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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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Why not try and get the opening out the way for Fireworks? It's going to get bad press whenever it reopens, so get it out the way this year for a fresh start next year. Very little damage will be done with only a few days left of the season and an extremely popular fireworks drawing crowds most likely regardless of bad press. Many people will have already made plans to attend and would be unlikely to change them. Many more may be in fact encouraged to visit as it will be a limited window for those who have been waiting to ride it.

I strongly believe for these reasons Alton Towers will be desperate to get it open this season. Whether they manage it or not is another matter no one knows for sure yet, but I believe there is no good reason they wouldn't be working towards that outcome.
 
To be honest I'm more convinced than ever it won't reopen this season. They're testing it now to get it done before the winter maintenance, rather than leave it to the last minute and rush it. No point just leaving it sat there all summer and autumn, and the rush to get it open caused a lot of its problems, so they really won't want to rush this.

I'd love to be wrong like. Absolute scenes if it does open.
 
Ima go Towers next week for a couple of days getaway with the wife.

At this point i don't really care if it is open.

If it is, great, another coaster to ride, but it isn't going to spoil my break if it isn't open.

I am going for rides in the dark and some, hopefully amazing, fireworks.

Honestly i don't see it opening this season now.
 
Yeah I have a few days there from Sunday and I'm looking forward to the night rides, the scare mazes, escorting someone around who's never been (love when people experience the rides for the first time) and on the final day working to my own whims. If Smiler joins us it will top it all off nicely but I'm stoked for scarefest and resigned to it not being open.
 
Well im going to be there on 7th for fireworks. If the smiler is still closed so be it, it wont remove the fun of my first fireworks at AT. If it is open, then get in, bonus.
 
RoyJess said:
We might be lucky to see them opening it for the last week of the season, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. I personally think that they are testing it before the close season, so they can do their normal winter checks and then maybe have it all up and running for the start of the next season :)
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I can relate to that a bit, being a Southend Utd fan (football), we've been given promises of a new stadium for the best part of 12 years, and every time the club say "work will begin on ____ date", the fans get excited as if something is actually about to happen. The date comes around where they say it's beginning and nothing happens, and it gets delayed more and more - it gets to the point where I won't believe it's actually happening until I see the work begin, and in a way I can relate it back to The Smiler and all the speculation that's been going round these past couple of months - I'm reluctant to believe anything about the ride or get too excited just yet, because we got all excited about it being ready to reopen for Scarefest, and when it didn't happen it was a bit of a letdown.

It's definitely a step forward that the ride's been allegedly signed off by HSE and the restrictions on it's running have now been lifted, meaning that the ride's reopening is now in the hands of Alton Towers Executives and bosses. AT now have control over reopening the ride, which is a very positive situation to be in. As soon as the minimum testing hours have been reached, I would say that the park will look at a potential re-opening date, which brings me onto.....

Sku said:
Why not try and get the opening out the way for Fireworks? It's going to get bad press whenever it reopens, so get it out the way this year for a fresh start next year. Very little damage will be done with only a few days left of the season and an extremely popular fireworks drawing crowds most likely regardless of bad press. Many people will have already made plans to attend and would be unlikely to change them. Many more may be in fact encouraged to visit as it will be a limited window for those who have been waiting to ride it.

I strongly believe for these reasons Alton Towers will be desperate to get it open this season. Whether they manage it or not is another matter no one knows for sure yet, but I believe there is no good reason they wouldn't be working towards that outcome.
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100% agree with you there - in my opinion, the ride needs to be reopened (ideally) the day after Scarefest (if not soon after). The park will get heat in the press about it's opening, but between that week where Scarefest ends and the park gets ready to close for the season, that's where the ride should reopen - not soon enough for the "horror crash ride reopens during horror season" headlines, but enough time for the park to say "hey look we've been working on it, we've done this to further prevent it happening again, and it's now back better and safer than ever before" or words to a similar effect, you probably know what I mean. I strongly feel that if they leave it over the winter, there'll be further speculation and stories that the ride is being dismantled, which we know is not the case. A week before the park closes for the winter would be enough time for the press to get the inevitable bad news story's done and by the time the new season starts, hopefully the stories will begin to reduce/fade away.

Of course, it's name will forever be tainted with the accident, but why wouldn't it be? Roller coaster's aren't supposed to crash, it's a very rare thing to happen. But making it absolutely vitally clear to the general public about what actually happened, and what they've done to prevent this from ever happening again would go a long way with rebuilding their reputation after such a horrible incident. That's my thoughts anyway.....
 
Its a real shame if they don't open this year

What I don't understand is if its been cleared by HSE then why are they still giving there usual response on twitter
 
Hat said:
Its a real shame if they don't open this year

What I don't understand is if its been cleared by HSE then why are they still giving there usual response on twitter
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From a PR perspective it is much better to keep this under their hat until they are ready to open and either open it quietly or release a statement either the night before or on the morning as it opens talking about the improvements made and everything else they need to say.
 
Hat said:
The big 6 challenge is this week what does everyone think the chances of it opening are
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No, the Big 6 event was months ago and ended months ago. People with free ticket wristbands gained for completing the challenge when it was on will gain free access on a day coming soon. Unless I've completely missed something and they're actually doing something special for this day?

It will just be a normal day, but much busier due to loads of people with free tickets turning up on the very same day. Avoid.
 
I think personally that there is around 10/90 chance of it opening this week (10% opening/90% not) . This is purely based on my thoughts and nothing that I've seen or heard.

The last week leading up to the fireworks is going to be very quiet and any extra people that the Smiler will draw in during this time will be too little too late for it to make any difference to the loss for the season.

The big 6 day will be the best and most appropriate day to open. However the Firework weekend alone should draw enough guess through the gates without having to open the Smiler, and if the Smiler were to open for the fireworks, I think the ques will so big for it in excess of 3 hours or more, then any one who is drawn in to ride the Smiler will not get much rides in during the day and this will be a headache for the staff who has to ensure the X sector is cleared in time for the Fireworks display.

I've personally have written off any hope for it opening this season.
 
I'd be surprised if it does open for Fireworks but they wouldn't close it because of crowd issues. It's had long queues the past two years at fireworks and always will because of the amount of people on park for that weekend.
 
Scott said:
I'd be surprised if it does open for Fireworks but they wouldn't close it because of crowd issues. It's had long queues the past two years at fireworks and always will because of the amount of people on park for that weekend.
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But as far as we know, Those 2 years it had 5 cars available for use, now it has 3 cars.
 
MattyH said:
But as far as we know, Those 2 years it had 5 cars available for use, now it has 3 cars.
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It had reliability issues, reduced numbers of cars and 3+ hour queues when it first opened too. They didn't close it then either :p
 
the main pr worry was the effect on scarefest and reporting I guess really, since scarefest is over, if it is just down to when they want to re open it, these next few days is the best bet, maybe on reduced hours like 10-4 so it isn't operating on windy nights. While I 99% doubt it will open this season, I do feel it would be better for everyone if they get it out the way.
 
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