• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon - 2018 Mack Double Launch Coaster

Several pages back Ash84 used 20,000 guests to calculate BPBs potential earnings. I want to come back to this point because 20,000 was quoted as a ridiculous number that they wouldn’t achieve...
Last Saturday Legoland had to close the gates because they hit cappacity, which last time I checked was 20,000.

If Legoland on a low CapEx year can hit that figure with good weather alone Blackpool should be achieving similar. Granted it’s a smaller park and probebly couldn’t cope with more than 15,000*, but hearing reports that Icon is practically walk on should be setting off major alarm bells.

I don’t think this has anything to do with the ticketing system. Lots of people pay full price at the Merlin parks (not the majority but not an insignificant amount) and Merlin don’t even give you the option to pay per ride.

The problem is marketing, specifically lack of it. I’ve seen Icons advert 3 times. Every time was at the Gym on a TV I wasn’t watching (therefore no sound) and I only realised it was for Icon about half way through when the coaster track appears. My colleagues (who work for a Theme Park) didn’t know about Icon until I told them!

Spread the word Blackpool! Finally you’ve got something to shout about, but you’ve made less noise than an ameture viral video!

- - -

* I know that BPB used to achieve way more than 15,000 under the ticketed system but as people came and left throughout the day 15,000 is my guess of the most you could cram in at any point in time.
 
Last edited:
Interesting about Legoland turning people away as park at capacity of 20K. Imagine the sheer amount of money they’ll take on days like that. In the shop alone!

Back to the recent chat though on the ‘effective gate price’ of park entry, the only time we did Legoland we did so with Clubcard vouchers. IIRC, these had a 6 month expiry on them. So, you had the flexibility to go on the day of your choice. As we know, to get any kind of discount at BPB, you have to book ahead and specify a date. This simply does not suit everyone. Not everyone wants to book a trip 9 days ahead then find that something comes up and they can no longer attend or the weather is crap on the day, etc.

With cereal box / clubcard vouchers etc, you CAN just wake up one morning and decide to go, then you get in either free or very cheaply compared to BPB’s gate price.

I’m not sure that BPB would cope with 15K guests. Not enough F&B options for that volume of guests. Bearing in mind that last November we had supposedly up to 3 hour single train queues for The Big One, if they had 15K on the park and for technical reasons were on one train again, that 3 hour queue could become a 5 hour one, which would be utterly farcical.

With regards to “lots of people pay the full price at Merlin parks”, let’s be honest about this, Legoland’s surrounding regions are full of people with money coming out of their backsides. Not all, of course, but compared to the social deprived Blackpool area they are rolling in it. My wife’s aunt, uncle, cousins etc live in Surrey. They are loaded, all have 80K cars with private plates. They have MAPs, always pay for express parking because they believe they are more important than the peasants and thus are entitled to get out the car park quicker, I would imagine get fast track passes everywhere they go and so on. This level of luxury simply isn’t as common up North.

Anyone who lives in and around London, areas of the South coast etc, can easily do Legoland in a day. You also have Thorpe & Chessington off the M25, but those regions are heavily populated by many well to do families. You simply won’t ever get 15-20K people descending en mass upon BPB. There’d be nowhere for them to park for a start!
 
You raise some great points.

For the record the pricing system doesn’t sound perfect, neither does there willingness to suddenly close early. However It’s been nearly 10 years since I last visited Blackpool so I can’t possibly comment on their operations. I also feel that despite commenting on not seeing much advertisement I live a 4 hours drive away, meaning that it’s not worth advertising here anyway. But I have family in the Midlands and they definitely are in Blackpool’s catchment area.

Dipper_Dave said:
Back to the recent chat though on the ‘effective gate price’ of park entry, the only time we did Legoland we did so with Clubcard vouchers. IIRC, these had a 6 month expiry on them. So, you had the flexibility to go on the day of your choice. As we know, to get any kind of discount at BPB, you have to book ahead and specify a date. This simply does not suit everyone. Not everyone wants to book a trip 9 days ahead then find that something comes up and they can no longer attend or the weather is crap on the day, etc.

With cereal box / clubcard vouchers etc, you CAN just wake up one morning and decide to go, then you get in either free or very cheaply compared to BPB’s gate price.
Click to expand...
Don’t forget the free advertisement these provide! I’m actualy shocked BPB hasn’t adopted Merlins 2 for 1 system because it would work even better for them! Imagine visiting Blackpool and buying a packet of crisps for half price wrist bands. You could use them the same day. I assume Merlin already do this within the Blackpool Cluster?

Dipper_Dave said:
I’m not sure that BPB would cope with 15K guests. Not enough F&B options for that volume of guests. Bearing in mind that last November we had supposedly up to 3 hour single train queues for The Big One, if they had 15K on the park and for technical reasons were on one train again, that 3 hour queue could become a 5 hour one, which would be utterly farcical.

With regards to “lots of people pay the full price at Merlin parks”, let’s be honest about this, Legoland’s surrounding regions are full of people with money coming out of their backsides. Not all, of course, but compared to the social deprived Blackpool area they are rolling in it. My wife’s aunt, uncle, cousins etc live in Surrey. They are loaded, all have 80K cars with private plates. They have MAPs, always pay for express parking because they believe they are more important than the peasants and thus are entitled to get out the car park quicker, I would imagine get fast track passes everywhere they go and so on. This level of luxury simply isn’t as common up North.
Click to expand...
Trust me Legoland barely copes with 20k. 15k was probably an overestimate.

I will also agree there are a lot of people in and around London with more money than sense. It’s a massive problem the UK desperately needs to address! Whenever I hear someone blaming Merlin for making the parks “to expensive” and “not attempting to improve the parks” I have to point out that despite all our complaining people keep paying and keep coming back! The parks already run at max cappacity (for their size), Unless all these people stop throwing money at them there’s no reason the parks should operate differently. Cutting staff and maintenance costs is the only way to improve profit... sucks but it’s true.

Dipper_Dave said:
Anyone who lives in and around London, areas of the South coast etc, can easily do Legoland in a day. You also have Thorpe & Chessington off the M25, but those regions are heavily populated by many well to do families. You simply won’t ever get 15-20K people descending en mass upon BPB. There’d be nowhere for them to park for a start!
Click to expand...
I disagree that Blackpool can’t attract a similar number of people. Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and many other big UK cities are all within the catchment area. Once Blackpool was the busiest Seaside Resort in the UK (maybe even the World?).
Admittedly Blackpool as a place isn’t what it once was but I’d still expect it to be busy with weather like this. That’s not even factoring in Icon! If Merlin can bring people back to Alton Towers with a medium size Wioden Coaster then a multi-launch inverting Mega Coaster like Icon should easily be pulling in record numbers.

- - -

One last thing... Sorry Wild Mouse fans but its closure isn’t the reason the parks been quiet. Outside enthusiast circles most seem to think it’s still open. An example of this; Planet Coaster just announced they are adding a Wooden Wild Mouse to the game, which they described as being just like the one you can ride at Blackpool... I didn’t have the heart to correct them :(
 
I have never yet heard of BPB having to close due to hitting capacity, but I have witnessed rides with far longer lines than they have hit in the last decade which back then moved a lot faster, so you can assume that means more people were in them

For example a 45 minute wait for the Nash used to see the queue split at the pay box and go round each side separately, one side being inside the old arcade and the other being well on its way to Trauma Towers. Now a 45 minute queue would probably visually be a significantly shorter line, it would just move a hell of a lot slower.

Currently in Blackpool, I have not yet been to BPB (heading there soon) but Blackpool itself is heaving. I still stand by my original points, that a lot more of these people who are here now, who have not yet been into BPB would be more inclined to do so with a reasonably priced PPR system.

I'd actually love to see a couple of ambassadors outside asking people who aren't going in why they aren't and what would entice them in going forward.
 
Tim said:
Whenever I hear someone blaming Merlin for making the parks “to expensive” and “not attempting to improve the parks” I have to point out that despite all our complaining people keep paying and keep coming back!
Click to expand...

This, this and this...

As long as people keep funding the regime, buying the annual passes and Fasttracks, nothing will ever change.

We need a real movement to boycott the Merlin parks in order for anything to change.

Unless this happens, things will continue to get more and more expensive.
 
I used to go sometimes as part of a visit to blackpool. Now the price is so high it has to be for a full day. I live too far away for that. I managed to get there for the first time in a decade or so because i had an overnighter in Manchester a few weeks ago.
 
rob666 said:
Err...BPB topic, not Merlin!
Click to expand...


Not even a BPB topic it is Icon but that doesn’t seem to stop the entrance fee debates!

I can’t believe the Icon lights are off for budget reasons, maybe faulty? Not the biggest problem in the world but as others have said looks nice in the station with them on.

How’s the mist doing recently?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
LEDs do burn out (much faster than claimed too), so switching them off during bright days is a sensible option and it does save money because it extends the life of the LEDs and saves the park having to replace them so often.

If they were really sensible, then every light would be an individual unit, but yeah...
 
Went on icon yesterday three times and have to say it's better than wicker man. It's not only a brilliant ride but the operations were spot on yesterday and put alton towers to shame. How come they can operate a ride so well with just 4 staff? When alton seem to need more that 6 or 7? Even when the big one had problems they got it running for the last two hours, when alton would have probably given up! I lost count of my ride count after a few hours there, well done BPB!

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
 
themeparkfan said:
Went on icon yesterday three times and have to say it's better than wicker man. It's not only a brilliant ride but the operations were spot on yesterday and put alton towers to shame. How come they can operate a ride so well with just 4 staff? When alton seem to need more that 6 or 7? Even when the big one had problems they got it running for the last two hours, when alton would have probably given up! I lost count of my ride count after a few hours there, well done BPB!

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Name a ride at Towers where there are 6 or 7 staff on one station?

Wickerman - 4
Smiler - 4
Oblivion - 4 (6 with two stations)
Nemesis - 4
Galactica - 4 per station
Th13teen - 3

The operations issue at Towers is for the worst offenders they have designed the stations with the baggage hold in mind then cut the baggage holds meaning the station gets clogged up and reduces dispatches. Nemesis still churns through the numbers.

And Towers will open a ride even if there is only 15 minutes left they are however abysmally slow at sorting tech issues now.

I’m all for Merlin bashing but let’s not start making things up.
 
Does that include the guys standing by the queue entrance? Last time I went on wickerman there was; 1 guy at the entrance, 1 guy batching into show waiting area, 2 guys in baggage hold, I girl sending me into the show, 1 girl batching us onto the gate number, 2 people loading the trains and the ride operator. That's a total of 9 people and it still takes over an hour to get on it with the stoppages.

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
 
Oh and the shop on icon isn't a walk through after the ride, but a lot of merchandise is sold out. How much WM merchandise is sold out?

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
 
Supply and demand. I always see WM staff actively re-stocking throughout the day, yet I'm still to see more than one member of staff in Icon's shop, nevermind re-stocking. I'm sure Towers will have done a huge bulk order of WM merch; I've seen plenty more people wearing those god awful tacky shirts than I have anyone wearing Icon merch.
 
How do you expect people in the baggage hold to speed up the queue time? The 5 people you mentioned not in the station can do absolutely nothing with regards to throughput, and the number of people actually in the station is still 4. If we include the members of staff checking fastrack/batching on Nemesis, Galactica and the like the number would be higher, yet those staff are not in the station building. If we include these staff, where does it end? Do the maintenance staff now count? The man in the little hut underneath the wicker man statue operating the fire? The staff in gift shops and photo booths? There is a gargantuan list of staff required to run theme park attractions. The wait time has very little to do with most of them.
 
themeparkfan said:
I'm just saying that icon eats the queue. Wickerman well errrrr. .... doesn't.

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Probably because there isn't much of a queue to eat anyway given how little guests I've seen on my visits since the ride opened. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top