Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

[Ash84]

It's called Pleasure Beach, but last time I checked it was an amusement park, just like Cedar Point, Carowinds or any Six Flags parks. A park the quality of BPB is never in a million years going to be free to enter in this day and age.

BPB has developed far beyond the pay per ride days, and will never be going back thank goodness. The £6 entry has massively helped the park in terms of atmosphere alone.

But it's also just about killed secondary spend. People now buy a wristband and run around like lunatics trying to get 'value' out of them (that means as many rides as they can) they often don't sit down and take a meal on park, opting to dine elsewhere after the rides have closed, and the usage of arcades has declined rapidly to the extent that only 2 are left on park, plus one on the prom which can be accessed by none BPB guests. The National arcade, Log Flume exit, Beaver Creek, and South gate have all gone. Eateries have also taken a massive decline, with the Beach Restaurant, Magnolia, King Cotten and countless other smaller stalls being axed not to mention the state of decline on ocean boulevard. People simply aren't spending any money once they are inside, which is why I find is frustrating that the park has a massive advantage of an excellent location, which allows people to be potential customers until late into the evening, however the PPR system is so unreasonably priced only a mentalist would entertain using it.

However, with the £6 fee reduced to £5 and given back in the form of ride tickets or food/drink vouchers to people who don' buy wristbands and the ticket prices being reduced BPB could potentially be extracting money from new customers in the afternoon, evening and into the night on some days, money that we have all seen being spent on the pier as we are given the boot from BPB.

 

[Benjsh]

People don't have as much free cash these days to spend on everything. There's been a fall off on theme park attendences in the UK because sadly we get ripped off for everything in this country. Bills go up, petrol goes up, food prices go up and wages don't go up as quick sadly.

People on this forum who might still be living at home or are students will have a bit of realization about how the world is soon enough.

The days of people splashing out on park tickets, merch, food in the park and game stalls / arcades are well and truly over. Most famlies are on tight budgets.

 

[RoyJess]

People don't have as much free cash these days to spend on everything. There's been a fall off on theme park attendences in the UK because sadly we get ripped off for everything in this country. Bills go up, petrol goes up, food prices go up and wages don't go up as quick sadly.

People on this forum who might still be living at home or are students will have a bit of realization about how the world is soon enough.

The days of people splashing out on park tickets, merch, food in the park and game stalls / arcades are well and truly over. Most famlies are on tight budgets.

Life has been like that for years.

Actually we are actually wealthier than our parents, and our parents are wealthier than our grandparents. We just become spoilt as a nation and we tend to demand and expect things nowadays.

I think my wife begrudge paying the £6 (£12 for a two day visit) entry fee is that she gets nothing in return for her entry fee. She simply visit the park to support me. At least with Alton/Chessie there is things that she can enjoy once she in the park like the sealife and zoo.

I wonder how many people on here supporting the £6 entry fee has actually only ever paid for entry instead of paying for a ride wrist band?

 

[MakoMania]

^I have never paid the £6 entry as I have a season pass but members of my family always do. Don't get me wrong they'd rather it be free but they agree it's well worth it to prevent the horrible atmosphere of the 90s and early 2000s.

The fact remains that BPB is by far and away the cheapest major park in the UK for non-riders, people still complain but you can't please everyone, such is life.

To all the people whining about lost revenue, if the park thought they could make more revenue by offering cheaper PPR tickets, they would do so. The wristband system is extremely profitable for them and when booked online guarantees a spend and reasonable length stay regardless of weather and other factors.

 

[shakey]

At least with Alton/Chessie there is things that she can enjoy once she in the park like the sealife and zoo.

I would think that £6 to just watch the fountain show (even if she cannot do the train or maze) is still better value than paying at least £27.50 for the sea life centre at towers !!

I think the issue with your wife not being able to enjoy the train or maze is more of a disability policy argument. Have you ever tried raising the point with the park ?

Life has been like that for years.

Actually we are actually wealthier than our parents, and our parents are wealthier than our grandparents. We just become spoilt as a nation and we tend to demand and expect things nowadays.

Totally agree, people have much more disposable income these days, far more than my parents had when we visited the pleasure beach under the PPR system in the 70's and 80's.

 

[Grand_Nash]

Paid entry and proper gated system = schools much needed revenue stream.

Midweeks in the 90’s were dead, weekends were heaving but that means more staff.

This business model aims at spreading it over the season not just 10 weeks, of cause I would love a liseburg model later opening times on certain days but I suppose finding staff is an issue too

 

[Rob]

I really do not see the problem with the £6 entry fee. It is common practice for amusement parks, just take a look at the ticketing options for Liseberg and Tivoli Gardens as examples.

I know many people who would love to visit Alton Towers just to look around the Towers and Gardens and have no interest in the rides. Clearly though this is not worth the cost of a ticket to get in to the park. These people are getting a far worse deal than those who have to pay £6 to enter BPB!

A £6 entry fee gives BPB some degree of control of who visits the park, and no doubt helps stop the park from becoming overcrowded on peak summer days. £6 is nothing to get in to a theme/amusement park these days.

 

[Benjsh]

I would think that £6 to just watch the fountain show (even if she cannot do the train or maze) is still better value than paying at least £27.50 for the sea life centre at towers !!

I think the issue with your wife not being able to enjoy the train or maze is more of a disability policy argument. Have you ever tried raising the point with the park ?



Totally agree, people have much more disposable income these days, far more than my parents had when we visited the pleasure beach under the PPR system in the 70's and 80's.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Our parents generation could buy a new 4 bedroom detached house for 30-40 grand near me back in the 80's. That same house now costs 300,000.

Wages haven't increased ten fold in that time so no we don't have it as good.

Holidays are a lot more expensive now in school holidays and job market isn't as good for us either.

Not sure how you think we've got it better. The baby boomers had it best. Free university, affordable homes and good job prospects.

 

[rob666]

Yea...Good old baby boomers.
I've paid six quid entry a few times, quite recently as well when I had a Merlin pass.
I can remember the pickpockets, the touts selling dodgy tickets, the staff forcing two kids through the turnstile together so they could pocket one ticket, and being stopped from doing the Beach on a Saturday teatime because Blackpool were playing at home, and it often kicked off on the park between the fans.

You couldn't walk the park comfortably because of the massive family groups, but half were there insisting on not spending a penny.

Better now, safer, less crowded, loads less trouble.

 

[shakey]

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Our parents generation could buy a new 4 bedroom detached house for 30-40 grand near me back in the 80's. That same house now costs 300,000.

Wages haven't increased ten fold in that time so no we don't have it as good.

Holidays are a lot more expensive now in school holidays and job market isn't as good for us either.

Not sure how you think we've got it better. The baby boomers had it best. Free university, affordable homes and good job prospects.

But apart from houses, almost everything else you can buy is cheaper now than it was 30-40 years ago relative to wages.

Also 40 years ago most wives didn't go out to work so there was generally only one wage earner in the family.

A full day out at the pleasure beach is much cheaper than it was 30-40 years ago, assuming that you go on more than a handful of rides of course.

And as for holidays, we never went abroad as a family because it cost too much, and like most families in the 70s our holidays were spent at the English seaside. The cheap package holiday abroad is one of the reasons that Blackpool isn't as popular as it once was.



Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

[rob666]

Just remembered another benefit of the old days...Good old underage drinking.
Universally accepted from last year of school.
Friday lunch, blazers and ties off, down the local.
Three pints of bitter and a game of pool.
One pound.
Couldn't agree more with shakey though, you got three or four rides, fun house as well if you were lucky, and that was it.
Nobody went to the Pleasure Beach all day, a few hours at most.
You get far more bang for your buck nowadays as far as rides go.

 

[IDB]

The Big One buckle up app which you could use to collect tokens for free wristbands has stopped accepting exchanges apparently due to people selling the vouchers on eBay.

A single eBay seller has sold 100s of vouchers by the looks of it. Don’t know how they’ve hacked the game to be able to achieve purchasing that amount?

Annoyingly I’d just started playing the game and had enough points for a single wristband but was going to play it occasionally to obtain four wristbands later in the year to take some relatives who wouldn’t otherwise go to BPB.

 

[FreakOut]

Icon on 1 train today along with Big One.

Ques around 20-30 mins today for coasters, park quite busy too with school trips.

 

[AstroDan]

Were there technical problems with other two trains?

 

[FreakOut]

I visited last Friday just gone they were running two trains on Icon and maintenance insisted they added a third to the system to do something with the block breaks. The whole thing was a faf and whatever they wanted to achieve didn’t as they put they transferred the car into station sent all 3 round once then took it off and went back to two.

The whole thing lasted around 20 minutes.

Big One I can’t comment but again visited Friday and was only on one which is a shame.

 

[Ash84]

Well you can say what you like about the old system VS the new one, and the old atmosphere VS that of today's, the bottom line is in the till.

And I don't think for a 16 million pound investment, BPB have seen one significantly busy day yet. That park deserve's to be rammed, and it hasn't yet had a queue that' hit an hour.

Incidentally, I must have been the only person to be 10 the year the Big One opened, left free to wonder around the park without adult supervision without being beaten up, pick pocketed, raped, drugged, stabbed and shot.

I actually enjoyed the care free atmosphere of the place.

 

[RoyJess]

In all the years that I've been visiting BPPB, I've never witness any of the above problems with crowds or it's guests, then saying that, I've only ever visited during the week during the Blackpool illuminations season.

I suppose by charging a entrance fee, it will prevent this from happening again



Jokingly aside, I've came across this interesting YouTube video of former rollercoasters at Blackpool. Surprising that the early ones never had any restraints

 

[Ash84]

Modern times only caught up with the Coaster (Streak) in 2006, until then it remained restraintless.

 

[Dipper_Dave]

People don't have as much free cash these days to spend on everything. There's been a fall off on theme park attendences in the UK because sadly we get ripped off for everything in this country. Bills go up, petrol goes up, food prices go up and wages don't go up as quick sadly.

People on this forum who might still be living at home or are students will have a bit of realization about how the world is soon enough.

The days of people splashing out on park tickets, merch, food in the park and game stalls / arcades are well and truly over. Most famlies are on tight budgets.

This is true. Though surely the majority of theme / amusement park visitors attend with vouchers anyway. This is surely why parks get away with whacking gate prices up, because they know that many will only pay around half that. I think the AT gate price is obscene at £55, but I didn’t mind paying £27.50 with a cereal box voucher.

I think that BPB’s advance online booking discounts are good, but give you no flexibility in terms of deciding to go on a different day because of weather or other reasons. I agree with @shakey that they could be doing more to get walk up trade during peak times like summer holidays and illluminations weeks. There could be a better balance between those who only want to go on a couple of rides and those who buy all day wristbands. For those who pay the £6 to enter then want to go on 2-3 rides, the rides are actually really expensive but we rarely acknowledge this as season pass holders because it’s not something we need to consider on the day.

Once the Icon boarding cards have stopped being issued, someone wanting to enter the park then ride Icon & Valhalla only would be paying £31 if I’m right. Crazy really for two rides. I find even on busy-ish days (I try not to visit on mega busy days) that the arcades are dead. The dome arcade used to be busy when the Astro Swirl ride was in it, and I always used to enjoy the old machines near the Log Flume & Space Tower.

Incidentally, I must have been the only person to be 10 the year the Big One opened, left free to wonder around the park without adult supervision without being beaten up, pick pocketed, raped, drugged, stabbed and shot.

I actually enjoyed the care free atmosphere of the place.

In all the years that I've been visiting BPPB, I've never witness any of the above problems with crowds or it's guests, then saying that, I've only ever visited during the week during the Blackpool illuminations season.

^I have never paid the £6 entry as I have a season pass but members of my family always do. Don't get me wrong they'd rather it be free but they agree it's well worth it to prevent the horrible atmosphere of the 90s and early 2000s.

I have still yet to see a single Icon advert, and as a thrill seeking young adult you would think that I would be within one of their key target markets.

@MakoMania You say that you are a ‘young adult’
but then mention the “horrible atmosphere of the 90s and early 2000s.” Just curious as to if you were actually there during those times or is this opinion formed based on the TV documentary or on what others have said? Perhaps other people saw things I didn’t, but I don’t ever recall feeling scared or threatened in any way during the parks heyday (in terms of the family holidays we had there) from around 87-97. I would say the atmosphere was electric at times, with frequent late openings for illuminations, loads of lighting on the rides, etc. There was a real buzz about the place and I think it’s unfair for anyone to make a negative generalisation about an era which to many people was very special.

By the way despite me saying I’ve never encountered hooligan type behaviour on the park, I don’t have a problem myself with the £6 entry fee, but like I said, beyond that they could make it more affordable to just go on 2-3 rides. I simply don’t ever personally recall a ‘horrible atmosphere’ during the era you mention

 

[Katy]

Once the Icon boarding cards have stopped being issued, someone wanting to enter the park then ride Icon & Valhalla only would be paying £31 if I’m right. Crazy really for two rides.

£25 - made up of a Big 1 Ride Ticket (£15, entrance to park and one go on one ride) plus £10 in tickets for Valhalla (assuming Valhalla is a 10 ticket ride this year).

Still very expensive though, and daft when unlimited rides via advance wristband is about the same price as two rides walk-up not in advance with tickets.