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
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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.
