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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon - 2018 Mack Double Launch Coaster

Icon currently 10mins queue with 2 trains on track with the 3rd ready to go if needed.

The park is fairly busy today with over 7000 guests expected. Ride operations very good as only a small queue for Icon testifies.
 
Graham73 said:
Icon currently 10mins queue with 2 trains on track with the 3rd ready to go if needed.

The park is fairly busy today with over 7000 guests expected. Ride operations very good as only a small queue for Icon testifies.
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Yes, some people (who perhaps haven’t visited since Icon opened) seem very worried about such a short queue. The reality is that the staff are very efficient and that on a busy day The Big One will get more punters queueing as it’s still their flagship coaster
 
Dipper_Dave said:
Yes, some people (who perhaps haven’t visited since Icon opened) seem very worried about such a short queue. The reality is that the staff are very efficient and that on a busy day The Big One will get more punters queueing as it’s still their flagship coaster
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If a busy day at Blackpool is 7000 guests then a short queue isn’t efficient, there just isn’t the guest numbers.

Call me when you can keep queues below an hour with 45,000 guests on park (looks longingly at EP).
 
Dave said:
If a busy day at Blackpool is 7000 guests then a short queue isn’t efficient, there just isn’t the guest numbers.
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I think that is just wristbands booked online and excludes people buying on the gate (a lot at a park like BPB), season passholders and the few people doing pay per ride. Nevertheless your point stands as Blackpool don't get nearly as many guests.

Europa Park is obviously the prime example of superb operations, but to be fair to the Icon team when running 3 trains they often have to wait for blocks to clear before they dispatch because they're being so efficient.
 
After riding Icon lots yesterday, it's a great ride plenty of airtime and getting thrown around a bit I really enjoyed it! The area is clean, looks great and run efficiently aside from needing some form of batch control before the airgates. Its a shame the paint on the airgates and surrounding bars has already flaked off though. First half is brilliant, loved the airtime on front and back going over the hill. Plenty of small air moments but The last third of it was kinda meh, replace with a turn around into a heartline roll instead of meandering about it'd be even more brilliant.

I find its top 5 worthy for me, a ride BPB really needed, smooth and comfy and well polished, unlike most of the rides there!
 
So finally rode Icon yesterday.

My general impression is the stylisation, music, entrance and shop are really good (though the queue is stupidly short). As for the ride itself overall it’s ok. 3 nice pops of airtime but the launches are laughable and the ride does a bit too much meandering. Certainly not a top 10 coaster and is the worst Mack Mega in my opinion but it’s not terrible.

Definitely a ride where style is higher than substance. Seems to be the story of new coasters in the U.K. this year.
 
I too rode Icon for the first time yesterday. It's stupid how much the ride changes from the morning to the afternoon/evening - in the morning I felt that it was very bland and just a bit crap, but riding on the back row in the late afternoon was absolutely wonderful, and so much fun! I also rode front row for the last ride of the day at 9.30pm ish, and despite the view being good, it wasn't as good a ride as the back, despite others saying the front is "the only good seat on the ride".
 
Every seat is a good seat IMO, unlike many coasters at BPB where you have to pick carefully. I do personally prefer the front, although there are a couple of elements that are better on the back. The immelmann in particular.

On another note, I do hope the mist returns at some point, it's been off for ages.
 
The mist was on yesterday.

The lack of queue capacity for Icon was strongly apparent yesterday - it probably had the 2nd shortest queue time out of the coasters (after Dipper) for most of the day, though conversely I'd say it was the 2nd or 3rd longest of the coasters in terms of number of people waiting for it, behind PMBO and possibly Nick Streak
 
John said:
The mist was on yesterday.

The lack of queue capacity for Icon was strongly apparent yesterday - it probably had the 2nd shortest queue time out of the coasters (after Dipper) for most of the day, though conversely I'd say it was the 2nd or 3rd longest of the coasters in terms of number of people waiting for it, behind PMBO and possibly Nick Streak
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A testament to how fantastic the ride's throughput is, if you ask me! I read online somewhere that Icon's theoretical is 1070pph, but it felt like the queue moved far too fast for that kind of throughput, in my opinion!
 
I think the 1070/hr came from Mack. It works out as a train every 53 seconds, giving them a loading time (from the time the train parks to dispatch) somewhere in the region of 40s . It seems that they're capable of getting that sort of dispatch interval but are often hampered by having to swap guests into the larger seats on row 8. They could probably improve throughput even more by having the staff member responsible for batching speedy pass into the main queue also ensure that guests approaching the size limit go to row 8 prior to boarding.

That said, part of the reason for the queue moving so quickly is the relatively low fastrack allocation which means that the main queue is getting a much higher percentage of the overall capacity than many Merlin coasters. On the busiest days at Towers; Smiler, Oblivion and Thirteen will typically allocate no more than 50% of the actual hourly capacity to the main queue.
 
John said:
I think the 1070/hr came from Mack. It works out as a train every 53 seconds, giving them a loading time (from the time the train parks to dispatch) somewhere in the region of 40s . It seems that they're capable of getting that sort of dispatch interval but are often hampered by having to swap guests into the larger seats on row 8. They could probably improve throughput even more by having the staff member responsible for batching speedy pass into the main queue also ensure that guests approaching the size limit go to row 8 prior to boarding.

That said, part of the reason for the queue moving so quickly is the relatively low fastrack allocation which means that the main queue is getting a much higher percentage of the overall capacity than many Merlin coasters. On the busiest days at Towers; Smiler, Oblivion and Thirteen will typically allocate no more than 50% of the actual hourly capacity to the main queue.
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Ah OK. Thanks @John!
 
Matt N said:
A testament to how fantastic the ride's throughput is, if you ask me! I read online somewhere that Icon's theoretical is 1070pph, but it felt like the queue moved far too fast for that kind of throughput, in my opinion!
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Yeah I can’t say I saw evidence of extraordinary operations on Icon. For a start the ride didn’t open at the advertised time (we get grumpy about that elsewhere), when in the station the staff where having little chats, air gates where slow to open etc and despite it being a warm bank holiday Saturday and a huge pre-opening queue they began the day on only 2 trains (god know why). That’s not to say they where doing anything worse than most places but operations just seemed to be as expected.

I agree with John on this, I think Mack have designed a ride where there is a natural throughput that can be achieved without much effort. Nemesis has a similar effect, even with the stupid cuts at Towers Nemesis nearly always maintains its throughput. Plus Blackpool doesn’t seem to have the number of fast pass and disabled access users (curious why on the disabled access front) which helps keep things moving.
 
What wind speed can big one operate? I thought it was up to 50mph? Today it's about 20 odd mph and they say it can't operate? The weather was s**t yesterday and it was working fine? What's going on has that guy I rant on about from AT visited making operating budget savings advice?

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themeparkfan said:
What wind speed can big one operate? I thought it was up to 50mph? Today it's about 20 odd mph and they say it can't operate? The weather was s**t yesterday and it was working fine? What's going on has that guy I rant on about from AT visited making operating budget savings advice?

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Depends on direction, and wind speed at 200ft not ground level. Westerly wind it's a much lower limit than other directions as it slows the train down more on the turnaround. Forecast says it's currently 28mph Westerly with gusts up to 34mph.
 
I take it back the guys at the gate discussed the situation. Like already said the wind direction is key. A westerly wind means concern any other direction all is ok. Regards the speed anything over 30 mph westerly the ride can't run. As of lunchtime gusts of 40 being recorded so it's a no go at present. How refreshing a park were the guys at the entrance give you good information and have a good knowledge! 10/10.

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