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Is it over for MMM?

tayspru said:
wasn’t there the infamous analogy of MMM charging thousands of pounds for a new fence post ?

MMM was used by old Merlin to cook the books and overcharge themselves on inexpensive projects, it makes sense to restructure and stop paying over the odds for their services. Hopefully the artists all find employment
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Every company does that. With separate internal accounts. All of them.

It’s simple, the two most successful theme park companies in the world have seem in house prop creation departments (items less than 10ft tall)

And they manage just fine.

But if Merlin think they can do it better for less, then let them crack on.

Will the same be happening to the AVTeam?

They did this with the mechanics years ago stating all rides were going more electrical. Look where that got them. In a shambles mess having to set up an engineering academy. But that more about fighting unions at the time.

As always the proof will be in the pudding but I could see a vicious scaling back all items related to events, small scenic pieces etc.

The utterly hideous signification of Alton now looks awful. But let them keep devaluing their own product see where it gets them.

If they can’t keep a couple of in house design shops suitably busy and well ran with refreshes, refurbs, events, additions, new items across the theme parks, tussauds, dungeons, sea life, LEGO centres they they can’t run anything.

Let Aramark do it

Scott O’Neil strikes again, knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

The parks, particularly Alton. Is becoming a husk.
 
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Is there anything in Curse that could not have been done by an outsourced company? It's not like Keith Sparks, whose company had a very distinctive art style and were very innovative, working with limitations in technology for the time. Do you need to employ a team full time to do this work? Seems like massive savings to me. I wonder where John burton stands in all of this now? Maybe Merlin aren't happy with recent ride additions....

That being said there appears to be a financial situation at AT and it's becoming increasingly obvious.
 
Alton Towers and Merlin Magic Making, whilst belonging to the same company and based at the same site, are two entirely different entities.

The recent issues experienced at Alton Towers, the park, are unrelated to the potential closure of the MMM Studios at Alton Towers.

The facilities for MMM, at the AT location, are woefully inadequate. Significant investment and expansion would be required to adapt them for Merlin's needs. Whilst theming is a crucial part of Merlin's business, it doesn't make commercial sense for them to run an industrial facility for it. Other companies, who specialise specifically in industrial and commercial manufacture, will be able to produce incredibly high standard pieces at competitive cost.

Cameras lenses, camera sensors, batteries and screens are all crucial parts of Apple's business. All of these components feature in almost all of their products, but they do not manufacture them. They assist with the design of some components, they adapt some components, or they purchase components as they are.

Whilst it is sad that the studio could be closing, it is a sign that Merlin has outgrown it and that they're are no longer fit for purpose. This is also standard practice across the entire arts and leisure industry.

Walt Disney Imagineering is primary a design house. They work and collaborate with specialist manufacturers, engineering, resourcing and all sorts of other companies to deliver their projects. Whilst Imagineers will be overseeing every step of the process, and project managing it, Disney does not physically create everything, or manufacture everything, in house.
 
Of course, there is no guarantee (or indeed likelihood) of cost saving via outsourcing.

Outsourcing tends to be an expensive route for most things, especially in the long run. It is usually championed in organisations that are obsessed by short-term profits over long term viability.

The only real way of guaranteeing a cost saving is if you outsource at the same time as significantly downscaling your requirements - in this case, that would be requiring significantly less small-scale theming to be produced. This would somewhat fit with the rumblings about around further cuts to events next year.

On paper, it seems like an incredibly risky strategy, and one that is more than likely going to result in the park's becoming less themed in the future, not least because there will no longer be a direct route to maintaining the props that are already in place.
 
Shocking decision - surely this will mean more cost? Repairing would need to be out sourced and a higher cost.
 
Without going off topic but isn’t MMM Alton Towers main base behind the 4D cinema and they got to remove all there buildings for project Horizon and it cheaper to remove them completely instead of relocating them.
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Without going off topic but isn’t MMM Alton Towers main base behind the 4D cinema and they got to remove all there buildings for project Horizon and it cheaper to remove them completely instead of relocating them.
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I don’t think Horizon included the removal of any buildings, but even if it had then no relocation would always be the preferable option… if they had wanted to keep the function.
 
I will say this, at Alton in particular. If the studio spaces do go. It could potentially free up an enormous amount of space that currently has buildings on.

Between driving school garage, gangsta granny to project horizon and the MMM studios could be huge.

However I’m unsure what restrictions may be in place re-building close to the towers. But you could certainly consolidate a lot of the buildings into something a bit special.

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venny said:
Good to see they’ve learnt from their previous experiment in outsourcing.

The food and beverage under Aramark has been a resounding success…
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Two very different things though. MMM making their own theming is like if they were baking their own buns for the burgers in Burger Kitchen. No need to have the specialism of bread baking, when you can buy them in very easily. But running the actual place serving the burgers is different
 
jon81uk said:
Two very different things though. MMM making their own theming is like if they were baking their own buns for the burgers in Burger Kitchen. No need to have the specialism of bread baking, when you can buy them in very easily. But running the actual place serving the burgers is different
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Quality theming is not a mass-produced product which can just be purchased from a catalogue.
 
Islander said:
That’s why plenty of specialists exist in the market - the likes of UK Loco, Freemont Baxter and Scruffy Dog :)
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Yeah but the economics are rather different from procuring burger buns - this is my point.

(and by the way, when you're big enough it starts making sense bringing vendors of mass produced items in house anyway - Costco did exactly that by acquiring the manufacturer of their [in]famous $1.50 hot dogs)
 
WillPS said:
Quality theming is not a mass-produced product which can just be purchased from a catalogue.
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You mean like second hand military equipment they've been given us as we've seen for Nemesis Reborn, half finished Thirteen building, dogey theming on Smiler and Galactica's...uh, 'theming'. If that's what you mean for 'quality' theming? Honestly other than a few MMM haven't exactly set the world on fire for the most part you have to admit.

Granted I have no idea if 30 lost jobs means everyone at MMM and not the whole lot though I could see at least a token force remaining on the park just to focus on the maintenance side for theming rather than the construction side which could help though even if this were the case, MMM would be a shadow of what is left.
 
Blackrock said:
Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

So let’s just hope they’re making the right decision, which I personally don’t think they are.

I don’t see how outsourcing is ultimately going to be cheaper.
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It won’t be.

The clowns don’t realise they run a theme park. Not an amusement fair.

Who’s going to put together the scare mazes? The pirates half term? Who is going to fix items that may be broken? God forbid who is going to add something new to an attraction just to improve it?

Do they think it will just deliver itself?

Studios North has existed for what 30 years? Without issue. And all of a sudden the clowns running the circus think they’ve cracked a new way to run the business?

Good luck to them
 
Don’t understand why people are linking this to Towers, MMM is not managed by AT they just use some of AT’s land.

Generally MMM was more expensive for the parks to use than external companies, but they usually had to use MMM.

I also think MMM’s output was average at best. I don’t think from a quality and cost perspective there will be any noticeable difference, everyone on here faps over Paultons and their theming is outsourced.

The more curious thing is this is another cut/ closure/ sale of asset announced in a relatively short period of time. Merlin seem to either be struggling financially or blackstone/ Kirkby want more money out of the business.

I think any hope that Merlin was going to be heading in a more positive direction is seeming less likely.
 
I suppose the savings on national insurance and pension payments are attractive for a start. I wonder what else they can outsource? Events teams for the likes of Halloween events and such-like? Scale down the number of events then just get people in to run the big events for a month or whatever. More savings! Any other outsourcing ideas that they havn't tapped into yet? Gotta protect that bottom line. Get drastic Dave Lewis (ex-Tesco) in as a consultant for a few months. He'll show you how to REALLY cut staff down to the bare bones.
 
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