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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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Not many other seaside parks with the hardware that Blackpool has to deal with though. If they went back to free entry and tickets, they'd need to drastically reconsider the ride prices. I love the park, but there's no way Infusion is worth £8 and PMBO is definitely not worth more than Olympia Looping at a tenner.

If those that just pay the entrance price aren't upgrading to a wristband or buying tickets while they're on park to ride something, which they surely would if tickets were a good idea, and enough people are buying wristbands, what's the sense in keeping all that infrastructure there to support tickets when they can get rid and streamline the whole process?
 
Can someone please explain to me why, if pay per ride was so lucrative, did Pleasure Beach even consider changing their business model to wristbands?

It’s almost as if something wasn’t quite working. Either that or they were actively trying to make a loss, because PPR made them £millions in the mid-2000s...
 
Dar said:
Not many other seaside parks with the hardware that Blackpool has to deal with though. If they went back to free entry and tickets, they'd need to drastically reconsider the ride prices. I love the park, but there's no way Infusion is worth £8 and PMBO is definitely not worth more than Olympia Looping at a tenner.

If those that just pay the entrance price aren't upgrading to a wristband or buying tickets while they're on park to ride something, which they surely would if tickets were a good idea, and enough people are buying wristbands, what's the sense in keeping all that infrastructure there to support tickets when they can get rid and streamline the whole process?
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Totally agree that the ride prices are vastly over priced, especially when you add in the ludicrous £10 entry fee. Can't really see many people using the ride ticket system now its a tenner to get in.

But it doesn't mean that a sensible ride pricing structure won't work. I am not suggesting that they scrap wristbands but there is no reason why they can't have the best of both worlds if they get the pricing right.

Unless Amanda gets a bang on the head then I can't see anything other than a pay one price model coming very soon.
 
There is no way I would spend £25 a head with a pay per ride setup,. I would probably get to about £12 (x3.5 people) before Istart thinking about the total, and become reluctant to open that wallet again.
An unlimited offering always feels better, as you can squeeze the value out of it. It leaves the customer feeling like they won, when many of us actually spent more than they would have otherwise.
 
TheBolt said:
There is no way I would spend £25 a head with a pay per ride setup,. I would probably get to about £12 (x3.5 people) before Istart thinking about the total, and become reluctant to open that wallet again.
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As a Yorkshireman, I would totally agree. But the pleasure beach are trying to shoe horn everyone into the POP model when the parks location lends itself to a more flexible system.

I have visited Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach several times over the last few years and I believe they have the system required for a seaside park. Admittedly its a much smaller park than Blackpool but I don't see why that matters.

Some of the the things that Great Yarmouth Pleasure beach are doing....
  • They open later (11am or 12pm depending on the time of year), and they shut much later at peak times (up to 9pm during the summer season and 10pm once a week during that time).
  • They have a sensible and simple discount for online wristband booking. 15% off the gate price (booked any time up to the night before). That's enough to attract online booking but not too much that it puts off people turning up on the day to buy wristbands on the gate.
  • They have cheaper wristbands for smaller children
  • They offer a discounted evening wristband during peak times
  • They have free entry and an affordable token system starting from £1 per ride and going up to just £4 per ride for the rollercoaster and log flume. (and further discounts if you buy lots of tokens)
  • They remain shut on most week days during the low season

Blackpool should be looking at the above measures instead of trying to operate like an inland theme park. I am not suggesting that they suddenly start charging £4 for Icon and the Big One, but why not offer an attractive ticket option running alongside a wristband system with sensible gate prices.

The last time I visited Great Yarmouth, they had a good mix of wristband users and token users. There were loads of kids using tokens while their parents just stood and watched. Its these type of visitors that Blackpool Pleasure Beach are missing out on.

I have friends who's kids would love to visit Blackpool Pleasure Beach but their parents don't want to go on the rides and are not prepared to pay the walk round charge or spend all day in there. They just want to go in for a couple of hours and let the kids go on a few rides, while they spend extra money on food and drink. This option just isn't available to them so they choose to do other things.

I had a quick look on companies house at the accounts for the company that run Great Yarmouth Pleasure beach and it seems that they generally make a small profit every year, while Blackpool Pleasure Beach continues to make big losses. So which park do we think has the better business model ?
 
The other difference with the pre-wristband tickets that had letters is that you got a significant discount for buying a sheet of tickets. But this also gave you a range of ticket letters, so you might only get to go once on an AA ride (Valhalla or PMBO) but have two A tickets and four B etc. So you effectively got to ride the smaller rides for “free” by buying the sheets and it encouraged people to ride a selection.

I can remember getting a voucher from something for a discount on the ticket sheet and it feeling like a great deal to visit the pleasure beach, my perception is that the wristbands are now more expensive

nowadays with the wristband focus the tickets are just there for people who want one ride on something only and are therefore priced ridiculously high.
 
Yarmouth is hardly an accurate comparison, it's smaller than Steeplchase's footprint!

I'm sure we all know a number of people that won't go because of the entrance charge, but we also know people that go and feel more comfortable without every Tom, Dick, and Rob666 waltzing in pissed from the Velvet Coaster.

Blackpool have the numbers and they've come to the conclusion that wristbands/POP is the way forward. We know people that won't go, but as long as that number's smaller than the people that will go + cost of changing course again, they're never going back to tickets.
 
Just got my email from the park reminding me it's opening this Saturday......*checks weather forecast*......

Erm.....Nah you're alright PB. I'll stay in warm and dry confines of my house thanks. See you in the spring.
 
Dar said:
Yarmouth is hardly an accurate comparison, it's smaller than Steeplchase's footprint!.
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Actually it is about a third of the size of Blackpool Pleasure Beach and has 26 attractions compared to Blackpool's 38. I don't think the size of the park is important though, but its location is, which is in a seaside tourist town.

Dar said:
I'm sure we all know a number of people that won't go because of the entrance charge, but we also know people that go and feel more comfortable without every Tom, Dick, and Rob666 waltzing in ****ed from the Velvet Coaster.
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I don't see an issue with keeping a small entrance charge, but give it back in ride tokens. Similar to Dreamland.

Blackpool may well have come to the conclusion that an inland theme park style model is the way to go but their accounts over the last few years would argue otherwise, and I will be very surprised if we don't see another big loss reported at the beginning of 2021, which is when they post finances starting from the spring of the 2019 season. A season which saw the walk round charge increased to £10.

I really hope they start to make a profit again soon and I am extremely happy with the cost of my season pass at £80.

But I am justifiably concerned that things are not at all well with the park. Big losses, attendances down (despite a massive new attraction), Valhalla out for a season (probably to save money), opening times continually squeezed, closing earlier than advertised and seemingly desperate attempts to raise cash via extortionate car parking charges and doubling the walk round charge.

Anyway, it's opening weekend coming up. Any chance they have fixed the wild mouse for this season ? :)
 
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shakey said:
Actually it is about a third of the size of Blackpool Pleasure Beach and has 26 attractions compared to Blackpool's 38. I don't think the size of the park is important though, but its location is, which is in a seaside tourist town.
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Still not really comparable, Yarmouth have one big coaster that's been there for nearly a century and the rest is just fluffy rubbish. They've not really put anything of note in for years either, I remember when the Disko was supposed to be the start of something incredible. Terminator and the chance Toboggan were highlights when I was a kid, but they're both gone now. Mulan was great fun, that's gone too! They've even had t get rid of the log flume because it cost too much. (fun fact: I marathoned that log flume for charity when I was about 13 because I was too young to go white water rafting for charity with my dad's work)

Actually, now I look at it like that maybe Blackpool and Yarmouth are simliar?
(26 attractions is a bit of a stretch too, like Towers "over 50 rides and attractions" :p)

I don't see an issue with keeping a small entrance charge, but give it back in ride tokens. Similar to Dreamland.
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You're right. Back when they introduced the charge, the train and monorail just about covered the cost, but at a tenner now they should really be giving that back as tokens.

Blackpool may well have come to the conclusion that an inland theme park style model is the way to go but their accounts over the last few years would argue otherwise, and I will be very surprised if we don't see another big loss reported at the beginning of 2021, which is when they post finances starting from the spring of the 2019 season. A season which saw the walk round charge increased to £10.

I really hope they start to make a profit again soon and I am extremely happy with the cost of my season pass at £80.

But I am justifiably concerned that things are not at all well with the park. Big losses, attendances down (despite a massive new attraction), Valhalla out for a season (probably to save money), opening times continually squeezed, closing earlier than advertised and seemingly desperate attempts to raise cash via extortionate car parking charges and doubling the walk round charge.

Anyway, it's opening weekend coming up. Any chance they have fixed the wild mouse for this season ? :)
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I worry too but they've turned the ship around from the dire financial position they were in when Geoffrey died and managed to almost turn a profit. Icon was a bit of a hit to the books, but hopefully they manage to weather it and come back stronger again. POP/wristbands will also add that extra bit of certainty if they know they've got X number booked online and forecasting predicts Y on the door, they can plan their days and staffing better. They seem to be trying their best to turn the park into an actual business instead of a seaside amusement park. It all seemed a bit wild west back in the day and getting things organised was always going to be a bit painful.
 
I think wristbands and individual ride tickets work well together in principle and the business model lends itself well to longer opening hours and secondary income in the evenings.

People who want to spend all day on the park will still do that, IMO. In Blackpool though, there's often people who want to spend the day in the town and then go into Pleasure Beach later on for a few rides.

Adopting an entrance structure that supports both of these ticket types would surely enable PB to maximise profits as they would still be getting the pre-planned custom (online wristband sales) but also taking advantage of spur-of-the-moment visitors who fancy a go on The Big One or Icon later on. Chances are that guests will be likely to go on more than one ride once they're actually in the park. Plus secondary spend on food, shops etc.

I can't comment on why PB choose to operate a "theme park only" model (I've no idea) but I think it's fair to say that they don't use their location to their advantage anymore. Especially in the summer and during illuminations where there is so much potential custom outside their doors in the evening yet they're closing at 6 or 7.

For the ticket model to work, the price per ride would have to be reduced significantly; but they would need to find a balance where they don't de-value wristbands whilst also making tickets affordable for people who want to go on a few rides.

If you priced Icon and The Big One at £6 for example, I think that's high enough to not risk people choosing tickets over wristbands - but also low enough to make sure that tickets are an appealing proposition to those "impulse buy" customers who want to go in for one or two rides. Once they're in, if the prices are affordable, I think they would be likely to end up buying more tickets. And long term, it could even lead to them going back again and buying a wristband.

The first time we visited PB for example (in 2004) we used tickets. We liked the park so much, we ended up doing two more full days with wristbands. Getting people through the gates initially with an appealing offer can lead to much better custom down the line, but PB's current entry structure is so unappealing and off putting to anyone other than the pre-planned online booking customers. Hence why they don't get that second income and it's a regular occurrence to see the park quiet (or closed!) whilst Blackpool itself is heaving with tourists.
 
rob666 said:
Lots of the people who won't pay to go in are also proud of the fact that they never spent a single penny when they went in the park.
And not all of them were tykes.
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But I'll bet they were all from Yorkshire. ;)

Every time I see new posts in this topic, I click it with dread. This is the time of year Mandy likes to play with bulldozers.
 
shakey said:
I don't see an issue with keeping a small entrance charge, but give it back in ride tokens. Similar to Dreamland.
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Even Dreamland have given up on that idea now. The passing trade for rides, food and drinks, casual walkabouts was too important. The charge was only brought in to keep out troublemakers who weren't spending but it was putting off too many others too!
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Every time I see new posts in this topic, I click it with dread. This is the time of year Mandy likes to play with bulldozers.
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I think I'm past that point now, as they no longer have much that's either truly unique or irreplaceable.
 
During the early 90s to mid 90’s we always would have a coach trip to Blackpool and end the day driving around the lights route.
Now we would go to the Pleasure Beach but as it was so packed would only pay to go in the maze or on the go karts.
Then I went back twice in 2000 With friends for a piss up weekend both times I brought a wristband but my m8’s only brought a ticket for the Big One which I think was £5. The only time I brought a ride ticket was the following year and that was for Valhalla and they were £4 since then up to 2010 I only been Blackpool for the WOW weekends which started out at £10 each.
Tickets only matter if u just want to ride 1 ride.
 
I tried to find something new to say on wristbands vs. PPR and them working together in harmony, but failed.

(Hasn't stopped some of you though :cool:)
 
In all honesty, I think POP would work better for Blackpool Pleasure Beach than reverting back to PPR/free entry. As much as the park is by the seaside and they might get some walk-up trade with PPR, I feel like there would almost be more people put off visiting if the park was entirely pay-per-ride. For starters, I personally think that the park has perhaps outgrown pay-per-ride in terms of its scale; Blackpool is probably double the size of your average seaside amusement park, and probably more comparable in scale to a major inland park. If you were to ride every coaster in the park alone on pay-per-ride prices, then you would rack up a cost per person larger than that of the current wristband price (and even that's the on-the-day one; if ordered online, a wristband is probably nearing 50% cheaper than doing one ride on each coaster through PPR), so I feel like people would be put off visiting due to value for money. In equal measure, PPR might decrease the amount people spend in the park, as it might be seen more as a single activity/ride for many groups as opposed to a full day out. People also plan trips far further in advance these days, which POP allows for far more than PPR does.

Another key reason why I'm not sure that PPR/free entry would work in the current era is because I feel like many people would be put off visiting. For example, my mum visited Blackpool in the late 1990s when the park still operated with PPR/free entry, hated it and said for years that she wasn't going back. One of the key things that encouraged her to give the park another try in 2018 was the addition of the entry fee, and she enjoyed it much more. I also feel like free entry would put younger families off visiting the park, and the park doesn't really want to lose out on that younger family crowd what with things like Nickelodeon Land seeming to be big crowd-pullers.
 
@Rick There's not much else to talk about until they confirm Steel/Twisted/Iron Grand National!

Plus it's always good to do a once over and make sure everyone knows the script
 
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