler having queues you would expect. Towers Street and the lake was crowded as people queued to get in the arena but the park was fine (if busy).
The concert was relatively well run, though my one gripe is the food and drink in the arena was extortionately priced (chips where £3 though i am reliably informed chips in Wembley stadium are £5). The music was what it was, those who want a rock concert need to remember rock doesn't attract people willing to pay the elevated prices that a theme park need to make the thing profitable, kids do.
Exiting the park was easy (though i know things slowed up after we got out of the car parks due to emergency services needing to get into the resort (nothing dramatic i don't think). Overall the concert was a success i think.
If Towers could sort out infrastructure and get the bypass i think a greater range of concerts would be possible. At the moment though i can't see them doing more than one a year.
Still fair-play it was a good day.
So point one just because i can imagine it will keep coming up Free water was available and was very obviously signposted, the signs indicating where you could get it where as big as the first-aid ones (also seen at Fireworks)
So that out of the way... the event!
I didn't have any idea (other than Olly Murs) about any of the acts and wasn't going to attend, but as it was Sazzle's birthday (who was going) and a good weather weekend predicted i thought "what the hay" and booked.
The place was very busy (about 28,000 i think) but the park coped really well with the rides other than Smiler having queues you would expect. Towers Street and the lake was crowded as people queued to get in the arena but the park was fine (if busy).
The concert was relatively well run, though my one gripe is the food and drink in the arena was extortionately priced (chips where £3 though i am reliably informed chips in Wembley stadium are £5). The music was what it was, those who want a rock concert need to remember rock doesn't attract people willing to pay the elevated prices that a theme park need to make the thing profitable, kids do.
Exiting the park was easy (though i know things slowed up after we got out of the car parks due to emergency services needing to get into the resort (nothing dramatic i don't think). Overall the concert was a success i think.
If Towers could sort out infrastructure and get the bypass i think a greater range of concerts would be possible. At the moment though i can't see them doing more than one a year.
Still fair-play it was a good day.
Rob
TS Team
Apart from a few issues collecting concert tickets, this was another fantastic event. I'm not massive fan of any of the acts that played but I really enjoyed them all. The atmosphere on park was incredible, I love being there on a busy day when the sun is shining. The food did appear to be expensive but it has been expensive at all other concerts that I've been to.
I do get the impression that some people here will try and criticise this event for anything they can find purely because they don't like the genre of music. You know what, get over it. This event sold very well, so much so that it was confirmed for 2014 (which is great news). If you don't like it, then just let it be. You really can't blame Towers for going for something that is almost guaranteed to sell well, and concerts at Towers need to sell very well to be successful.
They did say beforehand that waiting to get in would not guarantee you a space near the front. A massive queue did form but it was not an 'official' queue as it were. You could have walked right up to the turnstiles of the arena and got straight in, bypassing the whole queue, and you wouldn't have been doing anything wrong. I guess it would have been hard to disband the massive queue once it formed, some people just wanted to wait.
I do get the impression that some people here will try and criticise this event for anything they can find purely because they don't like the genre of music. You know what, get over it. This event sold very well, so much so that it was confirmed for 2014 (which is great news). If you don't like it, then just let it be. You really can't blame Towers for going for something that is almost guaranteed to sell well, and concerts at Towers need to sell very well to be successful.
Ollie said:
They did say beforehand that waiting to get in would not guarantee you a space near the front. A massive queue did form but it was not an 'official' queue as it were. You could have walked right up to the turnstiles of the arena and got straight in, bypassing the whole queue, and you wouldn't have been doing anything wrong. I guess it would have been hard to disband the massive queue once it formed, some people just wanted to wait.
I too had a great weekend: was a fantastic atmosphere on park and the event being supremely well organised (with two relatively minor exceptions- see below). I have not seen the park so busy but yet with such a great (dare I say slightly magical) feeling in the air for a long while. The music was excellent too - Olly Murs was a good choice as a headline act
Just want to pick up on a couple of things I think Towers could improve on - the first being the car parks at the end of the day. Essentially, as everyone decided to leave the main car park at the same time (we were parked in the hotels but made the stupid mistake of trying to get out via the main car park rather than the hotels access road!), the whole thing was a complete free-for-all with little to no traffic marshalling. As such, queues were forming in really quite random fashion, and not moving very quickly as there was no-one controlling the merging of traffic after the exit barriers. Once we had merged into the main queue, all was fine (if slow - but we expected that!)
The other issue we had was the immense amount of queueing required to collect concert tickets - I realise this may be AEG's decision, not AT's, but in this day and age print-at-home tickets should be an option for an event like this. There were only 4 windows for ticket collection and upwards of 10k tickets to be collected! (to be fair, they did supplement this with roving staff members helping with queue-busting)
Just want to pick up on a couple of things I think Towers could improve on - the first being the car parks at the end of the day. Essentially, as everyone decided to leave the main car park at the same time (we were parked in the hotels but made the stupid mistake of trying to get out via the main car park rather than the hotels access road!), the whole thing was a complete free-for-all with little to no traffic marshalling. As such, queues were forming in really quite random fashion, and not moving very quickly as there was no-one controlling the merging of traffic after the exit barriers. Once we had merged into the main queue, all was fine (if slow - but we expected that!)
The other issue we had was the immense amount of queueing required to collect concert tickets - I realise this may be AEG's decision, not AT's, but in this day and age print-at-home tickets should be an option for an event like this. There were only 4 windows for ticket collection and upwards of 10k tickets to be collected! (to be fair, they did supplement this with roving staff members helping with queue-busting)
Ollie said:
They did say beforehand that waiting to get in would not guarantee you a space near the front. A massive queue did form but it was not an 'official' queue as it were. You could have walked right up to the turnstiles of the arena and got straight in, bypassing the whole queue, and you wouldn't have been doing anything wrong. I guess it would have been hard to disband the massive queue once it formed, some people just wanted to wait.
We didn't wait! We did exactly what you suggested, you would be crazy to have joined the line when it stretched back to Woodcutters! When you consider the age and dedication of many of the fans you would expect the queueing to an extent, and is like you get at any concert.
With regards to water, that is fair enough if it was signposted but we did not see those signs personally. We got free tap water (and ice, until it ran out) from the bar in Corner Coffee alongside other drinks.
stretchy
TS Member
Whilst I wasn't at the concert, I was on park to endure the longest queues of the season so far (I think). and I did take some photos, mainly from behind the stage area.
firstly the stage area from ths skyride, Blurriness is due to the sky ride glass.
The humongous queue
Somebody famous I assume
Nice bike
Cool boxes (this is what the famous people arrive in. some assembly is required allegedly.
Some screaming fans that were allowed back stage were extremely disappointed when they realised Motorhead weren't playing.
Testing Testing 1 2 3
Roadies for Drizzle Di**s could actually play.. ... .. at least 2 notes anyway.
Famos people still being interviewed
some of the entourage for the famous people (or maybe these are famous people too) (I was really jealous of the black dudes huge....... .... .... {answers on a postcard}
Some free range famous people
More free range famous people
Reason why free range people were leaving the Smiler was that Lee was evacuating the ride
Huge queue now cleared leaving a swath of excess litter. My one real criticism was the slowness to get this cleaned. This image was taken over an hour after the queue had cleared.
Maybe famous people, I started loosing interest in asking who was and wasn't famous near this time.
Maybe famous?
One of them didd take his shirt off so must be famous.
Waving famous people.
Bloke at back realises he should be waving. He needs work on his being famous skills.
Real instruments being removed from the stage when they realised they weren't needed for backing tapes (oh and those famous people again)
The new park entrance was being guarded by Shaun
Is this guy famous? He had a camera to record his ride.
Some famous people that we turfed off the Smiler. Allegedly that is Drizzle **cks (who had just been ordered to remove his R hat) and Onion J.. All I am going to say is all these B***dy Que Jumpers need evicting from the park.
This guy is so famous that have to keep him famous.
Urm not sure what these guys were doing but people with that expression are normally on their knees. Maybe they were practising.
More famous people.
Crowds still look smallish from this side
And I will leave you with a picture of the most famous beings I saw. The Ducks, These were so famous they were surrounded by sparkling lights.
firstly the stage area from ths skyride, Blurriness is due to the sky ride glass.
The humongous queue
Somebody famous I assume
Nice bike
Cool boxes (this is what the famous people arrive in. some assembly is required allegedly.
Some screaming fans that were allowed back stage were extremely disappointed when they realised Motorhead weren't playing.
Testing Testing 1 2 3
Roadies for Drizzle Di**s could actually play.. ... .. at least 2 notes anyway.
Famos people still being interviewed
some of the entourage for the famous people (or maybe these are famous people too) (I was really jealous of the black dudes huge....... .... .... {answers on a postcard}
Some free range famous people
More free range famous people
Reason why free range people were leaving the Smiler was that Lee was evacuating the ride
Huge queue now cleared leaving a swath of excess litter. My one real criticism was the slowness to get this cleaned. This image was taken over an hour after the queue had cleared.
Maybe famous people, I started loosing interest in asking who was and wasn't famous near this time.
Maybe famous?
One of them didd take his shirt off so must be famous.
Waving famous people.
Bloke at back realises he should be waving. He needs work on his being famous skills.
Real instruments being removed from the stage when they realised they weren't needed for backing tapes (oh and those famous people again)
The new park entrance was being guarded by Shaun
Is this guy famous? He had a camera to record his ride.
Some famous people that we turfed off the Smiler. Allegedly that is Drizzle **cks (who had just been ordered to remove his R hat) and Onion J.. All I am going to say is all these B***dy Que Jumpers need evicting from the park.
This guy is so famous that have to keep him famous.
Urm not sure what these guys were doing but people with that expression are normally on their knees. Maybe they were practising.
More famous people.
Crowds still look smallish from this side
And I will leave you with a picture of the most famous beings I saw. The Ducks, These were so famous they were surrounded by sparkling lights.
Just having a read through TripAdvisor and oh boy, AT are getting a slating about that weekend, in particular the poor traffic management, and the high cost of food and drink. To be fair, the traffic is to some extent out of Alton's hands, the roads around there are just not built for that sort of traffic and demonstrates even more the need for the bypass road. Some of the reviews have the titles:
“Rides very good, food service and queues very poor”
“Bad organisation - Alton Towers Live 2013 (event)”
“Alton Towers Live, Good Concert, Awful Organisation”
"The concert was brill the traffic was a joke came from burton on trent taken three hours to get there staff were a joke "
“Alton towers live 2013!!” - DON'T DO IT until you get your traffic management sorted out
“Alton Towers Live” - NEVER EVER AGAIN
“ConcertTraffic Nightmare 2013!”
The only people who didnt seem to have a problem, naturally, are those who stayed on site in the hotels.
For 2014 I think they need to try and find a Park and Ride site and bus people to the concert. Out of interest, were they charging the £6 fee for people parking on the overflow grass car parks???!!
“Rides very good, food service and queues very poor”
“Bad organisation - Alton Towers Live 2013 (event)”
“Alton Towers Live, Good Concert, Awful Organisation”
"The concert was brill the traffic was a joke came from burton on trent taken three hours to get there staff were a joke "
“Alton towers live 2013!!” - DON'T DO IT until you get your traffic management sorted out
“Alton Towers Live” - NEVER EVER AGAIN
“ConcertTraffic Nightmare 2013!”
The only people who didnt seem to have a problem, naturally, are those who stayed on site in the hotels.
For 2014 I think they need to try and find a Park and Ride site and bus people to the concert. Out of interest, were they charging the £6 fee for people parking on the overflow grass car parks???!!