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Interview with Candy Holland

I don't know he is, that's why I said IF, it's speculative discussion.

My main point is there's not reason to run a company in this way, creativity does not mean spending more money, or not enough to warrant being concerned about in terms of not taking things from one of your most iconic attractions and one of the few that remains unique across your entire brand.
 
Just throwing this out there, but is it not a little selfish to want to keep a great theme like Oblivion to ourselves?

Like I said, I doubt more than 5% of the guests visiting Towers are from Europe (If someone knows the exact figure that would be interesting) and likewise, I guess less than 5% of the guests visiting Merlins European parks are from England.

I think it makes sense to use the "Brands/Themes" that have worked in the past. Now if it was Thorpe or CWOA getting a Oblivion themed ride, I think that would be wrong, as people are more likely to visit both parks.

I am also sure the creative team are looking forward to using the Oblivion theme again, enhancing it, and making it better than what they did last time.

Ian
 
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Absolutely nothing wrong with another park using the theme or idea at all. It's what disney does afterall (and our parks aren't famous really).

Companies are run and shaped by the CEOs in charge of them. Varney seems very charasmatic and he runs Merlin quite well (look at Tussauds and how the parks have transformed since the dark days). He'll know of investments as ultimately he'll be the one to decide if they're worth going ahead with (as they can make or break fortunes, reputations, businesses), but I also imagine he'd want to put a lot of trust into the dedicated and enthusiastic team he has.

Noone likes people who forces you to do things, especially if their ideas may well be wrong. Get an idea of how a business runs before blaming solely one person who's not directly running day to day operations.
 
I haven't blamed anyone, and I'm not exactly ignorant to how service industry sectors work, neither am I ignorant to how businesses do either.

The Disney model is moot, Disney IS the brand based on decades of IPs, therefore their rides become extensions of Disney per say. They design parks that keep to a Disney branding - Merlin doesn't have this, much like Six Flags don't. Merlin are not Universal or Disney, and no one seems to picking up the obvious point here that Oblivion has the capacity to be held aloft as a centrepiece attraction as it remains a truly unique ride!

The Smiler has this too, as does Nemesis. So let's get this straight, it's fine to have Nemesis Inferno now yes? Even if Nemesis Inferno was at another Merlin park abroad?

I think the ride itself gets an unfair rap, it's a solid B&M and I actually enjoy it quite a lot despite some of it's faults - the Nemesis brand however makes no sense and I don't know an enthusiast that likes it - but now for some reason, it's fine with Oblivion?

No, my opinions on Nemesis Inferno remains that it makes no sense, but I don't dislike the ride because it uses that name (as I suspect get's others backs up more than me), but I actually think that Oblivion is MORE unique and should be used as a marketing tool as one of it's pinnacle rides rather than watering down the theme.

When there are literally LIMITLESS creative ideas out there I can simply not believe anyone thinks this is justifiable.
 
Am I missing something here? Where is Oblivion's 'brand' being used?

Let me start by saying that I don't agree with what Merlin is doing at Gardaland. Lets clear that up right away.

But can we just look at what Garda have here that will make a massive difference in the long term? First of all what exactly is Oblivion's 'brand'? Ignoring the O symbol, there is the colour orange. Those are the only solid links here, and I assure you that this is not the first ride since 1998 to have the colour orange in it.

Aside from the poster and video we have little to go on. Yes, the O is a big part of Oblivion's look, but as of yet we have no idea how prominent this will be in the finished product. At the moment it seems like it's become a logo for a news channel.

On the subject of the video, which is probably the biggest indication of theming and story we have yet, there is barely any Oblivion connection (News logo aside). They are going for some sort of disturbed being or entity, with what looks like a volcano thrown in for good measure. If anything the connections being made are much closer to Nemesis, Inferno, and The Swarm all in one!

You use Nemesis Inferno as a comparison. Again, another poorly executed attraction, and one I have no care for whatsoever. Name aside there is no real link to its predecessor at all. I always get the feeling that this is the reason so many enthusiasts detest the ride and slate it so much. It has no need to make the blatant link to its Staffordshire counterpart, and it was clearly used for nothing but to create a national buzz and give those further afield a reason to visit Thorpe.

Drop the Nemesis name and simply call it Inferno and I think there would be far less hate thrown at it. It wouldn't make it a good ride. The layout isn't much to write home about in my book. But it would remove that expectation which the name created, and remove the obvious link to a superior attraction which it simple cannot match.

Fast-forward to now and as far as I can see is Italy getting an attraction which has some small resemblance to a UK one at this point. However, we know already that the ride is going to be pretty different. For starters it's going to be white. From that alone Oblivion and this new attraction will be drastically different when complete. It's going to give off a totally different vibe and feel.

With Ninferno they copied a name. The most obvious form of link there is. Here, aside from a logo that we know little about, and an accent colour there is less connection. They have instead created two products which have some likenesses, but are ultimately each their own.

Look at Milka and Cadbury. Both owned by the same company, and both having similarities. They're both purple, they both involve a white, milk splash style logo. But they are not the same (Well, not just yet, but Mondelez is working on that one!). If you didn't see the two side by side and knew they share a parent company you probably wouldn't think anything of it.

Until Garda reveals a solid, firm link which we know is here to stay (Oblivisimo anybody? :p ), I would not say they have stolen a 'brand'. It's still early days. There's time yet for us to be proven wrong, and perhaps in a couple of years when the hype and marketing has died down we will hardly even notice any connection.

As I said at the start of this post, I really dislike what they are doing here, and I do agree that it is cheap in some respects. But I don't think that they are exactly destroying Oblivion in doing so. At the end of the day if they do try and rip Oblivion off and the new ride isn't up to scratch it will be Garda which suffers, not Alton.
 
Just want to point out that Tussaud's (well Pearson) had shareholders to please and they still managed to spend large sums of money on creativity. And it certainly wasn't at the expense of the quality of the ride hardware!
 
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BenBowser said:
Just want to point out that Tussaud's (well Pearson) had shareholders to please and thy still managed to spend large sums of money on creativity. And it certainly wasn't at the expense of the quality of the ride hardware!
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Long lasting as well, let's try to imagine the state of The Smiler in 20 years time...
 
Tussauds didn't exactly create long last pieces of work. Nemesis creature and Oblivion area as a whole are the most obvious examples. Both have had bits and pieces fallen apart and needed fixing.
 
BenBowser said:
Just want to point out that Tussaud's (well Pearson) had shareholders to please and they still managed to spend large sums of money on creativity.
Click to expand...
That was quite a different situation, they still had shareholders but it was a very different industry back then. Tussaudes Group existed to entertain and had a background in sculpture/performance arts, they were good at finding the right ideas and got into theme parks purely by chance. They didn't spend as much on creativity as you'd expect, they were just extremely good at making the most of smaller budgets.

The old rides were never ever expected to last this long anyway. They were not expected to be so successful and popular years on, a testament to how unexpectedly good the finished products were. Unfortunately this does mean parts were not built to last and it shows, as James points out.
 
Surely issues like the Nemesis Monster could be rectified with a little bit of TLC? Or do they suffer the same issues that graced the Runaway Train?
 
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Well Runaway Train's problem was that the whole of Chessington "was built on a shoestring budget" and it's cave was never meant to last over 25 years. By the time Nemesis was built, Tussaudes were far more experienced and had more money to play with, but there's still only a certain lifespan for a plastic monster out in the open. It will have to be replaced eventually, but probably only for aesthetic rather than structural reasons (unlike Runaway Train!).

Alton Towers was generally built more solidly than Chessington, simply because Chessington was the prototype for Tussaudes' theme park venture. Would be cool to know the full extent of Candy's involvement with both parks.
 
No theming can last forever, and to be fair to Merlin they have done a fair bit of TLC to pieces of theming over the years.

It is worrying with some Merlin creations, like Th13teen, that only 4 years down the line they look in the same state as something like Nemesis which has been around for 20 years.
 
The Nemesis creature has had several touch ups/re-paints since 2008.

I didn't say what they do is of amazing quality. But Merlin have done some minor things since 2008.
 
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