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Merlin Entertainments: General Discussion

Bowser said:
Not sure if this is the thread it was previously discussed in but I inadvertently tested the MAP booking system today.

Booked two pass holder tickets, one for me, one for my son.

Entered the park and scanned my wife’s card first, no problem so bookings evidently not linked.
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Today's not a sell out day / a fully booked day, so that doesn't actually prove anything beyond that there was availability.

It only wouldn't let your wife through if today was fully sold out, and she didn't have a booking.

She didn't have a booking, but it wasn't sold out, so it let her through. Yes, it's a Passholder day at Chessington World of Adventures, but that just means that general tickets aren't on sale. Passholder day didn't book out completely either, so capacity is there.
 
I guess in the end time will tell. It’s a bit hard to spot patterns over the last few years because Covid’s been so disruptive. According to the TEA (Themed Entertainment Association), whose figures aren’t necessarily completely reliable, Merlin attractions had 67 million visitors in 2019 and 62 million visitors in 2023. These figures probably can be disputed, but the general view is that Merlin’s overall attendance has started declining, but it’s not necessarily a significant decline, yet. That’s despite new additions such as buying back The Orlando Eye and taking over the operations of Cadbury’s World.

https://aecom.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2019-Theme-Index-web-1.pdf
https://aecom.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/reports/AECOM-Theme-Index-2023.pdf

Aside from Covid, it has also been a disruptive period with Nick Varney retiring, several other directors changing, and a re-structuring.

It’s too early to say if it’s a long term trend and I can see why people might feel optimistic about the new Legolands opening next year, and people might feel optimistic about these Peppa Pig mini theme parks. Aside from Six Flags going bankrupt, big attraction operators have generally done well. You could argue that people have been giving ominous predictions for Merlin for well over a decade and so far they’ve not amounted to anything.

Even allowing for Covid, it is certainly a change of pace where we’ve had 5 years of static or declining attendance which came after a period where the company grew very rapidly.
 
Dave said:
I think they all design in house but any big theming work is constructed third party.
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So is that a yes or no for smaller stuff?

I ask as it seems MMM are scrapping all in house creation/construction abilities of theming items large and small.
 
Ash said:
So is that a yes or no for smaller stuff?

I ask as it seems MMM are scrapping all in house creation/construction abilities of theming items large and small.
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No one knows for certain, I suspect EP might do some of their own stuff, Phantasia probably doesn’t as it has no spare space for construction but that’s just a guess.
 
Dave said:
No one knows for certain, I suspect EP might do some of their own stuff, Phantasia probably doesn’t as it has no spare space for construction but that’s just a guess.
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I believe Paultons outsource their theming as well.

I believe Merlin are unique that they have Merlin Magic Making and only Europa, Disney, Universal and possibly Efteling would have the potential to do in house theming.
 
After watching TPWW's recent video of mentioning how Merlin were, when he worked at Towers, wanting to 'splat the rat' (Disney ofc) to become the number one leisure operator in the world by expanding rapidly and now their envy for Disney, greed and pride ultimately has come back to expose them.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Today's not a sell out day / a fully booked day, so that doesn't actually prove anything beyond that there was availability.

It only wouldn't let your wife through if today was fully sold out, and she didn't have a booking.
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So you're saying the gates will allow you through without prebooking if it's not a sold out day, but will enforce it if it's a sold out day? That seems a somewhat arbitrary implementation.

I still don't believe the systems are that sophisticated, nor indeed linked at all.
 
Alsty said:
So you're saying the gates will allow you through without prebooking if it's not a sold out day, but will enforce it if it's a sold out day? That seems a somewhat arbitrary implementation.

I still don't believe the systems are that sophisticated, nor indeed linked at all.
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Yes, because there's a hard limit on the system. It's not an arbitrary implementation at all, the logic is so simple it could be completed with an IF statement.

if alton_towers_is_fully_booked:
if merlin_pass_holder and has_online_booking:
let_them_in()
else:
deny_entry()

The system doesn't need to look for a pre-book if the park isn't at capacity / fully booked, because it has capacity to let you in.

All it's doing each time you scan a pass is making a lookup in a database. On a day when it's not sold out, it's looking up for a valid Merlin pass. On a day which is sold out, it's looking for your pass number on the booking system.

It's absolutely no different to ensuring that your ATAP or Merlin Discovery/Silver/Gold pass can't be used on an exclusion day. Unless you also believe that the systems aren't sophisticated enough for that, or linked at all, and that it's also arbitrary?
 
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If you have to prebook then why make that conditional on the place being fully booked? Wouldn't it just enforce that always?

My feeling is the gates are an offline system. They will know the grade of a pass from the barcode as well as expiry and can enforce restrictions that way. Think of gate lines at railway stations for a similar analogy (off peak/ peak restrictions).

This is just my feeling, and yours is yours, but I don't think they would go to the trouble and expense of putting the gates online and perform a real-time lookup of database of bookings every time some scans their pass.
 
Alsty said:
Think of gate lines at railway stations for a similar analogy (off peak/ peak restrictions).
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Gate lines at railway stations also take into account season tickets and QR codes which have been generated minutes or seconds before. They're now live to the internet / web database, where the access codes are stored.
Alsty said:
If you have to prebook then why make that conditional on the place being fully booked? Wouldn't it just enforce that always?
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Because, as per the terms of your pass, you don't HAVE to make a booking. Much in the same way that someone just turning up to Alton Towers on the day, and paying the walk-up price, doesn't have to buy their tickets before hand. Although in both cases it's advised. In either scenario, if capacity is reached and the person doesn't have a pre-book, they're not getting in.

Much in the same way as if the park is fully booked, you won't be able to buy a ticket. If the park is fully booked, you won't be able to make an online booking or scam your pass and be granted entry.

Much in the same way as if the gig you want to buy tickets to has reached capacity, the booking system won't let you buy tickets. Or the cinema. Or even your local gym.

Most gyms cater for around about 1,000 customers. You can make bookings online for classes, or the swimming pool, in advance and it's often advised. If it's fully booked, and there aren't any cancellations, the gates won't let you through. If it's not fully booked, or there are cancellations, you're allowed through.

It really isn't a clever system, it's nothing that requires complex coding or engineering in the background. It doesn't even need to be an online system, as such. it can be a local lookup. Or the gates are checking against a local database, which itself is online, or refreshed regularly. It already has to do this for the non-pass tickets purchased through the Alton Towers website.
 
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I haven't tested it recently but I know for certain that last year the turnstiles weren't sophisticated enough to know whether or not a given pass type was meant to be valid that day, never mind whether someone had pre-booked or not. I tried my then-current premium membership at Thorpe on what was supposed to be a blackout day and it quite happily let me in. I had a share the fun ticket as backup (I don't live anywhere near close enough to risk a wasted journey) but that wasn't linked to my pass in any way.

I'm fairly sure it was a similar story at Towers for blackout days - passes would scan regardless of booking and they just relied on having enough staff checking validity.
 
John said:
I haven't tested it recently but I know for certain that last year the turnstiles weren't sophisticated enough to know whether or not a given pass type was meant to be valid that day, never mind whether someone had pre-booked or not. I tried my then-current premium membership at Thorpe on what was supposed to be a blackout day and it quite happily let me in. I had a share the fun ticket as backup (I don't live anywhere near close enough to risk a wasted journey) but that wasn't linked to my pass in any way.

I'm fairly sure it was a similar story at Towers for blackout days - passes would scan regardless of booking and they just relied on having enough staff checking validity.
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There is the new system this year, that seems to link the pass holder system and ticket system so I would assume it may take that into account now.
 
Thinking about it a little more, they must always have been checking against some sort of database anyway, at least since memberships came in. Up to that point you could presumably just encode whatever you needed to into the annual pass / ticket barcode and have the turnstile figure out whether or not it was valid based on a local check. After memberships, you have to be able to look up whether or not a specific membership is still being paid for.
 
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