Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2023 Discussion

[shakey]

In other news.

Icon closed at one today apparently. Presumably for some technical reason but it was actually advertised as a 1pm close on the pleasure beach app.

Big one is shut due to the wind and dipper still hasn't opened at all this season.

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[Rick]

What Blackpool needs is an owner that knows how to run a seaside amusement park, instead of an owner that thinks they are running an inland theme park.

I think "how to run a seaside amusement park" is a bit reductive. If you take something like Bottons or even something like Adventure Island, the scale of those places vs. BPB is vastly different and how they operate is different in turn. Building the park out as a resort is also a massive factor too - the park has built as many hotels in the past 20 years as it has roller coasters and there is more accommodation on the way.

 

[Shaggy_Dog_]

There isn't really any room at fantasy Island to build a massive new permanent coaster or i am sure they would have done by now.

What Blackpool needs is an owner that knows how to run a seaside amusement park, instead of an owner that thinks they are running an inland theme park.





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At the risk of going off topic I wonder if with Fantasy Island there’s perhaps a little scope to move some of the outdoor rides around somewhat to give them some flexibility with regards to room. A new coaster wouldn’t necessarily have to be massive in size, there’s the example of how compact Rage is it Adventure Island (not that I’m recommending that they build a Eurofighter) or how relatively small the footprint of some of the Gertslauer Bobs are (ie Gesengte Sau at Prater). But I would like to see them add something to make a of a statement.

But anyway with regards to Blackpool the park certainly needs some fresh ideas and I do think that the passion and enthusiasm that the Liseberg owners have for creating a quality park that is both constantly evolving whilst also being embraced and treasured as an asset by its local community is something that Mandy could learn from. Bring back a low cost non-rider ticket and open the park up for more families and holiday makers.


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[shakey]

I think "how to run a seaside amusement park" is a bit reductive. If you take something like Bottons or even something like Adventure Island, the scale of those places vs. BPB is vastly different and how they operate is different in turn. Building the park out as a resort is also a massive factor too - the park has built as many hotels in the past 20 years as it has roller coasters and there is more accommodation on the way.

Yes , how they operate is different, and that is the nail on the head right there !

I don't think size matters (as I always tell the ladies) . The location of the parks is the key and the fact that the seaside parks are not stand alone destinations but part of a wider resort. Something that the Thompsons are ignoring.

The hotels seem to be one of the few good business decisions PB have made in the last 20 years and I have no issue with the new self catering plan but I am not sure it's a good idea to try and make the park its own resort, because it will never be that.

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[Rick]

Yes , how they operate is different, and that is the nail on the head right there !

I don't think size matters (as I always tell the ladies) . The location of the parks is the key and the fact that the seaside parks are not stand alone destinations but part of a wider resort. Something that the Thompsons are ignoring.

The hotels seem to be one of the few good business decisions PB have made in the last 20 years and I have no issue with the new self catering plan but I am not sure it's a good idea to try and make the park its own resort, because it will never be that.

I think it already is that to a lot of people - not all, sure - but more than you give it credit for. I think you have to get out of the habit of thinking about Blackpool as it was during the mid-20th century, where most guests came for several days and made their way around the town doing various attractions - that's still the case for some, but the visiting trends have changed beyond recognition.

With regards to scale - Pleasure Beach is large enough to be a draw on its own in exactly the same way that Alton Towers or Thorpe Park is, it is an amusement park that provides a whole day's (or multiple days) entertainment that people will travel to, enjoy and go home/stay the night. The fact that it is a seaside park is completely irrelevant for that constituency of visitors.

Where it is relevant, is for guests that want to consume the park a la-carte and I agree, the location makes a difference there, but to summarise our previous discussions ...

I think ...

• that the park is less different to a theme park in 2023 than you give it credit for (as above)
• that if guests are presented with one option (POP) or nothing, mot go with POP
• that the guests who chose nothing, probably weren't going to spend very much anyway and aren't a great loss
• that it is incredibly hard to provide a hybrid POP/PPR model for a park the size of PB
• that going back to PPR would completely destroy the group market that they have spent 20 years cultivating
• that going back to PPR would see overall spending per guest reduced
• that you would have a less family friendly atmosphere
• that you might see more attendance with PPR/hybrid, but would see a dip in revenue, less margin
• that you can provide a better experience for fewer guests with higher margins with POP
• that it is harder to sell the park as resort with a hybrid model

And you have a counter to all of those, which we have discussed too many times !

My interpretation of the strategy around the accommodation is that Pleasure Beach think that they can be an anchor attraction in a stay. You can stay for one or two (probably not many more) nights in PB owned accommodation and visitors will spend one or two days on park and may wish to tack on to that Sandcastle, the Tower, a meal in Spoons, etc.

I know we don't agree, but that's fine - let's discuss it all again over too many pints if we ever get a date in the diary !

 

[rob666]

let's discuss it all again over too many pints if we ever get a date in the diary !

IF.
Not quite the cut and paste I was expecting, and promised, but completely acceptable.
So have we agreed to bring back tickets then?

 

[shakey]

Glad you are back on form @Rick

I would of course agree with you if the park was regularly busy or if it regularly turned a profit. But unfortunately it manages to do neither of those things.

I am not going to dig out the profit / loss sheets for the last 35 years but if I did there would definitely be a point when the park changed from being mostly profitable to being mostly loss-making, and that would be around the time that free entry was scrapped.

A lot is said about the lawlessness and non-family atmosphere that would happen if the park was free entry again, but it doesn't seem to worry the thousands of families that enjoy themselves on the free to enter piers, which they do long after the Pleasure Beach Theme Park Resort has thrown everyone out and locked it's doors.

Definitely looking forward to some further banter in crevettes, hopefully soon !!





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[Matt N]

Glad you are back on form @Rick

I would of course agree with you if the park was regularly busy or if it regularly turned a profit. But unfortunately it manages to do neither of those things.

I am not going to dig out the profit / loss sheets for the last 35 years but if I did there would definitely be a point when the park changed from being mostly profitable to being mostly loss-making, and that would be around the time that free entry was scrapped.

A lot is said about the lawlessness and non-family atmosphere that would happen if the park was free entry again, but it doesn't seem to worry the thousands of families that enjoy themselves on the free to enter piers, which they do long after the Pleasure Beach Theme Park Resort has thrown everyone out and locked it's doors.

Definitely looking forward to some further banter in crevettes, hopefully soon !!





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I would argue that correlation does not necessarily equal causation @shakey, and I’d also argue that from what I can ascertain, the downward turn of Blackpool Pleasure Beach as a profitable enterprise began before they introduced the entry fee.

In terms of events that I believe signalled the start of Blackpool’s downfall before the introduction of the entry fee:

• The closures of Frontierland Morecambe and Pleasureland Southport in 1999 and 2006 respectively arguably suggest that the Thompson empire was not exactly booming at that point.
• Looking at the park’s Wikipedia page, quite a significant number of the attractions closed during Amanda Thompson’s reign were closed in 2008 or earlier, which predates the introduction of the entry fee in 2009. If these closures predated the entry fee, it would imply to me that the park was having plenty of financial struggles with free entry still in place.

Looking at Companies House would also suggest that all was not necessarily rosy at Blackpool prior to the introduction of the entry fee: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01876267/filing-history?page=4

Let’s firstly look at the accounts for Blackpool Pleasure Beach from the year ending April 2010 (i.e. the 2009 season, the year the entry fee was introduced) up to the year ending April 2020 (i.e. the 2019 season and the last “normal” year before COVID… including the post-COVID years of 2020 and 2021 would be unfair, as that completely changed the game):

• Year ending April 2010 (i.e. 2009 season): Loss of £521,000
• Year ending April 2011 (i.e. 2010 season): Loss of £764,000
• Year ending April 2012 (i.e. 2011 season): Loss of £1,313,000
• Year ending March 2013 (i.e. 2012 season): Loss of £2,547,000
• Year ending March 2014 (i.e. 2013 season): Loss of £1,867,000
• Year ending March 2015 (i.e. 2014 season): Profit of £364,000
• Year ending March 2016 (i.e. 2015 season): Loss of £129,000
• Year ending March 2017 (i.e. 2016 season): Loss of £264,000
• Year ending March 2018 (i.e. 2017 season): Loss of £3,008,000
• Year ending March 2019 (i.e. 2018 season): Loss of £1,874,000
• Year ending March 2020 (i.e. 2019 season): Loss of £2,021,000

For the sake of fairness, let’s look at the same number of years of accounts prior to the introduction of the entry fee to see the pre-tax profit/loss for each financial period:

• Year ending April 1999 (i.e. 1998 season): Loss of £1,349,000
• Year ending April 2000 (i.e. 1999 season): Loss of £744,000
• Year ending April 2001 (i.e. 2000 season): Profit of £1,527,000
• Year ending March 2002 (i.e. 2001 season): Profit of £1,268,000
• Year ending March 2003 (i.e. 2002 season): Loss of £58,000
• Year ending March 2004 (i.e. 2003 season): Profit of £95,000
• Year ending March 2005 (i.e. 2004 season): Profit of £3,320,000
• Year ending April 2006 (i.e. 2005 season): Loss of £5,649,000
• Year ending April 2007 (i.e. 2006 season): Loss of £1,347,000
• Year ending March 2008 (i.e. 2007 season): Profit of £2,687,000
• Year ending April 2009 (i.e. 2008 season): Loss of £4,279,000

Yes, I concede that it does seem as though losses became far more frequent after the entry fee’s introduction. However, it should be noted that the year directly prior to the entry fee’s introduction saw a loss of £4,279,000, which was bigger than any of the years that followed the entry fee’s introduction even prior to inflation, whereas the loss in the year of the entry fee’s introduction was just £521,000, so if you directly compare the year before introduction and the year of introduction, it seems as though the introduction of the entry fee actually decreased the park’s losses by a fair amount. It certainly wasn’t some huge cliff-edge decrease in profits that could be solely attributed to the entry fee, anyhow; the fact that the park’s losses actually decreased in the year following the fee’s introduction would suggest that it cannot be solely blamed for the park’s present issues.

My point is that I don’t think you can necessarily blame the entry fee for Blackpool being less financially successful in recent years; I’d argue that a lot of the financial turmoil would have happened regardless, and if anything, the entry fee appeared to protect the park from some of it, at least initially.

As for the point about the piers being bustling; I think they’re a somewhat different ballgame to Pleasure Beach itself. They have vastly fewer rides, and the rides they do have are generally of a considerably lesser scale, so they aren’t full-day attractions in the vein that Blackpool Pleasure Beach is. Having free entry and sole pay-per-ride at Pleasure Beach would likely result in the average family paying far more for a day at the park than they would pay under the current system, and in the current cost of living crisis, increased cost will only drive people away.

 

[Rick]

Glad you are back on form @Rick

I would of course agree with you if the park was regularly busy or if it regularly turned a profit. But unfortunately it manages to do neither of those things.

I am not going to dig out the profit / loss sheets for the last 35 years but if I did there would definitely be a point when the park changed from being mostly profitable to being mostly loss-making, and that would be around the time that free entry was scrapped.

A lot is said about the lawlessness and non-family atmosphere that would happen if the park was free entry again, but it doesn't seem to worry the thousands of families that enjoy themselves on the free to enter piers, which they do long after the Pleasure Beach Theme Park Resort has thrown everyone out and locked it's doors.

Definitely looking forward to some further banter in crevettes, hopefully soon !!

In terms of profit, I think some (not all) of the things that they have done have helped stem their losses from what they could have been. Even if you go back to 2002, or so - there was so much bloat in terms of the way the park was operated and staffed - it made it necessary to make far deeper cuts in one go, because they hadn't been made when they were required.

I certainly don't buy that if PPR was brought back tomorrow, the park would be teaming with people who don't visit now - I just don't believe that to be the case.

P&L sheets are interesting, but only demonstrate the effect, i.e. the effect without worrying too much about the cause. Guest expectations, Blackpool visitation and operating costs have changed wildly in that time.

If you think about causes we've seen so many seaside amusement parks close or shrink in the period that you're talking about (Morecambe, Southport, Margate, Folkestone, Scarborough, Cleethorpes, Rhyl etc) and a ton of inland ones too. It's not like Blackpool has been suffering whilst everyone else has been thriving.

In terms of the piers, that goes back to scale for me. They are far cheaper to run, don't represent a whole day's entertainment and don't try and be anything other than a permanent fairground - they lend themselves to a quick(er) visit, with a constant churn of visitors, which makes the PPR system more workable. You can make money with 150 guests on the pier on a rainy September evening, that doesn't work at the Pleasure Beach - again, back to scale.

The suggestion that all the headaches in FY4 would all be solved if they just allowed people to walk round for free and pay £5 to go on the Big Dipper just doesn't compute.

It literally makes no sense to me - happy to debate it here or in a boozer.

As for the point about the piers being bustling; I think they’re a somewhat different ballgame to Pleasure Beach itself. They have vastly fewer rides, and the rides they do have are generally of a considerably lesser scale, so they aren’t full-day attractions in the vein that Blackpool Pleasure Beach is. Having free entry and sole pay-per-ride at Pleasure Beach would likely result in the average family paying far more for a day at the park than they would pay under the current system, and in the current cost of living crisis, increased cost will only drive people away.

Great post @Matt N - but would challenge the bit in orange. I think a lot of people would spend less if they had the option to. POP creates a minimum purchase value (i.e. the cost of an E-Ticket) and also enforces a spending commitment by offering discount online vs. on the day pricing. So if the weather sucks ... people still go.

(Edited to respond to Matt who posted whilst I was posting)

 

[shakey]

There was a financial crash in 2008 which would probably be a big factor to the losses for that year, but prior to that the park were in the black overall for the preceding 10 years.

My point about the piers was just to show that free entry doesn't create a crime ridden park which families won't visit. The size of the rides on the piers has nothing to do with it. They are free to enter and as far as I am aware there is little or no issues with family safety.

It is true that the visiting patterns to Blackpool have changed a lot since the last century, and people are much more likely to come for just 1 or 2 nights or for the day. But that makes a full day at pleasure beach even less appealing when there are many other things to do.

I appreciate a hybrid PPR and POP system is difficult to get right but almost every other seaside park in the UK does it.

But even if they are going to stick to POP , a gate price of £50 when there's thousands of punters right outside the gates on busy days, seems crazy to me.

And when you have a scanner system in place for every ride, why not bring back the walk round pass and get more families in ?

EDIT: And one last thing. Inland parks like Alton Towers generally don't have walk up trade. Pleasure Beach does and lots of it so you cannot run it in the same way.

 

[Matt N]

There was a financial crash in 2008 which would probably be a big factor to the losses for that year, but prior to that the park were in the black overall for the preceding 10 years.

My point about the piers was just to show that free entry doesn't create a crime ridden park which families won't visit. The size of the rides on the piers has nothing to do with it. They are free to enter and as far as I am aware there is little or no issues with family safety.

It is true that the visiting patterns to Blackpool have changed a lot since the last century, and people are much more likely to come for just 1 or 2 nights or for the day. But that makes a full day at pleasure beach even less appealing when there are many other things to do.

I appreciate a hybrid PPR and POP system is difficult to get right but almost every other seaside park in the UK does it.

But even if they are going to stick to POP , a gate price of £50 when there's thousands of punters right outside the gates on busy days, seems crazy to me.

And when you have a scanner system in place for every ride, why not bring back the walk round pass and get more families in ?

The funny thing with the 2008 financial crash is that it was actually thought to have increased domestic tourism and caused a boom in the “staycation”; the 4 Merlin parks had a bumper year in 2008! Surely the Pleasure Beach should have benefitted from increased domestic tourism, no?

I’d also raise that rather than 2008, the 2005 season actually saw the largest loss of the ones I looked at both pre and post entry fee, with a loss of £5,649,000 being recorded that year. And of the 5 years pre-entry fee (the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 seasons), 3 of them reported losses and 2 of them reported profits, and the overall average profit/loss was actually a £1,053,600 loss. I feel that 5 years is long enough to gauge a basic trend, and 2004 is a pivotal point because this was the year in which Geoffrey Thompson died, which, rightly or wrongly, is widely seen as another big turning point in the park’s fortunes.

The thing is, I’d argue that the lesser crime and such on the piers could also be to do with scale. The piers don’t get nearly the same amount of guests as the Pleasure Beach does (or at least did in the 1990s), so they won’t have problems on anywhere near the same scale as Pleasure Beach would. You only have to watch the Pleasure Beach documentary from the 1990s to see how much antisocial behaviour the park often had back then; it seemed like they were dealing with drunk people, miscreants and other forms of antisocial behaviour every episode.

In terms of the other seaside parks in the UK; I’d argue that Pleasure Beach isn’t really comparable with them in a lot of ways bar location. Not to do any of Britain’s other seaside parks a disservice, but I’d personally argue that the other seaside parks in Britain have more in common with the piers in Blackpool than Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Even the relatively bigger names like Fantasy Island, Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, Adventure Island and Dreamland Margate look more like permanent funfairs with a few major-scale rides sprinkled here and there than the full-fledged, large-scale theme park packed with headlining attractions that Blackpool Pleasure Beach is.

I do agree that Pleasure Beach could probably sustain a return to the walk-around fee with some reasonable pay-per-ride fees alongside wristbands. However, I don’t agree that whacking the gates open to all for free and charging £5 a go for the park’s coasters like in the olden days would see an automatic increase in profits. This is for the reasons that @Rick identifies as well as another reason that hasn't been mentioned.

It should be noted that the park was probably helped on the profit front during the sole pay-per-ride days because back in the 90s, they had more attractions and widely throttled the throughputs to within an inch of their life to get more people through the attractions in a given time period. The park has notably less attractions to absorb guests these days, and the ones that they do have are not attaining throughputs nearly as high as they used to attain due to age, H&S concerns and various other reasons. They could probably improve the throughputs if they wanted to on some attractions, but I think that on most rides in the park, it would be physically impossible to return to the throughput levels attained back in the 1990s. This was in the era where The Big One ran 3 trains, the woodies had either no restraints or far more minimal restraints, and Revolution had its restraints opened and closed manually by the staff using a foot pedal (I feel like I’ve seen a video of this somewhere?). That sort of approach to throughputs wouldn’t fly in today’s world, and indeed, I also doubt that the more lax approach to safety and getting rides back open after a breakdown back in the 1990s that allowed for maximum profits above all else (I’m reminded of JR’s “Get the damn thing open!” moment in the 1997 documentary…) would fly in today’s world. And the amount of money the rides make is strongly correlated with their throughputs and the amount of time they’re open for…

With this in mind, I don’t think that the park could physically make as much money from the individual rides as it did back in the day for various reasons, and I feel that that would considerably hamper the success of a wholesale return to free entry and pay-per-ride.

 

[Rick]

There was a financial crash in 2008 which would probably be a big factor to the losses for that year, but prior to that the park were in the black overall for the preceding 10 years.

My point about the piers was just to show that free entry doesn't create a crime ridden park which families won't visit. The size of the rides on the piers has nothing to do with it. They are free to enter and as far as I am aware there is little or no issues with family safety.

I have only been on South Pier in the past 12 months or so, there were a fair few pissed up people around, but no trouble per se. Irrespective of trouble, I would counter that there is a much better family atmosphere on the park when everyone has paid - everyone has literally bought into it - if people have wandered in and are just there to be there, less so.

It is true that the visiting patterns to Blackpool have changed a lot since the last century, and people are much more likely to come for just 1 or 2 nights or for the day. But that makes a full day at pleasure beach even less appealing when there are many other things to do.

Right, but again, if you have a whole/multi day experience and you're trying to position yourself in the market as such, I think it's hard to sell that alongside "pop in and ride The Big One".

I appreciate a hybrid PPR and POP system is difficult to get right but almost every other seaside park in the UK does it.

The scale makes it different. If we don't agree on that, we won't ever agree on the wider conversation.

But even if they are going to stick to POP , a gate price of £50 when there's thousands of punters right outside the gates on busy days, seems crazy to me.

And when you have a scanner system in place for every ride, why not bring back the walk round pass and get more families in ?

You haven't been able to walk into the park for 15 years now, that and the 'pre-book everything' world that we live in would suggest to me that there are increasingly fewer people rocking up and seeing the (non-existent price boards) in the (non-existent) 'ticket office' and deciding not to bother. Yes, there will be some - but I would suggest that they are statistically insignificant.

The walk around pass is an interesting concept ... I think it's purely down to revenue. If you had 10,000 people on park for example, at ~£35 each (accounting for tiered pricing, season passes and group rates, etc) I think that they judge that a chunk of those 10,000 people would opt for a walk around price if they were thinking that they would perhaps only ride a few things. You then have to make that money back by attracting more people, which I think they don't think they can do easily. You might attract more people, spending less per capita - but you might not.

There's definitely the argument that @rob666 makes that if they haven't paid top whack to come in, that their supplementary spend will be higher, but that has to happen in sufficient volumes to make up the difference.

 

[shakey]

Well it's a debate that will probably keep us going for years to come .

The next few years are going to be interesting for the park, that's for sure.

But let's move on......

Now, should they have demolished the wild mouse ?

Absolutely definitely not.

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[shakey]

There's definitely the argument that @rob666 makes that if they haven't paid top whack to come in, that their supplementary spend will be higher, but that has to happen in sufficient volumes to make up the difference.

Double post . And I've moved back from moving on (sorry).

The thing with the walk round pass (especially before they put it up to £10), was that families with a non rider would come into the park.

If the walk round option isnt there then they don't just lose the non rider, they lose the whole family.

And i think that has been happening.





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[Rick]

Now, should they have demolished the wild mouse ?

Absolutely definitely not.

I am not sure that they had much choice in the end, they threw a lot of money at it when they (apparently ) couldn't afford to - they didn't give up on it without a fight. If the park weren't able to get it into a condition that they & other bodies would sign it off, I don't really know what they were supposed to do.

I do understand people's anger/sadness that it's gone, but PB or any other park shouldn't be a museum. Stuff comes and goes - that's the cycle.

The park gets a lot of crap for demolishing it, but not much credit for running it for the best part of six decades, when almost all the others were demolished years and years ago.

Don't be sad it's over, be happy that it happened.

Double post . And I've moved back from moving on (sorry).

The thing with the walk round pass (especially before they put it up to £10), was that families with a non rider would come into the park.

If the walk round option isnt there then they don't just lose the non rider, they lose the whole family.

And i think that has been happening.

Maybe, maybe not. If the walk round option is there, lots of people who are currently spending £40 will spend £10 given half a chance. It's a gamble but for simplicity and alignment with their competition (which is theme parks for my money), I think that they will stick with it.

Pleasure Beach have the numbers (and a good understanding of repeat visitors due to ecommerce registration and e-tickets).

 

[pluk]

Surely those decades of multi million pound losses are a nonsense in any case? How could that be sustainable and still open? I imagine there is some creative accounting going on where they over charge themselves as a subsidiary for various lines to make things tax efficient? Like MMM.

 

[shakey]

I do understand people's anger/sadness that it's gone, but PB or any other park shouldn't be a museum. Stuff comes and goes - that's the cycle.

But it was replaced with the hub !!!

It's not like switchback being replaced by dipper or scenic railway being replaced by Nash.

And before @rob666 mentions it , they replaced the reel with bugger all aswell.

And I am still not convinced that they couldn't get the ride insured or it wasn't safe to operate. Which is what a lot of people claim.

The most likely story of its demise was a seat belt being undone by a child who nearly got decapitated and whose mother then threatened to sue the park, so Amanda just decided to get rid.

Better restraints would have sorted that.

The ride should also have had an age restriction as well as a height restriction.

If someone jumps out of the flying machines will they demolish that too ?

Nick Thompson was very much against the demolition which would suggest the ride was still insurable.

Even if it had to be SBNO for a few years, it's better than it being NSANO !!!!

I am all for progress. But a seldom open bar & stage is not progress!!









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[pjanvil]

Now, should they have demolished the wild mouse ?

This may not be news to some of you but I heard something interesting related to the Wild Mouse closure, a group were told by Mandy at the time it was basically down to Insurance. The cost to continue insuring it became prohibitively expensive. This also sounds the most plausible to me as i doubt Pleasure Beach would have chosen to remove it and not replace it with anything without a good reason. Also Mandy apparently cried as it was being demolished.

 

[pjanvil]

If someone jumps out of the flying machines will they demolish that too ?

I assume it would become the next Noahs ark since its listed. SBNO as like a park decoration, like the Ark and fountain sculptures.

 

[rob666]

It isn't just paid entry that affected profits...wristbands started around the millennium, didn't they, with the birth of Valhalla...as well as keeping tickets, but the focus became pop.
That is when the ride closures started, not with paid entry.
"All rides are free after paying entry"...so they reduced the number of attractions, rather quickly, especially on North Park.