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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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Plastic Person said:
Perhaps rather tellingly, they don't tend to release them these days. Although it's fair to say it's a long way below 6 million.
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RicketyCricket said:
6 million a year is roughly 23,000 guests per day on average over the season... So no way José.
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So going off of what @RicketyCricket said in particular, the park should be getting around 1.5million if an average day is 6,000 or so. Thanks for the clarification, guys!
 
Sunday, 2pm...Crevettes...Free beer for the over forties.
We will be easy to spot.
And what makes forty special...
The only number, when written out, where the letters are in alphabetical order.
The only one.
Back on topic, the Beach makes 80% of its money on 20% of its opening days.
Roughly.
Probably.
Most days it does not even cover its overheads.
It isn't a cheap place to run.
 
rob666 said:
Back on topic, the Beach makes 80% of its money on 20% of its opening days.
Roughly.
Probably.
Most days it does not even cover its overheads.
It isn't a cheap place to run.
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I wonder how this compares to the rest of the industry. 20% seems extremely low.

Considering ~28% of days are weekend days, plus summer holidays and school trip season where it's busy more days than it is quiet.
 
Lurker said:
I wonder how this compares to the rest of the industry. 20% seems extremely low.

Considering ~28% of days are weekend days, plus summer holidays and school trip season where it's busy more days than it is quiet.
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I also find it very unexpected. Obviously 20% of money doesn't equate to 20% of visitors, because the school kids and people visiting on Wow weekends probably have low spend per a heads. But even if we say that 70% of visitors visit on 20% of days, I still find that a very surprising statistic.
 
shakey said:
Sorry but that's total rubbish.

Why would anyone want to book weeks in advance for an outdoor attraction located in a place notorious for bad weather ?? If you are in a large group you may plan in advance, but most people would much rather make as late a decision as possible.

So why is pleasure beach going against every other seaside park's business model ? Do they know something other parks don't

Blackpool is just as popular with young people and families as it was in the 80s and 90s. The piers can be packed out well into the evening during the summer holidays or illuminations.

The only thing that has really changed is the way pleasure beach choose to run their business.

Unfortunately they currently have their opening/closing hours wrong, pricing structure wrong, and overall customer service ranging from ok to abysmal.

And please don't get me started on deranged rodents !!!
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Do you actually have anything to base this on? Or is it just your opinion?

It is not total rubbish at all. Amanda Thompson has even said in interviews that people plan their visits far further in advance now and that online bookings have increased.

In the 90s there was no such thing as online booking at any park. Now it makes up a big chunk of visitors. You only have to stand in the Admissions area for 5 minutes to see how many people turn up with online print outs or tickets on their phones. This is also the case at virtually every U.K. theme park. Take a look rather than telling me I’m wrong.

And I’m sorry but, when you say that Blackpool is just as popular as it was in the 80s and 90s, you can’t honestly be serious?!

I know you may not like to go abroad but most families and young people do now. It is often much easier and cheaper to go to a European city for the weekend than it is to go to Blackpool, for many people.

You only have to ask anyone with even the slightest bit of knowledge of U.K. tourism and they’ll tell you that the U.K. seaside industry I struggling. Not just from overseas travel but also from competitors at home such as Center Parcs which offer a generally much better and more modern experience for families and have exploded in popularity since the heyday of the seaside.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
It does seem like BPB can’t win, no matter what they do people seem to moan.

Opening hours- Times have changed greatly since the 90s, the way people visit parks and buy their tickets has changed in this digital age. People now plan their trips weeks in advance and buy online tickets. They’re far more likely to get to the park and 10am and view it as a day trip making late closings unnecessary during most periods of the year. There are far less casual, walk up visitors these days, you just have to look at how many hotels have closed down in Blackpool as well as the ageing clientele of Blackpool, many of whom would have no interest in visiting the park. This is very different to the 80s and 90s when Blackpool was booming and relied on walk-ups and would keep going till late to accommodate this.

The entrance charge- Basically the same as above. Visitor trends differ now. The wristbands are actually really good value for money when you think about what you actually get for your cash, so of course the park want to discourage people from getting the no rides pass. How many other major U.K. parks offer a non-rider fee? None. BPB do but people still moan purely on the basis that the park used to be free- a time when the park was much tougher and unpleasant and did not feel at all family friendly after certain times in the evening. I am 100% in favour of the entrance fee and those who are riding (which is about 99% of visitors I’d imagine) get better value as a result of it.

Wild Mouse- Yeah ok, the manner in which they removed it wasn’t great, they could have managed it differently but people are talking about it like they’ve committed mass genocide. I remember the uproar back in (I think) 2013 when it was rumoured the mouse would be closing. People were threatening to chain themselves to it. Understandably BPB wouldn’t want to do a “one last ride” event when the Mouse wasn’t capable of achieving throughputs of more than about 200 per hour. Every fanboy and his dog would have turned up at the park if they’d announced it was closing and there’s no way that the ride could have handled that capacity of people.

Other historic rides closing- Whilst I know nostalgia is important to a lot of people, these historic rides are likely to be much more costly to maintain and harder and more costly to constantly keep in a state whereby they comply with modern H&S standards. BPB have made the right decision in closing the less popular or less relevant ones and keeping the more relevant ones such as Nash, Dipper etc. Whilst it would be nice to still have attraction like the Arc, realistically how many guests would actually have ridden it? I mean, I’m baffled that they’ve bothered to keep Impossible. The rides which BPB removes are mostly rides which had reached the end of their shelf life. They’ve done a really good job in preserving so many classics which can’t be an easy or cheap thing to do year in year out. Give credit where credit’s due.

At the end of the day, I’m not saying BPB are perfect but, at the end of the day, they’re are a business same as any other and have to move with the times. They’re in a tricky position in that they have to remain relevant but still respect the nostalgia that people have. A tough job indeed for any park and I’d say that given the difficult position they are in, the usually handle this responsibility well. I think far too many people just cling on to their rose tinted view of the park in the 90s and don’t recognise that this business model just isn’t applicable in this day and age. I’m old and, to me, the 90s seems like only yesterday. But we’re talking about a world 20-25 years ago.
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Regarding the opening hours, I don't personally expect the place to start running like the 90s again anytime soon but turfing guests out at 5, 6 and even 7 on boiling hot weekends seems wrong when you have other seaside amusement parks in the country open much later. With the entry fee I guess it comes down to how many people (who would otherwise have spent some amount of money in the park) does it put off?

The way the park closed the Wild Mouse was horrendous and made it very clear that they do not care about their history or heritage at all. Not being able to reopen a ride is one thing but demolishing it on the quiet, trying to stop people taking photos from outside park grounds and expecting nobody to notice (presumably so that WOW Weekend wristband sales weren't impacted)? Expecting a new ride to mask the removal of a far better (IMO) and more unique one? Then you have the awful statement they released citing progress as the reason for its removal, I'm still waiting to see any progress on the site and it's been a year and a half.

The apathy the park have for their history is also clear in not only the removal of so many wonderful and unique rides, but also the fact that virtually any reference to the heritage of the park has either been removed, hidden from view or painted over in grey. Where did the national historical markers go? Or the murals on the ramp (replaced with PB exclamation mark logos... really)? Not to mention boarding up the Flying Machines window where you could see the workings.

It's gutting really because having such a unique heritage was what made PB different to anywhere else, without it they don't have much going for them IMO; you can find better versions of modern rides like Icon elsewhere but rides like the Mouse were one of a kind.

Kennywood is a perfect example of how to look after heritage rides, it is also clear that the park are extremely proud of their history. The park recently opened a huge new coaster but they haven't forgotten what makes them special and in turn are still happy to tell you how old the rides are, how unique they are etc. The sad thing is that PB used to be the same up until the last 10 years where everything has been slowly sanitised over time.

Amusement parks should not feel like corporate shopping centres with no atmosphere but that's how modern day BPB is IMO.
 
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Jamie, you don't seem to like the Beach any more.
Stop beating yourself up, stop giving them your money and stop going.
And you didn't put a dead undomesticated small rodent alert at the top of your post.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Do you actually have anything to base this on? Or is it just your opinion?

It is not total rubbish at all. Amanda Thompson has even said in interviews that people plan their visits far further in advance now and that online bookings have increased.

In the 90s there was no such thing as online booking at any park. Now it makes up a big chunk of visitors. You only have to stand in the Admissions area for 5 minutes to see how many people turn up with online print outs or tickets on their phones. This is also the case at virtually every U.K. theme park. Take a look rather than telling me I’m wrong.
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You would do well to stand outside the admission area for some time and see how many would be punters turn around and leave without entry for one reason or another. If the park admits 2000 on a given day, of course a high percentage would have booked online. However if you monitor those walk ups (or potential walk ups) who are put off because only the child wants to do the rides and the parents don't want to pay £20 so that little Jonny can go on the Big One you will see the bigger picture,include those people in the stats and the percentage will drop considerably.

The problem with BPB's research and stats is it literally is only focused on those who go in, they would do a lot better to find out why people are in the vicinity of the park but choose not to go in.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Do you actually have anything to base this on? Or is it just your opinion?

It is not total rubbish at all. Amanda Thompson has even said in interviews that people plan their visits far further in advance now and that online bookings have increased.

In the 90s there was no such thing as online booking at any park. Now it makes up a big chunk of visitors. You only have to stand in the Admissions area for 5 minutes to see how many people turn up with online print outs or tickets on their phones. This is also the case at virtually every U.K. theme park. Take a look rather than telling me I’m wrong.

And I’m sorry but, when you say that Blackpool is just as popular as it was in the 80s and 90s, you can’t honestly be serious?!
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Right some figures I have found from a number of articles published on line....

Visitor figures for Blackpool apparently peaked at 17 million in 1992 ( I cannot find any other details of visitor numbers from the 90's but a number of articles claim that 17 million was the peak during the 90s).

2017 saw 18 million people visit Blackpool (according to the Blackpool Gazette) and numbers have been increasing steadily over the last few years.

Regarding on-line booking. Of course most people book on line because almost every UK attraction is cheaper if you pre-book. Even if it's just a couple of quid saving I will still book online (because I am a tight Yorkshireman - as rob666 knows).

But the point I was trying to make is that Pleasure Beach is by far the worst park in the country for disparity between online and gate price, which in PB's case is £25 - 7 days in advance, £28 the night before and a whopping £39 on the day. That is almost 60% more than the 7 day advance price.

So yes almost all of pleasure beaches guests will book online - they have no real choice if they don't want to be fleeced. But it is a seaside park and it will always have potential for walk up trade which it is completely ignoring with the ludicrous gate price, early closing and pay per ride prices that are so crazy that they may as well just scrap them altogether because hardly anyone will use them - especially as it is now £10 just to go through the gate !!

Compare that to every other seaside park - who offer reasonable pay per ride options and in most cases a gate price that will still attract punters, later opening and an online discount that can be booked the night before for no more than if they booked weeks in advance.

With Blackpool's overall visitor numbers apparently on the increase there has to be a reason that pleasure beach are seemingly (from observations at least) losing visitors, despite a shiny new coaster. So what is the reason if it is not a poor business model for a seaside park ?
 
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Did a fantastic trip to Blackpool yesterday on a family gay honeymoon.
No Beach though sadly, three non riders, who refused to pay a tenner to sit at the bar. So we stayed up north, and spent large sums there.

One of the grooms was looking forward to riding the new coaster from his fine home nation...but after pricing it up...nein.
So the Beach and the lovely concessionairres at Crevettes lost a couple of hundred quid at the bar.
Hate to agree with Ash...so I won't.

I hear the queue for the Streak was four hours today, combination of school groups and speedypass reward schemes for attendance!
Joy.
 
rob666 said:
I hear the queue for the Streak was four hours today, combination of school groups and speedypass reward schemes for attendance!
Joy.
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Insane. Based on the only time I’ve actually bothered to queue for Streak (about 45 mins) in recent years and then only because my son really wanted to ride it, I reckon it’s an hour if the queue line is level with the side door of the Krusty Krab Order Up ride. So even with a bunch of speedy passers, I dread to think where this ‘4 hour’ queue snaked to.
 
We went on Sunday and queued from the top of the ramp and in fairness it did go down reasonably quick. I did think oh here we go because I thought it was a lot shorter than it was but as I said in fairness it went down well. 4 hours however is beyond a joke. If it isn't clear now that it needs 2 trains I don't know when it ever will be.

I actually hate riding it in the morning, it doesn't really delivery as it's running far too slow. From my hotel window I could see it flying round the turnaround on Sat at about 8pm, compared to the speed it plodded round the next morning. Fortunately by the afternoon it was up to speed and I got a great ride later.
 
I've not ridden at any time other than immediately after opening for about 5 years due to the single train operation and most of my visits being on busy weekends.
 
I can get most, if not all, of the coasters in on a Sunday morning in two hours, two and a half with the customary beer break...doing the Big One and Icon last.
The problem with high peak days is that speedypassers bring the real queue pretty much to a halt.
Half a train lost to speedypassers, one train operations, then VIP passes on top of that...four hour queue!
And it won't be quiet this Sunday for the geriatrics outing sadly...all day rain Saturday means lots of rainy day free returners on the Sunday.
 
Current queue times for major rides:

Avalanche 2 hours
Big Dipper 45 minutes
Big One 3 hours
Grand National 1 hour
Ice Blast 1 hour
Icon 1 hour 30 minutes
Infusion 2 hours
Nickelodeon Streak 2 hours
Revolution 30 minutes
Sky force 1 hour
Valhalla closed.

With the Avalanche, National and Streak all being capable of higher capacity, that's a joke.
 
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