Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2021 Discussion

[venny]

It’s no urban myth, there definitely was a plan for the bigger one. There was even artwork. Rumour had it as a launched S&S 4D.

I never fully bought the footers thing though, they don’t align properly with a few things. Like Rick says direction, but also there wasn’t supposed to be a top hot (more a half loop) and it would have gone further onto the beach.

 

[Craig]

A ride taller than the Big One wouldn't be allowed due to the proximity of Blackpool Airport I'd expect.

If anywhere would get an exception to have a ridiculous tall ride it'd be Blackpool. Considering there's a 500ft tower just a little way up the prom, they'd have made it work. The concern would have more been the practicalities and cost. The initial construction would have cost an absolute fortune and be hampered by the weather. The ongoing maintenance of the ride would be nothing short of a nightmare too. You only have to look at how quickly stuff turns rusty at Blackpool as it is, having one jutting out over the Irish Sea would've been a whole over level. As for actually operating the thing, having a ride launching into the most common westerly wind direction would've meant constant closures too.

Visually it would've been spectacular, but practically it would've been an absolute nightmare.

 

[DistortAMG]

They are a perfect match! Especially in regards to the shape and placement of the three footers. They match the shape and placement of similar footers for similar rides. The distance between them is slightly further by a few meters, which indicates a taller or differently shaped structure, but the ratio of the distance between the footers relative to each other, remains very very similar to similar rides.

The angle it is placed at is also directly in line with Watson road and not the seafront. Which if it was a decoration for the seafront, you would have thought it would be aligned with that and not of a proposed route for a coaster that never came to be. All of that a coincidence? I think not. Like look at it, the angle it is placed exactly matches the angle the road is placed at. I am curious about this direction thing? What am I missing? If you look at the road and imagine the track going somewhere along that line, it matches the invisible triangle that would make up the 3 points of the footers, matches it exact as if the third point of the triangle that connects the two longest sides, is perfectly aligned with the road, if that makes sense.

On the recent exclusive behind the scenes video of the pleasure beach made by the AdventureMe Youtube channel (great video by the way), he does state that these are indeed footers for a planned coaster that never came to be. Built with the help of the council in anticipation, when they re did the seafront But crucially, I have heard this same story many years before, perhaps over a decade ago. Now he could be wrong, but you would have thought that in an exclusive behind the scenes video, he would be sourcing his information from the park itself.

 

[DistortAMG]

Sorry for the double post, edit was messing me about. (Issue my end I think)

Excuse my crude drawing, but this is what I mean, when you line the tower angle up with the road, it matches exactly.

It could be a coincidence, but it seems like a very very big one, that this is lined up perfectly with what would have been one of the few places they could fit the ride in, with minimal disruption. Interesting for sure!! I could be totally wrong though, makes interesting discussion.

Now the ride could taper in at the far end, like alot of these styles of rides do, giving clearance for things like Wallace and Gromit, but this is just to show the uncanny alignment with the park that these 3 dots have.

 

[Craig]

I think placeholders would be a more accurate description rather than actual footers. The block paving that the circular bits are made from make it easier to excavate rather than mucking about tearing up the coloured concrete and trying (and failing) to colour match it. That's something I could completely see them doing rather than actually having ready made footers in there for something that wasn't confirmed to go ahead at the time.

 

[DistortAMG]

Yeah that makes perfect sense. But still, even those block paved circles, help shine a light on the proposed route it would have taken.

Man, I wish they built it, but I totally agree of the nightmare from an operational and maintenance perspective.

 

[Funcone]

Looking through my archive, Nick Laister wrote a bit about the Even Bigger One. Nick runs Joyland Books, Fairy Tale Farm, chaired the Save Dreamland Campaign and has written a couple of books about amusement park heritage. He's also a planning advisor to quite a few UK parks, so he's generally considered a reliable source. Apparently the Pleasure Beach had budgeted £25 million for the Even Bigger One, and that was in 2003. It was certainly going to be an impressive attraction. It does sound very impractical though.

 

[rob666]

OK, here we go.
Followed this load of old cobblers at the time.
The re-landscaping of the prom was followed by a sad middle aged bloke on a pushbike, all the way through.
The Great Promenade Show was built, with the glitter ball "They Shoot Horses don't They?" as the centre feature, all around the millennium years, Valhalla time.
The patterns in the ground blocks are simply that...patterns, to match all the other patterns along the new prom, and specifically the flooring patterns of the prom art features.
Some artworks were nicked, some failed and were removed, some were lost on the Blackpool equivalent of the Towers "family days", some of the original art designs never actually materialised due to costs and design issues with the coastal environment...their planned spots were left empty.
There was talk of a "bigger one", and initial plans were muted, but Big Geoff had empty pockets after building Valhalla.

The ground under the three circles was no different to the rest, I really was there at the time...fat bloke on a bike watching the big diggers... and would have noticed.
It is just a nice bit of symmetry at the end of Watson Rd, where there is also a change in prom walkway levels for storm surge protection, as there is all the way up the prom.

Probably.

 

[Funcone]

I suppose there are two sides to this. On one hand, we know that Geoffrey Thompson was a big fan of Cedar Point and that The Big One was inspired by a trip to Cedar Point and riding Magnum XL. The Pleasure Beach had bought a lot of Arrow rides and for a time they owned Magic Harbor at Myrtle Beach. Top Thrill Dragster opened in 2003, so it isn’t that surprising that Geoffrey Thompson admired it.

By 2003 it was roughly 10 years since the last coaster, and this was around the end of the UK ‘theme park wars’. This was back when parks like Oakwood and Fantasy Island were building major coasters, and Thorpe Park was exploding with the likes of Colossus and Inferno.

We know that Geoffrey Thompson was very ambitious. Just look at Valhalla. Although a smaller ride, you could also argue that building a ride like Traumatizer at a park like Pleasureland showed some audacity.

On the other hand, building such a tall coaster in such a windy location would have been an operational nightmare. We also now know that the park was heading towards some significant financial problems, and although you could argue that some of it may have been self inflicted, and some of the problems may have been somewhat unforeseen, could the park have afforded such a large investment?

 

[venny]

It definitely had a big chance of becoming a white elephant. Then again, the same could be said about Big One. However, if you think how much of a draw Big One has continued to be for the general public, even now, it arguably saved the park over their more difficult years after GT’s passing.

That being the case, a Bigger One could have equally have become as much of a saviour as a failure, but I guess in the end it was too big a gamble.

As for the footers, I maintain my position, as Rob says they’re part of the promenade’s early 2000 rebuild (although I don’t believe they were ever the location of one of the art pieces). It’s just a coincidence that they line up with Watson Road and they’re both too close to the park to be the position for a top hat (which wasn’t part of the plan anyway) but also the wrong way around for the foundations of one: -

- The pointy end of the triangle would need to face out to sea if it were a TTD type model, it doesn’t.

- The plan didn’t involve a top hat of this nature anyway.

- If that were the position of the top hat, the launch would need to be incredibly short.

- The concept art doesn’t support this design.

- The end of the ride was supposed to be built on a pier which went across the road and well onto the beach.

- There’s next to no chance that Watson Road would ever be permanently closed.

- The circular patterns repeat themselves down the prom. You can actually spot the location of one of the stolen pieces of artwork themed to the circus a little further South, located in another paved circle.

 

[Plastic Person]

We also now know that the park was heading towards some significant financial problems, and although you could argue that some of it may have been self inflicted, and some of the problems may have been somewhat unforeseen, could the park have afforded such a large investment?

The park's biggest financial problem was Geoffrey's death. The lenders he had enjoyed often rather old-school, generous arrangements with (Geoffrey was well liked, even by his political opponents) all came to the door within days of his funeral. From that point on, The Bigger One was off the table. I am guessing Valhalla was a huge financial burden to design, construct and then especially to operate in a very different environment from the PPR model it had been commissioned under. BPB made eye-watering amounts of money throughout the nineties, and it seemed as it the park would continue in a similar vein throughout the next ten years, but the park's fortunes began to decline quicker than you might have imagined.

I'd still love to see that artwork...

 

[rob666]

Not convinced of that one...some of his business decisions were dubious to say the least.
The park had already been bailed out by the banks and council on a number of occasions before his sad death.

 

[Plastic Person]

@rob666

This is what I meant when I referred to his affable style keeping the park out the red, but I didn't know they were in serious trouble prior to that. It all felt very fruitful, but then, I was seeing things with a child's eyes and not privy to BPB accounts. When were the other bailouts? Pre-PMBO?

 

[DistortAMG]

Here is what I believe to be one of the concepts, found in the dark aging depths of the interwebs. But it is just that, a concept. The final ride may never have materialised this way at all. It does look more S&S than Intamin, that is for sure, but it is hard to tell.

 

[Plastic Person]

Oh, I have seen that before, but it must have been nearly twenty years. Blimey.

Good luck retrieving your iPhone from the bottom of the ride area at the end of the day.

 

[rob666]

@rob666

This is what I meant when I referred to his affable style keeping the park out the red, but I didn't know they were in serious trouble prior to that. It all felt very fruitful, but then, I was seeing things with a child's eyes and not privy to BPB accounts. When were the other bailouts? Pre-PMBO?

The park struggled in every recession, and did well in every boom, typical of leisure generally.
The rumours were baleouts by the council, sometimes openly, sometimes behind closed doors.
The park has also struggled with the weather, a bad series of bank holiday weekends and a wet summer can hit the park harder than the likes of the Towers.

 

[Matt N]

Wasn’t the Bigger One actually going to launch and have a top hat over the Irish Sea?

I know that Blackpool Pleasure Beach enjoys somewhat lax planning restrictions compared to other UK theme parks, but firing a coaster out over land that the park doesn’t own (?) does seem like it would generate a bit of a storm with the planners… with that in mind, I’m surprised that WGT ever even considered a coaster going into the sea, as surely the park’s feasibility studies would have deemed it too risky to try and get through planning, as well as too costly and complicated to try and build?

In terms of what type of ride it would have been; I seem to remember reading that some sort of weird launched S&S 4D contraption being talked about, but I also remember other places saying it would have been more like TTD, and even after the Bigger One was cancelled, a reliable Pleasure Beach source (who’s a member on here, and has gotten most of the stuff they’ve said previously correct) said that the park was looking into a Stealth-style Intamin Accelerator. I heard someone else entirely suggest an Intamin Reverse Freefall Coaster, so it may well have gone through numerous iterations, for all we know.

Ultimately, I do think the park made the right decision by cancelling it. As much as I’m sure it would have been a monumental ride had it been built, I reckon it could have been pretty unreliable based on both S&S’ 4D coasters and S&S’ compressed air coasters in the 2000s, and that’s if it had even been able to get built; something that never seems to be mentioned about this is that I reckon it might have had real difficulties getting planning permission. A 500ft coaster going off of Pleasure Beach property, over the road and into the Irish Sea seems like something that would have caused local uproar against it akin to that against Alton’s cross valley coaster, if not to an even greater extent.

In terms of why Blackpool struggles at times; I think the fact it’s in Blackpool does make it more susceptible to market conditions within the holiday market than, say, Alton Towers or Thorpe Park. Correct me if I’m wrong here, Blackpool locals, but I’d imagine that the bulk of people who visit Blackpool Pleasure Beach tie it into a wider Blackpool holiday as opposed to going there on a day trip, and if there’s a recession on or the weather is bad in the summer, I’d guess that people are far more likely to be cancelling that week-long trip to Blackpool than that day trip to Alton Towers.

I can’t imagine that cheaper foreign travel to places like Spain has helped, either; most people I know these days tended to (or at least, they tended to pre-COVID) take their summer holidays to tropical places abroad like France, Spain, Italy etc. as opposed to places like Blackpool. And even when people do pick British seaside, I’m not sure it’s places like Blackpool that families tend to pick these days. That’s nothing against Blackpool as a town by any means, but I think families these days tend to be looking for quieter seaside places with more natural beauty (for instance, places like Pembrokeshire, Devon or Cornwall) as opposed to the busier, more commercial seaside experience that somewhere like Blackpool offers.

Using my own family as an example; whenever we went to the seaside as kids, it was always to quieter, more “naturally beautiful” seaside places. Pembrokeshire was our favourite spot, with us taking many holidays to that area over the years, but we did also take holidays to Devon and Dorset on occasion too. I never set foot in Blackpool until I was 15 and keen to visit the Pleasure Beach, and that was only for a day trip from the Lake District (although I’d imagine the fact that I’m 3.5-4 hours south of Blackpool probably helps with that).

 

[DistortAMG]

Wasn’t the Bigger One actually going to launch and have a top hat over the Irish Sea?

I know that Blackpool Pleasure Beach enjoys somewhat lax planning restrictions compared to other UK theme parks, but firing a coaster out over land that the park doesn’t own (?) does seem like it would generate a bit of a storm with the planners… with that in mind, I’m surprised that WGT ever even considered a coaster going into the sea, as surely the park’s feasibility studies would have deemed it too risky to try and get through planning, as well as too costly and complicated to try and build?

In terms of what type of ride it would have been; I seem to remember reading that some sort of weird launched S&S 4D contraption being talked about, but I also remember other places saying it would have been more like TTD, and even after the Bigger One was cancelled, a reliable Pleasure Beach source (who’s a member on here, and has gotten most of the stuff they’ve said previously correct) said that the park was looking into a Stealth-style Intamin Accelerator. I heard someone else entirely suggest an Intamin Reverse Freefall Coaster, so it may well have gone through numerous iterations, for all we know.

Ultimately, I do think the park made the right decision by cancelling it. As much as I’m sure it would have been a monumental ride had it been built, I reckon it could have been pretty unreliable based on both S&S’ 4D coasters and S&S’ compressed air coasters in the 2000s, and that’s if it had even been able to get built; something that never seems to be mentioned about this is that I reckon it might have had real difficulties getting planning permission. A 500ft coaster going off of Pleasure Beach property, over the road and into the Irish Sea seems like something that would have caused local uproar against it akin to that against Alton’s cross valley coaster, if not to an even greater extent.

In terms of why Blackpool struggles at times; I think the fact it’s in Blackpool does make it more susceptible to market conditions within the holiday market than, say, Alton Towers or Thorpe Park. Correct me if I’m wrong here, Blackpool locals, but I’d imagine that the bulk of people who visit Blackpool Pleasure Beach tie it into a wider Blackpool holiday, and if there’s a recession on or the weather is bad in the summer, I’d guess that people are far more likely to be cancelling that week-long trip to Blackpool than that day trip to Alton Towers.

I can’t imagine that cheaper foreign travel to places like Spain has helped, either.

Planning most certainly would not have been an issue with this. This would have been welcomed with open arms from the local authority I would have thought. Blackpool is a place with it's foundations built on Tourism. Projects that boost this, will be generally accepted with open arms. This would have been one of the tallest if not tallest coaster in the world again, either one, is going to boost Tourism massively, in a town where Tourism in the main income. You cannot put this under the same rules of thumb as other parks in the UK. Blackpool is very different and operates under very different parameters to all the other big players in the UK industry.

I would have thought cancelling would probably have been closely related to the death of GT more than anything else. Feasibility studies would have ruled a fair few attractions he built as not recommended, That never stopped him.

 

[venny]

I can’t imagine that BPB even did feasibility studies back then…

 

[tayspru]

In an effort to steer away from some simple geometric patterns that can be found all along the prom…

Would it be feasible to have Intamin freefall towers fitted to the Big One, similar to those that can be found attached to Kingda Ka? It would give them change to finally remove ice blast and rework that area of the park, and also be the tallest drop towers in the U.K.