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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2024 Discussion

Has anyone bothered with Journey to Hell this year? From TPWW's video, it seems to be a slight improvement on previous years, but still not great? Tickets are £20 for season pass holders on Tuesday only apparently.

The opening ceremony looked pretty good though, I wonder who's idea it was to have an (ice) skater (at 5:03) :tearsofjoy:

 
Personally, we’ve been burned too many times by poor offerings in previous years. I’m no longer willing to risk the money for a poor offering, especially when previous years have demonstrated that the park put on a better offering for their media event (seemingly to drum up business) than a regular day open to the general public.
 
People are voting with their wallets. It's too expensive for the offering. Simple as that.

As others have pointed out... Blackpool still continues to attract huge visitor numbers to the town. They are just avoiding Pleasure Beach mostly. The arcades are always rammed on peak days, the shopping mall is often busy and there's plenty of people walking down the front.

I can't see the place surviving the next decade without serious changes in manager/ownership. People will simply not be taken for fools forever.
 
venny said:
I can only concur with the conclusion on crowds, they were thin on the ground yesterday. Thats not to say Blackpool itself was quiet, quite the opposite in fact. Wandering on Central Pier at 8pm it was absolutely packed with queues of 50+ people airing for all the major rides. At that time the whole promenade was packed with all attractions lit up, all that is except for Pleasure Beach which sat in total darkness barring some flickers from Journey to Hell.
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An hour later and it was a different story. We walked the full length of the lights and felt like I’d been lapping Valhalla by the time I got back to the car.
 
We left early as PB decided to close at 5pm. Would have stayed longer but nope, JtH nonsense time.
 
Not that I do queuetimes...
Thorpe today, in half term, queues one to three hours for the main rides.
Alton, one to two hours.
Blackpool, ten to twenty minutes.

Half term as well of course, in the illuminations peak.
The town itself is very busy.
And the Beach have ten rides closed.

On their arse.
 
Having grown up in Lancashire, the PB is dear to my heart. But you've got to get the basics right, including rides operating and general maintenance. Do they really need the next £15-£20m coaster, or could they use that money to rejuvenate the whole park. And scrap the money-sucking Valhalla at the same time 😉
 
Smiley said:
Having grown up in Lancashire, the PB is dear to my heart. But you've got to get the basics right, including rides operating and general maintenance. Do they really need the next £15-£20m coaster, or could they use that money to rejuvenate the whole park. And scrap the money-sucking Valhalla at the same time 😉
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They're in dire need of a new attraction - I don't think just tarting up and getting rides operating is enough to sway people to pay the ticket price.
 
Poor opening times are no doubt contributing towards low visitor numbers; when the other major UK parks are offering 9pm closes during Halloween season, BPB's 5pm looks very unfavourable.

That's before the madness of PB being in a much better location than those parks to capitalise on making a fortune during late evening openings - but that's been said so many times and nothing ever changes.
 
On the subject of opening times. The website now has opening times up for the whole of 2025.

Mostly 5pm closes until the 19th of July when it moves to 6pm , then 6:30pm from the 28th of July till the end of August. Then its back to 5pm until the last 2 weeks in October which are 6pm. November weekends are 5pm. (Halloween weeks are an improvement on this year, assuming they don't change it).

In addition the following dates are 9pm, or 10pm with fireworks (which will mean most of the park is 9pm on a fireworks night)

29th March: 9pm
24th May: 9pm
5th July: 10pm with fireworks
26th July: 10pm with fireworks
2nd August: 10pm with fireworks
9th August: 9pm
16th August: 9pm
23rd August: 10pm with fireworks
27th September: 9pm

So there are nine late(ish) closes and 6pm closes during Halloween half term weeks.

It is better than this year but still not great.
 
Smiley said:
It's £35-£40 (so maybe £3/ride). I appreciate I am now a soft-southerner where beer reaches £8/pint 🤯 , but really it's still great value for money - I'd pay that just to ride the woodies!
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Unless you turn up and try to pay on the gate, then it's £50. Given it's a seaside resort with lots of passing trade that's madness.

But that aside, if you've not visited in 6 years there's actually less to do since you last visited. That doesn't entice people in.
 
It’s a shame to see the slow slide to shorter opening times over the past few years. It can only have been a few years ago where we were regularly seeing 7 and 8pm closes during summer weekends. I can’t help but think it’s a reflection of the park’s attendance coupled with the issues around removing the walk around pass (and all the other attendance issues we’ve discussed).

I also get the impression the park is currently very tight for cash. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a flurry of offers from the park hitting my emails over the last few weeks. It feels like there’s an almost daily “limited” offer, with the latest being the sale of a 3 day ticket for bank holiday weekends, which is a new one on me.

I wonder whether the season pass flop has impacted their cash influx.
 
venny said:
It’s a shame to see the slow slide to shorter opening times over the past few years. It can only have been a few years ago where we were regularly seeing 7 and 8pm closes during summer weekends. I can’t help but think it’s a reflection of the park’s attendance coupled with the issues around removing the walk around pass (and all the other attendance issues we’ve discussed).
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2016 the park was open till 8pm in the summer months (including nick land). With 6pm and 7pm closes in May and June. From 2017 they started to reduce the hours , initially cutting the summer closing time to 7pm. Since then its been a gradual decline in opening hours with Nick Land shutting an hour early in the summer months, and then they took the decision to shut it early on all days, along with further reductions in opening hours.

The loss of the walk round pass and the increase in the get price to £50 have not helped, but looking at the opening times for next year , it does look like a very slight improvement on this year. That is assuming they stick to those times but if recent years are anything to go by then I wouldn't bet on it.
 
shakey said:
On the subject of opening times. The website now has opening times up for the whole of 2025.

Mostly 5pm closes until the 19th of July when it moves to 6pm , then 6:30pm from the 28th of July till the end of August. Then its back to 5pm until the last 2 weeks in October which are 6pm. November weekends are 5pm. (Halloween weeks are an improvement on this year, assuming they don't change it).

In addition the following dates are 9pm, or 10pm with fireworks (which will mean most of the park is 9pm on a fireworks night)

29th March: 9pm
24th May: 9pm
5th July: 10pm with fireworks
26th July: 10pm with fireworks
2nd August: 10pm with fireworks
9th August: 9pm
16th August: 9pm
23rd August: 10pm with fireworks
27th September: 9pm

So there are nine late(ish) closes and 6pm closes during Halloween half term weeks.

It is better than this year but still not great.
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Those late night opening dates do look better than this year's which is good to see, and it's good to see them starting so early on in the season. I do think they should be weekly in all the summer months though and certainly continue on throughout the Illuminations.

PB really comes into its own at night and the longer opening hours make the trip from down south more worthwhile. The only reason I've not visited this year is because the late night opening dates were so few and far between I couldn't make any of them work.
 
Most of those later closes will barely see any night time riding with rides closed for 9pm.

They should be taking full advantage of one of their biggest potential selling points, riding after dark.

They don't even have to open longer , just later. Those two weeks around halloween they could open 12pm to 8pm instead of 10am till 6pm. But unfortunately they now have journey to hell as a separate evening event.
 
The park needs new investment correct. Immediately. So much of the park is just a tip, the monorail hasn't even been taken fully down yet despite closing near 10 year ago. Nash is a dump as well.
Big 1 is very rough, are they going to fully re-track it or what? If not it's time is limited, and it's the main draw into the park for most guests still.
Valhalla is great but costing them an arm and a leg to run.
Get Grand Prix gone and get something put there, and we'll see what's made of this supposed new gyro.
What is the draw for the public and frankly us when nothing new is being added/improved?
Fundamentally park needs a lot of work, reliant on nostalgia towards older rides.
Icon is top admittedly but other than that, what's been recently added? Valhalla refurb and red arrows flat?
These things take time but we need to see some improvement.
 
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