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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon - 2018 Mack Double Launch Coaster

The answer to why Icon has had no visible effect on park attendance is easy.

The ride is fantastic, but the marketing campaign behind it has to be the worst I have ever seen for a major new attraction at a large park.
 
As @ScottPBE has said on the BPB General Discussion topic, I am sure it will get busier at the park. Late June onwards and the park will be crawling with students and kids on school trips. Mid July the Scots will descend on the place as their School holidays start a good week or more before ours, then it will be busy until early Sept. Then it’s night riding events / illuminations.

The funny thing is that some of the very people who are worrying about the park being too quiet now could well be the ones complaining about it being too busy in a few weeks time and scrutinising operations as if their lives depended on it
 
Maybe Blackpool will start a larger campaign when the summer holidays start?
 
Free marketing I guess. Do you think she knows that pretty much everyone who follows her is almost certainly an enthusiast anyway? In which case they’ve already probably ‘Dared To Ride’ a few more times than she has.

Where’s the Merlin marketing team when you need them? Throw a few outlandish world’s first claims around and stick ICON on a pack of Monster Munch, they’ll be heaving in no time.

How does the “world’s first coaster to fuse blossom trees and snakeskin” sound?
 
venny said:
Where’s the Merlin marketing team when you need them? Throw a few outlandish world’s first claims around and stick ICON on a pack of Monster Munch, they’ll be heaving in no time.

How does the “world’s first coaster to fuse blossom trees and snakeskin” sound?
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Amusingly both Merlin and BPB did the false worlds first claim this year, Mandy did put a stop to it once it was pointed out to her that it was incorrect.

But yes if this was Merlin it would be plastered everywhere and the park would be busy
 
Dipper_Dave said:
As @ScottPBE has said on the BPB General Discussion topic, I am sure it will get busier at the park. Late June onwards and the park will be crawling with students and kids on school trips. Mid July the Scots will descend on the place as their School holidays start a good week or more before ours, then it will be busy until early Sept. Then it’s night riding events / illuminations.

The funny thing is that some of the very people who are worrying about the park being too quiet now could well be the ones complaining about it being too busy in a few weeks time and scrutinising operations as if their lives depended on it
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As enthusiasts, we should all want the park to be busy and for Icon to be successful, as ultimately the success and popularity of Icon will justify future investments.

However, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect good operations when the park is busy, as this will ultimately impact on their guest experience should the queues be poorly managed, capacity be low etc.

I like to see PB busy but at the same time it has to be handled well.
 
Do we need Icon to be a success ? This is the first major investment in over 20 years. I can see having to wait another 20 for the next one.
Personally I’ll probably be a dribbling cabbage in a nursing home by then, so :)
 
bluesonichd said:
Do we need Icon to be a success ? This is the first major investment in over 20 years. I can see having to wait another 20 for the next one.
Personally I’ll probably be a dribbling cabbage in a nursing home by then, so :)
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Not necessarily, depends on finances really.

I'm pretty sure Pleasure Beach will want to keep the investments in rides and stuff up as long as they have the money to do so.
 
I rode Icon for the first time at the weekend. Managed 4 rides in total.

My first over-arching thoughts are of concern that the ride barely attracted a queue beyond 20 minutes all day. This was also not with the ride running all three trains and therefore achieving around 700/hour. I hope the ride does result in a guest increase for the park as it really does have to.

But, anyway. What do I think?

It's a good ride. Not outstanding. But it's good.

I remember when Blue Fire opened in 2009. I was there on its second day. I was blown away because at that time, Mack hadn't shown any capability for rides of this type before and Intamin were just getting into the Blitz coasters. Since that day, I have had the privilege of riding lots of multi launch coasters - from Helix to Taron, Cheetah Hunt to iSpeed and Maverick to Icon.

I don't think Icon makes the most of the ride system, first and foremost. It offers some nice airtime in places - particularly the first hill which is outstanding on the extreme ends of the train. However, it does not offer the ejector airtime feast of something like Alpina Blitz (Mack; Nigloland) nor does it offer the elegance of the inversions found on rides like Helix (Mack; Liseberg) or Blue Fire (Mack; Europa-Park).

Some of the curves are good fun, and neither launch was offensive. The first wasn't as dire as I had been expecting and the second was.. well, a Mack top-up launch.

The trains are of course comfortable.

What I really dislike about the ride is the meandering. There is too much cornering without enough banking to be thrilling. Neither is there enough speed. It is absolutely one of those coasters that fizzles out by the end. I think perhaps the restrictions of what they could do with all those other rides around the place has meant the layout had to be compromised.

So, all in all. Yes. It's a good ride. Certainly enjoyable. Just, you know. Nothing like the best that the manufacturer are capable of.

Oh - and it's slow and quite dull first thing in the morning. It also broke down a lot.

:)

On a side note - the Wild Mouse area looks abysmal. Like, really shocking. Was gutting not to be able to ride it as I still think it would be my favourite ride there :(
 
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