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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2023 Discussion

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Great work - yeah the running costs will be far greater than that. Dancers, power, tech staff, bar staff, ushers, maintenance, ice, management, marketing, misc. Depending on how the staff are employed, if PAYE you can double their gross as a total cost of employment. I suspect dancers are freelance and their rate will accommodate that. Doubt it would be less than £100 a day. Unskilled labourers are 100-150 freelance in the north.

I don't like to call things out so directly on such a public forum but it is undeniable that it is no more than a massive vanity project at this point. It's really sad that such a liability has been allowed to continue and risk the rest of the business for so long.
 
But Mandy knows best.
And don't you forget it.
And you failed to mention the dressmakers, and sequin stitchers, full time permanent I imagine.
Those stunning costumes do not come cheap.
Sadly, there is a very large pool of young ice skaters who are desperate to join the profession, but for every skater, there is at least one member of back stage staff.
 
The thing is.. I know that the “Amanda knows best” line is banded around a lot (I don’t like to call for Mandy because I don’t know here personally so it seems kind of disrespectful) but just because Amanda owns the business doesn’t mean she answers to nobody.

If the park is running in the red, and I don’t think there’s much doubt about that, they have to answer to their bank. Amanda can’t just say “Hot Ice is my baby so I’m keeping and that’s that”, there’ll come a point where the bank will say no. This doesn’t seem to have happened yet and they keep getting bailed out.

If I owned the park, and I had the banks knocking on my door wanting their money paid back, I’d be looking very carefully at what’s making a loss, and whilst I hate the word “cut” I’d be at least temporarily suspending it. Hot Ice seems like an obvious one, fireworks another, WOW weekends another easy one to knock on the head for the time being, off peak weekday openings reduced. It seems that they’ve looked at all of the above to save costs, except Hot Ice.

Then again, they did open for two years without it running, did it saved them that much? The whole thing just doesn’t seem to add up.
 
I remember many years ago going to Pleasure Beach and getting free entry to one of the shows. They tried to upgrade us to better seats but we didn't bother. They allocated us crap seats on the side with a poor view of the stage, but once the show started we moved (along with all of the people around us) to the better seats which were mostly empty. This was probably 10-15 years ago now.
 
It's not that easy. Other factors (a large employer in the area, a marketable attraction for the area etc) contribute to whether it gets bailed out.

Not running for 2 years, did it save them much? Yes. Not running a loss making exercise would save them a few quid.
 
I am guessing when it comes to debt, running a business is similar to having a mortgage. As long as your assets are worth more than your debt and you can afford to pay the loan every month, the bank will leave you alone.

Pleasure Beach assets must be vast so if they are managing to pay their loans they will be able to stay afloat. The question is , how long can they afford to keep paying the loans without having a profitable year ?

The next set of accounts are going to be very interesting as they will be from the end of March 2021 to March 2022, that's mainly the 2021 season which was quite a busy year for the park (the year of the staycation after COVID). If that throws up a loss then 2022 will be much worse.




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It's my own fault, I know and accept this, but I was planning on taking advantage of the teacher training days to pay a visit to BPB with the little lad. He loved the last visit but it was so busy we hardly scratched the surface.

Should have checked, yes, its my fault. But booked accomodation and the park isn't even open on that day. Grrrrr....
 
RustyShackleford said:
It's my own fault, I know and accept this, but I was planning on taking advantage of the teacher training days to pay a visit to BPB with the little lad. He loved the last visit but it was so busy we hardly scratched the surface.

Should have checked, yes, its my fault. But booked accomodation and the park isn't even open on that day. Grrrrr....
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Different areas have different dates for training days.
 
RustyShackleford said:
It's my own fault, I know and accept this, but I was planning on taking advantage of the teacher training days to pay a visit to BPB with the little lad. He loved the last visit but it was so busy we hardly scratched the surface.

Should have checked, yes, its my fault. But booked accomodation and the park isn't even open on that day. Grrrrr....
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You can have a real fun day in Blackpool without hitting the Beach.
Sandcastle on a really quiet day can be amazing, all the slides with zero queues if you pick the right day.
Just doing the piers can fill half a day.
 
rob666 said:
You can have a real fun day in Blackpool without hitting the Beach.
Sandcastle on a really quiet day can be amazing, all the slides with zero queues if you pick the right day.
Just doing the piers can fill half a day.
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To be fair, at the moment I think 95% of people have a fun day in Blackpool without doing the pleasure beach

Is now a good time to restart the free entry debate? (again).

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Random question - is The Haunted Swing still in situ? I know it was part of Impossible for a time but every time I've been in there I've seen no sign of it.
 
Compared to Hex...dearie me!
They stopped it "looping" three or four years ago, as it made people feel poorly (honestly)!
It closed for covid.
It reopened with just the (crap) walkthrough, and the actual haunted swing hasn't ever reopened, unless someone knows better and has ridden it recently?
 
shakey said:
Is now a good time to restart the free entry debate? (again).
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No, I would argue that now isn’t a good time to start that debate again because:

- Everything has already been said, making it therefore a pointless discussion, and all the more frustrating to discuss for those who want the free entry back, since it’s very unlikely to happen

- As many have already pointed out, Amanda has a very clear idea of the direction she wants the park to go in, the fact that some consider her to be wrong is irrelevant

- And finally, having this debate won’t change anything. If BPB are going to do it, they will want to know what the public want, not a small number of people in a forum. Enthusiasts often forget that the community makes up less than 1% of the park’s visitors (except on opening day and last day of season obvs)

I for one don’t want free entry back, unless a wristband is offered. If there’s a wristband, then maybe.
 
rob666 said:
Compared to Hex...dearie me!
They stopped it "looping" three or four years ago, as it made people feel poorly (honestly)!
It closed for covid.
It reopened with just the (crap) walkthrough, and the actual haunted swing hasn't ever reopened, unless someone knows better and has ridden it recently?
Click to expand...
Swing has been open a few times this year - but it's a rarity.
 
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