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Farce-track

As stated above, The Smiler ceased operation today. It was exactly an hour from the moment it stopped, to the queue line being evacuated. Pink passes were given to everyone, and as such, as you'd expect, this was a few hundred being given out.

Unfortunately, Fastrack was still being sold for the ride, at ALL of the booths, so the message hasn't been given to anyone to cease selling them for the ride. This created a massive problem as people with pink passes, plus those that had paid, queued at the Fastrack queue, and caused a HUGE exploding out the actual queue-queue!

This had a massive effect on the operation of the ride, and made an already long queue, much longer.

It's pretty appalling to be honest. They should have stopped selling the moment it ceased operation...
 
Yesterday, Air had a 50 minute queue, yet no less than two S&I staff were selling Fastracks outside.

"Hi guys, Air's got a 50 minute queue at the moment, but for just £5 you can skip the queue with Fastrack.*"

*Fastrack queue was already approaching 30 minutes long.
 
The staff don't look before they pounce, friday they tried to sell fastrack to a red wrist band guest, and yes the band was visible.
 
Not comparable giving people being evac'd from a queue exit passes and actual Fast-track, do you think that if you've wasted an hour or two of your day for a ride to break down on you that food or drink vouchers would be an acceptable compromise?
 
Ive mentioned this before but the better way to 'compensate' for a full queueline evac would be to have different token gestures to be given out.

I.e:
First 100 guests at front of queue (who have waited longest) - Fasttrack for either Nemesis, Air or Oblivion - split the amount up and use it on the rides with the highest throughput.

101-200 guests - a pass for a smaller attraction, Sub Terra, 13 etc

200 +, a free drink and a food discount

OR
The other alternative is give out staggered times passes, ie any ride between 3-3:30 for the first set of guests, second get 3:30-4 etc etc.
Then everyone is still getting something and its not going to swamp an entire rides fasttrack queue and have such a big detriment to the other rides.

There shoudnt be an expectation that if a ride queue has to be evacuated you automatically get the highest form of 'compensation'. Alton started this silly concept and have let it get out of hand, when you are giving a 2/3 hour queueline ALL pink tickets its madness.
If they are to do that, they simply need to stop selling ANY variety of fast-track on the park.

--

Fast track is really becoming my most hated thing on the park, I dont mind the concept of people having fasttrack (which I know others do).
I get more annoyed by the exceptionally poor way its managed, mis sold and impact on customer service.

Whoever runs the fast track scheme needs a good kick up the bum, to see what a bad effect it really is having and not simply look at the profit side.
 
Ben said:
Whoever runs the fast track scheme needs a good kick up the bum, to see what a bad effect it really is having and not simply look at the profit side.

Agree with everything you said in the above post Ben, the present system is bereft of common sense and most of us here can come up with a viable working alternative off the top of our heads, so how they continually make the system worse to me is beyond comprehension.

Someone is actually getting paid real money, not pink tickets or re-validations, to make these dire decisions. So many of us draw the same sensible conclusions independently of each other it makes me wonder how they actually manage to get it so wrong? It isn't rocket science is it?

You can only fit so many people in one place at one time.

Not a terribly difficult concept to grasp.
 
There are handheld Wireless EPOS Vending Ticket Machine available. These machines can interface with a EPOS server, and can do automatic stock levels check.

This unit with the right set up on the EPOS server can be used to control the sale of fastracks. and as it links to the main EPOS server the tills used in shops can also have controlled sales on them.

And the best thing of all for a place trying to selling stuff, it has integrated chip and pin.
 
Although there is always technology that can limit things delta, the issue will always lie with 'offline' Fastrack. Currently Fastrack *is* limited and the stock levels are checked but if people sell Fastrack tickets that aren't printed or checked off through the system then it causes problems. Technically this should not happen at all, but it has been suggested that it has happened on various points this season.
 
From my visit at Thorpe yesterday, be grateful Towers don't run the system as they do! I'm sure 90% of Thorpes profits must come from Fastrack with the amount of queues to buy the fastrack, the fastrack unit near guest services even had a temporary fence, added to its main cattlepen!

Unlike Towers they also have different structures, for example Fastrack for Saw was £4.50, or you could pay £5 for front row Saw, and that's the case with many rides!
 
There's no point on having a front row Fastrack with Saw - the cars/trains only have two rows of 4!
 
Rob said:
Yeah, that's a great example of how not to operate fastrack!

:)

Why?

If it is coming out of the quota and not adding anything to the FT sold what does it matter if they charge or give it away?

And Thorpe Parks FT system is the rule-book on how not to do it!
 
djtruefitt said:
From my visit at Thorpe yesterday, be grateful Towers don't run the system as they do! I'm sure 90% of Thorpes profits must come from Fastrack with the amount of queues to buy the fastrack, the fastrack unit near guest services even had a temporary fence, added to its main cattlepen!

Unlike Towers they also have different structures, for example Fastrack for Saw was £4.50, or you could pay £5 for front row Saw, and that's the case with many rides!

At that rate they will soon be having fast track to buy fast track, haha.

What utter testicals, what happened to the good old days of queuing normally.
 
ChocolateStarfish said:
At that rate they will soon be having fast track to buy fast track, haha.

What utter testicals, what happened to the good old days of queuing normally.

It's funny you say that, at the fastrack unit near Nemesis Inferno, there is a sign that points one way to fastrack sales with its cattlepen, and another way straight to the front of the queue, if you are planning on buying the fastrack premium (or what ever it's called at Thorpe).
 
Escape to the Alton Towers Resort... Then escape the wait

ahuje3en.jpg
 
Dear lord thats grim!

Marketing arent helping the situation at all. Using the phrase 'escape' as in to the park is good as it means you leave the mundane life and go somewhere to do something interesting and fun.

To then describe needing an 'escape' from your park is awful. It makes it sound badly run, miserable and anything but a nice place to be.

Way to go Towers, keep digging deeper with the farcetrack.
 
They are seemingly having a big push on fastrack again, probably for the summer season. A lot of posters have been changed around park to advertise fastrack, some only recently changed to show fireworks/scarefest

Marketing are utter morons at times. Fastrack sells itself. Leave it be. Stop pissing every single person off with it.
 
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