It just makes bizarre business sense. Marketing Fastracks cannibalises their own product by reinforcing the idea that you will be stuck in miserable queues for large sections of the day. It's such a short-sighted way of making money. Marketing should always be boasting positively about what's on offer, bolstering the central product which is the park itself.
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Farce-track
- Thread starter Scott
- Start date
James
TS Founding Member
Yeah, it's crap marketing.
It implies that waiting is a negative experience. When in reality that's just how it is! You're never going to get on something straight away. All this will result in is Fastrack queues having long queues, which then affects the main queues. It's just a nightmare and takes away anything 'premium' or 'perk' like that Fastrack used to (and should) be.
Have they not learnt from previous years? This just ruins the system. Someone needs to have words with marketing.
It implies that waiting is a negative experience. When in reality that's just how it is! You're never going to get on something straight away. All this will result in is Fastrack queues having long queues, which then affects the main queues. It's just a nightmare and takes away anything 'premium' or 'perk' like that Fastrack used to (and should) be.
Have they not learnt from previous years? This just ruins the system. Someone needs to have words with marketing.
Ben
TS Founding Member
- Favourite Ride
- Your Dad
HANG ON A MINUTE!
Escape the wait?
But Alton Towers 'have over 50 rides and attractions' at 'just £3 per ride' - so that means for a MERE £150 fasttrack plus entry you can 'escape' the craphole of the park and the dire queuing syetem!
What do you mean Im taking the marketing too literally? Surely Marketing wouldnt greedily take advantage of guests.
Escape the wait?
But Alton Towers 'have over 50 rides and attractions' at 'just £3 per ride' - so that means for a MERE £150 fasttrack plus entry you can 'escape' the craphole of the park and the dire queuing syetem!
What do you mean Im taking the marketing too literally? Surely Marketing wouldnt greedily take advantage of guests.
djtruefitt
TS Team
I was on park on Tuesday with some old school friends who had never been to towers before, so my mate offered to buy fastrack for us all at the start of the day (something I wouldn't normally buy).
But even one thing that was very annoying for us was outside the Rapids there were staff selling fastrack tickets, which meant we ended up queueing longer for the ride in the fastrack queue (and of course the main queue waited longer!).
We then went to the Minetrain and the staff had then moved there to sell fastrack. We ended up waiting four ride cycles before we got on because the fastrack queue was so big. The best bit was, all three staff on the minetrain were openly moaning about fastrack being sold, and complaining that the fastrack queue was too large. They were then arguing with each other, on who should go out and tell the sales and info people to go away!
On a busy hot summers day when the park is packed, I think it is just Towers/sales & information being greedy! You have enough guests to sell plenty of fastrack, so why go out of your way and actively sell it at ride entrances, often in teams of two or three staff members.
But even one thing that was very annoying for us was outside the Rapids there were staff selling fastrack tickets, which meant we ended up queueing longer for the ride in the fastrack queue (and of course the main queue waited longer!).
We then went to the Minetrain and the staff had then moved there to sell fastrack. We ended up waiting four ride cycles before we got on because the fastrack queue was so big. The best bit was, all three staff on the minetrain were openly moaning about fastrack being sold, and complaining that the fastrack queue was too large. They were then arguing with each other, on who should go out and tell the sales and info people to go away!
On a busy hot summers day when the park is packed, I think it is just Towers/sales & information being greedy! You have enough guests to sell plenty of fastrack, so why go out of your way and actively sell it at ride entrances, often in teams of two or three staff members.
delta79
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis, Air
I take it operations runs the queuelines as well as the rides themselves. I think that if there are too many in the fastrack queue, and it having a major affect on ride operations then close the fastrack queue for 5 to 10 mins.
the down side to this could be fastrack queue becoming massive when the temporary closer is ended. and they would not be popular with info and sales.
I don't know what the rides ops manager is going to think of this comment. :/
the down side to this could be fastrack queue becoming massive when the temporary closer is ended. and they would not be popular with info and sales.
I don't know what the rides ops manager is going to think of this comment. :/
djtruefitt
TS Team
They would never close the fastrack queue, because if you have paid extra money to skip a queue, you would be pretty pissed off to find the queue line closed, even if it was only for a short amount of time.
The simple answer, is to stop selling too many fastracks, or to stop selling them at ride entrances, which leaves that particular ride with a long fastrack queue.
The simple answer, is to stop selling too many fastracks, or to stop selling them at ride entrances, which leaves that particular ride with a long fastrack queue.
Dave
TS Founding Member
I think the single shot packages come out of the rides FT quota, the platinum probably doesn't but i think they sell minimal numbers of those.
The issue is the tickets not sold from the kiosks as that creates a sudden FT rush for the individual ride. To be honest Fastrack the last few weeks hasn't been too bad on the rides they are not selling at the entrance for. The only days it has got very bad is when a big ride has gone down and loads of complimentary exit passes are given out as they are not in the quota's
Basically stop selling at ride entrances please Alton Towers.
The issue is the tickets not sold from the kiosks as that creates a sudden FT rush for the individual ride. To be honest Fastrack the last few weeks hasn't been too bad on the rides they are not selling at the entrance for. The only days it has got very bad is when a big ride has gone down and loads of complimentary exit passes are given out as they are not in the quota's
Basically stop selling at ride entrances please Alton Towers.
delta79 said:
The rides and queues are both part of park operations, both the queue and ride itself is managed by the designated ride operator for the day. Closing the fastrack queue momentarily would only cause a backlog waiting at the queue entrance point, and dissatisfied customers who had paid for a 'premium' product they are not receiving.
delta79
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis, Air
yes code red, it would. maybe it would be a kick up the backside to I&S to sort out fastrack sales. I do believe that if ops are commenting on it, as a previous poster mentioned. then they should put they foot down and tell I&S to stop selling outside the ride entrance or they will closed the fastrack queue.
I do feel sorry for the top operation manager, as he must have loads of complains from ops teams over Fastrack overselling.
I do feel sorry for the top operation manager, as he must have loads of complains from ops teams over Fastrack overselling.
John
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
I'd probably put announcements out over the tannoy apologising for the length of the main/fastrack queues and explaining the reason for it in order to entirely undermine the person selling tickets at the ride entrance.
Under normal circumstances fastrack is little more than a nuisance but when it's sold at the entrance it doesn't take many people purchasing to seriously unbalance the numbers, especially when you factor in the people who've already bought tickets.
Under normal circumstances fastrack is little more than a nuisance but when it's sold at the entrance it doesn't take many people purchasing to seriously unbalance the numbers, especially when you factor in the people who've already bought tickets.
They sell platinum in very limited numbers nowadays (100 a day I believe), so they really don't make much of a difference - particularly when last year you had scream plus (unlimited on Oblivion, Air and Nemesis) selling at way above that rate each day.
The issue definitely seems to be selling at the entrances to rides, which I just do not understand. They only seemingly do it on the busiest of days.. which is the days you can easily sell fastrack from the info booths anyway. So why do it?
On that note though, I read on another forum that the staff member selling fastrack from within nemesis queueline apparently no longer works for towers. Maybe that idea of selling did not come from those higher up afterall.
The issue definitely seems to be selling at the entrances to rides, which I just do not understand. They only seemingly do it on the busiest of days.. which is the days you can easily sell fastrack from the info booths anyway. So why do it?
On that note though, I read on another forum that the staff member selling fastrack from within nemesis queueline apparently no longer works for towers. Maybe that idea of selling did not come from those higher up afterall.
djtruefitt
TS Team
thefatone said:
It does only seem to be the case that they sell fastrack outside rides during busy days, which I think is pointless, they would be much better using the staff in the various fastrack shops around the park, which often run on one member of staff and have a queue right the way across the area (i'm talking about you dark forest!!), rather than having two staff members blocking the ride entrances and causing issues for the ride.
The main rides they target always seem to be minetrain, flume and rapids from when I have been on park recently (of course the hot weather will play a part in that).
Sigh... I will never understand how anyone can ethically justify any form of sold fast-track. It's social segregation of the rich who have more money than sense from those who are too poor or unwilling to queue jump.
I don't think people would be happy if supermarkets started offering a service where customers who paid a subscription didn't have to queue at the tills, or if people with premium rate bus passes could push their way to the front, or if banks started converting their cash-machines so that a significant proportion of them were reserved for those who have high account balances, and yet fast-track isn't considered by many as something to even bat an eyelid over even though it is essentially the same.
Would it be acceptable to have different lines for black and white people or gay and straight people? No it wouldn't. So why is it OK to have it for poor and wealthy people?
And no, the defense of 'they're a business' doesn't stand. We expect a certain code of ethical conduct where discrimination is rightfully treated with disgust when it comes to individuals, so why should it be any different when it comes to money making entities? I'm so sick to death of companies abusing their position to exploit anything that will make money, even when this practice is morally reprehensible. This is a much bigger issue then fast track of course... but it is a small example of how the capitalist system is not made to take responsibility for it's behavior. Being good for business will never be a justification for doing something.
I'll end this rant with one of my favourite quotes by Bertrand Russell:
I don't think people would be happy if supermarkets started offering a service where customers who paid a subscription didn't have to queue at the tills, or if people with premium rate bus passes could push their way to the front, or if banks started converting their cash-machines so that a significant proportion of them were reserved for those who have high account balances, and yet fast-track isn't considered by many as something to even bat an eyelid over even though it is essentially the same.
Would it be acceptable to have different lines for black and white people or gay and straight people? No it wouldn't. So why is it OK to have it for poor and wealthy people?
And no, the defense of 'they're a business' doesn't stand. We expect a certain code of ethical conduct where discrimination is rightfully treated with disgust when it comes to individuals, so why should it be any different when it comes to money making entities? I'm so sick to death of companies abusing their position to exploit anything that will make money, even when this practice is morally reprehensible. This is a much bigger issue then fast track of course... but it is a small example of how the capitalist system is not made to take responsibility for it's behavior. Being good for business will never be a justification for doing something.
I'll end this rant with one of my favourite quotes by Bertrand Russell:
Dave
TS Founding Member
Meat Pie said:
Banks offer fast call answering for premium customers, theatres offer a better viewing experience for those who pay more, trains, planes and ferry's almost always offer a premium traveling experience for those who pay more (including queue jumping), hotels provide a better room if you fork out the money and certainly in the past you could speed up diagnosis and treatment in healthcare by paying.
Money always has offered an ability to have a higher level of service, the argument that "it's a business" isn't to justify the base morality but to point out the facts in a capitalist society. If you could change society i am sure theme parks would follow suit but expecting a theme park to try and lead a social revolution is fanciful.
I don't like Premium parking OR Fastrack particularly, but i can't argue a point based on an imaginary land of milk and honey where everyone is equal in every way. Making a bad system better for more people (reducing the impact on queuing guests) is a more achievable goal that may actually affect a change than taking on a conceptual moral argument that in this climate isn't going to happen.
Nearly every revolution happens with small steps.
John
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
If there's one thing Towers should have learned from Scarefest last year is that giving away fastrack for Oblivion is a staggeringly bad idea.
Presumably its one of the rides with the highest unsold fastrack allocation, since its the highest capacity* ride on the Rita-Thirteen-Oblivion ticket they can get away with there being more Oblivion one-shots than either of the other rides. I suspect staff selling tickets at ride entrances is for the same reason - they're trying to shift unsold tickets quickly, which isn't necessary for the more popular rides which can be expected to sell a higher proportion of their tickets.
One of the things that disappoints me about fastrack is the degree to which the public have bought into the idea. Everyone seems to love it, seemingly not realising that unless you're buying the unlimited packages you're not really much better off than if the system didn't exist at all. The irony that people are willing to queue for almost half an hour just to pay to skip a queue is seemingly lost on many guests.
*in theory, though Thirteen sometimes does better
Presumably its one of the rides with the highest unsold fastrack allocation, since its the highest capacity* ride on the Rita-Thirteen-Oblivion ticket they can get away with there being more Oblivion one-shots than either of the other rides. I suspect staff selling tickets at ride entrances is for the same reason - they're trying to shift unsold tickets quickly, which isn't necessary for the more popular rides which can be expected to sell a higher proportion of their tickets.
One of the things that disappoints me about fastrack is the degree to which the public have bought into the idea. Everyone seems to love it, seemingly not realising that unless you're buying the unlimited packages you're not really much better off than if the system didn't exist at all. The irony that people are willing to queue for almost half an hour just to pay to skip a queue is seemingly lost on many guests.
*in theory, though Thirteen sometimes does better
Dave
TS Founding Member
Indeed the public form part of the problem.
When Smiler was running without Fastrack the park got complaints, and Europa Park (which doesn't provide FT) gets daily complaints about the fact it doesn't offer the service.... Sad but true.
Ironically as well it's not usually the wealthy who pay for FT.
When Smiler was running without Fastrack the park got complaints, and Europa Park (which doesn't provide FT) gets daily complaints about the fact it doesn't offer the service.... Sad but true.
Ironically as well it's not usually the wealthy who pay for FT.
James
TS Founding Member
Fastrack is (can be) cheap enough for those who are not 'wealthy'. Unless you go for the premium packages (which start from £21), all Fastrack is relatively affordable or the majority of Alton Towers' guests.
It's only roughly £5 for a single Fastrack. Most guests sadly pay for this as they see it as quite affordable.
It's only roughly £5 for a single Fastrack. Most guests sadly pay for this as they see it as quite affordable.