• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Merlin Annual Pass

Delighted with the changes. Circulation has to fall and this will do it.

Therell be a backlash from low income families, understandably, but the fact is the product has been undervalued for a decade.

Alton Towers can't sell passes for under £100 then they all waltz in with home made sandwiches too. It just doesn't work.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
 
End of the day the value of the pass to one person is different to someone else. I have 3 separate park passes for next year at the same cost of one platinum merlin pass but i know I’ll use those 3 parks more then I’d use any of the merlin parks/midways as I’m no where near a merlin attraction.
 
The issue is they've sold their passes at a lower price for years (especially the £55 season passes) and now they've decided to make the passes a 'premium' product.

However none of the parks are a premium offering nowadays.
Next year the 'new for 2021' attractions at Thorpe and Towers are both holdovers from 2020 both of which they could still have issues operating in the current climate.

Chessington are getting a drop tower for kids (it does look nice), whilst Lego Land are getting a newly themed area and an actual UK first with the flying theatre (provided it can operate due to covid).

After these additions it could be years before Merlin actually properly invest into the parks again.

No doubt they've chosen to burden people who've always supported and visited the parks so that they can continue to plaster 2 4 1 vouchers and free tickets via newspapers.
 
John_P said:
The issue is they've sold their passes at a lower price for years (especially the £55 season passes) and now they've decided to make the passes a 'premium' product.

However none of the parks are a premium offering nowadays.
Next year the 'new for 2021' attractions at Thorpe and Towers are both holdovers from 2020 both of which they could still have issues operating in the current climate.

Chessington are getting a drop tower for kids (it does look nice), whilst Lego Land are getting a newly themed area and an actual UK first with the flying theatre (provided it can operate due to covid).

After these additions it could be years before Merlin actually properly invest into the parks again.

No doubt they've chosen to burden people who've always supported and visited the parks so that they can continue to plaster 2 4 1 vouchers and free tickets via newspapers.
Click to expand...

But being a premium product isn’t all about new rides. Yes that is part of it, but there is so much more such as events, entertainment, service, food etc.

Merlin as a public company pretty much cut back spending to the bone on everything except new rides due to the way capex can be reported in accounts to keep shareholders happy.

Now they aren’t public there are more options available to them outside of new rides to improve the parks. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise.
 
John_P said:
However none of the parks are a premium offering nowadays.
Next year the 'new for 2021' attractions at Thorpe and Towers are both holdovers from 2020 both of which they could still have issues operating in the current climate.
Click to expand...

The problem is, they're aware this is the case, but something has to give to allow them to get the revenue to improve the product. Even without further new attractions in addition to GG next year, I really feel this year there's been a real effort to improve the offering.

There's been an effort this year to return the park to being an experience, not just having people going ride to ride. There's a focus on encouraging everyone to spend more on park with events, rather than just targeting solely top spenders with extortionate Fastrack prices.

Oktoberfest, even in the current climate was an excellent first year effort, which I very much treated as a rehearsal for it being bigger and better next year. Scarefest, they did their best considering the mountain they had to climb to make things Covid secure with ever decreasing budgets. Having the F+B area carried over from Oktoberfest was an excellent decision. I have no doubt Christmas would have been excellent too, if I could've gone and the full lineup of attractions were available.

It's been so long since we've had any sort of event calendar at Alton Towers, and to see a return to it is brilliant to see. But for those events to grow and develop, they need to get that revenue from every guest.
 
Craig said:
It's been so long since we've had any sort of event calendar at Alton Towers, and to see a return to it is brilliant to see. But for those events to grow and develop, they need to get that revenue from every guest.
Click to expand...

It's great if they continue to offer more events, however it seems only passholders are having to contribute any further revenue towards it. And then if they've not bought the right pass they won't be allowed in to take part anyway.
 
That's the issue though, many pass holders weren't contributing much or indeed any revenue to it. Paying around £160-180 for a pass is the cost of 7 individual 2for1 visits, yet pass holders:
  • Have far more than 7 visits per year to attractions
  • Spend less, as they're far more likely to bring their own food
Day visitors will spend more as they see a trip to a theme park as more of a one off/rare visit, so will splash out on food and drink etc.

The increase of the pass prices is more of an effort to balance what pass holders contribute to Merlin's revenue, rather than have them pay more. If you remove the emotion of the price increase and think about the value you're getting across multiple visits, it still comes out as good value to me.
 
I'm not sure were this idea passholders are far more likely to bring their own food comes from. Think in recent years the only time I've not ate on park was when I was still not hungry after a breakfast in the hotel.
Not to mention the fact passholders continually bring secondary spend into the park through the gift shops, photo passes etc.

Just seems an awful time to try and bring something out like this when so many people are fearful for their futures.
 
John_P said:
The issue is they've sold their passes at a lower price for years (especially the £55 season passes) and now they've decided to make the passes a 'premium' product.

However none of the parks are a premium offering nowadays.
Next year the 'new for 2021' attractions at Thorpe and Towers are both holdovers from 2020 both of which they could still have issues operating in the current climate.
Click to expand...

but the prices are not out of line with other UK parks. Compared to Paulton, Blackpool etc the Merlin pass is still not expensive per park.
 
There is a core group of hotdog in a flask visitors, who clearly don’t contribute secondary spend, but visit on a very regular basis. I think there are also those on the other side of the coin.

For us, part of the experience was the F&B side, so we never brought our own food. That changed when the offering became so eroded and poor it became more of a chore than a pleasure to eat at the park outlets. That contributed to our eventual decision to drop the passes entirely - if you visit regularly then those secondary issues really can make or break your experience. Merlin cut so wide and deep that we just ended up disliking the experience.

If Merlin want to increase secondary spend for regular visitors, they need to drastically improve the secondary offering in order to entice that spend. The events this year feel like the first step in the right direction.
 
venny said:
If Merlin want to increase secondary spend for regular visitors, they need to drastically improve the secondary offering in order to entice that spend. The events this year feel like the first step in the right direction.
Click to expand...

They also seem to want to increase primary spend by removing the really cheap passes.
 
John_P said:
I'm not sure were this idea passholders are far more likely to bring their own food comes from.
Click to expand...

I agree that I haven’t seen any evidence to support this. I was recently listening to an interview with the president of Herschend Entertainment, who run Dollywood and Silver Dollar City in America.



This year Dollywood’s seen a substantial increase in secondary spend. At least I think that’s the interview where I heard it. If not, it was at the virtual IAAPA expo.

She thinks this is because people book their tickets in advance, and then ‘bring a second wallet’ when they come on the day. Psychologically they’re not as aware of how much they’re spending when they’ve booked in advance. The same principal could apply to annual pass holders.

I suspect the average guest doesn’t visit that many Merlin attractions, although the number is bumped up by people who hit several midways in a cluster on the same day. Without an annual pass a lot of them might have only visited one attraction. Of course, the more expensive an annual pass is in relation to a day ticket, the more visits the average person will make, because the breakeven thresh point becomes higher. People who don't think they'll hit the thresh point, don't buy a pass.
 
John_P said:
I'm not sure were this idea passholders are far more likely to bring their own food comes from. Think in recent years the only time I've not ate on park was when I was still not hungry after a breakfast in the hotel.
Not to mention the fact passholders continually bring secondary spend into the park through the gift shops, photo passes etc.

Just seems an awful time to try and bring something out like this when so many people are fearful for their futures.
Click to expand...

Oh it's not all passholders, but you only have to look on the passholders group on FB talking about bringing food on park or take a look when wandering around on park to see lanyard holders sat on picnic benches around the place. So it's still a hefty chunk.

Of course there is some secondary spend from passholders in gift shops etc, but then they're also getting 20% off the full prices for most things anyway so that alone is eating into profits in comparison to normal ticket holders. Of course you'll get some passholders who buy a shedload of merch, but there's plenty of others who won't too.
 
Tom said:
Regardless of how you try to spin it, a 30% hike on what is effectively the old Premium pass is significant. Even if you believe it STILL represents value, that's some serious inflation on a regurgitated product.
Click to expand...

Oh without a doubt, it's not an ideal situation and it's entirely of Merlin's own doing. But, do you go with gradual increases over a number of years, which will take far too long to fix the issue. Or do you do what they've done and rip the proverbial plaster off, and reset as soon as possible to ensure you start to get revenue in, especially under the current capacity restrictions which will likely be with us for the first few months of the season at the very least.
 
Craig said:
Oh without a doubt, it's not an ideal situation and it's entirely of Merlin's own doing. But, do you go with gradual increases over a number of years, which will take far too long to fix the issue. Or do you do what they've done and rip the proverbial plaster off, and reset as soon as possible to ensure you start to get revenue in, especially under the current capacity restrictions which will likely be with us for the first few months of the season at the very least.
Click to expand...

I believe they know what they are doing in terms of marketing and running a business, and they've mitigated the impact on people somewhat with the Discovery pass, but to me it would just be a shame if it became that only the middle/upper working classes and above can afford to go a theme park during a bank holiday.

I don't however subscribe to the idea of this magically making the parks much more bearable and less busy because of a reduction of pass-holders however. Merlin would have their parks filled to capacity every single day if they could, and virtually all of the gripes people have about such busy days - queues etc - would still exist.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top