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Merlin Entertainments: General Discussion

Dave said:
On CAPEX I actually don’t think Merlin have done that bad in the last few years. If you think about the usual gripes that enthusiasts had where:

1) No flats
2) No decent dark rides
3) Poor theming
4) Ride hardware is aging
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I'm surprised that lack of a decent water ride wasn't included in there 😊 I swear that's a usual gripe of enthusiasts with Towers. 🤔
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Whether the attractions are profitable, or the investment long term is a good idea is a bit by the by for the argument I was making. Building new, and expanding existing, attractions in an intentional market demonstrates a commitment to growth when others say the company is struggling.

Programmes such as Vision 2030 practically pay large conglomerates to build and invest in the region, with very favourable interest rates on loans for other projects in different parts of the world. There are plenty of financial incentives for a company such as Merlin to have the richer Middle Eastern countries on side.
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But it’s not growth if the attractions can’t pay for themselves?

Any idiot can buy some land and build a theme park, only for it to lose money and close.

See legoland New York…
 
I don't feel Merlin has changed much in the past few years. There's still an imbalance where you get the good (Curse/Nemesis) and then the bad (operational cuts, poor F&B offerings). There was good theming before going private (Wicker Man in 2018). Improvement in theming, I feel, is simply due to MMM having the funds available, and they have naturally improved over the years.

You only have to look at 2024 to see a difference in theming across the company. Nemesis = great! Hyperia = what theming?

I'm curious whether this rumoured 'big restructure' behind the scenes had any part in Scott O'Neil leaving. Obviously, we'll never find out (or at least not for a long time), but it's nice to speculate.

I'm not expecting any big changes with a new CEO. There's such a culture built into the company now that it's difficult to move from that. I continue to expect a bit of good and bad, with lots more moaning from us. All we have to hope for is for individual parks to have decent divisional directors who can continue to push for improvements locally.
 
James said:
I'm curious whether this rumoured 'big restructure' behind the scenes had any part in Scott O'Neil leaving. Obviously, we'll never find out (or at least not for a long time), but it's nice to speculate.
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Unless we get leaks from inside of Merlin rumouring the reasons 'big restructure' we can only guess as to the possible reasons for such changes and what warranted them.
 
Ash said:
But it’s not growth if the attractions can’t pay for themselves?

Any idiot can buy some land and build a theme park, only for it to lose money and close.

See legoland New York…
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Capitalists don't chase profit, they chase growth. They're not interested in the profit a company is, or isn't, turning today. They're interested in future profits, future growth. Some projects are loss leaders, some are the true money spinners.

Uber only reported its first ever annual profit this year. The company has seen exceptional growth and expansion, into new markets and new areas of business since it's inception 15 years ago.
www.theguardian.com

Landmark moment as Uber unveils first annual profit as limited company

US taxi app firm turns $1.8bn loss into $1.1bn profit after years of spending billions of investors’ cash to expand
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Amazon, the retail giant best known for its dominating marketplace and next day delivery, isn't profitable without AWS (Amazon Web Services). The company would be arguably better positioned if it closed down its entire retail operation, but that would spook investors and Wall Street, because they still see online retail as a massive growth sector.

Unfortunately there's not much common sense in capitalist economics.
 
Dave said:
On CAPEX I actually don’t think Merlin have done that bad in the last few years. If you think about the usual gripes that enthusiasts had where:

1) No flats
2) No decent dark rides
3) Poor theming
4) Ride hardware is aging

They have in the last three years at Towers done the following:

1) Re-imagined Duel into a good dark rides.
2) Installing a flat ride
3) Improved theming quality (you might not like the phalanx theme but the amount of theming around Nemesis is now far more intense and with the exception of the big gun of a decent quality).
4) Rebuilt Nemesis,
5) Refurbed Hex and Skyride (might have been forced but 10 years ago they would have just closed them.
6) New PLC’s on Spinball and Curse.

Some of that should be standard of care anyway but previously it wasn’t done. I have concerns that going forward funding will be cut I will say.

Where you are right is the operational quality has dropped dramatically, uptime is shocking, food is appalling and over priced, resort accommodation is ropey and expensive, operations are patchy, opening times are poor.

I worry though that Blackstone demands for rapid profit means it doesn’t really matter which person comes in as CEO the company will never improve.
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Overall I think you’re right, and as you say we should consider most of those things as normal and many would be mandated (PLC replacements as required by HS regs)

There’s also a debate they’ve lost a lot of costs from the retro squad. And are barely back where they were pre Wickerman.

Also as you say from an OpEx perspective it’s been woeful. But here’s to next year.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Capitalists don't chase profit, they chase growth. They're not interested in the profit a company is, or isn't, turning today. They're interested in future profits, future growth. Some projects are loss leaders, some are the true money spinners.

Uber only reported its first ever annual profit this year. The company has seen exceptional growth and expansion, into new markets and new areas of business since it's inception 15 years ago.
www.theguardian.com

Landmark moment as Uber unveils first annual profit as limited company

US taxi app firm turns $1.8bn loss into $1.1bn profit after years of spending billions of investors’ cash to expand
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Amazon, the retail giant best known for its dominating marketplace and next day delivery, isn't profitable without AWS (Amazon Web Services). The company would be arguably better positioned if it closed down its entire retail operation, but that would spook investors and Wall Street, because they still see online retail as a massive growth sector.

Unfortunately there's not much common sense in capitalist economics.
Click to expand...

You missed the bit out where they only chase growth as long as it’s sustainable.

See WeWork
 
Ash said:
You missed the bit out where they only chase growth as long as it’s sustainable.

See WeWork
Click to expand...
Yet WeWork is still trading and still operating, they just had a restructure. They were overvalued, the market corrected, they are still operating and yet again have more room for growth.

Absolutely makes no common sense.
 
Ash said:
Overall I think you’re right, and as you say we should consider most of those things as normal and many would be mandated (PLC replacements as required by HS regs)

There’s also a debate they’ve lost a lot of costs from the retro squad. And are barely back where they were pre Wickerman.

Also as you say from an OpEx perspective it’s been woeful. But here’s to next year.
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Curse and Spinball’s PLCs were done to improve operations of the ride and its lifespan rather than any H&S regulations. Spinball now has the same PLC system as The Smiler, and I suspect Reborn has the same, if not very similar, PLC system too. Improves the quality of life for the ride, and expresses that Towers wanted to keep Spinball for at least the medium term, rather than removal like was proposed under the LTDP.

It might help with insurance premiums, but these costs would be relatively minor, I’d assume. So wouldn’t be motivated by cost either.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
Curse and Spinball’s PLCs were done to improve operations of the ride and its lifespan rather than any H&S regulations. Spinball now has the same PLC system as The Smiler, and I suspect Reborn has the same, if not very similar, PLC system too. Improves the quality of life for the ride, and expresses that Towers wanted to keep Spinball for at least the medium term, rather than removal like was proposed under the LTDP.

It might help with insurance premiums, but these costs would be relatively minor, I’d assume. So wouldn’t be motivated by cost either.
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Im playing semantics a bit, but a PLC swap out wouldn’t improve operations unless it itself is failing. In which case it’s a H&S risk and needs to be replaced.

I’d be willing to bet that at least HH/curses PLC would be due for renewal due to reaching end of life if original. There would certainly be no new spares available, and lesser individuals able to maintain it.

Ironic given I’ve seen staff literally kicking station sensors open on spinball only last year. Most certainly not a PLC issue…
 
Ash said:
Im playing semantics a bit, but a PLC swap out wouldn’t improve operations unless it itself is failing. In which case it’s a H&S risk and needs to be replaced.
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Not really. It could be the old PLC was actually two paired for redundancy (which used to be how it was done in the 90s), now being replaced with a modern single safety PLC with built in redundancy. Or it might have been a safety PLC already, but using a newer one means they can upgrade the software and add additional functionality such as touchscreens and improved fault diagnostics.

None of these things affect the safety. The old approach of two PLCs means if there's a disagreement, everything stops. A safety PLC is the same but it's two processors built into one unit.

Faults in the PLC would cause things to stop but not in fail in a dangerous way, so it's not a safety issue but does affect reliability and maintenance, and how quickly you can identify faults and fix them.

Could also be an opportunity to replace obsolete components in the control system, again not safety issues but reliability ones. There are no single points of failure.
 
AT86 said:
i360 in Brighton going into administration - one for Merlin to get hold of to go alongside their Sealife centre in the city perhaps?

Buying it without the debt could well make it a decent business opportunity.

blooloop.com

Brighton's i360 observation tower files for administration

Brighton i360, an observation tower attraction which owes £51 million to the council, has filed for administration.
blooloop.com blooloop.com
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Buy it but have S&S convert it in to a giant shot and drop combo tower 👍
 
AT86 said:
i360 in Brighton going into administration - one for Merlin to get hold of to go alongside their Sealife centre in the city perhaps?

Buying it without the debt could well make it a decent business opportunity.

blooloop.com

Brighton's i360 observation tower files for administration

Brighton i360, an observation tower attraction which owes £51 million to the council, has filed for administration.
blooloop.com blooloop.com
Click to expand...
If it happens I'll be the smarmiest goose around. Even smarmier than usual.
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Thought I'd revive this as there have been a few developments and changes to the i360 in the past few years. The sponsor of the attraction, when it first opened, was British Airways, but naming rights lapsed in December 2022 and BA decided to pull out. The tower was originally funded through loans primarily from Brighton & Hove City Council, which the i360 has since defaulted on (also in December 2022). The current debt is valued at "more than £48 million" (source: https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23584931.brighton-hove-council-approve-i360-cricket-plan/).

Do we think that Merlin might step in to either take ownership of the site, or to run the attraction as part of their "Eye" expansions? They've obviously got precedent with Blackpool and they already operate the Brighton SeaLife Centre, so it's not as though there aren't any local attractions. Admittedly with Blackpool, however, the Tower isn't considered to be a white elephant, unlike the i360.
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Wasn’t sure where to put this, so forgive me if it’s in the wrong place.

I have just seen the below posted by Thorpe Park as part of the their ‘2024 season wrapped’ post.

I thought it was interesting because there is often a view on the forums that Merlin parks are full of folks entering on annual passes not paying much or contributing to revenue/profit etc. Whereas this challenges that somewhat.

What this shows is that for Thorpe Park c20% of visitors in 2024 were passholders and therefore 80% - or the vast majority - aren’t.

This calculation is based on the 2023 total visitor figure of 1.5m btw which Thorpe shared last year, they haven’t included the total visitor numbers for 2024 so can’t make a calculation on that.

IMG_8153.jpeg
 
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