Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon - 2018 Mack Double Launch Coaster

[DiogoJ42]

That, and these days a plastic bottle lid is classed as an offensive weapon...

 

[Martin]

50-50 alcohol and throwing, for years at events that do allow plastic bottles they make you remove the cap so you can't bottle people with it

 

[DiogoJ42]

In my day you could buy a single bottle of water, then just refill it in the bogs, keeping it in your pocket all night. Never saw anyone throw one.

 

[bluesonichd]

In my day you could buy a single bottle of water, then just refill it in the bogs, keeping it in your pocket all night. Never saw anyone throw one.

recycled urine a nice warm salty drink

 

[Rojo]

Never understood removing the bottlecaps at football. I'm sure if you really wanted to use it as a weapon you could take your own bottle top in and nobody would take it off you at the entrance. They'll probably think fallout as come a few years earlier to Fylde coast and bottlecaps are the new currency

 

[Graham73]

I'm now up to 59 rides on Icon, which just seems to get better and better. Well as long as you don't count the first couple of rides of the day

So far the longest I have waited for it has been 30mins with the average wait time being around 15-20mins, which you really can't grumble at for the new ride at an amusement/theme park. Back in 1994 I remember waiting nearly 2 hours for my first ride on PMBO

 

[Dave]

I'm now up to 59 rides on Icon, which just seems to get better and better. Well as long as you don't count the first couple of rides of the day

So far the longest I have waited for it has been 30mins with the average wait time being around 15-20mins, which you really can't grumble at for the new ride at an amusement/theme park. Back in 1994 I remember waiting nearly 2 hours for my first ride on PMBO

I think that’s the problem, even in amazingly operated parks a new coaster should be attracting at least an hours queue.... something just doesn’t feel right about the public response to Icon and although I think enthusiasts are massively overhyping the ride, it deserves to be bringing in greater numbers of guests.

Can’t help but feel marketing have got this one wrong.

 

[Stuie]

Can’t help but feel marketing have got this one wrong.

Not just with Icon, but in general. Outside the enthusiast community, people who’ve not been to Blackpool don’t seem to know that they have as many coasters as Towers and the biggest collection of other rides of all types and with the most history in the country.

I know they aren’t a big corporate co but they do use agencies and they just don’t seem to nail it.

 

[Ash84]

I hate to keep banging the same drum, but BPB''s biggest problem is the entry system. There is only a certain number of people who want to visit Blackpool and do nothing other than the Pleasure Beach, and those people are catered for with the wristband system which to be fair, represent's excellent value.

However there is a large percentage of people for whom BPB makes up a small part of the overall day in Blackpool, these people don't want a wristband, they want to nip in, do a few rides and leave again, and when they are confronted by a £6 charge and a ridiculously priced pay per ride system the will not bother. The sooner BPB realise that they will not railroad those people into buying a wristband the better it will be for everyone, except those running the pier, as that seems to be where the would be BPB customers end up spending their cash in the afternoon and evenings.

There is a potential second wave of custom that BPB are simply slamming the door on with the current system. They need to keep the wristbands exactly as they are, but drop the PPR prices considerably and I'd consider refunding the entry fee in either ride tickets or F&B vouchers.

By doing that BPB and Icon would be a lot busier, I'd bet my house on it.

 

[MakoMania]

Being a bit busier under the old system doesn't mean more revenue than the current system.

 

[Ash84]

Being a bit busier under the old system doesn't mean more revenue than the current system.

Are you being serious? Take a paper and pen and do sum arithmetic. Let's assume that on Saturday 20,000 turn up, (never going to happen) and let's assume that everyone of them buys a wristband (certainly never going to happen!) on the gate (now I am in cloud cuckoo land) at let's say £40 each. That's £800,000 for BPB.

Now let's look at the old system, which you seem adamant I want reinstating despite me saying in the queen's English on several occasions that is not what I want.

On the old set up the Big One was £3 a go. On a 3 train service that's £270 every 3 minutes, which comes in at £5400 per hour or £75,600 for a 14 hour day which was not unheard of.

Working on the same logic the Nash would net £5760 per hour at £2 a go or £80,640 over the day while the RollerCoaster would bring in £53,760 over the day. Of course this is assuming nothing broke down, was stopped and every seat was filled, which is about as realistic as 20,000 paying on the gate for wristbands.

Altogether that comes to over a quarter of the wristband sales covered by just 3 coaster, they have 10, on top of God know how many other rides.

To return to your original statement, as I have said I don't want the old system back. We have an almost perfect system set up, it's just that one of the options is too far overpriced to use. Change that, people will come in. If they come in they spend money. Even the blind chap who visits my shop can see that, surely you can too?

 

[MakoMania]

If BPB thought they could make more money out of it, they would do it.

They are the people on the ground every day, they are the people with decades of experience and they are the people that know the business inside out, not you or I.

Maybe you should go and lecture the financial director on how you know better about how he should be running the business?

 

[shakey]

If BPB thought they could make more money out of it, they would do it.

Or are they just loathed to admit they may have got something wrong and someone is too stubborn to change things?






Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

[Ash84]

Or are they just loathed to admit they may have got something wrong and someone is too stubborn to change things?






Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Amen to this.

If BPB thought they could make more money out of it, they would do it.

They are the people on the ground every day, they are the people with decades of experience and they are the people that know the business inside out, not you or I.

Maybe you should go and lecture the financial director on how you know better about how he should be running the business?

Really? Who are these people with decades of experience? I think you will find they have left, the management of today's park are on the whole a new breed, some of who have never witnessed a 3 train service on rides like the Big One and Avalanche, and one of which has re-written the operation manual for a ride and declared is dangerous to release a train without the other being within inches of the station.....utter BS.

And you really don't want to look at the track record and discuss the experience of one particular member of management! Just look down the coast and then again a few miles down the M6 to see that trail of destruction, all brought about by lack of income, which is a direct result of a lack of customers.

 

[Coaster]

And a lack of Mouse!

 

[MakoMania]

This thread is total madness.

 

[Dipper_Dave]

I think some of this stuff should be in General Discussion, not Icon chat.

 

[Rick]

Painful.

 

[Rob]

I think some of this stuff should be in General Discussion, not Icon chat.

Yes, it should. However merging it all now is just going to make that thread messy. So let's try and stick to Icon here (difficult I know when the coaster is somewhat underwhelming )

 

[Rick]

@Rob slagged Mack off *faints*