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Alton Towers Oktoberfest 2020
- Thread starter Danny
- Start date
Thameslink Rail
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Smiler
So how come Alton is doing so well while Thorpe and Chessington are doing so badly?
AstroDan
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
Alton Towers is limiting guests more, quite evidently. Even with 60-90 minute queues, this is less bad than Thorpe and Chessington. Also, the park just has so much more open space - making it much, much better for the current situation.
Alton Towers event also has more entertainment than TP and the setting is nicer.
It is just a better operated park than TP/CWOA. But we knew that already (even if it's not perfect).
Always suprises me how few people appreciate that AT is one of the world's largest theme parks by space.
It's 50% bigger than Disney's Animal Kingdom; which many think is the champion.
Of course, a lot of that space is in the valley, so absolutely no benefit to spreading people out ;-)
It's 50% bigger than Disney's Animal Kingdom; which many think is the champion.
Of course, a lot of that space is in the valley, so absolutely no benefit to spreading people out ;-)
VerticalLoop123
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
Just came back from spending two days at Oktoberfest (Sunday and Monday) and got to say I was very impressed!
The entertainment on the stages was excellent with a great mix of adult and family friendly entertainment. Haven’t danced and laughed so much in a long time! The music acts were great and really knew how to get an audience going (even though the audience was relatively small but lively!).
The roaming entertainers were great and in the end just joined in dancing and partying! I found the individual concepts of the roaming characters was very well thought out and reminded me of past times when there were tonnes of roaming characters around the park like Henry and his crew. You could see the cast had been given time to learn their characters.
The atmosphere was cracking though and I think that was what made the event! The past couple of years I’ve personally found the Halloween atmosphere to be lacking a bit at scarefest, especially with the reduction in scare zones. However, the atmosphere on the lawns was electric, with the theming, lights, smells and music the ents team really did create something great.
Only complaint would be prices of food with no MAP discount
(as many have said) and also the need for portable toilets as it was a trek to the nearest loo. Mind you seems they still had some portable toilets knocking about in Katanga canyon from flushgate the other week so they could always plonk them on the lawns! Oh and also if they put in another bier Keller on the lawns for good measure!
The entertainment on the stages was excellent with a great mix of adult and family friendly entertainment. Haven’t danced and laughed so much in a long time! The music acts were great and really knew how to get an audience going (even though the audience was relatively small but lively!).
The roaming entertainers were great and in the end just joined in dancing and partying! I found the individual concepts of the roaming characters was very well thought out and reminded me of past times when there were tonnes of roaming characters around the park like Henry and his crew. You could see the cast had been given time to learn their characters.
The atmosphere was cracking though and I think that was what made the event! The past couple of years I’ve personally found the Halloween atmosphere to be lacking a bit at scarefest, especially with the reduction in scare zones. However, the atmosphere on the lawns was electric, with the theming, lights, smells and music the ents team really did create something great.
Only complaint would be prices of food with no MAP discount
(as many have said) and also the need for portable toilets as it was a trek to the nearest loo. Mind you seems they still had some portable toilets knocking about in Katanga canyon from flushgate the other week so they could always plonk them on the lawns! Oh and also if they put in another bier Keller on the lawns for good measure!
AstroDan
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
They should open the toilets at Towers Street Bar and Grill.Just came back from spending two days at Oktoberfest (Sunday and Monday) and got to say I was very impressed!
The entertainment on the stages was excellent with a great mix of adult and family friendly entertainment. Haven’t danced and laughed so much in a long time! The music acts were great and really knew how to get an audience going (even though the audience was relatively small but lively!).
The roaming entertainers were great and in the end just joined in dancing and partying! I found the individual concepts of the roaming characters was very well thought out and reminded me of past times when there were tonnes of roaming characters around the park like Henry and his crew. You could see the cast had been given time to learn their characters.
The atmosphere was cracking though and I think that was what made the event! The past couple of years I’ve personally found the Halloween atmosphere to be lacking a bit at scarefest, especially with the reduction in scare zones. However, the atmosphere on the lawns was electric, with the theming, lights, smells and music the ents team really did create something great.
Only complaint would be prices of food with no MAP discount
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AstroDan
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
Indeed. They had more at some stage but the guest experience really suffered. So, 10k it is.
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That's very good actually. It was originally supposedly 12k so that reduction makes a fair big difference. When I went yesterday it seemed very quiet around the paths but a little busier in the queues. However, the queues were very short yesterday and they just looked big. I just need to ignore at the moment how big they look because it's never as bad as it seems
jon81uk
TS Member
and it seems Thorpe Park doesn’t value the guest experience as highly then.
Towers still selling Fastrack?
Swarm Chris
TS Member
I believe it's weekends only, if at all. Monday they weren't, queues were continually moving and it was wonderful.
I did a sneaky Smiler fastrack last Thursday using the app to book it. I don't like Fastrack normally, but it was my second ride, and the first one i used the normal queue, and it was a long hour.
MellowPasta
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
I don’t blame you, I personally find The Smiler queue to be atrocious. Slow moving, claustrophobic, surrounded by chavs every angle, annoying hahaha soundtrack, a depressing cage in concrete.
I suppose that’s part of the feel of the ride but each time their own
Swarm Chris
TS Member
How odd, maybe it's only on rides with larger queues? Ride host at Galactica told someone fastrack wasn't available on Monday.
Craig
TS Administrator
So Oktoberfest..it's a cracking effort for an event especially under the current circumstances. There was a moment on Friday, sat in the sunshine on the lawns with the oompah music playing where dare I say the park seemed to have its magic back.
Food was by miles the biggest letdown for me. There was a massive opportunity to have a street food market style offering. Cheap, snacky food like bratwurst, pretzels and currywurst would've been ideal. Sell at a lower cost, but make a fortune thanks to the quantity people are buying - and most importantly keep people going back for more throughout the day. But £8 for a bratwurst sausage in a soft roll is frankly daylight robbery. It's a shame, at more sensible prices I'd have been happy to spend a fortune, but instead ended up at Burger Kitchen and Fried Chicken and didn't spend anything on the lawns. Judging by how well the event has gone down, I'd really hope to see them served in house next year. Moving staff from permanent outlets which are traditionally quiet after the lunchtime rush over to the lawns would do if staffing would be an issue. Complete agree with @AstroDan's review when he mentioned expanding the unique offerings across the park too.
I'm sure they could quite easily make Spaten a regular drink throughout the season, there was certainly plenty of it being bought judging by the number of times I ended up at the bar in the middle of a barrel change! For the love of god please, we're all so damn bored of Stella and Fosters!
Another thing touched on in Dan's review, the lack of an offering including discount on the lawns was annoying to say the least. I would've liked to seen drinks offered with AP discount at a minimum, the walk to the courtyard soon became pretty tiresome. Surely one that could be brought in house next year, and even better left around for fireworks too? MAP holders have been severely restricted this season as it is, this just felt like a bit more knife twisting on top.
Biggest surprise has to be the entertainment. The roaming characters were superb, lots of interaction with guests and really helped with the atmosphere. The other stages were more an annoyance than anything else, I'd sooner have had one central stage as the sound wasn't always the best from the ones at the side. Not sure if it's solely covid related or if there was an intention to do this from the outset, but the sudden change in where people were performing was pretty jarring.
If there's any positive to this Coronavirus thing, it's forced the park to work harder and think outside the box to make their money. Getting x number of guests through the gates is no longer the most important thing, it's about making sure those guests that you can get in spend a decent amount of money when they're there. Sure the likes of Fastrack is an attempt at this, but for many it leaves a sour taste as its either hideously expensive or directly affects their day as their queue time increases as a result. But a decent event offering with lots of F+B benefits everyone, on the face of it is free and gives people something else to do if those queue times are high.
I'm really hoping that it's given the park the confidence to splash out on events like this in future with consideration given to giving guests an all round experience like a theme park should. It's clear there's a massive appetite for things like this, and people are willing to turn up to the park, do some rides and most importantly for the park spend some more money buying more food, drink and stay over. I'm especially looking at you Scarefest, post maze spooky bars, street food and fire-pits? That few quid spent on a maze ticket suddenly turns into £15-£20 spent having a drink, quick snack and talking about the maze with your mates.
Get the marketing right next year, and I feel the resort could really turn a corner on the events front. Fingers crossed!
Food was by miles the biggest letdown for me. There was a massive opportunity to have a street food market style offering. Cheap, snacky food like bratwurst, pretzels and currywurst would've been ideal. Sell at a lower cost, but make a fortune thanks to the quantity people are buying - and most importantly keep people going back for more throughout the day. But £8 for a bratwurst sausage in a soft roll is frankly daylight robbery. It's a shame, at more sensible prices I'd have been happy to spend a fortune, but instead ended up at Burger Kitchen and Fried Chicken and didn't spend anything on the lawns. Judging by how well the event has gone down, I'd really hope to see them served in house next year. Moving staff from permanent outlets which are traditionally quiet after the lunchtime rush over to the lawns would do if staffing would be an issue. Complete agree with @AstroDan's review when he mentioned expanding the unique offerings across the park too.
I'm sure they could quite easily make Spaten a regular drink throughout the season, there was certainly plenty of it being bought judging by the number of times I ended up at the bar in the middle of a barrel change! For the love of god please, we're all so damn bored of Stella and Fosters!
Another thing touched on in Dan's review, the lack of an offering including discount on the lawns was annoying to say the least. I would've liked to seen drinks offered with AP discount at a minimum, the walk to the courtyard soon became pretty tiresome. Surely one that could be brought in house next year, and even better left around for fireworks too? MAP holders have been severely restricted this season as it is, this just felt like a bit more knife twisting on top.
Biggest surprise has to be the entertainment. The roaming characters were superb, lots of interaction with guests and really helped with the atmosphere. The other stages were more an annoyance than anything else, I'd sooner have had one central stage as the sound wasn't always the best from the ones at the side. Not sure if it's solely covid related or if there was an intention to do this from the outset, but the sudden change in where people were performing was pretty jarring.
If there's any positive to this Coronavirus thing, it's forced the park to work harder and think outside the box to make their money. Getting x number of guests through the gates is no longer the most important thing, it's about making sure those guests that you can get in spend a decent amount of money when they're there. Sure the likes of Fastrack is an attempt at this, but for many it leaves a sour taste as its either hideously expensive or directly affects their day as their queue time increases as a result. But a decent event offering with lots of F+B benefits everyone, on the face of it is free and gives people something else to do if those queue times are high.
I'm really hoping that it's given the park the confidence to splash out on events like this in future with consideration given to giving guests an all round experience like a theme park should. It's clear there's a massive appetite for things like this, and people are willing to turn up to the park, do some rides and most importantly for the park spend some more money buying more food, drink and stay over. I'm especially looking at you Scarefest, post maze spooky bars, street food and fire-pits? That few quid spent on a maze ticket suddenly turns into £15-£20 spent having a drink, quick snack and talking about the maze with your mates.
Get the marketing right next year, and I feel the resort could really turn a corner on the events front. Fingers crossed!
jon81uk
TS Member
Given they usually have a stage for Franklin and the other characters, it would make sense for ScareFest to keep the same stage and tables really as it helps with the social distancing compared to the standing room on fountain square. They could run the family entertainment until 7pm or similar then offer something more adult such as a band for the last couple of hours and do a ScareFest version of Oktoberfest.