Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon 3 years on

[Matt N]

It was a poor choice of manufacturer, which few people seem willing to admit. The budget would have been better spent working with someone else.

As much as I love Icon, I’ll admit that this might be the case. For example, they could have gotten a similar ride from someone like Vekoma that would likely have been quite a bit cheaper, and also somewhat better received if reviews of the other new Vekomas are anything to go by.

I’d be intrigued to know what the upcoming Abyssus at Energylandia cost; that’s quite similar in terms of length to Icon, but also quite a bit larger in terms of height and speed.

 

[Sharko]

I really like it. I don't really hype up anything, i either like it or i don't and it matched my expectations. The launch didn't melt my face, the airtime didn't crush any part of my body and non of it caused me to blackout. However, it was fun. I don't care about numbers or statistics, i just enjoyed it.

Plus, i enjoy watching it from the Big Blue Hotel.

 

[rob666]

Boring old fart. Grand National far more exciting

Couldn't agree more Dippy.
Icon hasn't managed to shred my shorts like the Nash did, but due to my old man's conditions, I can only do the National once a visit, I could ride Icon for hours without pain.
Likewise the Big One, last time we had an ert I had to give up before the end of the session.
Oh the shame.

 

[Plastic Person]

My quarterly take, not-adjusted since the last time round; Icon is a perfectly fine ride, but it's not the coaster BPB needed for that level of investment. See you all in three months!

 

[Craig]

It was a poor choice of manufacturer, which few people seem willing to admit. The budget would have been better spent working with someone else.

I'd actually agree on that. Taking Blue Fire and the many clones aside, there were only 4 different design iterations of Mack launches before Icon came along. Take out Helix which very much utilises the terrain it's set into and Manta which was firmly in the tame family market that doesn't leave a lot of experience dealing with a very compact launch coaster which was supposed to be aimed at the thrill market.

That said, I dare say there was also a lot of poor decision making on the park's front in terms of what they wanted to gain from a new attraction too. I don't think the blame can solely be put at the choice of manufacturer, and I'm not 100% sure if another choice would've brought a satisfactory result for the park either when combined with the very poor marketing campaign.

 

[RoyJess]

Icon is the best steel coaster that Blackpool have, however it's not the best in the UK. The launch lets it down for me.

 

[Coaster]

I've heard this said before, that they run the launches slow to save money, but that's got to nonsense, right?

Does the ride time or top speed differ from the pre-build announcement figures? Would the elements immediately after launch be comfortable, or even safe, at greater speeds?

I struggle to believe it's not run as it is by design.

From my understanding, the layout was adjusted slightly to account for the slower launch speeds, which were done to save money.

With the current layout however, it is still run at the absolute minimum top speed to clear the elements rather than the fastest possible to allow for maximum thrill.

 

[AstroDan]

I have always felt that Icon is a middle-of-the-road launch coaster. My main issue with the ride is that I feel that the layout suffers - quite considerably - due to the constraints that they had with the location. Of course, it is impressive that they were able to fit a ride in that space - but that doesn't help the ride one bit.

The launches, even for Mack, are weak. The rides pacing is extremely poor in places - especially towards the end. The ride is one that warms up, which is never that great a sign, so unless you are riding after it's been open for 9 hours on a warm day - you're not going to get it at its best. And even its best is just OK.

It isn't the weakest Mack launch I have done, though. That accolade goes to Manta at Seaworld San Diego. Mack are definitely capable of making great rides, and ultimately they deliver what a park and the designers want. Not all Intamin launch coasters are that great either - Cheetah Hunt, for one.

Icon is a unique coaster within the borders of the UK but, like Stealth, it has failed to really capture the hearts of the country and this can be seen by the ongoing difficulties BPB have in breaking even. Icon should have sealed their next decade.

And I say all of this as a raging Europa-Park and Mack fanboy.

 

[shakey]

I have always felt that Icon is a middle-of-the-road launch coaster. My main issue with the ride is that I feel that the layout suffers - quite considerably - due to the constraints that they had with the location. Of course, it is impressive that they were able to fit a ride in that space - but that doesn't help the ride one bit.

The launches, even for Mack, are weak. The rides pacing is extremely poor in places - especially towards the end. The ride is one that warms up, which is never that great a sign, so unless you are riding after it's been open for 9 hours on a warm day - you're not going to get it at its best. And even its best is just OK.

It isn't the weakest Mack launch I have done, though. That accolade goes to Manta at Seaworld San Diego. Mack are definitely capable of making great rides, and ultimately they deliver what a park and the designers want. Not all Intamin launch coasters are that great either - Cheetah Hunt, for one.

Icon is a unique coaster within the borders of the UK but, like Stealth, it has failed to really capture the hearts of the country and this can be seen by the ongoing difficulties BPB have in breaking even. Icon should have sealed their next decade.

And I say all of this as a raging Europa-Park and Mack fanboy.

Personally I think in Icons case, less would have been more. If they had just gone straight out towards the turtle chase site after the Immelmann and then a big finish with a loop or cork screw I think the ride would have been better received. Maybe a taller top hat would have helped too. They just seemed to want to cram too much in after the 2nd launch and ended up going round in circles then running out of steam.

 

[pluk]

From my understanding, the layout was adjusted slightly to account for the slower launch speeds, which were done to save money.

With the current layout however, it is still run at the absolute minimum top speed to clear the elements rather than the fastest possible to allow for maximum thrill.

So, by design then. They designed it to be built to run at this speed knowing what the end experience would be. They could have designed it to run at any speed with the appropriate layout.

The way it keeps getting put across is that the hardware and layout they have is designed to run faster but they run it slow to save money, and that I struggle to believe.

 

[AstroDan]

There is a precedent for that. Tripsdrill told us during a BTS some years ago that Karacho runs at say 90% of potential in order to make the ride more suitable for the audience.

Of course, i have no evidence myself for Icon but don't really know the ins and outs of BPB.

 

[Mr Pearse]

I’ve rode icon many times and it’s a decent coaster nothing spectacular but it’s good but could of been better. I think missed a trick mainly by next to no promotion of the ride that could of helped it some what. I think for me the park needed a decent financial return on the investment they should of went with something that could be seen outside the park something that could promote itself. It is what it is now tho I doubt we will see another new coaster at the park for many years to come so I guess we should just try and enjoy icon till they eventually try again with a different coaster.

 

[Sharko]

I was originally hoping ICON was going to be an Infinity (Gerstlauer) (Before ICON was announed) (Come at me, i love gerstlauers).

 

[MakoMania]

It’s a great ride, it isn’t intense at all but it’s really fun and for me that’s what makes a ride. It’s personally my favourite coaster in the UK.

Having said that, it was the wrong choice for the park simply because of the price tag. There are comparable products available from Vekoma for example for a much lower cost, which would’ve allowed the park to install additional rides for the same cost. It’s a shame this didn’t happen.

 

[Rob]

Icon is good, but it could and should have been so much better. In hindsight they probably would have been better off going with Vekoma, however I would imagine the relationship between the Mack family and Thompson family had a baring on the final decision.

The whole ride is just lacking something for me. The element after both lauches kill any speed gained, the first launch is really very pathetic, and by the end it is just meandering its way to the brakes. There are of course some good moment, but overall it just does not flow as well as it could.

Then there is the marketing of it. The less said about that the better.

 

[MakoMania]

In the future I feel BPB will be better served by cheap investments often, rather than expensive investments infrequently. That as well as stronger promotion of the season pass program and an overhaul of their marketing strategy which is dire.

 

[Matt N]

Icon is a unique coaster within the borders of the UK but, like Stealth, it has failed to really capture the hearts of the country and this can be seen by the ongoing difficulties BPB have in breaking even. Icon should have sealed their next decade.

I definitely agree in Icon’s case, but I’d be intrigued to know what you mean when you apply the same brush to Stealth, as I’d argue that that ride has always been really successful for Thorpe, both initially and long-term? Apologies for going marginally off-topic, but I’d be interested to know.

I do think that another issue Icon might have suffered with is that it was hyped to high heavens prior to its launch. A lot of people had incredibly high expectations for it, and a lot was riding on it; I’d argue that the level of expectations people had for the ride were almost too high for it to ever be able to meet (and I can confess to being guilty of that myself, to a degree). Let me grab a few quotes from TowersStreet’s own Icon construction thread from the early stages of planning, as an example. When the layout was first leaked:

it IS accurate, this will blow SW8 out of the water.

It's sounding like that layout posted could well be the real deal, if so that is very exciting indeed! It will be the most anticipated UK coaster for a long while and draw the attention of people from all over the world just like Helix did. I'm also pretty confident that it will be far better than SW8 from what we have seen of both so far.

Go Mandy!

And when the ride was announced:

Our very own Mack Maverick

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And when the discussion of Icon vs Wicker Man (then known as Construction 18 vs SW8) came up:

when i said "we already know which park will win anyway", i was referring to Blackpool PB!


Maybe not, as the fact that Blackpool PB's coaster will be a UK first, and the fact that it's their first coaster for almost 10 years (Infusion will be 10 next year), will probably draw people to the park like a magnet!

On other forums, there was also a lot of incredibly high expectation, and people were talking like it would be the UK’s best coaster and among the very best in Europe without doubt, and that it would absolutely annihilate Wicker Man almost like it was a fact, before we’d even seen ground cleared for either ride. People were saying that it was going to be up there with Helix, Taron and Maverick as one of the world’s finest launch coasters, that it was going to usher in a new era of prosperity and popularity for Blackpool Pleasure Beach and leave Merlin begging for mercy. With Wicker Man opening at Alton Towers in the same year, people were expecting, or almost hoping, that Icon would be this godly masterpiece that would reclaim Blackpool’s status as the country’s most popular theme park, and a cataclysmic installation that would usher in a resurgence for independent theme parks in Britain, while Wicker Man would fail miserably for Alton Towers. People were predicting that Icon would become the new Nemesis, and have everlasting hype that would have fans across the world raving in their raptures about it, while any hype that Wicker Man got would evaporate after the opening weekend, and it would be ushered into the realms of obscurity in the long-term.

However, when Icon actually opened, none of this really happened. The ride seemed pretty well-received initially, and it did definitely have its fans, but people very quickly became indifferent towards it. It hadn’t been quite the cataclysmic coaster everyone had hoped for, and it hadn’t revived Blackpool Pleasure Beach in the way that people expected prior to its opening. With regards to my comment above about people expecting Icon to have everlasting hype and Wicker Man to have temporary hype and then fall into the realms of worldwide obscurity, I’d almost argue that the opposite happened in the end, as it did in 1994. A lot of people were caught off guard by Wicker Man, myself included, and reviews for the ride still seem mostly incredibly strong 3 years on from opening. A combination of a surprisingly well-received product and Merlin’s marketing machine caused a perfect storm of huge success for Alton Towers that really reignited their flame after a tough period between 2015 and 2017. 3 years on, Wicker Man has truly embedded itself as a firm favourite at Alton Towers, while Icon is often viewed with antipathy by Pleasure Beach fans.

 

[shakey]

I think the disappointment felt by a lot of people is as much for the park as it is for Icon. I think everyone genuinely wanted Icon to be a spectacular success and change the parks fortunes. But that (so far) does not seem to have happened.

We are still waiting for the latest accounts to be posted (which they would normally have done by now), so it will be interesting to see what they reveal, and bare in mind they will be for the period up to the end of March 2020 so not really affected by Covid. It goes without saying that another big loss would not be good.

 

[Ils]

I finally got on Icon last summer and had read the positives and negatives from others beforehand and too be honest I loved it. There is no way of getting away from the fact the launch isn't as punchy as some may like but as this was the first coaster I had been for over 12 months, it actually caught me out. Some of the elements were brilliant and it just made me smile and that's all I can ask for.

 

[jmc]

It could be argued there are a few reasons the ride hasn’t captured the publics imaginations.

Given we don’t really have a great deal of choice when it comes to coasters in this country, I think when the general public think of a launch coaster they think of the Rita/Stealth type launches. Despite not being the best example of their ride types, they still provide an aggressive, forceful, take your breath away ‘wow’ moment on the launch.

Icon doesn’t achieve that by any means, and then the subsequent layout doesn’t provide any memorable moments to make up for that either.

And the marketing for the ride..? Well, that was just terrible. I live in Manchester so well within distance of the park; hardly anyone I know here even knew of a new ride at Blackpool. Understandably marketing costs money, but when your multimillion £ rollercoaster advert is mostly just CGI blossom trees you really have missed the mark…